[slim] "MAC not set!" error on Boom
its been i while since i posted here - mainly because everything has been working smoothly for the last 18 months or so. but after we recently came back from vacation, our Boom's display just said "MAC not set!" and refused to operate. it would not connect to WLAN (according to my DHCP server) either. i tried re-configuring the networking, which actually worked (!), but the device is not being recognized by SC (i still run 7.3.3 - 27044) as what it was, since i am seeing the default menu-structure and display setup for new players. it's original name of "Boom" has reverted back to "Squeezebox" as well. my DHCP server says it indeed has a new MAC address: 30-04-10-0E-DB-53. whereas previously it was: 00-04-20-1E-DB-53. we also have two SB Classics, both of which also use the 00-04-20- address range, so i am assuming that is the "normal" squeezebox MAC address range. so where does the 30-04-10-... address come from? and more importantly: how do i get the original MAC address back and the "MAC not set!" message cleared? btw.: i did already try a xilinx reset (pressing "1" while applying power), but that had no effect. thanks in advance for any help! -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=83485 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] "MAC not set!" error on Boom
thanks ghostrider! your seggestion also pointed me to the "factory reset" option - which i decided to try first. and it worked! set up networking again and everything (!) is back to the way it was. :-) on a side note: how could a boom "forget" its original MAC address? -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=83485 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Slimserver seems to break albums by genre
hi jezbo! i find this issue also mightily irritating, so i opened an "enhancement request" in bugzilla at: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=6208 if you are in the same camp, you may want to vote for the enhancement. more votes = more people want this = higher likelyhood of it being implemented! ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=42341 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] U.S. Broadband Users Beware
thanx for the heads up! luckily for us in germany, consumer protection laws wont allow "fair use", because "fair use" is not defined, and it is therefore unclear what you are buying. our ISPs either provide *un-*limited (true flatrate) OR the bandwidth/GB limit must be specified. unfortunately, this is not true for other EU-countries, such as austria... :-( -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=42424 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 freezes while synchronzied
thanks guys - i appreciate your taking time with an (almost) *deprecated* product (SS 6.x). in the meanwhile, i discovered some similarities with other "squeezbox stops" threads: the boxes usually stop at -0:00 seconds, or the equivalent total song time. and they stop at the END of the current song, not at the beginning of the next song. (so do mine) this symptom has shown up in other threads. while their SBs did not appear to by synched, there did not seem to be any explanation and/or solution for it anywhere either. but mark, you could be right too: i found out that my playlists seem to contain some kind of junk(?). my "mood groovy" playlist (~750 tracks) originally was ~85Kbyte large. didnt think anything of it, until i mistakenly re-saved it from inside winamp and it shrunk to 14Kbyte (still had ~750 tracks)! seems to be the tool i use to develop the playlists (it is personal playlist manager plugin for winamp), always adds some stuff to the file, which is invisible. (at least in notepad and winamp). maybe that junk is buggering up SS... i will do some testing with the new "cleaned" up versions of my playlists and report back. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=41793 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Rapid shuffle of long playlist
hey puzzler - and i thought i was the only one using LONG playlists in shuffle mode! ;-) mine are only ~800 songs, but i agree the delay is there. on my system, it took about 15-20 sec. for SS 6.x to start playing the lists shuffled. while not instantaneous, i can live with that. i have a severley resource starved server: 700 MHz PIII equivalent VIA ITX MoBo with 1GB and it is running LOTS of stuff. how long are you waiting? i am not sure if this will help you, but i discovered something just recently... my playlist manager (personal playlist manager plugin for winamp) seems to be adding junk to my playlists. i had a playlist called "mood groovy" which had ~700 tracks in it and was ~85KB in size. when i accidentally re-saved it from inside winamp, it shrunk to 14KB and all 700 tracks all still there! go figure... anyways, i am imagining my SS 6 is faster now, it rarely needs more than 10 sec. to load "mood groovy" shuffled. here is what i did: opened "mood groovy" in winamp. immediately re-saved it (different file name) -> shrunk to 14KB. re-scanned playlists in SS. done! maybe you want to try that? other than that, i really wouldnt know either - sorry! -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=42650 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Frivolous Question ('Center' vs. 'Centre')
tomayto - tomahto potayto - potahto -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=42625 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 freezes while synchronzied
ok, update time: i have been running the "cleaned" up playlists for a while now, but the freeze still seems to be occurring. although it seems MUCH rarer now. BUT: just the other day i had a freeze up while the players were UN-synched. :-( i am starting to suspect it may not have anything to do with synching, just that two players will cause the problem to occur double as often as one... (?) so for me, this thread is closed. :-( -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=41793 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Playlists are not working (.m3u)
hi! i had an effect similar to yours recently - which may or may not explain what is going on, but it could be worth a shot. i use personal-playlist manager plugin for winamp to manage my playlists. some of them are very big: ~700 tracks. by pure coincidence i had one of them loaded in winamp the other day and re-saved it with a different file name. all of a sudden, the file had shrunk from its original 86KB size to ~14KB. and yep, the 86KB playlist was turning up empty in my slimserver, whereas the 14KB list works fine. both appear to contain exactly the same number of tracks, but the 86KB list shows up "empty" to this day. i have NO idea what is going on, i opened both versions in notepad and they both appeared identical!? but personal playlist manager seems to be adding some kind of padding or junk (?) to the m3u files. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=42992 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
hi slwiser! interesting issue you are describing here. i have two SB3s and they also both suffer from random stops while playing. i am curious if we have similar problems and maybe we can find commonalities? first, a description of my setup: -> WLAN g -> slimserver 6.5.5 (waiting for SC7 release) -> PIII, 700MHz, 1GB RAM -> virusscanner active (not norton) -> both SBs have at least 60% sig. strength -> network/bandwidth test checks out to max with no problems -> all other wlan devices (2 laptops, 1 PDA, 1 DVD player via e-net/wlan bridge) work with no problems whatsoever -> around 9.000 tracks in library my symptoms: -> SB3 will simply stop playing for no apparent reason. no specific track/audioformat/track sequence seems to be reproduceable. the only thing which is reproduceable, is that is occurs WAY more often when the SBs are synched. altho it does happen when not synched, too. -> the other day, i *finally* got an error message (of sorts): "out of decoder RAM" (or was it memory?). the message was strangely garbled on the display as if there were pixel-errors. i think this is the first time i actually saw the message, because i happened to be watching the SB when it happened. -> after that, SB will react to the remote, but it will not produce sound. (seems like the DSP/DAC crashed, but the rest is still ok) only unplugging the unit will reset it. -> it only seems to happen when i play mixed audio formats, in my case: vorbis + mp3. -> when the crash occurs, the SBs display is not showing what is being played - it is one or two tracks ahead (!?) of the the track that was being played. as if slimservr and SB have lost synch at some point... -> when synched, the stops will occur between every 5 minutes (track to track) or sometimes play for hours before crashing. when unsynched, it usually takes some hours to happen. almost as if two synched players cause it to happen double as often as one! what i have tried so far (with no results to speak of): -> re-played the same playlist again, to see if SB will crash on the same track. -> used huge playlists (~700 tracks) vs. small ones (~30 tracks). as a matter of fact, the small playlists will play once or even twice, only to crash the player on the third time round. -> stopped just about all the other software running on my server -> exempted slimserver from my virusscanner. -> fixed IP my suspicion: -> i have seen that error message before (out of decoder RAM), in context with the vorbis decoder crashing on certain internet radio stations: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4418 since i use vorbis a *lot*, this seems related. @slwiser (or anyone else ;-): how much of this sounds familiar to you? -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
hi leuzi! me neither, until a few days ago. would you mind decribing a bit more of your setup? -> wired? wireless? -> common vorbis bitrates/q-levels and encoders you use? -> mixed playlists? (mp3/vorbis/flac) how large are they typically? -> do you use saved playlists or create them as needed manually? -> do you let your SB play for hours at a time from a huge playlist or manually keep changing the music? btw. - i am currently trying the SBs wired and synched. (was a P.I.T.A. to un-install them from their audio setups!) just a couple of minutes ago, they stopped at the end of a song. display said "now playing" but they weren't. at least they didnt freeze this time (odd, that) - i pressed play on the remote and they started up again. re-playing the same tracks was flawless, however... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
