HQPlayer's Network Audio Adapter

[Miska]

On 9/4/2019 at 9:34 PM, baconbrain said:

I am running the HQPlayer OS image on an Innous Statement with the HQplayerd service disabled. (i.e. Statement is functioning as an NAA endpoint) I am streaming to it via a windows based HQplayer Desktop (v4). Everything works great but after every 2-3 songs it pauses playback for approx 5 seconds and then continues. 

 

Could it be a buffering issue? Would appreciate any advise.

 

That's quite long pause. It would be good to check if HQPlayer log has any indication about this, or NAA side after that happens (with "systemctl status networkaudiod").

 

[Miska]

Based on your description, there shouldn't be a problem if you power down/up the NUC that has HQPlayer and Roon.

 

When you power up everything from cold, I'd recommend to start from the DAC towards the HQPlayer machine. So first DAC, then NAA, and then HQPlayer NUC.

 

NUC is running Windows? If that's the case, please check that it doesn't have any extra network interfaces enabled, apart from the one connecting to the home network switch.

 

[Miska]

1 minute ago, rossco said:

Thanks @Miska. Yes the machine is windows 10. I usually try to boot up in the order you suggest. The most reliable methodology in this particular case, is to switch off, then on, the DAC, streamer, local switch and home router at the same time and then to power up the NUC (i don't touch the switch it is on). I have tried lots of other combinations, but this seems to be the most repeatable. 

 

I will double-check the NUC network interface.

 

I'm assuming switches and routers are never turned off. These always need to be powered up before anything else. If the router ever becomes powered off and you have dynamic IP's through DHCP assigned by the router, it's lease table is probably reset. In such case it is best to reboot everything on the network. Otherwise there is potential problem of some device's IP changing on the fly through lease renewal and that will likely cause various problems for applications that have longer persistent connections.

 

[Miska]

6 minutes ago, baconbrain said:

Thx, but where do I fing the HQPlayer Log file on a Windows 10 Machine? I looked through the Signalyst Folder (in Program Files) but couldn‘t find anything which resembled a log file ... ☺️

 

This is documented in the manual's "Troubleshooting" section. On Windows you can find the same log file in "%LOCALAPPDATA%\HQPlayer" folder. On Unix systems like macOS and Linux it is in the same place at "~/.hqplayer".

 

[Miska]

28 minutes ago, semente said:

I am running naa-355-cubox-i on a Cubox i2 which is wired to the network switch.

Is it possible to enable wi-fi in your NAA image and make it "discoverable" to HQP Desktop?

 

My images are supposed to be configuration free, and that's why they generally don't support WiFi. If you want WiFi or other things not found on the images, it is better to install Debian and the Debian package instead. This way NAA image stays minimal and you get maximum flexibility if needed through Debian.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, semente said:

I see. I thought it might just requiring adding a few lines or something, like when enabling the HiFiBerry.

 

It needs additional software and you need to configure SSID and passphrase... That means using text editor on a console in this kind of minimal image. HQPlayer OS has WiFi support included, but I'm not sure if anybody has ever used it.

 

[Miska]

It is good to check for lines prefixed with '!', '#' or '?' character. These usually indicate error, warning or potential problem situations.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Jerry said:

I'm shocked to find out with HQPlayer 4.1.1 (on win10) and X64 NAA on Minnowboard, when I check 48k DSD and Auto Rate, my iFi iDSD Pro would not play any 48k DSD, I recall @Miska pointed out as long as the NAA is running linux, 48k DSD should work for iFi product. Could @Miska please advice a procedure to troubleshoot if this is iDSD Pro's problem or if it's the NAA's (hqplayer-embedded-4.11.2-x64.7z )driver issue? Thanks!

 

Does 44.1k DSD work? Have you set your rate limit to 48k DSD? If you check HQPlayer log file, does the NAA report the needed DSD rates being available?

 

[Miska]

45 minutes ago, Jerry said:

when I play 48k pcm upsampled to DSD 256 (48k class), I heard the music with white noice and wrong pace.

 

Sounds like typical hardware problem with 48k DSD. This means that the iDSD Pro doesn't really support 48k DSD. I have never used Pro. I have only iDSD Nano, iDSD Micro (original and BL) and iDAC2. These play 48k DSD correctly, but need to use the older 5.2 firmware because newer ones crippled the functionality due to MQA support.

 

You could check with iFi what they say about this.

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, acatala said:

The "double play click" is still present. Perhaps this is a specific issue between networkaudiod and the chipset of my DAC, I don't know. But after clicking the play control for thr fist time after powering on the system the music doesn't start, but it does after a second click. After that, it works fine.

 

If the DAC disappears from USB when powered down (not all DACs do this, since many power the USB interface itself from the USB bus power), ALSA driver doesn't report this to the networkaudiod immediately, it only fails in obscure ways when next time accessed. This is not a problem if HQPlayer is not connected to a NAA, because networkaudiod is hooked to the DAC only as long as HQPlayer is using it.

