NLSU2 nightlies issue

[garfy]

Apoologies if this has been answered elsewhere, have been reading through forum but nothing seems to quite fit!

Have been happily running stable 0.2.4 mt-daapd for ages now, and serving music, using itunes 6.something with a NAs share in order to edit my music and ID3 tags etc and streaming to itunes on pc, and roku devices all over house. To now was using the mt-daapd playlist as a separate playlist to my itunes one (this is what I see on my Roku players)

Any way all was fine and I was beginning to get some confidence, so I decided to get clever and try to install a nightly update, to try to get the new functionailty around seeing itunes playlists, meaning no duplication of playlists. (ref http://wiki.fireflymediaserver.org/FAQ ……. quote ….Another potential problem is drive letter mapping. If you access your music files by drive letter rather than by UNC (\servershare), then it’s possible that Firefly doesn’t know what the network path is to a specific drive letter, and that may cause Firefly to either not find networked files, or not be able to put the files in playlists. You must be running a version of Firefly after svn-1433 to resolve this problem. )

Following
http://wiki.fireflymediaserver.org/NSLU2_Installation
instruction to move to a nightly build looked easy, so I tried …. but DISASTER!!! its all gone wrong.

Upgrade appears to work fine, though it appears to overwrite my conf file, anyway have updated this for my path to mp3 files and set up logging etc. Cannot start daemon.

logfile output during daemon initialisation is: is:

2006-12-06 20:48:56 (00000400): Firefly Version svn-1433: Starting with debuglev
el 2
2006-12-06 20:48:56 (00000400): Starting rendezvous daemon
2006-12-06 20:48:57 (00000400): Starting signal handler
2006-12-06 20:48:57 (00000402): Signal handler started
2006-12-06 20:49:30 (00000400): Error: enum_begin failed (error 1): Misc SQL Err
or: database is locked
2006-12-06 20:49:30 (00000400): Can’t get db version. New database?
2006-12-06 20:49:30 (00000400): Initializing database
2006-12-06 20:50:03 (00000400): Error: enum_begin failed (error 1): ?
2006-12-06 20:50:27 (00000400): Starting mp3 scan
2006-12-06 20:50:37 (00000400): Error: enum_begin failed (error 1): ?
2006-12-06 20:50:37 (00000400): Full reload…
2006-12-06 20:51:01 (00000400): Query: pragma synchronous = off
2006-12-06 20:51:01 (00000400): Error: database is locked
2006-12-06 20:51:01: Aborting
2006-12-06 20:52:07 (00000400): Starting mp3 scan
2006-12-06 20:52:41 (00000400): Query: pragma synchronous = off
2006-12-06 20:52:41 (00000400): Error: database is locked
2006-12-06 20:52:41: Aborting
2006-12-06 20:55:29 (00000400): Starting mp3 scan
è006-12-06 20:56:28 (00000400): Invalid UTF-8 in /public/mp3/U2/Pop/01 – Discoth
que.mp3
2006-12-06 20:56:31 (00000400): Invalid UTF-8 in /public/mp3/U2/Hasta La Vista B
aby – Live From Mexico C/11 – Discothèque.mp3
2006-12-06 21:04:41 (00000400): Query: create index idx_path on songs(path,idx)
2006-12-06 21:04:41 (00000400): Error: index idx_path already exists
2006-12-06 21:04:41: Aborting
2006-12-06 21:04:42 (00000400): Rendezvous socket closed (daap server crashed?)
Aborting.
2006-12-06 21:04:42: Aborting

The mt-daapd daemon will not start at all.

Wanted to try and go back to the stable release, but back tracking on instructions
i.e. removing
# echo “src firefly http://ipkg.fireflymediaserver.org/armeb” > /etc/ipkg/firefly.conf

and then rerunning an ipkg update doesnt work!

So 2 things really,

Can anyone help me with getting the nightly working (think it was 1433) … based on above errors

Can anyone give me instructions on how to regress back to the stable 0.2.4
(think I might do this anyway, a s Ive suddenly got very nervous!!)

Im basicaly looking to want to export my itunes library to the NAS share (all my mp3’s are picked up from a z drive mapped to the slug NAS) so I can pick up the itunes playlists for the Rokus’. Is this correct, or am I fundamentaly wrong. I am slightly confused, as my itunes xml refers to z: as the mappinggs etc.