just stopped again... :-( same as before. but this time, the SBs went into zombie mode. here is more info though: -> from the corner of my eye, i was watching the screen. buffer fullness went from ~10% (was approaching end of song) immediately to 100% *before* the new song was supposed to start (there still were about 10sec. left to play for the old song) -> the "now playing" screen is still showing on both SBs and the spectrum analyzer has frozen. i can still scroll through menus, but play will not commence. -> SB and SS skipped a track completely for no apparent reason, too. -> when i do press play (on remote or web-interface), i can see the buffer re-filling back to 100% and the "now playing" screen shows the correct track again - but no sound and the now playing progress indicator does not move. so SS is still receiving and responding to commands and even filling the SBs buffers properly. conclusion so far: -> i do not have a WLAN problem, this is about something else. the fact that both SBs crash so badly that only a power-down can revive them indicates to me something wrong with the SBs firmware, not with SS, the SB hardware, my network or anything else. i suspect the DSP/DAC firmware. ps. sorry slwiser if i hijacked your thread! please let me/us know how much of this is familiar! ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
yeah, i remember reading that, too. that is why i am slightly suspicious of it. ;-) but maybe unrightly so, because somthing occurred to me: while i understand how a bug in the decoder would cause a stop+crash, it wouldnt explain why the SB *and* SS skip a track every time this happens, would it? i will try transcoding as soon as i have one more crash - i want to collect more info. will post back. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
superpin, apart from this bug: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4418 i was not able to find a similar bug in bugzilla. not surprising tho, because diagnosing a sporadic and non-reproduceable problem like this is a PITA. ;-) i work in IT, and i run as fast as i can whenever i come across problems like these. today i have some time in the homeoffice tho, so i can do some serious diagnostics. here is what i will try next: -> as mark suggested, i will transcode vorbis to mp3 and see if the problm goes away. if it doesnt -> not a vorbis problem, more likely a problem with the ogg container format not being handled properly by SS, no? if it does: -> i will try homogeneous playlists consisting entirely of vorbis or mp3 tracks. ps. as i am typing this, it happened again. :-( SB just changed the "now playing" screen to another track (new track is displaying in now playing, but the old one is still playing). and sure enough, at the end of the current track, the SBs stop. new data: -> rebooted the SBs, resumed playing at the track before the stop. played no problem this time. -> the progress indicator behaved strangely. it displayed the total time of the track in "now playing", but it stopped at the precise total time of the track that was previously playing. complicated - let me try to explain: DISPLAY: now playing: (40 of 765) (**__)-3:46 8. the night before - Dessous - gamat 3000 alternating to played time gives me: now playing: (40 of 765) (**__)4:21 8. the night before - Dessous - gamat 3000 alternating to buffer fullness gives me: now playing: (40 of 765) ()100% 8. the night before - Dessous - gamat 3000 it stopped at precisely the total runtime of the *previous* track being played, which was: Il Cherchio Rosso - Nicola Conte - Bossa Per Due with 4.21 mins playing time...!? weird: this time, they didnt skip a track, but just went on to the next one in the playlist. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
got some results faster than i thought... i am transcoding vorbis to flac now - still problems, but slightly different. after about 10 tracks, "now playing" skipped ahead again as before. but this time the SB's progress indicator has frozen at max: now playing (51 of 765) (***)04:52 6. On the rails progress bar is full and time is not moving, BUT it IS playing! (amazing) ok, now next song: display "now playing" skipped ahead to next track way too early (about 30 sec.). getting the same symptoms: now playing (51 of 765) (***)05:00 4. Extensions Of Life progress bar is full and time is not moving, BUT it IS playing! (amazing) ok, next song: display skipped ahead again way too early. and so on and so forth... it seems as if the vorbis tracks are somehow throwing the SBs and SS out of step. even with transcoding, something goes seriously wrong at some point. frankly speaking, i am starting to think it may not be SBs fault after all, but what SS is feeding it. maybe something wrong with the way SS deals with the ogg-container...? btw. statistics so far are: 4 stops in ~54 tracks. that is too much and not sporadic anymore. :-( -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
hi phil, hi mark! i have various different vorbis encoders in my library: xiph libvorbis 0.x + 1.x, aotuvb4+5, and gtune3b1+2. just as i have mp3s from various encoders, as well. none of them cause problems on any other playback device, be it software on PC or embedded such as an iriver mp3 player with iriver or rockbox firmware or even my networked DVD player. gentlemen, while i understand the general principle of only supporting the "official" libvorbis codec, that is not very realistic. after all, slimdevices does support LAME and other "non-standard" mp3 codecs too, right? by that reasoning, we should stop supporting any LAME-encoded mp3 and revert to fraunhofer / thomson encoded mp3 only. ;-) to eliminate a potential source of trouble (the vorbis decoder in the SB), i have followed marks suggestion of transcoding to flac. but problems still persist: -> SB display corrupts after a short time: it is out of synch with what is actually playing track and the progress indicator freezes. re-starting playback will fix that for another 10-20 tracks or so, then it happens again. at least, the SB does not "zombie" on me anymore. -> i left the SBs playing over night, just to see what happens. actually, slimserver utterly crashed. so badly, that i had to reboot my server. the SBs were fine, tho... in regards to ogg file integrity: -> all offical xiph tools can decode the files with no problem and other players dont report problems, either. not a single tool has reported a problem with any of my oggs yet, ever. -> when i replay a file which supposedly caused the crash, or even an entire playlist, it works just fine. there is no indication whatsoever that a specific file or part of a file is causing this. a corrupt file should cause the crash at the same spot every time, shouldnt it? so far, i think i have to revise my hypothesis: -> slimserver is having trouble with something in my music repository. this can cause it to send junk to my SBs, which may crash the DSP/DAC. it seems to have something to do with vorbis files, because transcoding them changes the symptoms markedly, but does not make the problem go away. my next steps: -> i will test homogeneous playlists of mp3 or vorbis to see what happens. -> then i will try SC 7 beta. thanks for your thoughts on this guys, it is driving me nuts. i really appreciate your help! -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
hey phil, of course you can! :-) why do i use vorbis? 1. because i can. the main reason i bought the squeezeboxes is because the feature list says they play vorbis natively. 2. i am too lazy to encode my songs twice - lossless for at home and lossy for on the road. maintaining every track twice is a PITA. 3. some friends of mine and i have ABXed the vorbis files i use (preferrably gtune3b2 encoded @ q6) vs. wav/flac. we could not reliably find differences. as a matter of fact, when we tried to find the version that subjectively sounded best (not which was the original!), the gtune encoded vorbis came out ahead! no joke. we were astounded ourselves. 4. mp3 needs a lot more bits to sound as good, which we also found by ABXing. i would need some HQ LAME @ 256 kbit VBR to compete with vorbis @ q6, which is still ~30% smaller. 5. vorbis is patent-free. i resent the fact that some corporation could nail me for encoding my music in their proprietary format. 6. my portable player supports vorbis, too. so does my GF's ipod, after we installed rockbox on it. 7. my server is completely full of hard disks with no further expansion room. flac would instantly increase my library's size from ~35GB to ~200GB. 8. i use my WLAN for other things sich as mpeg4 playback as well - i need the bandwidth. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
DanH: sounds like a very plausible explanation to me. i am pretty sure i didnt have this problem in the beginning, either. Phil: hmmm... i am not sure if that will yield results that are different from simply using regular mp3 files i already have. besides, i wouldnt even know which vorbis files to convert, since i have no conclusive evidence which specific ones are causing this. new experimental results: -> playing a purely vorbis playlist *will* cause the stops to occur. sometimes as early as after the 10th song, sometimes as late as after the 40th. re-starting the same playlist from the start never has reproduced the stops at the same position, they occur at seemingly random tracks and positions. -> the stop is *always* preceeded by a sudden jump or skip one or two tracks ahead in the "now playing" display. slimserver's web-interface skips ahead too! -> a purely mp3 playlist has been playing for some hours now with no stop. -> i tried playing purely vorbis UN-synched on one player last night, to see if the problem is connected to the synch function or not. unfortunately, the SB stopped after 11 tracks sometime in the night. :-( the summary so far: 1. it seems only vorbis files decoded natively will cause the stops. 2. the "now playing" display *always" jumps/skips one or two tracks ahead and freezes the progress bar. this applies to the web-interface and the SBs VFD. this happens when natively playing vorbis as well as transcoding to flac. 3. even though it also occurs when un-synched, it does not seem as often. 4. transcoding vorbis to flac/mp3 will not crash the SB anymore, but will still cause the "now playing" display to corrupt and has caused an utter and total slimserver crash. 5. playing native mp3 or flac does not seem to cause problems. my newest hypothesis: there is something wrong with the ogg container file handling on the slimserver, since eliminating the SB as a problem source through transcoding did not solve the problem. since the "now playing" display is controlled by slimserver, its corruption also points in that direction. the SB's DSP+DAC crashing may only be a symptom, not the root cause. i guess there is only one more thing for me to do: try SC7... :-( -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
