Volumio.

A DIY digital music streamer with exceptional performance

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Lego
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Re: Volumio.

Post by Lego »

ThomasOK wrote: 2019-02-12 20:57 Well, with the positive comments on here and from Fredrik I decided to upgrade my HAKAI to the new Volumio. Big mistake! My HAKAI now stutters constantly. Plays 2 or 3 seconds of music and then stops for a couple seconds, repeat infinitely. OK, maybe not infinitely, but I got up last night at 4:30AM and heard that the HAKAI was still playing. It was on track 17 of 19 tracks that totaled maybe an hour and a half playing time which was started around 11:00PM. It was not on repeat. I think this gives you an idea of how bad the stuttering was. So my HAKAI is now useless.

To reduce the questions, the HAKAI, LS-NAS, and switch were relocated to a new rack and the wiring rearranged, but everything was playing as normal after the move. Then I decided, why not do the upgrade?! Bingo, stuttering and slow response to all commands. So just for the heck of it I tried all the normal suspects. Restarted the HAKIA, LS-NAS, switch and DAC each individually a couple of times. Then restarted the router, unplugged the switch, LS-NAS and HAKAI and plugged them back in and restarted them in that order. Told it to play something and it still took a long time to load tracks and start playing. But then it started playing normally - whoopee! But only for 10 seconds and then the continuous stuttering. :-(

It also does the same stuttering on radio played from the Volumio app (the LS-NAS music used either Kazoo or the Volumio app with the same results). The upgrade was done from the Volumio app.

Luckily I came to the realization that the Gigaport+ DAC can connect directly into the LS-NAS and, since I have a monitor I bought solely to set up the LS-NAS, I can just use it to play music from iTunes, which I presume will work. So I guess all is not lost.

In case you haven't guessed from the above, I am not a Linux programmer, nor do I have the time or inclination to become one. So unless somebody has some simple suggestion that doesn't require a hundred lines of code, I'll probably just wait for the next Volumio update in hopes that they find whatever this bug is. I just thought people should know that the latest version of Volumio is not a bed of roses, except maybe for the thorns part.
Why dont you re-flash the previous Volumio iso Thomas, I imagine it's still in your Downloads folder
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Re: Volumio.

Post by Lego »

tokenbrit wrote: 2018-12-10 00:11 How is everyone using Volumio: as a renderer, with a media server on a NAS and a control point, as used with a Linn DS, or with Volumio's NFS client and a mount to the NAS as an NFS server?
Volumio's NFS client and a mount to the NAS as an NFS server is what I am using from yesterday .At the moment I am thinking this is the way it should be done as it really feels/sounds like a front end upgrade comparing it to cifs.The only downside is I have to use Volumio to control the music. Does this mean any mediaserver installed is ignored/not required
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Re: Volumio.

Post by ThomasOK »

I have somebody else working on the HAKAI for me, which will also give him a chance to evaluate it. I've been told it will be working swimmingly when I get it back.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by lejonklou »

Lego wrote: 2019-02-21 14:14
tokenbrit wrote: 2018-12-10 00:11 How is everyone using Volumio: as a renderer, with a media server on a NAS and a control point, as used with a Linn DS, or with Volumio's NFS client and a mount to the NAS as an NFS server?
Volumio's NFS client and a mount to the NAS as an NFS server is what I am using from yesterday .At the moment I am thinking this is the way it should be done as it really feels/sounds like a front end upgrade comparing it to cifs.The only downside is I have to use Volumio to control the music. Does this mean any mediaserver installed is ignored/not required
Thank you for testing this, Lego! Very good news!
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Re: Volumio.

Post by teatime »

Lego wrote: 2019-02-21 14:14Does this mean any mediaserver installed is ignored/not required
It should, yes. The same would be true with cifs, of course. Your media player (Volumio) sees the media files as local files (which just happen to be in a network mounted folder).
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Re: Volumio.

Post by Lego »

teatime wrote: 2019-02-22 13:11
Lego wrote: 2019-02-21 14:14Does this mean any mediaserver installed is ignored/not required
It should, yes. The same would be true with cifs, of course. Your media player (Volumio) sees the media files as local files (which just happen to be in a network mounted folder).
Thanks teatime, the reason I struggled to initially get Volumio(cifs) to see media was due to the permission settings in the Nas.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by Lego »

lejonklou wrote: 2019-02-21 23:55
Lego wrote: 2019-02-21 14:14
tokenbrit wrote: 2018-12-10 00:11 How is everyone using Volumio: as a renderer, with a media server on a NAS and a control point, as used with a Linn DS, or with Volumio's NFS client and a mount to the NAS as an NFS server?
Volumio's NFS client and a mount to the NAS as an NFS server is what I am using from yesterday .At the moment I am thinking this is the way it should be done as it really feels/sounds like a front end upgrade comparing it to cifs.The only downside is I have to use Volumio to control the music. Does this mean any mediaserver installed is ignored/not required
Thank you for testing this, Lego! Very good news!
I'm adding my other nas(cifs) to the Hakai network over the weekend so I'll post comparison clips within the next couple of days just to make sure I'm not imagining it
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Re: Volumio.

