Official TIDAL HIFI Streaming Issues Thread

[jcn3]

3 hours ago, Abtr said:

You may have to 'reset the app data'. Here's how you do that:

 

 

thanks -- i actually meant "with roon or via the website" (had a typo).  @Daccord had the right answer, it seems -- tidal would play as long as you didn't pick from your favorites.  hopefully that's a temporary problem.

 

[PJ4301]

I recently encountered problem in streaming MQA from Tidal.  I have a Tidal HiFi subscription and I used to successfully stream MQA from Tidal with correctly decoded to HiRes.

 

My system setup is as below:

Network switch >> Ethernet cable >> Melco N1ZH/2 >> Ethernet cable >> PS Audio DirectStream DAC with Bridge II network module

Control point: Mconnect Control on iPhone or Mconnect Control HD on iPad

 

The latest problem is that when streaming MQA from Tidal, it can only be played as 24/44 or 24/48 FLAC instead of previously correctly unfolded and decoded as 24/88 or 24/96 or even higher resolution MQA.  The touchscreen on PS DS DAC is as below:

 

As an experiment I purchased one MQA track from Sony and downloaded to Melco then play thru Bridge II with Mconnect Control as control point, it can be correctly unfolded and decoded as below, which is same as what I previously got from Tidal streaming:

 

I believe this proves there is nothing wrong with PS DS DAC + Bridge II.

 

Then can anyone advise what I can do to diagnose and get MQA from Tidal be also unfolded and decoded correctly?

 

Thanks in advance and looking forward to any valuable opinions and suggestions.

[Matrixadam]

I have exactly the same problem from about one week but on a different device (Pioneer SXN30AE). I think that there is some problem directly from Tidal.

[ecwl]

My dealer has been having problems playing MQA tracks off Tidal on his Aurender server, regardless of whether software Core Decode is on or off. The Aurender ACS100 would just skip all the Tidal MQA tracks. He ended up calling Aurender 2 days ago and was told that Tidal changed something with how they send the MQA files and that Aurender will have an update soon to address this.

 

His laptop and my iPad running the Tidal app, or my Roon server play the same Tidal MQA files just fine.

 

It’s possible he misheard and it’s Tidal that’ll fix the problem rather than Aurender. Hard to know.

[wklie]

On 5/24/2021 at 1:38 PM, PJ4301 said:

 

I tested the first track of this album from Tidal and it's fully decoding MQA correctly in our Lumin hardware and app.

 

By the way, I believe the posts above describe a different problem from another non-MQA streamer brand who has recently lost access to 24-bit Tidal Master quality, as I see a user of it mistakenly linked here while discussing that.

[wklie]

Also tested the same track with Roon Build 795, getting MQA 96kHz as expected.

[Cebolla]

10 hours ago, wklie said:

 

I tested the first track of this album from Tidal and it's fully decoding MQA correctly in our Lumin hardware and app.

 

By the way, I believe the posts above describe a different problem from another non-MQA streamer brand who has recently lost access to 24-bit Tidal Master quality, as I see a user of it mistakenly linked here while discussing that.

 

Yes. It appears the issue is with those official MQA (& TIDAL) supporting streamers that are accessing the MQA containing FLAC file streams via the TIDAL Masters quality connection and not finding the Original Sample Rate &/or possibly other MQA related FLAC file extended metadata tags, that they use for MQA authentication.

 

Presumably, TIDAL have recently stopped providing the MQA related FLAC file tags in their MQA containing FLAC file streams via the Masters quality connection, as is already the case for the MQA encoded audio containing FLAC file streams via the HiFi quality (16bit/44.1kHz only) connection.

 

 

You mentioned before that your Lumin devices get their MQA authentication from the MQA encoded audio itself, rather than rely on any MQA tags of the FLAC file container - so it makes sense that the Lumin hardware is unaffected by the recent TIDAL change. 

[wklie]

To prove (or disprove) @Cebolla hypothesis above, @PJ4301 please make a copy of your purchased MQA track, delete all tags from it using mp3tag software (or others).  Then retry the MQA playback of this non-tagged track.

 

[Cebolla]

If anyone else wants to test @wklie's suggestion with their particular MQA supporting streamer, MQA containing FLAC file sample tracks are available for free on 2L label's hires download test bench webpage (from both the MQA stereo original resolution and the MQA-CD columns) :

2L High Resolution Music .:. free TEST BENCH

 

[PJ4301]

12 hours ago, wklie said:

To prove (or disprove) @Cebolla hypothesis above, @PJ4301 please make a copy of your purchased MQA track, delete all tags from it using mp3tag software (or others).  Then retry the MQA playback of this non-tagged track.

 

Good suggestion!

 

I just made a copy of same track and used mp3tag removed all tags.  And yes it’s been played as a 24/44 FLAC only.

 

Going back to play the original track with tags, again it’s been played correctly as MQA decoded to 24/176.

 

 

Seems @Cebolla is very close to the truth.