Thanks in advance
G

[rpedde]

@garfy wrote:

2006-12-06 20:51:01 (00000400): Error: database is locked
…

The mt-daapd daemon will not start at all.

Looks like there is already a copy running. Do a “killall -9 mt-daapd”, then delete the (possibly broken) database:

rm /opt/var/cache/mt-daapd/songs.db

Permissions should be right on that db, but wouldn’t hurt to do a “chown nobody /opt/var/cache/mt-daapd”

Then try starting it again. Watch your log files and watch for problems starting. It may take a fair amount of time to index the first time. Don’t get nervous and try to restart it or anything. Let it index. Watch your logs to see when you are done with the index and see if you can see it remotely.

Also, it wouldn’t hurt (and I don’t know if you did this or not) to let it overwrite your existing config file. That way you get a new config without carrying along any of the old baggage, or being confused by the old config file format.

Wanted to try and go back to the stable release, but back tracking on instructions
i.e. removing
# echo “src firefly http://ipkg.fireflymediaserver.org/armeb” > /etc/ipkg/firefly.conf

something like:

# rm /etc/ipkg/firefly.conf
# ipkg update
# ipkg remove mt-daapd
# ipkg install mt-daapd

should do it.

Im basicaly looking to want to export my itunes library to the NAS share (all my mp3’s are picked up from a z drive mapped to the slug NAS) so I can pick up the itunes playlists for the Rokus’. Is this correct, or am I fundamentaly wrong. I am slightly confused, as my itunes xml refers to z: as the mappinggs etc.

Yup, once you get it running, just dump the xml file into the root of the Z drive, and it will pick it up.

— Ron

[garfy]

Thanks Ron you’re a genius, all up and running on the stable release now!

Couple more questions ….

1 – Is it worth me moving to the nightlies version … any major benefits?
Is the process for upgrading to nightlies defined anywhere, dont want to rerun … if it breaks like last time!
(I.e. will the itunes playlsist work on 0.2.4)

from
http://wiki.fireflymediaserver.org/NSLU2_Installation

Installing a nightly build –

To do this, you need to tell the slug about the software feed from fireflymediaserver.org. To do this telnet into your slug and enter the following command

# echo “src firefly http://ipkg.fireflymediaserver.org/armeb” > /etc/ipkg/firefly.confNow enter the command

# ipkg updateNow enter the command

# ipkg install mt-daapd

Should this work? If so, might give it another go!
(will kill all daemons and delete DB before upgrading this time though!! 😳 )

At least I know I can get back!

Secondly ……..
Still cant get this thing with the playlists going! (back on stable now though) I basicaly run itunes mapped to the NAS share of the slug, so all my music, and the default itunes library files are all in z:mp3. Therefore on the slug everything is in publicmp3
(I only do this for managing my id3 tags and 1 pc, most music is listened to on roku players)

Ive tried switching on and off playlists in the conf file, and setting the process /m3u directive switch, but still dont seem to be seeing my itunes playlists.

I am seeing some playlists when this is done, but I literaly dont knwo where theyre coming from! (prob be being stupid). Theyre not the same as my itunes ones!

Anyway … should I expect this to work on stable release? Am I missing something obvious?

Nothing to report in logs …. do I need to change any debug switches to see whats happening?

The mt-daapd playlists do work, it just means I have to duplicate!

Is the library.xml file being in z:mp3 enought, or do I have to export each playlist? The more I try the more confused Im getting, yet everything on the forums seems to point to this being really simple, so Im thinking Im overcomplicating things somewhere down the line!

Any help appreciated!

Thanks again for the help ….. I love this server its great with the rokus!

[garfy]

Ron … hope you read this first!

Please ignore all of above, have now got it working!

Have spent loads of time today playing and investigating! Think I now have my head around playlists, and have upgraded to 1433. Work will just have to wait!!

Very impressed with the handling of itunes playlists, all the magicaly appearing are the ones I have accidentaly downloaded (shhhhhh!!)

Anyway …….. this product is BRILLIANT!

One general comment : I have 16k songs, and I find the browse function quite often fails, somewhere between 1 in every 2 or 3 attempts. Can be a bit frustrating.

Im streaming from the slug, so is this something I should expect or something I can improve?

Mind, my itunes is trying to reorganise all my music folders over the cifs share at the moment, so maybe that explains it!