Post by lejonklou »

Lego wrote: 2019-02-22 13:27
lejonklou wrote: 2019-02-21 23:55
Lego wrote: 2019-02-21 14:14 Volumio's NFS client and a mount to the NAS as an NFS server is what I am using from yesterday .At the moment I am thinking this is the way it should be done as it really feels/sounds like a front end upgrade comparing it to cifs.The only downside is I have to use Volumio to control the music. Does this mean any mediaserver installed is ignored/not required
Thank you for testing this, Lego! Very good news!
I'm adding my other nas(cifs) to the Hakai network over the weekend so I'll post comparison clips within the next couple of days just to make sure I'm not imagining it
Thanks!

I'm looking forward to those clips.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by fatjulio »

I've recently been reinvestigating Volumio, since I'd gone to a Debian Stretch install with mpd. I've now gone back to Volumio with a couple of tweaks and I find it's better than the Stretch setup.

The original version of Volumio that was recommended does seem to be the best. Of course it has issues. These are solved by updating mpd to a later version. In my experimenting with the Stretch setup, I found that since version 21.11 they made some fixes for ALSA devices and that really made a big difference. The easiest way to get that is someone has compiled it ready to download. https://community.volumio.org/t/mpd-0-2 ... -x86/11554

I also edited the mpd.conf file to reduce the audio buffer size to 512, and remove the buffer before play attribute.

The other thing that's important is to use Volumio as the player, not control it with another app like Kazoo, Bubble etc. When using an external control app, it uses a media sever on the NAS, vs Volumio directly accessing the files via a network share. I've found that on other devices as well, a network share sounds better than a media server. I use the web interface to control Volumio, it seems faster than their own app on the same device.

Since doing this, the Hakai sounds so much alive, musical and involving.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by lejonklou »

Thank you for those highly valued tips, fatjulio!
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Re: Volumio.

Post by tokenbrit »

Thanks for sharing, FJ. Hopefully you won't mind me asking some questions:

How do you get a copy of the "original version of Volumio that was recommended"? I only see version 2.799 on volumio.org

Are you running volumio on the recommended Hakai hardware, so the PC (X86/X64 image), or some other hardware platform, and do you just run it from an SD card? Just wondering whether the SD card has any impact on the result in the way that an SSD (Intel 320) can...

Where do you store your music files for volumio to access? If they're on a NAS, presumably you have to enable a network (NFS) share for volumio to access them rather than share via a media server.

TIA.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by fatjulio »

tokenbrit wrote: 2020-08-24 23:58 Thanks for sharing, FJ. Hopefully you won't mind me asking some questions:

How do you get a copy of the "original version of Volumio that was recommended"? I only see version 2.799 on volumio.org

Are you running volumio on the recommended Hakai hardware, so the PC (X86/X64 image), or some other hardware platform, and do you just run it from an SD card? Just wondering whether the SD card has any impact on the result in the way that an SSD (Intel 320) can...

Where do you store your music files for volumio to access? If they're on a NAS, presumably you have to enable a network (NFS) share for volumio to access them rather than share via a media server.

TIA.
I still had the image file on a computer from back then. I've uploaded it to my google drive https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TuV3eU ... sp=sharing

Yes I'm running the recommended hardware with an Intel 320 SSD. I have a NAS with my music on it. I'm not using NFS at the moment, just a plain samba share (CIFS). I am going to investigate it though.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by fatjulio »

I just had a go at using NFS. There was hardly any difference, but I did prefer CIFS (Samba).

I don't think reducing the buffer size to 512 and removing the buffer before play is actually needed, after some more playing. It's more a personal choice anyway.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by Lego »

fatjulio wrote: 2020-08-25 05:09 I just had a go at using NFS. There was hardly any difference, but I did prefer CIFS (Samba).

I don't think reducing the buffer size to 512 and removing the buffer before play is actually needed, after some more playing. It's more a personal choice anyway.
There is no sound differnce fatjulio,but the way the musicians interact with eachother is way better with nfs,I recommend you try nfs for a few weeks and I can assure you wont go back to CIFS.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by David Neel »

fatjulio wrote: 2020-08-25 01:46 I've uploaded it to my google drive
Thank you! I've downloaded that and will experiment.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by tokenbrit »

Ditto: got it. Cheers.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by fatjulio »

Lego wrote: 2020-08-25 14:59
fatjulio wrote: 2020-08-25 05:09 I just had a go at using NFS. There was hardly any difference, but I did prefer CIFS (Samba).

