Official TIDAL HIFI Streaming Issues Thread

[Catalysis]

I've tried the uninstall and reinstall trick as well as the browser ap. The last few weeks have been bad with hesitation and stopping. In frustration, I tested Tidal and Deezer to see how they compared because as a paying customer, I would like the service to actually work.

 

The results of the test and possible fix for Tidal issues:

 

I tested tidal with no VPN and it was unlistenable during the last few days. I've had it for 2 months and it was fine at the beginning, but no doesn't work... but read on....

 

Deezer isn't available in the US, but you can just use a VPN and pick a UK server. I tested with Cyberghost 5. Deezer never stuttered or stopped playing.

 

So then I started thinking, perhaps it's Tidal in the US that's having problems so I turned on the VPN, picked a server in London and started Tidal and wouldn't you know it... no issues. To fix the problems with Tidal it seems you can just use the VPN trick and pick a better geographical location.

 

One more note. Since my original test, I paid for a VPN from another company. Feel free to do your own research since needs vary. The reason I paid is that the free versions of most VPNs fill up the servers with users, which slows the speed and creates issues with Deezer and Tidal. I saw speeds go from 25Mbs to 2Mbs on some free VPNs. I am now using a paid version of a VPN with almost no loss of speed and Tidal is flowing nicely. I just wanted to mention this because if you use a VPN that slows your speed, it will introduce another issue/variable and you need to be aware of the quality of the VPN.

 

Interesting and I wonder if your experiment is telling us that the Tidal servers are based in Europe, in which case no wonder there are service issues. Just another nail in the coffin.

[Kelly]

I haven't used Tidal, but I have been using WiMP for about 6 months. I used a VPN to sign up, but since then have been using it without VPN. The stuttering had gotten frustrating, so I bumped the Album cache from 50MB to 500MB and all of my stuttering problems went away immediately. I think it is just a problem with the desktop application more than server speeds, because my squeezebox running the WiMP app doesn't seem to have any problem either and it doesn't have nearly that amount of memory available. Obviously a music player shouldn't need a half gb cache, but I found that giving it that big chunk of memory made my playback issues go away COMPLETELY.

[IQ_AV]

@wmupchurch, great find. I use cyberghost as well and share the same frustration as you are. I really like the Tidal service but getting it to work, is another story. I primarily use Chrome as others had suggested. I have a setup now with Phil's Audio Optimizer and hesitant to put a vpn on that box and hoping to get Tidal working natively. I will try it out on a different machine and report back. BTW, I had posted on the Facebook page and got a reply three days later that they were not able reproduce my issue, dah! @tidal seems to pay attention, may be next time, I will tweet.

[Tapetech]

I have a question about setting up my Tidal service.

 

I'm using the Tidal App 3.2.3 on a Macbook 10.6.8 with a USB DAC.

 

When I go to select sound quality (normal, high, Hifi), it won't let me select Hifi. Says "no device available". Under that message is a field "sound output". I click on it and it's blank.

 

If I option click the speaker icon, I have two output choices: internal speaker and my USB DAC (a Concero).

 

Any ideas as to why I can't select Hifi?

 

 

I just heard back from Tidal support. Turns out the problem is my semi-old MAC OS. They say the Tidal App only works with OS 10.7 and above. I have 10.6.

[rodrigaj]

I just heard back from Tidal support. Turns out the problem is my semi-old MAC OS. They say the Tidal App only works with OS 10.7 and above. I have 10.6.

 

That would do it. Glad you could get it resolved. It might cost to get your OS upgraded. Apple made the last two or three upgrades free, but back in the OS 10.6 days they were charging $20 as I recall. It's been awhile.

[jamc]

I had an email from Tidal support saying not all the tracks are lossless anyway-what percentage? Good question. I was assuming full lossless on tracks for some reason. It diminishes the value of $20/month for me. (Although I am giving it a few months trial run anyway).

[Jimmypowder]

I had an email from Tidal support saying not all the tracks are lossless anyway-what percentage? Good question. I was assuming full lossless on tracks for some reason. It diminishes the value of $20/month for me. (Although I am giving it a few months trial run anyway).

 

The figure Tidal gave me was 80 percent of the catalog is in lossless format .

[jamc]

The figure Tidal gave me was 80 percent of the catalog is in lossless format .

OK, thanks for that info. I suggested a 'HiFi' like button- white when track is lossless, greyed out when not, but maybe not in their best interest to do that. It would be nice to know though.

[Jimmypowder]

OK, thanks for that info. I suggested a 'HiFi' like button- white when track is lossless, greyed out when not, but maybe not in their best interest to do that. It would be nice to know though.

 

I am able to tell if the track is lossless because ipeng and the Transporter I use give me the info .

 

I'd say 90 percent or more of the tracks I've checked are Flac .

[jamc]

I am able to tell if the track is lossless because ipeng and the Transporter I use give me the info .

 

I'd say 90 percent or more of the tracks I've checked are Flac .

 

Good to know.

[Fridolin]

I complained many times about the 100% HiFi lie they do on their German web site.

 

For me about 30% is non-HiFi.

This sure varies by your taste of music.

[jamc]

I complained many times about the 100% HiFi lie they do on their German web site.

 

For me about 30% is non-HiFi.

This sure varies by your taste of music.

 

30% lossy is bad. Technically anything less than 100% is sketchy if you are not disclosing that fact and I don't see anything on the web site addressing the issue- sketchy by omission I'd say.

[Jimmypowder]

30% lossy is bad. Technically anything less than 100% is sketchy if you are not disclosing that fact and I don't see anything on the web site addressing the issue- sketchy by omission I'd say.