ok, no amount of twiddling and tweaking with SS 6.5.5 solved the problem. even unsynched, i was getting stops+crashes when playing ogg/vorbis. so i took the plunge and installed SC 7 in the feb. 18th build. firstly, let me say that i am impressed with the improvements. my first brush with SC7 was in dec. 07 and it was a bad one, because the scan wouldnt complete (i waited over two hours) and it seemed *slow*. this time, it installed perfectly, started up perfectly, scanned perfectly and even seems faster than my old SS 6. :-) i have been playing ogg/vorbis with SC7 over night now (104 tracks so far) and NO stops or crashes yet! :-D that is a good sign, since SS 6 usually would have produced at least one stop by now. the only thing i need to do now is get my old amp switches running, but i am trying to get that problem fixed in a different thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=41578 once that is running, i think i am fixed and happy. if SC7 didnt fix the problem after all, i'll be back. ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album display hangs in slimserver6.5
i thought at first that mine hung too. but i just had to wait about 1-2 mins for the albums to show. i run a severly resource-starved machine which is terribly slow. are you sure it hangs completely or are you just impatient? (the joys of broadband internet surfing! remember the days when it was normal for a page to take a minute to load? ;-) i tried a couple of things with reasonable success to improve speed: 1. excepted *all* slimserver directories from my virus scanner. this alone improved overall responsiveness by about ~30-40% (acutally measured with a stopwatch) 2. turned of "show artists with albums" (or something like that). that also GREATLY improved responsiveness. those two reduced the average loading time from ~90 sec. to ~35 sec. 3. finally, i upgraded to SC7 (feb. 18. build if i remember correctly). so far, it works like a charm AND is faster yet again. opening an arbitrary album browse pages takes about 20-25 sec. now. (still long, i know. but my server just doesnt have enough processing power) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=44156 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 stops randomly
hi eurale! sorry to see my fix (uprading to SC7) didnt fix you. since i did - my problem has gone away. :-) BUT: i do have a track or two, which are (were) corrupted and would repeatedly and reproduceably cause my SB3 to stop and/or crash at the same track and position. i have located and removed or recoded those "offending" tracks. this has happened with both vorbis and mp3 and has nothing to do with my original problem: vorbis causing crashes while synched. can you please share some more information about the symptoms? 1. which formats are you playing? (mp3, vorbis, flac, aac, etc) 2. do you have another SB to verify this against? 3. are you getting any error-messages (even briefly) 4. is it reproduceable? (same track, same position, same ripper, same encoder, same playing time, same etc...) 5. does it still happen when you only loop one and the same song over and over? -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43298 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Sychronization with SqueezeCenter 7.0?
hi! softsqueeze apparently cant reliably synch with SBs, TPs or receivers since it uses a different buffering mechanism. (if there was a recent update to softsqueeze to fix this, then i am wrong of course) i have 2 SB3s and softsqueeze will not synch. i have actually seen the SBs thrown out of synch, too. as long as softsqueeze is not involved, i have no problems tho... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46337 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 freezes while synchronzied
update: since my upgrade to SC 7 the problem has gone away! just in case anyone can use this information... ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=41793 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] now playing/spectrum analyzer behaving differently since SC7.2/FW112?
i use the full-screen spectrum analyzer as my "now playing" screen saver. since i migrated to SC 7.2 and SBC FW 112, it has been behaving differently from my previous SC 7.0 installation. with the old version, the song info would roll in from the right, display in small font at the top edge of the screen for some seconds and then roll back out again to the right. on the new version, the song info rolls in, displays for a maximum of 1 second (way too short, i cant read it!) then simply disappears. firstly, that doesnt look quite as cool as it used to, but much more importantly, the text disappears much too quickly for anyone to read! i couldnt find a setting on the web GUI, is there maybe something i overlooked? or is there a config file i can modify? or a *.pm file i can edit? is it possible that my migration to a qnap/linux server has anything to do with this? thanks in advance guys! -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53543 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] .m4a stuttering and possible codec issue
here are a few cents of mine: i ran my SC7 on windows 2003 server on a really resource-starved 700MHz PIII - equivalent with 1GB RAM (a VIA ITX system). playing apple worked just fine (even with mov123) *unless* my server was busy doing something else. symptoms: playing an apple track the first time took about 20-25 seconds to commence playback started then stuttered or stopped after some seconds good wlan signal (40-60%) network diagnostics showed nothing untoward buffer dropping to zero i discovered my server was sometimes so busy that it could not decode apple and re-code to FLAC fast enough. (i used the windows performance monitor for this). using mov123, my via cpu would clock in at about 40% (!) cpu usage to decode aac and re-code to flac... i changed the transcoding settings to output WAV, which reduced the cpu cycles enough (to about 30%) to provide a reasonably steady stream *most* of the time. other times, i just had to shut down some cpu/ram hogging apps (emule was the worst, keeping the web-UI open second!) to make it work properly. does your vista machine seem sluggish sometimes? and did you try connecting through a wire? if that works fine, you obviously have a WLAN problem. if not, you have a server problem. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53021 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] AAC breaks synchonization?
firstly, let me apologize is this is wrong forum - webmaster please feel free to move this thread to a more appropriate place. but i am not sure what is causing my problem... i recently migrated to a qnap turbonas 409. it is running SSOTS 3.15 (latest), SC 7.2 (latest) and my SB3s are running FW 112 (latest). everything works fine until i try to play AAC while synched. this immediately breaks synchronization in that one player (always the same one) will begin playing ~4 seconds before the other one. the only thing i could determine to fix that was to restart SC on my qnap. i am playing AAC through mplayer (included in SSOTS) and it works great (yes, for me it does!), provided i am *not* synched. even when the AAC track is over, following MP3 and vorbis tracks will not synch anymore. my linux knowledge is reasonably limited, sorry! can anyone point me in the right direction? thanks in advance, dominique -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53558 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] now playing/spectrum analyzer behaving differently since SC7.2/FW112?
hi peter! thx for the help! well, since i consider myself to be more of a "user" type than a "operator" type, understanding the perl and editing it is probably too complicated for me. ;-) i guess i will just file a bug. mr. sinatra: vote for me! and we can do it! ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53543 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] AAC breaks synchonization?
hey funkstar! thanks for the heads up - that sounds very reasonable. in that case, i will just wait for 7.3! :-) dominique ps/update: i did some more experimenting yesterday and found that behavior was not easily reproduceable. as a matter of fact, i only managed to break synch one more time out of ~10x. the rest of the time it worked fine. go figure... as i said, i'll wait for 7.3 for more conclusive results. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53558 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] AAC breaks synchonization?
hey funkstar! thanks for the heads up - that sounds very reasonable. in that case, i will just wait for 7.3! :-) dominique ps/update: i did some more experimenting yesterday and found that behavior was not easily reproduceable. as a matter of fact, i only managed to break synch one more time out of ~10x. the rest of the time it worked fine. go figure... as i said, i'll wait for 7.3 for more conclusive results. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53558 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] How to maintain linux/nas compatible playlists from a windows machine?
