MusicBee Clouseau

# MusicBee Clouseau

Uncovering clues with MusicBee Clouseau

A trace/debug utility for plugin developers.Like Inspector Clouseau investigating a case, this plugin observes and logs everything happening inside MusicBee - every event, every API call, every notification. Perfect for understanding the MusicBee plugin API and debugging your own plugins.

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## The Problem

Developing MusicBee plugins is like working on the Dark Side of the MoonTrackChanged Event Artist:Pink Floyd Title:Speak to Me/Breathe Album:Dark Side of the Moon Year:1973 Duration:3:58 Bitrate:320 kbps Format:FLAC Genre:Progressive Rock. When your plugin hits radio silence—no events, no callbacks, just the Sound of SilenceTrackChanged Event Artist:Simon & Garfunkel Title:The Sound of Silence Album:Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.Year:1964 Duration:3:05 Bitrate:256 kbps Format:MP3 Genre:Folk Rock—you're left guessing.

What events fire when a track changes? What data is available? When you need to look under the hood and DriveTrackChanged Event Artist:The Cars Title:Drive Album:Heartbeat City Year:1984 Duration:3:55 Bitrate:320 kbps Format:FLAC Genre:New Wave into MusicBee's internals, visibility is everything.

## The Solution: Inspector Clouseau

Like Inspector Clouseau investigating a case, this plugin observes everything happening inside MusicBee: every event, every API call, every notification. Perfect for understanding the MusicBee plugin API and debugging your own plugins.

1. Subscribe to ALL events — All 4 notification flags, all 40 event types
2. Log everything — Timestamped, categorized, searchable
3. Real-time view — Watch events as they happen in a dockable panel
4. Export logs — Save for analysis or sharing

Perfect for: Plugin development, debugging, API exploration, and understanding MusicBee internals.

## What Makes Clouseau Unique

### Plugin Spy Mode

See what other plugins are doing — their API calls, resource usage, errors. Debug plugin conflicts.

### API Call Interception

Hook into MusicBee's API to log all plugin interactions. See every call as it happens.

### Deep State Dumps

Capture complete application state for debugging. Snapshot everything when issues occur.

### CLR/.NET Internals

GC collection counts, heap sizes, % time in GC. Detects GC pressure (when garbage collection works too hard and causes pauses).

### Historical Correlation

Correlate events with metrics to find performance issues. See patterns across time.

### Anomaly Detection

Alert when patterns deviate from baseline. Catch problems before they become visible.

### Handle Leak Detection

Track GDI, USER, and Kernel handles. Identifies which type is leaking before your app crashes.

## What You Get

### All 40 Event Types

Full subscription to PlayerEvents, DataStreamEvents, TagEvents, and DownloadEvents.

### Full Context Logging

ALL event data saved to disk: Artist, Title, Album, Duration, Bitrate, Position, and more.

### JSON Lines Export

events.jsonl file with complete event context. Parse with jq, Python, or any JSON tool.

### Rich Details Dialog

Double-click any event to see full context in a scrollable dialog with all captured data.

### Live Event Panel

Dockable panel with category filter, Clear, Dashboard, Pop Out, Settings links.

### Plugin Discovery

Lists all loaded plugins with their status. See what's running alongside your code.

### Flyout Menu

Tools > Clouseau submenu with Dashboard, Settings, and Live Events options.

### Single DLL Deploy

One merged DLL file. Drop it in your plugins folder and go.

## Advanced Introspection

### UI Gallery

Screenshot mode capturing all plugin dialogs. Auto-refresh to see UI changes in real-time.

### App Spy Overlay

Transparent click-through overlay highlighting UI elements under cursor. See control names, types, and bounds.

### Method Invoker

Browse loaded assemblies, find methods, and invoke them via reflection. Test API calls interactively.

### Event Inspector

View event handlers attached to controls. Inspect, invoke, or detach handlers for debugging.

### Menu Inspector

Walk MusicBee's menu hierarchy. See all menu items, shortcuts, and invoke items programmatically.

### Reflection Explorer

Deep .NET introspection for UI trees, properties, fields. Explore any object at runtime.

## Key Features

✓ Plugin loads and receives all 40 notification types
✓ Events logged to file with structured format
✓ System/process metrics collected every 5 seconds
✓ Dockable panel shows live event stream
✓ Plugin discovery lists all loaded plugins
✓ Build produces single merged DLL

## Event Categories

#### Player

Track, state, volume

#### Queue

Now Playing list

#### Library

Files, additions

#### Tags

Metadata changes

#### Playlist

Create, update, delete

#### Download

Completed downloads

## Quick Start

1

#### Install

Copy the DLL to your MusicBee plugins folder and restart MusicBee.

2

#### Enable Panel

View > Arrange Panels > Enable Clouseau panel.

3

#### Investigate

Interact with MusicBee and watch the clues appear.

## Sample Log Output

    14:32:01.234 [Player]   TrackChanged         "Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd"
    14:32:01.235 [Player]   PlayStateChanged     Playing
    14:32:01.240 [Queue]    PlayingTracksChanged count=847
    14:32:05.112 [Player]   VolumeLevelChanged   0.75
    14:32:15.445 [Tags]     RatingChanged        4 stars
    14:33:42.001 [Player]   TrackChanging        next="Wish You Were Here"
    14:33:42.156 [Player]   TrackChanged         "Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd"

Real-time log view with timestamps, categories, and context.

### events.jsonl (Full Context for Parsing)

    {"ts":"2026-01-01 14:32:01","cat":"Player","event":"TrackChanged","Artist":"Pink Floyd","Title":"Dark Side of the Moon","Album":"DSOTM","Duration":"234000","Bitrate":"320","Format":"FLAC"}

JSON Lines format with ALL context data - parse with jq, Python, or any tool.

## System Requirements

Component | Requirement
--- | ---
Operating System | Windows 7/8/10/11
MusicBee | Version 3.1 or later
Framework | .NET Framework 4.8

## Ready to Investigate?

Download MusicBee Clouseau and uncover the clues in your MusicBee setup.

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MusicBee Clouseau