Main reason Im asking (and the bone I have to pick with you), is already having 3 roku’s 500 in bedroom, 1000 lounge, 2000 living room, Im now thinking of getting a roku radio for kitchen! Wondering if Im beginning to get beyond realms of slug! Interested in your opinion! Please pass feedback to Roku, that it is your magicaly improving server that is making me do it!!!!

I must say even with all 3 running and itunes streaming, streaming tracks down is v quick, and once playing I have no probs, its just the browsing thats slow!

Anything I can do to improve browse performance? (Im thinking about beginning to elete tracks, 16k is a bit rediculous!)

[fizze]

well, its defenitely related to iTunes reorganizing everything through the share.

On a sidenote, what filesystem is the HD that you have attached to the slug?
If its slug formatted its already at peak efficiency.

Did you already de-underclock (iE overclock) the slug?

[rpedde]

@garfy wrote:

Im streaming from the slug, so is this something I should expect or something I can improve?

I don’t have that many, I’m at about 7K songs, and I don’t see browse problems. Generally, I don’t see browse problems reported, though, so perhaps it’s something else.

Mind, my itunes is trying to reorganise all my music folders over the cifs share at the moment, so maybe that explains it!

That’s possible. In a low memory situation, the sqlite slows down considerably. There are a couple things to try, if you are game. Let me know if you continue to have problems. If so, we can add a couple indexes and see what that does.

Main reason Im asking (and the bone I have to pick with you), is already having 3 roku’s 500 in bedroom, 1000 lounge, 2000 living room, Im now thinking of getting a roku radio for kitchen! Wondering if Im beginning to get beyond realms of slug! Interested in your opinion! Please pass feedback to Roku, that it is your magicaly improving server that is making me do it!!!!

I think that’s doable. Depends on if we can get the browses stable. I keep hoping that soon I’ll get the gdbm backend back in, and that might help stuff too.

Anything I can do to improve browse performance? (Im thinking about beginning to elete tracks, 16k is a bit rediculous!)

Let me know if it gets better once you aren’t shuffling iTunes stuff around. Also, are you using the slug for anything else? Anything that might be using a lot of memory?

[garfy]

Firstly appologies for the length of my essays … I do enjoy writing novels!!

OK, thanks for feedback… in answer to slug qus….

Single disk ext3 or whatever it is formated by slug. Looked into overclocking slug, but think mine is a recent one running at the faster speed anyway, so don think this can be improved. (dont think performance is really an issue it streams fine, browse is the only issue)

Did notice recently on the NLSU2 page a RAM upgrade for the slug …. sounds interesting and fun, but requires a soldering iron so I think I’ll avoid unless I can get a cheap spare slug off ebay!! 😀

Anyway …. continuing my progress….

Am running NLSU slug unslung to 6.8 (or something like that)
Have roku players all running latest release software 2.5.174
Have a single PC (XP) running iTunes 6, that plays music in my office, but itunes is primarily for managing files and ID3 tags in an easyish manner.

Have been running stable 0.2.4 mt-daapd for a while, always had intermittent browse problems, and itunes m3u / xml playlists never worked properly. (the inbuilt ones were fine, but vi’ing the playlists file did get tiresome!)

Have just upgraded to nightly svn 1433 via process on firefly wiki.

Have definitely got browse problems.

Streaming works fine, playlists generaly work fine (occasionaly locks but does come back), browse works fine for a while then fails!

Have another interesting issue, the itunes can no longer connect via the mdaapd served music. Not a huge issue as I am mapped directly to the slug NAS share, but want to fix as my long term plan is to have other pc’s streaming from the mtdaapd server

Anyway coming back to the fault …….

web interface reports:

Server Status
The Firefly server is not running, this page will be inaccessible until you start the server again.Service Status Control
Bonjour Stopped
Firefly Media Server Running
File scanner Idle

Uptime 1 hour, 41 minutes, 51 seconds
Songs 16001
Songs Served 29
DB Version 2

Client IP Action
192.168.1.4 Serving xml-rpc method
192.168.1.8 Streaming ‘Salt Water Sound’ (id 50)

have read forums and assume bonjour stopped message to be bug.
Note : I have upped the resan interval to
60000
as I was worried it was the scans giving me performance probs, once a day approx is fine by me, dont change music that often!