 

However, if the last item from the chain gets pulled out while in use (HQPlayer connected), all the device capabilities and established state needs to be reset, also back in the HQPlayer. For this reason the first playback attempt fails in such case, HQPlayer stops and updates the GUI (technically for available formats and sampling rate could change).

 

Some DACs even disappear from USB when input is switched to S/PDIF or similar. So HQPlayer doesn't attempt to start again blindly by itself, to avoid going into annoying attempt & failure loop, for example if the DAC is still not fully available or the failure is due to something else. Instead strategy is to just stop on failure and let you attempt again. Roon has similar strategy towards HQPlayer; when it notices something has changed at HQPlayer side, it drops the control connection and says that it has lost control of HQPlayer. This is to avoid fighting against you when you are trying to do something with HQPlayer directly, or through some other control application. Roon does go into retry loop sometimes when you initiate action from Roon, and it can be annoying at times, while sometimes it helps around this kind of problem.

 

So the initial failure is combination of different things. If you shut down NAA too, HQPlayer v4 will auto-reconnect to this when available again. If you leave NAA running, but want to shut down DAC, closing HQPlayer too also helps around this. So this generally happens only when everything else is left running, except the DAC.

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, Outlaw said:

Miska  looking for your opinion .I was thinking of using a wired router from my modem and connect my HQPlayer PC, My Roon Rock PC,and and my naa nuc to it .Then run cable to my wireless router for wifi and remaining connections.Thanks

 

Best is to have a good switch, and connect your modem and everything else to it. And get a plain wifi access point for wireless. For example HPE and Cisco make good switches and wifi access points.

 

[Miska]

48 minutes ago, Outlaw said:

Okay didn't know you could hook a switch to modem before router or wifi access point.

 

Usually modem + router is combined. If you have a separate, then switch and all the rest is after the router.

 

[Miska]

27 minutes ago, ericuco said:

You probably want all of your audio equipment connected to a single (high quality as Miska mentioned) switch so that the music related data is only traveling in & out of the one switch (branch). This is not a requirement though as you might have say a NAS unit located elsewhere on another branch of your network. It really all depends on how your equipment is laid out throughout your house. Lots of games you can play.

 

...or through multiple switches... But the switches built into modem-routers are usually not so great.

 

I have modem-routers and firewalls in storage room, where I also have two central switches (one is a PoE switch to feed power to wifi access points and such). Then each room has it's own room-specific switch to distribute the network further. So overall the network structure is like a star. I can play audio from any room to any other room through the network, or from the wifi (multiple access points to cover the entire house as one wireless network).

 

[Miska]

6 minutes ago, Outlaw said:

I  get it now.My modem was set to bridge mode so just using as modem.I could change back to default and do what you recommend.Thanks

 

I have the modem/routers set up in a similar way, although a full blown router, but not doing NAT or anything like that. Then I have separate firewalls between the internet and local network.

 

[Miska]

33 minutes ago, acatala said:

The NAA is powered off before the DAC and yet the next time I play from Roon + HQPlayer Embedded I have to do the double play. Even, some times, the NAA remains running 24x7 a couple of days and I power off the DAC (preamp + amp) in the mean time and the behaviour is the same: I need the double play. In this case, the NAA doesn't fail even the DAC is powered on after him, I only have the double play issue.

 

Usually the problematic case is where everything else remains on, but DAC disappears and comes back. If NAA also goes out and comes back, it shouldn't be a problem with latest versions.

 

Could be also that Roon thinks that something has changed at HQPlayer side and disconnects, that's sort of separate thing.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Jussi, question?

 

Does HQ player use more CPU processing when upscaling from wave 96khz 24bit to DSD128, compared to upscaling wave 44.1khz to DSD 128?

 

Both are upscaling to DSD128. Just the original source format is different?

 

Why am I asking this? All my wave 44.1khz work on setting I like, but when I go to 96khz 24bit with same settings it skips. So I thought HQplayer has more processing to do on 96khz files?

 

There is no simple or straightforward answer, other than "it depends". Effectively, the amount of processing power needed may be higher though. Overall, impact when using -2s filter variants is different from using single stage variants.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, gixxer said:

Hello,

 

Having issue discovering NAA device on Windows 10 Pro.  Log file snippet below.  

 

This symptom can be recreated with both version 3 and 4 of HQPlayer Desktop from the same Windows 10 Pro machine.

 

The relevant part is discovering 0 NAA.

