Playlists and Delayed Playback

[krutsch]

Hello,

Today, I updated to minimserverv-0.8-update-77 and minim streamer-0.5.23.

With the release just prior to this, playlists would stop when advancing to a track from different album. With today's update, the playlist continues to play, but there is a long delay when going to a track from a different album (long as in more than 15 seconds).

For example, I have a playlist that looks like this:

Album A
Song 1
Song 2
Song 3
Album B
Song 4
Song 5

...the delay happens from Song 3 to Song 4.

Also, I can manually skip to any track and playback is immediate (i.e. I can tap on Song 2 and it plays and I can tap on Song 4 and it plays, immediately).

FWIW, Linn Kazoo (latest stable releases for Mac and iPad, not the beta versions) and Bubble (2.6.0.1) seem to have the same issue, as control points. I have tested this with Volumio (upmpdci) and a Bryston BDP-1 (gemediarender-ressurect) - same behavior.

I will attach a sample playlist that exhibits this behavior.

[simoncn]

This sounds like a network issue, though I am not sure why it would occur only when you move from one album to another.

Please produce a debug log by doing the following:

1) From the minim icon, select 'Show log'
2) Leave the log window open
3) About half way though song 2, chnge the logging level to Debug and clear the log window
4) There will be some log activity when song 2 transitions (quickly) to song 3
5) There will be some log activity when song 3 transitions (slowly) to song 4
6) As soon as song 4 has started playing, click 'Save as' in the log window to save the log data to a file
7) Change the logging level back to Info and close the log window
8) Zip the log file and attach it to a post here

I will take a look at the log file and let you know what I find.

[krutsch]

  Archive.zip (Size: 7.31 KB / Downloads: 2)

(06-02-2016 08:45)simoncn Wrote:  This sounds like a network issue, though I am not sure why it would occur only when you move from one album to another.

Please produce a debug log...

OK, here's some new information: it looks like the problem is not changing album, it's changing the SAMPLE RATE or BIT DEPTH that causes problems.

I am attaching the runs, per your instructions:

1. Run One - Works Fine.txt - this plays three songs, as you outline, from two different albums but both albums are 24-bit, 96kHz FLAC tracks. This one plays through normally, with no delay or glitches.

2. Run Two - Long Delay.txt - this plays two songs; the first is a 24-bit, 44.1 kHz FLAC track that transitions to a 24-bit, 48 kHz FLAC track - there is no transcoding. This one pauses for 20 seconds or so and then starts playing. Note that the last line in the attached log file has already displayed before the tracks starts playback.

3. Run Three - No Play Third Track.txt - this plays two songs; the first is a 24-bit, 48 kHz FLAC track that transitions to a 16-bit, 44.1 AAC (MP4) file that is transcoded to WAV/24 using FFMpeg (last version, I build on the local machine). This one pauses at the transition and never resumes playback. Note that I can click on the track in Kazoo and it starts playback normally.

Took me a while to figure out what was happening here... so much for Saturday afternoon :-)

Let me know what else you need to know or want me to try.

[simoncn]

(06-02-2016 22:55)krutsch Wrote:  I am attaching the runs, per your instructions:

There are no files attached to your post. To attach a file, you need to select the file using New Attachment/Browse and then click Add Attachment. If you don't click Add Attachment, the file will not be attached.

[krutsch]

(07-02-2016 08:04)simoncn Wrote:  

(06-02-2016 22:55)krutsch Wrote:  I am attaching the runs, per your instructions:

There are no files attached to your post. To attach a file, you need to select the file using New Attachment/Browse and then click Add Attachment. If you don't click Add Attachment, the file will not be attached.

Hi Simon,

I can see Archive.zip at the top of the previous posting. Sorry... I had difficulties attaching the file and probably didn't do something right, but the link is there.

Ken

EDIT: I downloaded it and I will add it again to this post:


  Archive.zip (Size: 9.72 KB / Downloads: 1)

[simoncn]

I didn't see your Archive.zip attachment because it wasn't in the normal place for file attachments (at the end of the post). Apologies for the confusion.