Interested in 192.168.1.4 Serving xml-rpc method …. thats my itunes pc, even though its not connected that is shown all the time! Is this a prob, do I need to switch itunes off? … though thinking bout it is this just the web interface to my pc??

Get some wierd log messages, as below, some seem to relate to itunes connecting (crashes the thing generaly sometimes i have to restart server to get back, someytimes is OK)

2006-12-07 15:31:16 (00089004): Write error: Broken pipe
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: daap.songcategory
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: daap.songcontentdescription
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: daap.songlongcontentdescripti
on
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: daap.songkeywords
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.is-podcast
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.mediakind
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.series-name
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.network-name
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.episode-num-
str
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.episode-sort
2006-12-07 19:20:49 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.season-num
2006-12-07 19:21:40 (0008ac04): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.is-podcast-p
laylist

---

2006-12-08 04:39:14 (00000400): mDNSPlatformTimeNow went backwards by 2 ticks; s
etting correction factor to 2
2006-12-08 04:40:39 (00000400): Starting web server from /opt/share/mt-daapd/adm
in-root on port 3689
2006-12-08 04:40:39 (00000400): Registering rendezvous names
2006-12-08 04:40:43 (00000400): Serving 16001 songs. Startup complete in 95 sec
onds
2006-12-08 04:40:43 (00000400): Rescanning database
2006-12-08 04:41:56 (00003405): Thread 10: Entering ws_returnerror (302: Moved)
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: daap.songcategory
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: daap.songcontentdescription
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: daap.songlongcontentdescripti
on
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: daap.songkeywords
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.is-podcast
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.mediakind
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.series-name
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.network-name
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.episode-num-
str
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.episode-sort
2006-12-08 04:43:16 (00008806): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.season-num
2006-12-08 04:43:44 (00008806): Unknown meta code: com.apple.itunes.is-podcast-p
laylist

1st scan appears OK, though some silly m3u errors, but not the issue I dont think (put in here just to check)

2006-12-08 05:02:40 (00000400): err adding playlist 90?ÇÖs Music
2006-12-08 05:02:47 (00000400): err adding playlist Recently Added
2006-12-08 05:02:48 (00000400): err adding playlist Top 25 Most Played
2006-12-08 05:03:41 (00000400): Scanned 16001 songs (was 16001) in 1378 seconds
2006-12-08 05:05:22 (00031004): Session 0: Streaming file ’06 Kashmir.mp3′ to 19
2.168.1.8 (offset 0)

playlists nearly always working (including the itunes ones!)
sometimes fails on loading songs

browse …. intermittent to say the least, pretty much broken!

think it might be to do with scans, or the multicast thing I have seen mentioned elsewhere.

while browse is failing …… playlists still work.

Initialy – Seems to reset itself after a few mins… almost as if as a scan is happening it doesnt work. After a while browse is broken completely. i.e every attemt fails with “Failed to load browse data” message on roku.

For 1st few minutes while it is working it is pretty consistent … even the browse songs function, returning 16k + resultst works (I was impressed as this has never worked before)

sometimes large browses dont work, i.e artist / album, small ones do, i.e. genres … difficult to put an exact description on this, I may be wrong.

Having attemtped to read through the forums, I am wondering if this is to do with the Multicast issues. Seems to indicate this might cause browse to fail after a while.

Not sure how I can test this, havent got tcpdump or anything on slug, how can I do a packet dump to see if multicast is working on my nw? If it isnt is there any way aroudn this.

My rokus and pc are wifi attached to a wireless LAN. The slug is directly connected to the router hub (switch … whatever not sure but it is 100M). The router is a BT voyager 2100 wireless (will go off an dig out a tech spec to see if I can find out if it supports mulicast over wireless and hub)

Once lists are loaded, streaming is fine, and very quick!

Is this something that might be fixed in a later nightly? If its the multicast issue, is there anything I can do to get around it?

Did consider going back to stable release, but playlists are just as useful as browse for the short term, so happy to continue playing around.

Note – I could do with a good guide for upgrading the nightlies.. no expert in linux, so dont understand dependancies talk!! 😳 and talk about sqllite etc. I liked the wiki guide it was v easy, but only seems to pick up 1433!

I am going off to do some tests to see if I can be more scientific about the symptoms I am seeing.

