Bugzilla – Bug 2245
Music sometimes stops playing when used in alarm mode
Last modified: 2008-09-15 14:39:24 UTC
I have a playlist with several fairly long tracks in it (each 30 mins+). I use this playlist as my daily alarm. Recently (sometime within 6.2b1 dev), I have experienced the music stopping. When this occurs, there is no change on the squeezebox display. It is not possible to resume (pressing pause has no effect, and play restarts from the beginning of the track). Typically, the music most frequently stops about 2/3 of the way through the first track, although this is random. The track plays fine normally; I only experience the problem when music is started due to an alarm.
d_source d_command debugging could help if you can catch it. My case has always been one of not starting. I've never had it stop, but I also don't have long files.
In addition to the log, Phil, what's on the display when it stops? Does the server think it's stopped or does it think it's playing? Finally, could an intermittant network connection be involved here?
I have enabled the logging, but the problem hasn't happened in the last couple of days. I'll keep trying to repeat and grab the log. From memory, the display stays on the now playing screen; there is no indication of a problem. Nothing looks different, except that the track time and progress bar do not update. There might be a problem with my router, potentially. I have had some intermittant problem with the SlimServer PC's DHCP allocated IP address being dropped and then reallocated. I don't think I've noticed the music stopping under normal circumstances though, only when playing from the alarm. I have recently reblown my routers firmware and also assigned a static IP address, although my Squeezeboxes are still using DHCP allocated addresses. I have experienced the problem since then. If there is a networking problem, I though I'd see something different on the display, like it was lose contact with the server and then if the server comes back, it would be in the "powered off" state showing date/time.
I witnessed the problem occurring this morning. I think in this specific case it was my router playing up; the other times I'm not quite so sure. I was playing music normally, not started via the alarm. Half way through a track, the sound went quiet so I glanced over at my SBG display. A second or so later, I saw the "Problem with network connection" message, and then the display went blank. About a minute later, the display came back on. I'm guessing that something happened with the router, possibly DHCP. The router didn't appear to crash, as I have no indication of lost connections on my PC or other applications that have been running. Anyway, when the SBG came back to life, it displayed "Now Playing" with the progress bar half way through the track. I think this is wrong and confusing, as if I hadn't been in the room during the incident, I'd be wondering why there was no music actually playing. I tried pressing pause (display changed to "Paused"), and then un-pause (display changed back to "Now playing", but it didn't resume). So I had to press play, which restarted the track from 0%. I think after a network problem like this, either of the following should happen: 1) Display changes to "Stopped" with 0% progress. 2) Display changes to "Paused", retaining the last known song position. Pause key would resume playback. 3) Display says "Now Playing" and the music resumes.
Will look at this after 6.2, the problem does not appear to be widespread. Phil, please add additional information if it happens again (and if your router is involved.)
I've just started playing with alarms. I've had one alarm not start on schedule, and recently had a single instance of a alarm song starting, stopping, starting... about 5 times in a row before it settled down to play properly. Very weird. I'm on an all-wired network, no congestion, no router problems, playback is always smooth when I start with the remote, web or CLI commands. My server is a dual CPU beast without anything else to do, so I don't think it's CPU starvation. Not having this behave reliably is holding up my plans to buy another SB just for use as an alarm clock. Well, that and the price. Actually, if someone here has the ear of the hardware designers... a stripped down SB with a cheaper display that functioned ONLY as a clock and alarm clock, with lower fidelity (if that's really cheaper), less complex display, no optical out and anything else you can strip out, for $50... what a great way to get a few extra dollars from folk who already have a SB network, but can't justify $250 for an alarm clock. Of course, you'd have to add a button on top for "shut up, I'm awake"...
I haven't experienced music stopping for a long time now - I think that the issue has been resolved. Perhaps Richard's updates to the firmware have solved it?