ok, after spending the last hour or so searching and finding tons of people with the same problem but no conclusive solution, i will just post and hope for the best. this is my setup: -> qnap TS409 running SSOTS -> playlists have been modified by search and replace to be linux/qnap compatible -> rest of my network is windows how can a maintain/edit/modify those dang linux-compatible playlists from my windows box? the odd thing is, there must be zillions of people out there with a similar setup - so how do you guys do it? thanks so much in advance - i am really desparate! i have new music which needs to be included! :-) dominique -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53588 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Some questions about playlists
hi siduhe! thx for the tool - it is greatly appreciated. :-) are you implying that i will need to perform linux m3u --> windows m3u --> edit --> linux m3u every time i need to edit the playlists? oh man, that sounds like a drag. lots of tracks are in multiple playlists and i have ~40 of them... isnt there a faster or more convenient way to do this? -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=52739 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Drag and drop music Files
hey toke! also a new qnap user here. the qnap is linux based and follows completely different path names, which make your windows-generated lists pretty much useless. :-( (mine, too!) you need to find and replace the windows paths with the appropriate linux/qnap paths to make them work. its not too difficult. here is what i did to fix that: 1. open the m3u in windows notepad (or any other editor). 2. find and replace: drv:\music\... (your windows path) --> /volume1/Music/ (your qnap path) i found the qnap's exact path by checking the music folder in SC's settings. 3. find and replace: \ --> / 4. save the playlist in SC's designated playlist folder 5. rescan playlists in SC done! keep in mind that linux is case-SenSItiVe, so take care when replacing! ;-) BUT: once that is done, the playlists are unusable in windows... :-( (so much for windows and linux being able to "integrate") right now i am trying to find a way to edit linux-compatible playlists from within windows. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=49962 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Some questions about playlists
gentlemen, i just found this: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=6447 which would fix all of my problems and possibly yours too! if you agree, please VOTE for the enhancement - i already did. :-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=52739 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Some questions about playlists
guys, i am SO happy i found this thread! i think i am suffering the same problems as phatair. first to clarify: i am running SC 7.2 directly on my nas box (SSOTS), NOT accessing the NAS with SC from a windows machine. so my issues can not be solved with an intelligent drive remapping. (or can they?) @phatair, is this your setup too? i also recently migrated to a nas server. while my songs on windows were in: F:\music\... they now are in: /volume1/Music/... as you, siduhe have suggested, i opened my *.m3u files in windows' notepad and then used its built-in find+replace to replace: F:\music\ --> /volume1/Music/ (phatair: linux is CaSe SenSiTive!) then, i replaced: \ --> / (to make the paths linux-compatible) voilá: worked like a charm! :-) but now, i have no more method of editing/modifying the playlists, except finding/replacing everytime i want to change them. very cumbersome. what do all the other SSOTS / SSODS / Linux NAS users use to edit their playlists? web-UI is not an option for me, since loading and modifying a 700 track playlist in SC running on a qnap nas is *way* too slow! (just moving a track up or down takes about 6-7 sec. every time i click the button!) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=52739 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] now playing/spectrum analyzer behaving differently since SC7.2/FW112?
hi mr sinatra! actually, while filing the bug, i found the full-screen spectrum analyzer wasnt working for me anyways. some of my vorbis files soar up to 530 kbit/s and beyond (!), which cause my SBs to stutter and "rebuffer" when the spectrum analyzer is running. some of those tracks are really new in my collection (like juno reactor remixes of masters of the universe) and i like listening to them all the time right now. thats how i discovered the SBs cant handle FFTs, graphics and vorbis decoding at the same time... because of that, i changed "my bug's" priority to "minor". but yeah, i guess i could vote for it. ;-) not sure if others (like you) can change the priority back higher again, if not, and you'd like it higher again let me know here. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53543 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] scan complete but not stopping!?
i am running: SqueezeCenter Version: 7.2 - 22900 @ Tue Aug 26 10:59:02 PDT 2008 - Linux - EN - utf8 Server IP address: 192.168.0.102 Perl Version: 5.8.8 armv5tejl-linux-thread-multi MySQL Version: 5.0.27 Platform Architecture: armv5tejl-linux Hostname: Turbonas Server Port Number: 9001 Total Players Recognized: 3 when i run the scan (new+changed as well as playlists only), it goes thorugh the motions and finishes with the usual "SqueezeCenter has finished scanning your music collection." but the clocks on "Database cleanup #2" and "Total Time: xx:xx:xx" keep ticking. this morning it was 10:52:32 and counting! (i re-scan every night). i have another thread open on the scanner (?), not sure if this has anything to do with it: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53828 apart from the clocks ticking, there does not seem to be any other indication that anything is wrong. somehow, i suspect the web UI is the culprit, not the scanner... can i ignore this? and/or how do i read the scanner's log file correctly to find out if there is a problem? thanks in advance, dominique -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53833 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Problem with accented characters in playlists
hi! me too - i am experiencing this: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53828 1. scan (full): playlists fully present including special char tracks. 2. scan (nightly re-scan): playlists drop special char tracks. when try to play special char tracks immediately after step 1., squeezebox goes silent and refuses to play the track (no message). browsing for, searching for, displaying and playing special char tracks works fine, though. at least, after step 2., the playlists will not stop playing when they reach a special char track, because there are none anymore. ;-) jademonkee: to me, it sounds like your problem is at least related to this localization issue. you might want to vote for it - i already did. Nostromo: you're running windows, you may indeed be experiencing a different problem... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=48623 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Transporter: M3U playlists won't play
i switched to a qnap 409 pro recently and found i need to provide full paths to the tracks to make my m3u lists work properly. (linux paths!) example: /volume1/Music/vorbis/LTJ Bukem/ (careful: case sensitive!) also, i found that SC running on linux can not read/parse playlists with special characters in them (though that does not seem to apply to your example). the symptoms are the same as you were describing. since you are in germany, i suspect you will run in to that problem sooner or later with ö, ä, ü and ß. (as did i) if you do, vote for the bug here: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4578 -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53963 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] now playing/spectrum analyzer behaving differently since SC7.2/FW112?
hi wiped! cool screensaver! maybe i can persuade you to write a "how to" in a new thread? ;-) ummm since i filed the bug, i set the priority to "major" some days ago (check the bug thread), but it seems that someone downgraded it back down to "normal". if you feel it is important, comment in the bug thread (and vote for it!) and maybe slimdevices will set it back to "major"... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53543 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] artwork in ogg-vorbis file breaks fast forward (ffw) and reverse (rev)?
it seems that vorbis files with artwork in them will play fine on my SB3s, but will cause the FFW/REW to break. when i try to FFW/REW, the message: "problem: cant open file for..." appears and the SB skips to the next song. other vorbis files (without albumart) will FFW fine. the artwork i add is usually ~20Kbyte in size and i use jaikoz audio tagger 2.6.1 to do it. my setup: SqueezeCenter Version: 7.2 - 22900 @ Tue Aug 26 10:59:02 PDT 2008 - Linux - EN - utf8 Server IP address: 192.168.0.102 Perl Version: 5.8.8 armv5tejl-linux-thread-multi MySQL Version: 5.0.27 Platform Architecture: armv5tejl-linux Hostname: Turbonas Server Port Number: 9001 Total Players Recognized: 2 Player InformationName: Bedroom Model: Squeezebox v3 Firmware: 112 The IP address for this player is: 192.168.0.5:47747 The Ethernet MAC address for this player is: 00:04:20:07:4e:dc Wireless Signal Strength: 49 is this perhaps related to this bug? http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4418 (i specifically try to keep the artwork <32Kbyte due to this bug) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=54902 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What REALLY happens end-to-end with Apple Lossless files?
at the risk of getting severely flamed here... ;-) has anyone actually tried to take the dig. output from SB3, receiver et al. and compared that to the original CD? reason i ask is that there ARE known issues with at least one of the codecs in the SB3: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=6231 i understand that that bug applies to the MP3 codec, but it was assumed (!) to be near perfect, which it was not. is there not a minute possibility that other codecs (internal and external) may be suffering similar symptoms? dont get me wrong, i agree that the most likely cause of AndrewFG's symptoms is iTunes' ripping process itself and/or a healthy dose of placebo. but no-one wanted to believe the MP3 codec bug at first, either... ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=55137 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] FLAC format for videos?