[PJ4301]

To supplement:

 

I checked tags of the original track, which could be decoded correctly.  And found one tag may possibly relate to MQA identification:

 

MQAENCODER: MQAEncode v1.1, 2.3.2+667 (235bdab), DF77A107-A71F-4E57-A322-872C6D0E99C8, May 08 2017 11:48:36

[ecwl]

I understand @wklie's point is that the reason why Aurender/PS Audio/Moon (SimAudio)/Pioneer cannot play Tidal MQA streams is not as @Cebolla pointed out due to a simple MQA tag issue. And it's great that Lumin, Roon and the Tidal apps on laptops and iOS can play those same Tidal MQA streams.

 

But at the end of the day, it doesn't help people who own Aurender/PS Audio/Moon/Pioneer streamers who currently can't play Tidal MQA streams. To me, it almost doesn't matter the why. For those Aurender/PS Audio/Moon/Pioneer users, they are either waiting for Tidal to fix the problem or waiting for Aurender/PS Audio/Moon/Pioneer to update their firmware to fix the problem.

[Cebolla]

1 hour ago, ecwl said:

I understand @wklie's point is that the reason why Aurender/PS Audio/Moon (SimAudio)/Pioneer cannot play Tidal MQA streams is not as @Cebolla pointed out due to a simple MQA tag issue. And it's great that Lumin, Roon and the Tidal apps on laptops and iOS can play those same Tidal MQA streams.

 

Not really. @wklie only described a test to prove (or disprove) what I proposed.  Plus, @PJ4301's posts just before your post mentions performing the test with the PS Audio Bridge II and found it to be indeed a simple MQA tag issue in the FLAC container!

 

Any chance you could do the same test with your Aurender?

 

Knowing why would help you understand who is responsible to do the 'fix' and therefore who to chase up. In this case it is the streamer manufacturer.

[Cebolla]

3 hours ago, PJ4301 said:

To supplement:

 

I checked tags of the original track, which could be decoded correctly.  And found one tag may possibly relate to MQA identification:

 

MQAENCODER: MQAEncode v1.1, 2.3.2+667 (235bdab), DF77A107-A71F-4E57-A322-872C6D0E99C8, May 08 2017 11:48:36

 

Is there a tag named ORIGINALSAMPLERATE? That is also an MQA tag (despite not having an 'MQA' prefix).

[ecwl]

9 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

 

Not really. @wklie only described a test to prove (or disprove) what I proposed.  Plus, @PJ4301's posts just before your post mentions performing the test with the PS Audio Bridge II and found it to be indeed a simple MQA tag issue in the FLAC container!

 

Any chance you could do the same test with your Aurender?

Ah. I re-read the post. Good point. 
 

I’m glad PS Audio can play the Tidal MQA streams, just not as MQA files but as FLAC files for now. But to me, @PJ4301 still can’t play the Tidal MQA files with decoding function until PS Audio fixed their firmware. 

 

The problem with Aurender is worse as it skips the Tidal MQA file completely, so it won’t even play the file as FLAC. I don’t actually have Aurender so I can’t test it. I doubt my Aurender dealer would since he just wants the new Aurender firmware to fix the problem.

[wklie]

@ecwl

I guess skipping should be a different problem from the tag-dependent behavior discussed above.

 

Please test playback of local MQA files downloaded from 2L website above, which should work.

 

Then remove the tags, and retry.  See if this:

1. Play or skip

2. If it plays, whether MQA indicator is shown

[PJ4301]

21 hours ago, Cebolla said:

 

Is there a tag named ORIGINALSAMPLERATE? That is also an MQA tag (despite not having an 'MQA' prefix).

 

Yes!  And the value is 352800.

[wklie]

@PJ4301Your app update did not solve the problem because the app merely allowed you to browse and add Tidal tracks to the network module (renderer).  The app does not actually do the decoding in a normal UPnP architecture.  The decoding is done in the network module for your hardware.

[maelob]

Hello, just recently connected a Schiit Bitfrost 2 DAC to my MAC.  Just noticed that Tidal does not want to remember the Exclusive Mode and Force volume setting.  Not a big deal, but I never had this issue before. Not sure if its a Tidal, MAC, or Bitfrost issue. Thanks 

[Tamuhelet]

On 7/17/2021 at 5:33 AM, maelob said:

Hello, just recently connected a Schiit Bitfrost 2 DAC to my MAC.  Just noticed that Tidal does not want to remember the Exclusive Mode and Force volume setting.  Not a big deal, but I never had this issue before. Not sure if its a Tidal, MAC, or Bitfrost issue. Thanks 

Hello,

 

I have the exact same behaviour of the Tidal application but on Windows 10 and another kind of DAC. The exclusive mode setting reset to off each time the program is started. I believe it is like this since the last Tidal update which introduced this bug.

[Tamuhelet]

On 7/26/2021 at 10:00 AM, Tamuhelet said:

Hello,

 

I have the exact same behaviour of the Tidal application but on Windows 10 and another kind of DAC. The exclusive mode setting reset to off each time the program is started. I believe it is like this since the last Tidal update which introduced this bug.

Solved in the last update

[wklie]

Does anyone experience Tidal Android app crash upon login or relaunching the app?