I don't think reducing the buffer size to 512 and removing the buffer before play is actually needed, after some more playing. It's more a personal choice anyway.
There is no sound differnce fatjulio,but the way the musicians interact with eachother is way better with nfs,I recommend you try nfs for a few weeks and I can assure you wont go back to CIFS.
I've given it another go. Yes, I think you're right. Before I had 2 folders mounted simultaneously with the same content on the same NAS, one CIFS and one NFS. I think that was not giving a true representation of NFS by itself.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by fatjulio »

Something else I'm enjoying with Volumio is Radio Paradise. It's installed as a plugin from the main interface and gives you all 4 channels in FLAC with meta data and album art. It did seem to hang with the installation, so I rebooted it and it was fine.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by Lego »

fatjulio wrote: 2020-08-26 00:04 Something else I'm enjoying with Volumio is Radio Paradise. It's installed as a plugin from the main interface and gives you all 4 channels in FLAC with meta data and album art. It did seem to hang with the installation, so I rebooted it and it was fine.
Good to know Fatjulio once I add internet to my network I'll check it out.Also thanks for the tip about using Volumio with the browser instead of the app,it's a lot quicker
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Re: Volumio.

Post by fatjulio »

I've spent some more time with NFS, and I have to say I prefer CIFS. NFS for me is less musical, I'm disconnected from it, whereas with CIFS I'm right in there.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by David Neel »

fatjulio wrote: 2020-08-23 23:07 I've recently been reinvestigating Volumio, since I'd gone to a Debian Stretch install with mpd. I've now gone back to Volumio with a couple of tweaks and I find it's better than the Stretch setup.

The original version of Volumio that was recommended does seem to be the best. Of course it has issues. These are solved by updating mpd to a later version. In my experimenting with the Stretch setup, I found that since version 21.11 they made some fixes for ALSA devices and that really made a big difference. The easiest way to get that is someone has compiled it ready to download. https://community.volumio.org/t/mpd-0-2 ... -x86/11554

I also edited the mpd.conf file to reduce the audio buffer size to 512, and remove the buffer before play attribute.

The other thing that's important is to use Volumio as the player, not control it with another app like Kazoo, Bubble etc. When using an external control app, it uses a media sever on the NAS, vs Volumio directly accessing the files via a network share. I've found that on other devices as well, a network share sounds better than a media server. I use the web interface to control Volumio, it seems faster than their own app on the same device.

Since doing this, the Hakai sounds so much alive, musical and involving.
Thank you for this fatjulio. I'd also gone to Debian Stretch and mpd, and was highly relieved to put the problems with Volumio behind me. At the moment I've not done these tweaks, just installed the early version you shared for us. An A/B with Debian was very easy to call in favour of Volumio, running both via BubbleDS and Asset on the server. Now I'm trying the web interface instead, a further small step in the right direction.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by fatjulio »

Installing the newer version of mpd will fix the stability problems and improve the music. It has a way to revert to the original and back again, so you don't lose your options. Don't worry about tweaking the mpd.conf file, it's not necessary.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by Lego »

fatjulio wrote: 2020-08-26 21:54 I've spent some more time with NFS, and I have to say I prefer CIFS. NFS for me is less musical, I'm disconnected from it, whereas with CIFS I'm right in there.
Yes the prat brigade prefer cifs ,horses for courses :0)

https://www.lejonklou.com/forum/viewtop ... nfs#p40605
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Re: Volumio.

Post by Cobra Dave »

I installed latest version of Volumio (2.834 for Asus Tinkerboard S, and the Gigaport HD+ DAC) a couple of weeks ago.

It all looked good, Volumio found the DAC, but got this error as soon as I started to play any music:

Failed to open “alsa” [alsa];
Error opening ALSA device
“hw:5,0”;
snd_pcm_hw_params() failed:
Broken pipe

This can be solved by installing an old version of Volumio.
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Re: Volumio.

Post by Paaf »

fatjulio wrote: 2020-09-09 20:19 Installing the newer version of mpd will fix the stability problems and improve the music. It has a way to revert to the original and back again, so you don't lose your options. Don't worry about tweaking the mpd.conf file, it's not necessary.
Thank you Sir FatJulio! I did this some week ago and a slight stuttering that my HAKAI had for a long time disappeared - plus, I think music improve a lot. I won't go back to do the ABA but.. wow.
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