i have been doing this for over 5 years now with my KISS/Linksys networked DVD player (it is an ancient DP500). it plays VOB just fine, which allows you to simply rip the DVD "as is" to your NAS. the VOB file simply shows up in the file menu and i press play. however, i have decided to compress DVDs, because even a NAS will run out space sometime! ;-) i encode all my movies myself, using the XviD codec and 160kbit MP3. but, as you said, i dont care about AC3/DTS, since i dont have a surround system. but as is, the quality is excellent and almost indistinguishable from the original DVD. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53287 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] 7.2.1 Responsiveness
i remember reading that other people were seeing un-reliable (confused?) SC behavior, especially when multiple SB's are used. often, it turned out to be IP/MAC related. such as: IP addresses being assigned fixed and DHCP at the same time, resulting in the same address being used in the network - but only sometimes. and/or "soft" MAC addessing, which somehow got misconfigured. logic dictates that if it used to work and then broke, something changed - maybe without you even knowing it. and *yes* i am/was seeing this sometimes too. on windows *and* linux/NAS. reasons i could determine in my network: 1. resource starved servers (both windows and NAS) 2. disks going to sleep and needing time to wake up (delays responses by ~30 sec.) 3. web interface is/was -as far as i am concerned- so slow to be quite useless. so i don't use it. ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=55411 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] FF & Rewind using 7.2 ROCKS
my 2 cents: 1st cent - the new ff/rew is better because it works with ogg-vorbis files too! (80% of my library is vorbis). :-) 2nd cent - the new ff/rew is not as good because one can not hear where one is scanning to. 3rd cent - for me, the old scan was also terribly unreliable. the new one works every time. 4th cent - it look as if the new ff/rew will not work with vorbis files with embedded artwork... oops - that was 4 cents! -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=52616 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] scan complete but not stopping!?
actually, i must admit that i haven't seen this effect in a while. the only thing (i believe) i did was to clear out the DB and do a complete rescan (due a different bug). wierd... is it reproduceable on your system or only sporadic? (like on mine) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53833 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] M4A Files on ReadyNAS Problems
not sure how much i am helping you, but i remember reading about quite a few people mentioning problems with apple files on NAS boxes. some of them seemed to fix them by switching from mplayer (the default m4a decoder) to ffmpeg (an alternative decoder) for transocoding to SB3 compatible audio. try searching for ffmpeg or mplayer... sorry i can't point you in a more specific direction, but i dont have problems with m4a on my system so i didn't remember where those threads exactly were. i also remember that switching to ffmpeg required more or less extensive linux knowledge tho... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=47847 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] No more Squeezebox Classic in Europe? or just sold out at the moment?
there are quite a few SB classics (3) available on ebay, too. even brand new ones. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=58525 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Reproducible problem
hi! you may want to check out these vorbis bugs: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=7857 http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4418 sounds as if you (too) may be suffering from at least one of them. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=58467 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Strange Effect?
yep - i can confirm dogberry's thoughts. since i got my SBs, i am totally addicted. the SB is the first thing i turn on in the morning (even before tea!) and the last thing i turn off before going to sleep. i can hardly wait till i load new music on to SC to listen to it. of course, i have everything under control and can stop anytime i want to. my SB even makes me aggressive sometimes, especially when i listen to skinny puppy, makai or juno reactor. you guys need to stay away from me. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=58771 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Advice please on improving audio quality
AAC will be transcoded in SC. did you check to make sure you are transcoding to wav or FLAC? you could be transcoding to mp3, thereby transoding lossy to lossy which _will_ degrade soundquality. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=58810 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] update cover art without full rescan
hi! hmmm dont think i've seen this behavior. i've been adding album art slowly but surely to my collection only through a "scan for changes" with consistently perfect results. but here is the (possible?) caveat: since most of my music is vorbis, i am not embedding it (due to known bugs and incompatibilities), rather just putting an "album.jpg" file in the same directory as the track itself. quite possible that (re-)discovering _embedded_ albumart requires a full re-scan tho... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=59042 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Possible to sync new players (classic, boom) with ROKU soundbridges?
OT, but: the red lines are the heating filaments of the vacuum fluorescent display. they are always on and can only be switched off by unplugging the SBC. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=60288 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[slim] complete list of SC changes broken?
i just wanted to check what has changed since SC 7.2 (i know - i am running ancient software! ;-). but the link http://svn.slimdevices.com/7.3/tags/7.3.2/server/Changelog7.html?view=co to the changes (it is the one in http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Release_Notes) only gives a 404 file not found? the same btw for the other versions as well. i guess since mvalera (webmonkey) left logitech/slimdevices, the new webmaster has to get acquainted, yes? ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=61014 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
after spending half the day researching this forum, the bugzilla database and the forum over at qnap.com and not finding anything conclusive, i give up and post my own thread now. first, my symptoms: -> on the odd occasion i _can_ get my players synced, it holds for anywhere between 5 to 50 minutes, then breaks -> usually, sync just slowly drifts apart. if i let it run, it will usually drift apart by about 2-3 seconds after about 30 minutes or so -> i can aggravate it by loading a new playlist while synched. my playlists are large, ~1000 tracks. that breaks sync almost immediately. -> a song transition (i have crossfade active) also seems to provoke the issue -> once broken, the only way i have found to re-sync is to cold-boot one or both players and/or restart SC. -> after an SC restart, sync seems to work for a while before the problems start over. -> the situation seems to be deteriorating continuously. currently, it is almost impossible for me to acheive any reasonable synching at all. -> the problem seems to be independent of the load on my qnap's processor now, my environment: Version: 7.3.2 - 24695 @ Mon Jan 19 18:36:25 PST 2009 Hostname: Turbonas Server IP Address: 192.168.0.102 Server HTTP Port Number: 9001 Operating system: Linux - EN - iso-8859-1 Platform Architecture: armv5tejl-linux Perl Version: 5.8.8 - armv5tejl-linux-thread-multi MySQL Version: 5.0.27 Total Players Recognized: 2 -> both players are SB3/classics, both run FW 123 -> running on a qnap turbonas 409, FW 2.1.4 Build 0318T, with SSTOS 3.15. -> my library is about 50% vorbis (native), 45% mp3 (native) and 5% AAC (transcoded) -> my playlists are typically ~500-1000 tracks long, but the problem also occurs with shorter playlists ~40 tracks. -> control is exclusively done by the remote control -> my qnap is configured to update its system clock every hour by ntp. i have verified this actually works. -> my players are connected by wifi. the network test comes through up to 4000 kbit @ 100% for at least 10 minutes. does anyone have any suggestions for me? please keep in mind that i only have rudimentary linux knowledge... thanks VERY much in advance! -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
hi catbus! no worries - right now, i am happy for ANY suggestions. ;-) yes, i have tried much already. my daytime job is a hardware/tech/IT trainer&consultant, so tried a few things which seem smart from a generic tech point of view. what is "noticeable" drift? using all the interfaces i have at my disposal, i can not detect any drift. but that isnt saying much, since i dont know how to to a professionally accurate measurment (with ms precision!) of my 409's clock. how would i got about that? better yet, how can i skip that step and install an NTP daemon? according to some threads i hve read here, that could solve the problem. unfortunately, they dont describe how to got about that... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
yeah, i guess i'll just have to hunker down, find (lots of!) time, and do some experiments... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
this is going to be a LONG one... after some LENGTHY experimentation i have found more details. preparation: - upgraded to SC 7.3.3. the rest, such as perl etc. remains the same. - wired up my two SB3s to eliminate the WLAN as a problem - fixed up some files encoded with different vorbis encoders: GTune3b2 (my preference), aoTuV and xiph reference. results: to make sync break BOTH the following conditions must be met: A. i am using the _remote_ to skip tracks, scan tracks or load playlists B. i am playing or trying to play a _vorbis_ file, or the first file of a playlist is a vorbis file. under these circumstances it seems i can not break sync: A. using an MP3 and/or FLAC only playlist - even with the remote B. exclusively using the web UI to control the sync group ie. skipping and scanning tracks and loading playlists - even with vorbis tracks in them the vorbis encoder used does not seem to have any effect on this. i can actually make sync come back if i fiddle around enough by: A. skipping a couple of tracks _not_ through the remote, but through the web UI B. pointing the remote at the _other_ (!) SB3 and restarting and/or skipping to the next track C. manually starting an MP3 track or loading an MP3 only playlist i have set the player.sync log to debug. if someone can tell me where to find the log and what to do with it i'd be grateful! here's my problem: about 60% of our music collection is vorbis and especially when we have guests roaming the house we sync our SBs. but as soon as we change playlists, skip a track or even change the volume, sync seems to freak out. these findings are more or less in line with our past experiences, which were that if we sync up with a nice long playlist it would sometimes work, sometimes not. the more we left the SBs alone, the longer they would stay synced. so how do i get vorbis to work properly when synced? -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
