Bugzilla – Bug 2707
SB can't play when synched to another SB that's powered off
Last modified: 2008-09-15 14:39:24 UTC
When you try to play a SB that is synched to another player which is turned off at the mains, the first player does not play. (i'm not sure if this also happens when the second player is turned off by the remote, but left with mains power.) to reproduce - sync two players - play some tracks - finish the tracks or pause them - power off one of the players at the mains plug - go to other player, select music, hit play ... nothing happens, no music - unsync the player from the dead one, hit play ... now it works fine.
server cannot tell when a player has simply lost power. Thus, it is likly waiting for the buffer to report the required level in order to play. Very similar behaviur if you try to play a track using the web, and the player has no power.
understood... but 1) as a user it keeps biting me. the symptom is vague (player stalls) and similar to network dropout, server overload, etc. So even as a user who can troubleshoot, it takes me a while to realise. For non-technical consumers enjoying the multi-room functionality, this would be a source of pain. 2) in a large sync'd multi-player environment the loss of one player would presumably bring down all the other players, making this a fragile system could the players routinely ping the server to enable it to keep track of them? the results could also be used for the web UI as you suggest. having the server ping the players might be easier but would fail where you have nat'd firewalls etc.
I woudl think that the same technique used to detect players that are gone from SqueezeNetwork could be used. However, in the meantime, try "turning off" your player before you unplug it. Under default conditions, this will break the sync.
Dean - thoughts here?
Yes, a player that becomes disconnected and forgotten using the new mechanism should be temporarily removed from the sync group (like when it's powered off when power is not synced). Reconnection should similarly work as if the player was powered on again. Let's hit this for 6.5.
Andy - throwing this your way, with the rest of the sync issues.
Fixed in change 8725. Unplugged players will be detected after about 10-15 seconds and will unsync from the rest of the sync group.