 

Maybe Jay-Z will knock some sense into Tidal .

[jamc]

or just sit on it for 6-12 months and flip it for a billion or two...

[jamc]

Clarification from Tidal- if the HiFi button is white, it is streaming lossless, if it is streaming lossy it is greyed out it- makes sense.

Half the 25 million tracks are lossless.

[Jimmypowder]

or just sit on it for 6-12 months and flip it for a billion or two...

 

Maybe . I hope it can be turned into a reliable service because I like the audio quality .

[Jimmypowder]

Clarification from Tidal- if the HiFi button is white, it is streaming lossless, if it is streaming lossy it is greyed out it- makes sense.

Half the 25 million tracks are lossless.

 

I was told 80 percent . Look at their Facebook page where I asked the question and you will see their reply . about two months ago.

[pwling88]

I am using an 2009 iMac with OS X Yosemite, Amarra SQ and external DAC. I registered for the Tidal trial yesterday. Up to this point I have been using Spotify and absolutely have no problems with it. What I found with Tidal Hifi is that the music kept dropping while I surfed the web. I decided to look at the Activily monitor. This is what I found: Amarra SQ was sucking almost 90% of my CPU, I was sending out data of at least 1 GB. I decided to Quit Amarra SQ and Tidal Hifi performed much better. As well, the data send out dropped to almost nothing. I am still experiencing some drop outs but not as severe. Any ideas why this is?? Its disconcerting to say the least especially seeing so much data being sent out.

[ply17410]

On my iPad I will get some songs HiFi and others not even within the same album. This is while running on home wifi.

 

So I started the TiDAL Chrome web player and played same album. ALL songs then showed up as HiFi.

 

My guess is with iOS since they have to push ALAC for HiFi playback that they don't have some of the songs in that format, vs. when using a playback means that supports FLAC you get all of them as lossless that way.

 

Bob H

Minneapolis, MN

[dallasjustice]

Matt mentioned a few times in scattered places a tip that I think any Jriverologist should know before streaming audio over WDM back through Jriver. Select tools, options, advanced and then live playback latency. Select maximum latency. Here's a shot:

 

This helped with Spotify. I don't know about Tidal, but it's worth a try. :-)

[majnun70]

Matt mentioned a few times in scattered places a tip that I think any Jriverologist should know before streaming audio over WDM back through Jriver. Select tools, options, advanced and then live playback latency. Select maximum latency. Here's a shot:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]17077[/ATTACH]

 

This helped with Spotify. I don't know about Tidal, but it's worth a try. :-)

 

Hmm, I'm not familiar with JRiver forum users, but "mojave" says the opposite: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?

[dallasjustice]

Matt Ashland #112 here:

WDM Problems

 

It worked for me. If it doesn't for you, try Michael's method.

 

Hmm, I'm not familiar with JRiver forum users, but "mojave" says the opposite: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?

[boatheelmusic]

• I had been running Tidal via the iOS app on my iPad streamed to my Mac Mini via wifi , and experienced the dropout problems.
  
  
   
  
  
  I have 125 mb internet speeds and an excellent wifi network, so no problem there.
  
  
   
  
  
  Tried running tidal via Chrome browser on Mac Mini, and
  ethernet cable
  directly connected to
  Mac Mini
  , and dropouts vanished.
  
  
   
  
  
  YMMV, but this works great for me.

  
  
  

• 
  
  And from Tidal:
  
  
   
  
  
  The lossless option in 44.1/16 is available on all our clients. Our clients not including
  Windows Phone
  as there is no native lossless codec there yet and we use the native media renderers in the platforms normally.
  
  
  This means
  
  
  -
  Lossless in Chrome. We will add more browsers but Chome is so far the best at letting us do some memory management in the background to optimize playback.
  This is also a good option for Linux. (FLAC)
  
  
  - Lossless in PC/Mac client. This option is still the most robust for sending to an external DAC, unless you have some other re-routing going on in OSX or Windows. (FLAC)
  
  
  - Lossless in Android (FLAC)
  
  
  - Lossless in iOS (ALAC).

  
   
  
  

[segnornilsson]

I am a almost happy Qobuz user....I've been testing Tidal HiFi tonight (1 month trial, offered to new customers in Spain).

It simply doesn't work. I am disappointed.

It's a pity..The content in terms of Indie (The pitchfork lists for example) music is much larger in Tidal than Qobuz..Being Qobuz slightly better with Classical music.

 

sound quality? I don't know...I've been trying via chrome and the Tidal app on my Mac...Nothing..50 seconds buffering, clipping noises (i am using Amarra sQ and a External DAC))..a non-sense..Maybe tomorrow.

I love Qobuz HiFi...It works flawlessly every day.

[Catalysis]

I am a almost happy Qobuz user....I've been testing Tidal HiFi tonight (1 month trial, offered to new customers in Spain).

It simply doesn't work. I am disappointed.

It's a pity..The content in terms of Indie (The pitchfork lists for example) music is much larger in Tidal than Qobuz..Being Qobuz slightly better with Classical music.

 

sound quality? I don't know...I've been trying via chrome and the Tidal app on my Mac...Nothing..50 seconds buffering, clipping noises (i am using Amarra sQ and a External DAC))..a non-sense..Maybe tomorrow.

I love Qobuz HiFi...It works flawlessly every day.

 

Your comments very much mirror my own thoughts, and yet the problems that are being so widely reported seem to go unheeded at Tidal. They still send me email bulletins and the like, always talking about playlists and artists and never, ever talking about improvements to the service, which are clearly so badly needed. It's really odd.