my vorbis is playing native. when you say "recently", you mean like for the last three years now, right? ;-) at least, thats how long i have been playing vorbis natively. the qnap probably has enough power to transcode vorbis, but according to logitech's specs of the SB, that should not be necessary and it is supported natively. which is why i bought the SBs in the first place. ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
ADDENDUM: this sucks - the drifting effect i described in my first post is also still there. but once again, it seems that this only happens on vorbis files. when an MP3 comes along in the playlist, the players sync up perfectly. then, after 2-3 subsequent vorbis tracks, it starts drifting once more. VERY odd... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
this is the recent log of my SC. is this what would help to troubleshoot? if not, please let me know of other options! :-) +---+ |Filename: server.zip | |Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7956| +---+ -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
confirmed behavior by playing over night. this problem is too consistent for my taste. hence: https://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=13380 -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
no sooner have i filed a bug report to the effect that i _thought_ there was a vorbis/sync problem than a purely mp3 playlist also started drifting apart. this is the first time today, yesterday the mp3 playlist stayed rock solid synced for over two hours. probably means i can stick my bug report where the sun don't shine... :-( -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
OK, more testing done: 1. deactivated crossfade -> no effect 2. installed SC 7.3.3. on a high-powered windows vista machine -> no problems so far with any means of operation or file type. will leave the sync-group playing over night to see if anything wierd happens. i guess this means that my vorbis files are OK then... i know this is starting to look like a NAS problem. but please bear in mind: A. the effect is so much stronger with vorbis files. why is that? B. why does my using the remote on one or the other SB or not using it at all influence sync reliability? C. am i the only one with sync problems on a QNAP? the next step for troubleshooting is to stop spamming bugzilla (which is what i have done) but to ask this forum: what part of the SC syncing algorithm could be causing this? rather: what part of my setup could be throwing the sync off? i think i need to start systematically eliminating potential sync problems... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
hehe - yeah i voted for those bugs (especially 4418) WAY back when they were first reported. ;-) apparently, they are fixed now, which was one of the reasons i upgraded to 7.3.3. (apart from other bugs, where playback will randomly stop) thing is, those bugs were "only" major for me. this bug (if it is one) is CRITICAL to me. how nice that upgrading to 7.3.3. broke my aac playback. :-( seems to be a known issue in this forum though... you are right tho - transcoding is one of the few things i haven't tried yet. hope it works, because the qnap's processor is not too powerful and vorbis decoding uses lots of cpu cycles. besides, i am not expecting any miracles from that, since sometimes even MP3 seems to drift. (see an earlier post of mine). i could also try playing some pure WAV and see how that behaves... is there someone out there who would mind explaining the sync mechanism to me and perhaps be willing to discuss what could disrupt it so badly? -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
tcutting;448159 Wrote: > Is the time on the NAS accurate? I believe I've seen other threads on > synchronization issues/drifting, and recall that often there was also > issues with the Squeezecenter computer's clock (in your case, your NAS) > having issues keeping time. Might be worth searching through previous > forum threads. thanks for the suggestion. :-) well, i've followed those threads as well. firstly, my NAS NTP updates its system clock once per hour. as far as the logs tell, that is working just fine. secondly, there are suggestions to install an NTP daemon, which supposedly will make the clock more accurate(?). however, over at the qnap forum it is felt that that will not do the trick. a linux friend of mine has confirmed that. not sure why it seemed to help others, tho... the qnap forum also said it should be highly unlikely to see the qnap's clock drift by more than a couple of seconds per day, which is about right for a hardware-based RTC. thirdly, logic tells me that shouldn't be an issue. if the qnap's clock is the identical and concurrent reference for ALL SBs at the same time, a drift in the qnap's clock should cause ALL the SBs to drift at the same time, right? so the worst case would be that ALL SBs skip forward at the same time, and all by the same amount. OTOH, any differences between the SBs themselves would still be seen, because of their varying time shift _relative_ to the qnap. but as i said in my previous post, i am not sure how the sync mechanism actually works, and this chain of logic is based on pure assumption. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
news: after a 1/2 day's battle, i managed to do a clean re-install of SSOTS and SC. now i am running SSOTS 3.18 (after discovering that the 3.17 provided by qnap is broken) and SC 7.3.3. indeed, sync is greatly improved! :-) however, after two hours of synced playing, there still were two instances where sync broke on a vorbis file. and again, it came back as soon as an MP3 file came up. i didnt even need to do anything about it... strange. as if SC sometimes "forgets" to keep sync when playing a vorbis file and suddenly "remembers" when an MP3 comes up. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
no THAT might explain A LOT. i use the GTune3b2 vorbis encoder, whose bitrate envelope is quite different from the reference decoder's. GTune3b2 will allocate MANY more bits/s on transients and high-frequency passages than the reference. if all the assumptions sync does are based on the reference - no wonder. i will see if the sync breaks are reproduceable on certain tracks. if yes, i will try encoding them with the reference encoder and see if the problem goes away. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] synchronization problems - and getting worse
i havent had much time to do any additional intensive testing, but i have been seeing a pattern - i _think_. if sync breaks (much rarer now), then it does so when BOTH the following conditions are met: -> transitioning TO a vorbis file. higher bitrates seem to increase the likelyhood of it happening. -> my qnap's processor is _very_ busy doing something else, such as accepting a large SMB transfer (~GB) from the network. if i load the processor in the middle of a vorbis track, sync also starts drifting audibly (i had 2 SBs right next to me on my desk for testing). but it returns once the load drops again. however, if a song transitions meanwile... see above. the odd thing is, it still seems as if an MP3 file is required for sync to return - even after the CPU load has dropped back to normal. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65870 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Track playing display problem - Newbie !
yeah, i found that slightly confusing at first too. press the "now playing" button to active the real-time display of the currently playing track. when you browse to a song and press play, you are essentialy still in "browse" mode, which does not show the currently playing track. in theory, this allows you to continue browsing and add stuff to your playlist, while SB is playing. what i find slightly more irritating is that "now playing" is only a button away, but going back to where i was just browsing is a major navigational issue. ;-) dom -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37187 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Problem with SlimServer and EAC/EZ Fix I'm sure!
hi there! i am an avid EAC user. to me, it sounds like one of the three possible problems: 1. it sounds like your EAC is ripping the CDs as one single track and not as separate tracks. which is weird, because EAC will rip single tracks by default. are you sure you are not going through "action" -> "copy image and create cue sheet" or are using the "IMG" button on the left? if so, try ripping as single files by using the "MP3" button on the left. dont worry - if you set up the "external" compressor correctly, EAC will still generate FLACs from your CDs. if you insist on using single images, make sure the CUE-sheets are accessible by slimserver, otherwise it will only "see" the image, and not the tracks therein. and i am not sure if slimserver can read embedded cue sheets... (btw - if you are concerned about gaps between songs, SB3 plays gapless!) 2. also make sure you have the tagging set up properly. you may want to read this excellent wiki on EAC+FLAC: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?EACBeginners 3. EAC has an annoying habit (at least mine does) of tagging my files with lower-case tags. while 95% of programs will work just fine with those, some will not (ex.: my iriver portable player tool). i rarely rip FLAC files for use with slimserver (i prefer vorbis GTune3 @ Q6), so i cant say if that is a real problem or not. but just for good measure, you may want to change the tags to capital letters? dom -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37200 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Newbie with couple questions
hey, amcluesent - thanx for that suggestion! i myself am still looking for a good playlist manager and will try that out one of these days. so far, i have been using self-soft's PersonalPlaylistManager plugin for winamp. it is super easy to use and allows fast adding of new tracks to your playlists. the only thing i am missing is that it does not have an overview, it only processes one track at a time. on the other hand the plugin is free, whereas orangecd seems to cost money. try both and let us know what you think. dom -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37502 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] SB3 running out of CPU cycles on HQ vorbis?
