HQPlayer's Network Audio Adapter

[ebrandon]

This is a tricky one ... especially for a European because I believe Chromebooks are pretty rare in Europe.

 

I am trying to run the NAA under Ubuntu Xenial, running in "Crouton" on a chromebook.  The problems are:

 

1) HQPlayer running on a windows 10 computer does not "see" the NAA on the Chromebook.  HQPlayer does see a different NAA (with a different name) on my network, so I know that HQPlayer is correctly connecting to my network.

 

2) When I quit Networkaudiod on the Chromebook, I get the error "ALSA backend unitialized".  Here is the complete dialog.  I get the first two lines, then I try to connect with HQplayer and can't because it doesn't see the NAA.  Then I control-C the NAA, and get the error message:

[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (21685): networkaudiod Copyright (C) 2011-2017 Jussi Laako / Signalyst. All rights reserved.
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (21685): asoundlib version: 1.1.0
^C[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (21685): ALSA backend uninitialized
 

I know that my Ubuntu installation can play audio on my DAC because when I type  "aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav" I hear it in my headphones.

 

Here is the result of "sudo aplay -l":

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC283 Analog [ALC283 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: Audio [iFi (by AMR) HD USB Audio], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
 

I would like to show the HQplayer log file, but I can't find it on the Windows 10 PC.

 

Any ideas?  Thanks!

[ebrandon]

On 4/24/2017 at 1:28 AM, Miska said:

 

Everything looks normal, so I would suspect the problem is that your Chromebook is not seeing the multicast message from HQPlayer. It reports always when it gets messages...

 

So I would look into network configuration at that side...

 

You were correct.  It was a network problem on the Chromebook side, and I solved it using IPTABLES.

 

There is one remaining problem.  ALSA sees my iFi DAC:

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC283 Analog [ALC283 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: Audio [iFi (by AMR) HD USB Audio], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

 

But the NAA does not.  Both the NAA and the HQPlayer log file show that the NAA see some of the sound cards availble through ALSA, but not the iFi.

 

Here is the NAA dialogue:

[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): networkaudiod Copyright (C) 2011-2017 Jussi Laako / Signalyst. All rights reserved.
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): asoundlib version: 1.1.0
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): discovery from [::ffff:192.168.2.239]:56330
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): discovery from [::ffff:192.168.2.239]:56330
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): connection from [::ffff:192.168.2.239]:56374
^C[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): Found ALSA device: hw:0,7 - HDA Intel HDMI: HDMI 1
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): Found ALSA device: hw:0,8 - HDA Intel HDMI: HDMI 2
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): begin disconnection
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): ALSA backend uninitialized
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): disconnected [::ffff:192.168.2.239]:56374
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (4142): ALSA backend uninitialized

and here is the HQplayer log file:

  2017/04/25 16:49:34 Discovery from 0.0.0.0
& 2017/04/25 16:49:34 Discovered network audio: name='MusicRoomMini' version='Signalyst Network Audio Daemon 3.1.0'  @192.168.2.95:43210
& 2017/04/25 16:49:34 Discovered network audio: name='default' version='Signalyst Network Audio Daemon 3.5.1'  @192.168.2.30:43210
& 2017/04/25 16:49:34 Discovered network audio: name='default' version='Signalyst Network Audio Daemon 3.5.1'  @192.168.2.30:43210
  2017/04/25 16:49:35  Network endpoint: Built-in Output (38)
  2017/04/25 16:49:35  Network endpoint: AirPlay (45)
  2017/04/25 16:49:35  Network endpoint: HDA Intel HDMI: HDMI 1 (hw:0,7)
  2017/04/25 16:49:35  Network endpoint: HDA Intel HDMI: HDMI 2 (hw:0,8)
 

Any ideas why ALSA would see the card but NAA can't use it?

One possible clue: chromebooks use quite an old Linux kernel (maybe a modified version of kernel 3.9?)

Would I have to install a driver?  What kind of driver?

 

Thanks!

[ebrandon]

10 hours ago, Miska said:

 

What OS and version are you running on the Crhomebook? If you have something else than what the networkaudiod package was built for, then it may not work properly...

 

Usually reason for a device not appearing on the device list is that something else is keeping it busy.

 

 

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial) inside a Chroot on a Chromebook (latest stable Chrome OS 57) in "developer mode".  This method allows Linux distributions to use the old, custom kernel used by ChromeOS.

[ebrandon]

17 hours ago, Miska said:

 

What OS and version are you running on the Crhomebook? If you have something else than what the networkaudiod package was built for, then it may not work properly...

 

Usually reason for a device not appearing on the device list is that something else is keeping it busy.

 

 

This is why I really value your support.  Your intuitions are usually correct and steer me to finding the solution.  I figured out how to get ChromeOS to release the iFi USB DAC, and now the NAA running in Ubuntu can see it!

 

On my cheap and wonderful chromebook I can now simultaneously control HQPlayer on a remote PC, listen to my USB DAC from NAA running in Ubuntu, and use ChromeOS to read on the web, do email, etc.

 

Awesome!