Bug 3400 - FLAC audio dropouts on wired SqueezeBox 1
: FLAC audio dropouts on wired SqueezeBox 1
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Product: Logitech Media Server
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Audio
: 6.5b1
: PC Linux (other)
: P2 normal (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Chris Owens
:
Depends on:
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2006-05-07 10:10 UTC by Pat Farrell
Modified: 2011-03-16 04:19 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Category: ---


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Description Pat Farrell 2006-05-07 10:10:33 UTC
Since the 6.x series SlimServer code, there are occasional audio dropouts when playing to a wired SqueezeBox 1. This happens frequently, but not with reproducible regularity. It varies, sometimes once or twice per CD, sometimes several times on each song in the CD.

With the 5.4 and lower versions of SlimServer, this never happened (at least once I wired the SBx)

I entered a similar issue to this bugzilla way back while doing early beta testing of SlimServer 6.2.0000
but I can't find it. This is not a new problem, but a duplicate that needs to at least be tracked.

On the beta mailing list, Triode posted a patch
Find the line:
#	setsockopt $httpClient, SOL_SOCKET, SO_SNDBUF, MAXCHUNKSIZE;

and replace with:
	setsockopt $httpClient, SOL_SOCKET, SO_SNDBUF, MAXCHUNKSIZE * 2;

This has had zero impact.
Comment 1 KDF 2006-05-08 12:58:20 UTC
*** Bug 2797 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 2 Adrian Smith 2006-05-09 14:37:42 UTC
Pat - are you willing to try 6.5 as it includes some debugging I added for diagnosing when the server response time drops (which will cause streaming problems)

Start latest 6.5 with --perfwarn=0.5 from the command line and post to the forum or here what it shows  

[the SNDBUF patch I posted will only give about 300ms of additional buffering, so we need to find out what is taking more time than this..]
Comment 3 Pat Farrell 2006-05-09 14:41:21 UTC
Subject: Re:  FLAC audio dropouts on wired SqueezeBox 1

Slim Devices Bugzilla wrote:
> https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3400
> Pat - are you willing to try 6.5 as it includes some debugging I added for
> diagnosing when the server response time drops (which will cause streaming
> problems)
> 
> Start latest 6.5 with --perfwarn=0.5 from the command line and post to the
> forum or here what it shows  
> 
> [the SNDBUF patch I posted will only give about 300ms of additional buffering,
> so we need to find out what is taking more time than this..]

Sure, I'm willing to try anything. Especially if it helps.

I've not kept detailed info on the state of 6.5, I gather
it is pretty unstable.
I'm assuming that I can always nuke my /opt/slimserver
tree and start over.

pat



Comment 4 Adrian Smith 2006-05-12 16:42:44 UTC
Pat - I think you will find 6.5 stable enough to run for a while to test with.  You may want to return to 6.2/6.3 as a stable release though.  You probably want to save your preference file from 6.2.  To go back you can then replace this and delete the database and all should be OK.

If you get tonight's 6.5 nightly it will include a definate performance gain in terms of saving the prefence file.  This may help you.  

Start the server manually with --perfwarn=0.5 and post here the output shown in the log. It would be especially useful if you note the time of dropouts when playing and see if they match specific items in the log.
Comment 5 Pat Farrell 2006-05-12 16:58:24 UTC
Subject: Re:  FLAC audio dropouts on wired SqueezeBox 1

Slim Devices Bugzilla wrote:
> Pat - I think you will find 6.5 stable enough to run for a while to test with. 

-rw-rw-r--  1 pfarrell pfarrell 12510908 May 12 19:53
SlimServer_v2006-05-12.noarch.rpm

I installed this one. Just pointed at the RPM

No joy, won't start

Do I need to exercise some CPAN voodoo?