Did a

# killall -9 mt-daapd

# /opt/etc/init.d/S60mt-daapd

straight after restart of server …… browse working (I love the new udate of how many itelms downloading … not sure if its you or the roku … but nice touch)

Even the browse songs! returns …. 16000 items! (though it is noticable the roku M1000 goes a bit wobbly then for a few secs!! )

nothing in logs

Check browse every 2 mins …..

Whilst streaming music browse still works in this initial period! (slower … no real surprise there … not unusable tho)

Constantly browsinf for 20 mins all OK. (Both browse and playlists) Went off to 2nd roku doing same tests, browsing / playlists. All working OK!

Returned to 1st Roku … browse failing (was still streaming music)

then …. although intialy 1 was working 1 failing, after leaving the wokring one streaming music for a short while same happened!

Seemed to crrespond to a

2006-12-08 07:19:45 (0000cc05): Write error: Broken pipe

in the logfile.

or

2006-12-08 08:12:34 (0002ec08): Thread 184: Entering ws_returnerror (302: Moved)
2006-12-08 08:12:52 (00000400): Rescanning database
2006-12-08 08:14:22 (00030004): Session 0: Streaming file ’10 Beach Ball.mp3′ to
192.168.1.7 (offset 0)
2006-12-08 08:14:22 (00030004): Write error: Broken pipe
2006-12-08 08:15:10 (0002c806): Thread 175: could not read: Broken pipe

Once browse broken, music continues streaming, initaly playlists failed, buit after a couple of secs, playlists started returning data

Once browse broken, nothing fixes it, roku into standby and back… still fails, restart of Roku … browse still failing!

After about 5 mins failing …… browses start working again!!

After this, difficult to describe how it does and doesnt work, sometimes roku conn to server fails completely, sometimes browse failing, sometimes works, seems to fail more than works. Sometimes streaming music “fixes” browse, sometimes doesnt.

Have noticed issues with Roku on this latest release, so maybe its more Roku than server! Seem to crash occasionaly especialy if you try and exit a browse or search, (cancel reuqest) … crashes and a power reboot is required.

Wierd Huh!!

Thanks for all the help
G

[rpedde]

@garfy wrote:

Interested in 192.168.1.4 Serving xml-rpc method …. thats my itunes pc, even though its not connected that is shown all the time! Is this a prob, do I need to switch itunes off? … though thinking bout it is this just the web interface to my pc??

Yup. That’s it.

Even the browse songs! returns …. 16000 items! (though it is noticable the roku M1000 goes a bit wobbly then for a few secs!! )

I thought ~20k was the memory limit on the Roku, so you might be getting close on that.

2006-12-08 07:19:45 (0000cc05): Write error: Broken pipe

in the logfile.
[/quote]

That means the connection was closed.

Have noticed issues with Roku on this latest release, so maybe its more Roku than server! Seem to crash occasionaly especialy if you try and exit a browse or search, (cancel reuqest) … crashes and a power reboot is required.

That seems to be the Roku. I’ve noticed that connections closing or out of the ordinary stuff make the soundbridge wedge, too.

Generally it sounds to me like wireless problems. Can you test with the roku wired? At least to rule that out?

[richdunlop]

@garfy wrote:

Following
http://wiki.fireflymediaserver.org/NSLU2_Installation
instruction to move to a nightly build looked easy, so I tried …. but DISASTER!!! its all gone wrong.

Upgrade appears to work fine, though it appears to overwrite my conf file, anyway have updated this for my path to mp3 files and set up logging etc. Cannot start daemon.

I’ve updated the wiki to suggest that users upgrading a nightly or moving from a stable to a nightly may want to backup their config file for reference purposes first.

[rpedde]

@richdunlop wrote:

@garfy wrote:

Following
http://wiki.fireflymediaserver.org/NSLU2_Installation
instruction to move to a nightly build looked easy, so I tried …. but DISASTER!!! its all gone wrong.

Upgrade appears to work fine, though it appears to overwrite my conf file, anyway have updated this for my path to mp3 files and set up logging etc. Cannot start daemon.

I’ve updated the wiki to suggest that users upgrading a nightly or moving from a stable to a nightly may want to backup their config file for reference purposes first.

Mmm… good thought.

ALso probably a good idea to let it overwrite the config file and change it. That way it’s *mostly right*, at least with regard to new settings.

– Ron

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