hi all! i love my SB3. matter of fact, i just got my 2nd one. ;-) BUT i just discovered something rather unsettling and i would like to see if anyone out there has noticed a similar effect. i generally encode my CDs using SJeng's OggEncGTb3 tuned ogg-vorbis encoder set to q6. i find this gives vorbis tracks a lightness and airyness lacking in other encoders. however, it allows does allow bitrates to soar quite a bit on complex tracks. and now it seems i have found a track, which starves the SB3's CPU. Symptoms: 1. buffer fullness is always 100% -> no network problem. 2. play track with large spectrum analyser screensaver or now playing -> SB3 "chokes" after ~5-10 sec. of playing. displays "rebuffering 0%", display kind of flickers and playback stops/stutters. if i leave it alone long enough, it will recover after a minute or two and continue playing normally. 3. switch "now playing" to a static display without visualization -> playback commences again perfectly normally and never skips a beat. 4. turn visualization back on -> SB3 "chokes". these symptoms would indicate that displaying viz + high-bitrate vorbis chokes the SB3s CPU? the track in question is encoded @ q6, but will run at ~400-500 kbit/s for minutes on end. posting here is not practical, because the track is ~22 MB large. but i can provide it as a download or by mail if required. if anyone else has been seeing this, should we report this as a bug? or a feature request? i understand that one could argue OggEncGTb3 does not comply to ogg-vorbis reference specs, but then again i am only encoding @ q6. if CPU choking is indeed a problem, then it should even occur with the reference vorbis encoder @ q8-10, which is claimed to be supported by slimdevices, no? thanks for your thoughts! dominique -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38531 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 running out of CPU cycles on HQ vorbis?
hi funktstar, actually i have. when i ripped the file, i did not realize how complex it was and that vorbis bitrates would soar like that. i normally avoid FLAC, because it is too big for me and i find vorbis @q6 to be indistinguishable from FLAC. so far, i see many workarounds, none which are too painful: 1. re-rip those tracks in FLAC. 2. transcoding. but my slimserver is running on a serverly resource-starved system anyway and it may have similar problems on that track. thats why i like the SB3's native vorbis decoder! :-) 3. just dont use the visualizations. shame, tho, because they look cool and impress the hell out of visitors! ;-) 4. just "zap" the track for know to prevent it from stalling my SB3. but isnt there maybe a way to optimize the vorbis decoder in SB3's firmware? -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38531 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] SB3 running out of CPU cycles on HQ vorbis?
thanx for your thoughts on this guys. :-) yeah - i'll just re-rip the offending track in FLAC. and i agree with jeebers - this is the first of my thousands of tracks encoded with GTuneb3 which exhibits this phenomenon. never seen it before. i suspect it has to do with extreme and sudden bitrate spikes GTuneb3 produces. in this track, bitrates will jump from reasonable 250 kbit to ~570 kbit and back to 400 kbit. i know vorbis normally makes heavy use of floating point operations, which are typically badly implemented (or must be emulated) on embedded CPUs. or does slimdevices already use the integer implementation of the vorbis decoder called "tremor"? (http://xiph.org/vorbis/) gentlemen, does something like this merit a feature request / bugreport? probably not, but you never know, you know? ;-) dom -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38531 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] albums ripped in mp3 AND vorbis show up twice
(i tried searching the forums but am probably using the wrong key-words: i could not find anything on this.) ok, here is my next effect: i have a few albums which were ripped half in MP3 and half in Vorbis. (this was done because some songs were supposed to play on an iPod). these albums show up twice, even though the tagging is clearly identical. has anyone else seen this? dom -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38557 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] albums ripped in mp3 AND vorbis show up twice
thanks for clearing that up mherger! hmmm... i am not sure i like that. if i turn one format off, doesnt that mean i wont see the songs at all anymore? that is not really an option, since the tracks are not actually duplicate. example: Album A, tracks 1-4 -> MP3 Album A, tracks 5-9 -> vorbis this shows up in browse -> albums as: Album A tracks 1-4 Album A tracks 5-9 but since the albums are identical, i would expect: Album A tracks 1-9 isnt there a way to do that? thanks again! -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38557 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Squeezebox sometimes lagging on commands
hi guys! i had (sometimes still have) this problem too. in my case it turned out to be a severely resource-starved computer running slimserver. especially if it had to start swapping virtual memory to- and from disk, i could sometimes wait for 20-30 sec.(!) for it to respond to the remote control. this was proven to me when i went from wireless to wired and the effects were unchanged. it was a PIII, 700 MHz, 256 MB RAM, running windows and lots of other stuff too. after i upgraded RAM to 1GB and responsiveness increased DRAMATICALLY. today, my SB3s only respond sluggishly if i give slimserver lots of work to do, i.e. add large shuffled playlists (>500 tracks) and/or it is performing its weekly virus-scan. since the RAM-upgrade i am 1000% happier with my SBs! -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38461 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Slim Devices logo faceplate on ebay
ROFL just to let you guys know: i just bought a "hybrid" squeezebox! YES! it is a slimdevices SB3, but it came with a logitech remote in the box! how is THAT for rarity value? ;-) i would be willing to consider bids starting at no less than 1000. and before anyone asks: yes the two of them get along just fine. @skunk: seriously, sell it on ebay - you'll make more money. i have been following the ebay prices for SB3 in germany. and let me tell you, one guy bought a used SB3 for 325 (plus shipping)! retail price @ logitech online: 300. d'uh -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38612 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Slim Devices logo faceplate on ebay
guys, you got me worried about the logitech logo on my remote. quantum physics does not dictacte local causality. do you think the logitech logo on my remote is worsening the jitter on my SB3? i cant hear it, but the cat next door has been acting strange lately. however, it is not blind, so it may not be a good candidate to detect jitter. or does the original slimdevices housing of my SB3 shield that? -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38612 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Slim Devices logo faceplate on ebay
btw - the bidding wars have begun. the first bid for 1$ + 5.50$ (S&H) has come in... -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38612 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Slim Devices logo faceplate on ebay
hey tyler i appreciate your enthusiasm! but i need a cover for my REMOTE not for my SB3! if you find any of those on ebay, let me know. ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38612 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Sonos getting smarter?
i felt i need to add my two bits as well... (no pun intended) sonos has a strong presence in consumer + even high-end (!) audio-shops all over the world, wheras SD seems to be less prominent. i have seen demo centers and banners in audio stores in germany, canada and even south-africa! and i am not necessarily talking about your "supermarket-style" hyperstores, but the cosy, small dealerships with personal service. surely, this gives sonos more appeal to consumers of the "non-technical-type", who are primarily buying HQ AUDIO equipment and not an open-source technical gadget. ;-) while i realize SD does have dealers as well, i confess i have not seen any SD product in any retail shop yet. that being said, i am not sure if sonos is smarter - to me it seems they are simply addressing a different market: SONOS: customers with higher budgets, primarily seeking an audio device which is sexy to look at, has less knobs to tweak and which is easy to buy - i.e. less complexity and less things to break! SLIMDEVICES: customers who are technically savvy or interested, have a smaller budget and who are not only willig to, but love to tweak and fiddle with their equipment and continuously research and implement new optimizations. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39623 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] ogg playback occcasionally stops
dear fellow ogg-user, i fear i may have to confirm that using *non-reference* (as in: not released by xiph.org) vorbis encoders can cause playback problems. i generally use SJeng's OggEncGTune3b1 encoder, which i find to have superior sound quality at *high* bitrates. unfortunately, that encoder has allowed the bitrate so soar to ~500-600 kbits peak on some of my tracks and to ~350 kbits average. these tracks cause my SB3 to choke. (reproduceable) my solution: re-code those tracks in FLAC (since at that bitrate flac is not really that much larger) and/or turn off the visualization screensavers. seriously, it seems my SB3 was just running out of CPU cycles! and vorbis is *very* CPU-intensive... luckily, only about 5 of my 3000 tracks seem to be affected, so i dont worry too much. as you said: other tracks sound fantastic! and after all - its my fault. (not using the reference encoder ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39829 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] ogg playback occcasionally stops
hi catbus - it seems my favorite encoder GTune3b1 is the culprit. when i encoded the offending tracks with xiph's reference at q10, everything played just fine. but i agree with you that ultimately the higher bitrates with gtune3b1 are causing the crashes. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39829 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] which files/dirs does SS access? -> want to exclude from virus scanner (too slow)
hi! i am running my slimserver on a severely CPU starved pc. it takes ~10-20 sec (!) for the web-interface to display a "browse albums" page... :-( i discovered that my virus scanner uses ~50% of the CPU cycles every time i refresh a web-page. obviously, if i dont scan for viruses anymore, i should be able to speed up rendering significantly. i have already excluded c:\program files\slimserver and f:\music (all my music and albumart is in here) from the virus scanner, wich dramatically improved scanning time. :-) (about 2x the speed now) however, webpage rendering does not seem effected by this, as the virus scanner still gobbles up lots of CPU cycles during web access. which other dirs must i exclude? -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40251 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Really slow menus
yep - sounds familiar! :-) your mac mini is probably just too slow. my slimserver runs on a 700 MHz VIA ultra-low-power mainboard. (i want to save energy). when it has too many other things to do (such as: virus scanning, video streaming, etc.) my SB3 also sometimes slows right down. it can take ~10-15 sec. to come alive after pressing the power button! things used to be a LOT worse when the mainboard only had 256 MB RAM. i upgraded to 1GB, which improved things GREATLY! previously, my SB would stall on every 4-5 button push, now it may go days without stalling. still happens though... is your web UI also *very* slow? as in: 10-20 sec. for displaying a "browse albums" page? oh, and i found it had (as you suspect) nothing at all to do with my WLAN. ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40241 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] dealing with special chars in albumart JPGs?