I have looked at it now. Logs 1 and 3 show nothing unusual, with MinimServer responding promptly and correctly to all requests and no sign of any problems at the renderer end.

Log 2 does show something strange. The renderer requests "11 Flicker (Kanye West Rework).flac". The server starts streaming this file but the renderer seems to have a problem reading this stream and eventually closes the connection after about 20 seconds. The renderer then requests the end portion of the same file and the server streams this portion to the renderer.

After a few more seconds, the renderer requests "01-Tennis Court.flac" and the server starts streaming this file.

Which was the track that played after a 20-second delay? Was it "11 Flicker (Kanye West Rework).flac" or "01-Tennis Court.flac"? If it was "01-Tennis Court.flac", did you get any audio output for "11 Flicker (Kanye West Rework).flac"?

[krutsch]

(07-02-2016 21:36)simoncn Wrote:  I didn't see your Archive.zip attachment because it wasn't in the normal place for file attachments (at the end of the post). Apologies for the confusion.

I have looked at it now. Logs 1 and 3 show nothing unusual, with MinimServer responding promptly and correctly to all requests and no sign of any problems at the renderer end.

Log 2 does show something strange. The renderer requests "11 Flicker (Kanye West Rework).flac". The server starts streaming this file but the renderer seems to have a problem reading this stream and eventually closes the connection after about 20 seconds. The renderer then requests the end portion of the same file and the server streams this portion to the renderer.

After a few more seconds, the renderer requests "01-Tennis Court.flac" and the server starts streaming this file.

Which was the track that played after a 20-second delay? Was it "11 Flicker (Kanye West Rework).flac" or "01-Tennis Court.flac"? If it was "01-Tennis Court.flac", did you get any audio output for "11 Flicker (Kanye West Rework).flac"?

Thanks, Simon.

The track order: "11 Flicker (Kanye West Rework).flac" followed by "01-Tennis Court.flac"

After a long delay, "01-Tennis Court.flac" finally started playing.

Log 3 however paused and never resumed playback (well, I gave up after a few minutes of waiting).

[simoncn]

(07-02-2016 23:22)krutsch Wrote:  Thanks, Simon.

The track order: "11 Flicker (Kanye West Rework).flac" followed by "01-Tennis Court.flac"

After a long delay, "01-Tennis Court.flac" finally started playing.

Log 3 however paused and never resumed playback (well, I gave up after a few minutes of waiting).

The file "01-Tennis Court.flac" started streaming only 6 seconds after the file "11 Flicker (Kanye West Rework).flac" finished streaming. This means that the long delay of 20 seconds is happening on the renderer side, not the server side.

[krutsch]

(07-02-2016 23:28)simoncn Wrote:  The file "01-Tennis Court.flac" started streaming only 6 seconds after the file "11 Flicker (Kanye West Rework).flac" finished streaming. This means that the long delay of 20 seconds is happening on the renderer side, not the server side.

OK, thanks. I tried some more tests this afternoon. I removed Kazoo and BubbleUPnPServer from the mix, using Bubble as a control point directly between MinimServer and the Bryston BDP-1. I also removed the playlist from the test and simply queued up the same two files in the playback queue.

Exact same result with the Bryston.

Then, I went downstairs and tried the same tests with Volumio running on a Cubox-i4Pro. Every test worked perfectly. In fact, I wasn't able to reproduce the Van Halen playlist issue I had at the start of this (similar to this one) with Volumio, at all.

At this point, I think you are correct: the Bryston renderer has an issue, which uses:

root@bryston-bdp-1:/# gmediarender --version
gmediarender 0.0.7-git; 0.0.7-git

...which I think is pretty standard, after it was resurrected. The folks at Bryston tell me they haven't touched this area of their software stack in some time.

Well, that's that. Thanks much for looking into this.