* 2019/10/14 09:14:36 Starting...
  2019/10/14 09:14:36 Signalyst HQPlayer Desktop v3.25.4
  2019/10/14 09:14:36 Engine selected: 
  2019/10/14 09:14:41 Restore GUI state
  2019/10/14 09:14:41 libDSP version 20.7.3
  2019/10/14 09:14:41 CUDA convolution offload requested
  2019/10/14 09:14:41 Number of processor cores: 6
  2019/10/14 09:14:41 DSP thread pools enabled (2)
  2019/10/14 09:14:41 Pipelined DSP enabled
  2019/10/14 09:14:41 Audio engine: network
  2019/10/14 09:14:41 Network Audio IPv6 support disabled
  2019/10/14 09:14:41 Discovery from 0.0.0.0
  2019/10/14 09:14:42 Discovered 0 Network Audio Adapters
  2019/10/14 09:14:42 Set channels: 2 (2)
! 2019/10/14 09:14:42 createEngine(): clHQPlayerEngine::Initialize(): clNetMiniEngine::Initialize(): adapter not found

 

 

Please check from Windows 10 network adapter settings window that all other network adapters are disabled. Typically this problem appears when there are multiple active network interfaces.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, Outlaw said:

IS IT BETTER TO ASSIGN A STATIC IP ADDRESS FOR NAA DEVICE AND HQPLAYER PC ?

 

For NAA it doesn't really matter, but doesn't harm either. For HQPlayer it makes life easier with Roon, because you don't need to keep changing Roon's configuration every time DHCP server decides to assign different IP to the HQPlayer machine. Because unfortunately Roon doesn't support HQPlayer auto-discovery the HQPlayer Client is using. Adding support for such is probably not priority for them. If you use HQPlayer Client or UPnP, then it doesn't matter, because both use auto-discovery.

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, madman73 said:

HI all, hi @Miska.

 

I'm trying to test an AMD E350 APU Mainboard (SAPPHIRE Pure White Fusion E350M1W) as a Linux based NAA.

i've used the last naa-360-x64 image, and i've got the attached error.

Can you help me to understand what is wrong?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Looks like the instruction set supported by the APU (from 2011) is not enough to run this image. Solution would be to install for example minimal Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora and the networkaudiod package there. To make maximize compatibility, you could use 32-bit version instead.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, madman73 said:

Can you build a 32 bit version of your 64 bit NAA iso? 

 

It is now available on the server, hopefully it works for you.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, madman73 said:

Now i can load the 32bit image, i get the naa login prompt, but my hqplayer doesn't recognize the NAA. i use the JLSounds USB Interface on my dac that is working fine if directly connected to my hqplayaer PC.

 

Sounds like potential network problem. I assume NAA is connected to your regular home network so it can get IP from DHCP server? And that you have only single network interface active on the HQPlayer machine.

 

3 hours ago, madman73 said:

I also think that the NAA recognize the dac as if i unplug/plug the USB cable, i get the attached message.

 

Looks correct. You can login as "root" (no password) and run "aplay -l" and it should list your DAC.

 

You can check if the network interface is getting IP address properly by running "ifconfig". If all the interfaces don't come up properly, systemd is holding back starting the NAA service (it has dependency to have all network interfaces online).

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, madman73 said:

Yes, on the same machine NAA works fine on Win Server 2019. My lan range 192.168.1.1/255 Subnet 255.255.255.0 with DHCP

 

this is the result of the command ifconfing:

 

Looks like the ethernet is not up at all. Either network interface is not detected or configuration is not succeeding. Totally lacking interface from the list is usually indication of former.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, madman73 said:

@Miska i've tried to install the driver as in the driver's readme file, without success. I always get the message "No such file or directory", trying the tar command. 

 

But also i've unpacked the tar file using 7zip on windows and copied the folder DriverInstall trying to launch directly the file install.sh, with the same result.

 

Probably you'll have to include the driver in the 32bit image....

 

I think it is better that you move over to some standard Linux distribution like Debian or Fedora. You can install either one as minimal installation.

 

[Miska]

There are now new bootable NAA images for both RasPi3 and RasPi4.

 

[Miska]

12 hours ago, sjg said:

How do you control the NAA for simple functions like shutting it off?  It asks for login - I could not find user/password.

 

You can just turn it off. If it goes bad at some point (unlikely), you can just reflash the microSD again.

 

On PC hardware you can initiate proper shutdown by short press of a power button. On ARM, there's no standard for such. Alternatively you can login as root and run shutdown.

 

12 hours ago, sjg said:

Also, I have installed on my RPi4 a nifty "Remote Pi" board - on/off switch and remote interface - connects to the GPIO by MSLdigital.  Is there a way I can modify the NAA system to incorporate one of the scripts MSL provides for incorporating their hardware?

 

Unfortunately there's no standard for such on ARM, so either you can modify my image, or alternatively build NAA out of Debian Buster.

 

I have my RasPi's in HifiBerry steel case, no power button, I've been just pulling the power cord...

 

 

P.S. Note that my OS images are 64-bit, while many run 32-bit OS on RasPi. So they are quite different.