while i am at it... (today i must have posted as much as i normally do in 1/2 year! ;-) my albumart is in a separate directory from my music. i have SS set up to display it. (i think) my scheme is based on albums, because they are unique. but i have album tags with "$" and ":" in them, which NTFS cant handle. so how do i name JPGs for such albums? example album: "Some Girls Wander By Mistake: 80 - 83" what name should i give the albumart JPG? "Some Girls Wander By Mistake 80 - 83.jpg" -> tried it, doesnt work "Some Girls Wander By Mistake 80 - 83.jpg" ? (supposed to have TWO spaces between Mistake and 80, but the BBS autocorrects it) "Some Girls Wander By Mistake_ 80 - 83.jpg" ? i know i could try it out, but i really do not want to re-scan the entire DB every single time! (takes ~45 mins. on my machine) (see also: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35177) thanks for your help guys! -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40257 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] 'Clear library and rescan everything' for just one album cover?
i would like to chip in here... because it seems as if arie and i may have the same problem. (correct me if i am wrong arie!) when i add new music, albumart shows up in "album view" but thumbnails in "browse albums" do NOT. this happens even without a complete re-scan, just scanning for new and changed is enough (i am running 6.5.3). but how does one get the thumbnails to update/show without a complete re-scan? no amount of browsing to anywhere fixes the thumbnails for me. and as you can see they do work, so i am assuming my configured settings are ok. +---+ |Filename: Clipboard01.jpg | |Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3691| +---+ -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35177 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] dealing with special chars in albumart JPGs?
hi anoop! sorry - i cant do that because most of my music is in flat directories. there are no subdirs for artists, albums, etc. hasnt been a problem yet, either - until i wanted to use albumart... examples: f:\music\ogg-vorbis\*.ogg (contains ~2500 songs, no subdirs) f:\music\mp3\*.mp3 (contains ~3500 songs, no subdirs) etc. and to be honest, i would hate to have to re-arrange ~6500 files just because SS doesnt have a way to deal with this. ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40257 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] duplicate albums when id3 tags are correct; directory issue?
hi slimpy! are you serious? hope not... ;-) what you are saying implies that any directory structure which separates tracks from one album will cause that album to show up multiple times? please confirm for me these two examples: 1. http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40070 ben and i both are seeing multiple albums after integrating an itunes library organized by artist: \artist\album\track.mp3 if i understand you correctly, we have to re-organize our directory structures? if so: not nice. for me at least, it is tough work, because the filenames are incomplete and i would have to rebuild those too. 2. before i integrated itunes, my directory structure was: \music\FLAC\album.tracknumber.artist.trackname.flac \music\ogg-vorbis\album.tracknumber.artist.trackname.ogg some tracks i ripped in flac for quality, some in vorbis for space. albums with mixed formats indeed show up twice. seems to be a variation of the same problem above. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39863 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] dealing with special chars in albumart JPGs?
thank you for your thoughts gentlemen! :-) i have numerous compilations. as i painfully discovered, slimserver does not deal with compilations in artist-sorted directories properly - they are displayed multiple times! see here: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39863 surely, you must have seen that? seriously, if most of you sort your music as: .\artist\album\track.* you HAVE to be seeing this? and if you do, dont you find it maddeningly irritating? it is driving me NUTS! frankly, i would rather forget about albumart in favor of correctly displayed albums. re. pale blue ego: 70% of my music is in ogg-vorbis format. it does not support albumart embedding, because the ogg file is a general purpose streaming media container which is not specifically limited to audio. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40257 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] duplicate albums when id3 tags are correct; directory issue?
hi guys! why does everybody seem to think my directory structure is at fault? ;-) honestly, i think a file's location should be totally irrelevant to how often it shows up in slimserver's DB. or maybe someone could help me understand the reason why slimserver behaves that way? design? bad thinking? bug? i am considering reporting this as a bug. oddly enough, the directory structure has an impact on another topic: albumart. see: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40257 -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39863 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] dealing with special chars in albumart JPGs?
snarlydwarf - i may be mis-reading, but arent you sorting exactly as i thought: .\artist\album\track.* ? or is there a difference between "albumartist" and "artist"? btw. precisely because i would also hate to "scour" for files is why all my files are diligently named "album.track#.artist.trackname.ogg" and put in to a FLAT directory. that way, i can scroll up and down in explorer and locate albums and files very quickly. (works great for me and my GF when we select files to put on our portable players) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40257 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] duplicate albums when id3 tags are correct; directory issue?
yes, i understand how, but still not why. but please bear with me! :-) ever since i imported my GF's iTunes music repository from her iBook, i have albums showing up 10 times or more!? iTune's directory schema: .\artist\album\track example: .\artist A\black soul\track.mp3 .\artist B\black soul\track.mp3 .\artist C\black soul\track.mp3 (10x) .\artist J\black soul\track.mp3 result when i browse albums: "black soul" "black soul" "black soul" (10x) "black soul" and it is THE SAME album. this makes it impossible to add the album "black soul" in its entirety to the playlist. surely that is not intentional? btw. snarlydwarf: we went through great pains to ensure our album tagging is 100% unique. there are NO duplicate album names in our repository. since it seems most of you seem to feel this is a "feature", i will file a new feature /change request, instead of a bug report. ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39863 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] duplicate albums when id3 tags are correct; directory issue?
discovered that slimserver is "working as designed": http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4150 :-( filed an "enhancement" request at: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/votes.cgi?action=show_bug&bug_id=6208 hope my request will make everyone happy - the ones who LIKE the directory idea and those who dont. ;-) anyone interested in getting this fixed/changed, please vote for it! :-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39863 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] New SB3 user, why does Airport Express sounds better?
is there a difference between the headphone jack and the RCA (cinch) connectors? i find there is a tremendous one - on my equipment the RCA connectors definitely sound more powerful and fuller. but apparently (according to other users) this differs depending on your audio equipment. -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40472 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] duplicate albums when id3 tags are correct; directory issue?
hi! since i copied my GFs iTunes repository from her iBook - about 30. some of those show up 15x. her iTunes is organized by artist, that is just the way it is. slimpy, i am not trying to discuss who is smart or not, i am just making a point that there are a significant amount of people (heck, i didnt even start this thread, i just jumped on it!) who feel this behavior is strange. i found ~10 bugs reported in bugzilla that relate to this problem, (none of them from me, btw) so at least some people are bugged by it (no pun intended ;-). that is why i did not file a "bug", but an "enhancement" request. and it contains a suggestion to add a control which will let you choose squeezecenter's behavior. that way you can be happy and me too! :-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39863 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] duplicate albums when id3 tags are correct; directory issue?
@slimpy: because i expect slimdevices to be BETTER than apple! ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39863 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Posible bug in built-in MP3 decoder - please verify
hi sikahr! i am impressed with your analysis! good work. :-) but how on earth did you ever get the idea to test that in the first place? 8-O as sean said - yours is a "corner case", and therefore highly unlikely that someone would stumble upon it by chance. most likely you specifically tested for it - but what gave you that intuition that there may be something wrong? btw, i can confirm this on my SB3s, FW 81. ;-) -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40409 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] squeezebox screen size?
hi dystopias! just measured and tested mine... ;-) (text-)display size is 1.5cm hight x ~13cm width (usable). @ max fontsize very readable, but your wife would still have to get quite close to it. i myself am very near-sighted (~-2.7) and need to get about 50cm close to be able to read the display @ max fontsize without my glasses. oh, and softsqueeze may not be quite original size, depending on your PC screen size and resolution! (on mine, the large softsqueeze display is only ~1.1cm high) hope that helps! -- dcote dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40787 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