Thanks
Pat

(beatles)root#/opt/RPMS> /etc/rc.d/init.d/slimserver start
Starting SlimServer: Can't locate CGI/Util.pm in @INC (@INC contains:
/usr/local/slimserver/CPAN/arch/5.8.5/i386-linux-thread-multi
/usr/local/slimserver/CPAN/arch/5.8.5/i386-linux-thread-multi/auto
/usr/local/slimserver/CPAN/arch/5.8/i386-linux-thread-multi
/usr/local/slimserver/CPAN/arch/5.8/i386-linux-thread-multi/auto
/usr/local/slimserver/CPAN/arch/i386-linux-thread-multi
/usr/local/slimserver/lib /usr/local/slimserver/CPAN
/usr/local/slimserver /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.5/i386-linux-thread-multi
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.5
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.5/i386-linux-thread-multi
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.5 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl
/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.5/i386-linux-thread-multi
/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.5
/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.4/i386-linux-thread-multi
/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.4
/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.3/i386-linux-thread-multi
/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.3
/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.1/i386-linux-thread-multi
/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.1 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl .) at
/usr/local/slimserver/CPAN/CGI/Cookie.pm line 18.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at
/usr/local/slimserver/CPAN/CGI/Cookie.pm line 18.
Comment 6 Andy Grundman 2006-07-22 12:20:52 UTC
Tonight's nightly will include a new experimental feature that should greatly improve SB1 performance when streaming FLAC/WAV.  See this forum post for more information: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=25715
Comment 7 Pat Farrell 2006-07-28 12:05:23 UTC
(In reply to comment #6)
> Tonight's nightly will include a new experimental feature that should greatly
> improve SB1 performance when streaming FLAC/WAV. 


So far, SlimServer Version: 6.5b1 - 8581 - Linux - EN - iso-8859-1 
has made a big improvement. It may even be fixed. I'll keep listening,
but so far, it is great.

Thanks
Comment 8 Andy Grundman 2006-07-28 12:07:20 UTC
Did you enable both forking options or just the web?  If both, can you try it for a while with just the web forking enabled?
Comment 9 Pat Farrell 2006-07-29 18:27:12 UTC
Yes, I enabled both features.
And I can try disabling them, and will, but it takes a long
time to verify things are working.

Found a possibly related problem. Or new problem due to these fixes:
For some reason, between songs on an album, the SlimServer just stops, and
does not proceed to the next song. Nothing on the web interface can start it,
but the 'play' button on the remote seems to kickstart it into playing.
I have no idea why or when this is reproducible, but it has happened
at least twice in the past two days.
Comment 10 Andy Grundman 2006-07-29 18:38:59 UTC
I would recommend first trying with only the first option enabled (web forking).  Stream forking still has some bugs, and it sounds like you ran into one.
Comment 11 Chris Owens 2006-08-16 16:06:03 UTC
Did that end up helping, Pat?
Comment 12 Pat Farrell 2006-08-16 16:31:56 UTC
>> If both, can you try it
>>for a while with just the web forking enabled?

Tried it with just web forking. The pause between songs went away, so the
stream forking code probably needs a little love.

With just Web forking, I played for several hours, maybe 8 to 10, and
only had one glitch. This is a big improvement. Not quite there, 
but a big step forward.

Let me know when to try another build.
Comment 13 Adrian Smith 2006-08-16 16:43:28 UTC
Pat - stream forking still needs some work, but web forking is working well for me.

6.5 has lots more instrumentation in it, so if you are happy to run with it for a while with the instrumentation turned on, we may be able to find what is causing that last glitch.

If you start the server from the command line with --perfwarn=0.5 and leave running what warning messages do you see?
Comment 14 Andy Grundman 2006-08-18 13:24:18 UTC
Oops, changed that for the wrong SB1 bug. :)
Comment 15 Chris Owens 2007-10-16 09:41:26 UTC
Andy spent some time trying to fix this, but couldn't get it working very well.  The suggested fix is for users to use flac -> mp3 conversion using lame.
Comment 16 Pat Farrell 2007-10-16 16:03:43 UTC
(In reply to comment #15)
> Andy spent some time trying to fix this, but couldn't get it working very well.
>  The suggested fix is for users to use flac -> mp3 conversion using lame.

That's a terrible fix. Better to say "use SC7"
 

Comment 17 Chris Owens 2008-03-07 09:03:45 UTC
This bug is being closed since it was resolved for a version which is now released!  Please download the new version of SqueezeCenter (formerly SlimServer) at http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html

If you are still seeing this bug, please re-open it and we will consider it for a future release.