HQPlayer Linux Desktop and HQplayer embedded

[cat6man]

I just found this thread and am delighted as a hqplayerd user with a microRendu NAA feeding my DAC.

i've tried a few opotions, but have now given up on Roon (rock solid reliable but too hard to navigate my folder structure.....takes way to long to go through hundreds of album covers and i don't have the patience to go through new tagging procedures) and settled on BubbleUPNP which works well with a few issues that I hope can be resolved.

 

A few questions:

 

1.  do i need a new fingerprint/key for 4.x or can i install over my existing 3.x version?

 

2.  gapless--i'm running minimserver and have 'almost gapless' playback.  it seems that short tracks play gaplessly (e.g. Abbey Road, side 2 tracks) but that longer tracks can still have a gap between them (e.g. live concerts with 5-10 minutes/track).  with Roon, all were gapless so this is probably a bubbleupnp playlist/timing issue.

 

3.  switch rates--changing from 44k/16b to 96k/24b or other combination will almost always lock up the hqplayerd/bubbleupnp combo.

this is remedied by stopping and restarting hqplayerd and rygel.  it is not remedied by restarting bubbleupnp or the NAA.  note that if i clear the playlist before changing the music rate, all is good.  could be stuff left in a buffer at the wrong rate or lack of bubbleupnp/hqplayerd timing/sync to play at new music rate?  never a problem with Roon/hqplayerd where i can switch between songs with different rates quickly with no need to clear playlist or even stop currently playing track.  obviously not good for playing a playlist of mixed rate tracks.

 

4.  switching tracks--sometimes, but not always, if i try to quickly start a new track while another one is playing, hqplayerd/bubbleupnp combo will seemingly lock up and i have to restart as above.  again, never a problem with roon/hqplayerd combo.

 

 

[cat6man]

25 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Yes, you need a new key file, fingerprint is the same for the same hardware. Key files are named differently, so both can co-exist in case you want to switch versions.

 

Other things may be fixed in 4.x. Except the gapless may not necessarily change.

 

thanks Miska.  i'll update results with v4.x.  just sent email with fingerprint.

[cat6man]

upgraded from v3.

 

Installed 4a20 and after properly re-naming the key file and editing the configuration file to add 'title' and 'mode' settings.

 

fired up bubbleupnp on my android phone, found v4 renderer and selected music to play, and.........nada, no sound.  eventually debugged the signal path to find that bubbleupnp somehow turned the volume all the way down (it had been fine with v3 hqplayerd previously).

 

conclusions:  awesome.  as Miska noted above, he anticipated that the instability/lockups with the hqp/bubble combo have been fixed in the 4alpha release.  now i can start, stop, replace music tracks at will, switch instantly between tracks with different data rates and bit resolution.............seems to be very solid, which was my sole issue with hpq embedded previously.

 

great job Miska!

 

[cat6man]

check out alpha22 if you haven't yet.

 

this solved, for me, an occasional problem navigating around bubbleupnp playlists and also eliminated occasional problems i would have with gapless playback (i.e. wasn't always gapless all the time, though i never identified a pattern of when/why).

[cat6man]

18 hours ago, shadowlight said:

@Miska,

 

I just installed beta 1 and it no longer seems to look for HQPlayer.xml file as fall back.  Now under web config option you see the ability to change the settings, will you be adding the option to select the correct NAA and the dac attached to that NAA.  I see the option to select Network v/s ALSA.

 

TIA

 

i think you must create a hqplayerd.xml file now.........worked for me.

[cat6man]

On 5/18/2017 at 4:41 PM, shadowlight said:

 

Yep, I got it working copying the HQPlayer.xml file to hqplayerd.xml file.  Was not expecting that kind of change from 4.0 alpha to beta. 

 

it was done in alpha21 or 22 i believe.  i haven't put in beta yet as i'm traveling

[cat6man]

fyi...........beta3 works great and appears pretty solid with bubbleupnp

 

just wondering if anything new is planned prior to release?

[cat6man]

On 3/24/2017 at 3:26 PM, arglebargle said:

 

He has, it runs at localhost:8088 when you start Embedded. This is what it looks like right now. What other features may be planned for the future I have no idea.  As it is, being able to change filters on the fly is pretty great. Combined with roon there is little need to visit the other room where my HQPlayer machine lives. 

 

 

is there any explanation of how to use this page, including the authentication/configuration options?

[cat6man]

thanks.  i interpreted the first paragraph to mean that authentication was an 'alternate' method  to deal with the license file and since i used the first method, i didn't think i needed authentication.........therefore, never read the paragraph to provision authentication.

 

i didn't see that authentication was needed anyway to do remote web configuration.

 

thanks!

 

 

 

[cat6man]

I got an error trying to set up authentication, no permission to write something (don't have message at hand right now)...........error was when i was trying to set username/password, i.e. the provisioning part.

 

Could someone please give more detail ('authentication for dummies') on how to do the provisioning?

Thanks

 

[cat6man]

Got it.  I had removed the .xml files from /home/.hqplayer but not from /etc/hqplayer

 

Not quite sure which location has precedence.

Can you remind me where the top level config file is stored now?

[cat6man]

@miska

 

any info on betas 8 & 9?

[cat6man]

1 hour ago, shadowlight said:

I am in the process of updating the document for embedded (to include the web interface info) and I want to know what methods folks are using to auto start the services for rygel and hqplayerd to be used with BubbleuPnP and jRiver?  I want to improve on the existing startup script.  The startup script that Miska has provided is great for Roon but not for Bubble or jRiver.  The option that Miska has mentioned is to use TLM and for some reason I have never successfully implemented that setup. 
 

 

i've been doing it manually

i use byobu and create multiple tabs, then type hqplayerd in one, switch tabs, then type rygel.

i keep a 3rd tab open for general use.

 

i use the juice app on my android mobile to access the linux machine and byobu when i am listening to music (linux machine is in the basement).

 

i've thought of a script to automate the above but haven't been burdened enough to get around to it.

 

by the way, bubbleupnp is the default here.

[cat6man]

20 hours ago, shadowlight said:

The current document has script which will autostart hqplayerd and rygel everytime I restart the system.  Just looking to clean up that script.

 

i'll take a look.

 

by the way, are there updates to Rygel as i don't think i've updated it since my first installation

[cat6man]

On 3/25/2017 at 11:49 AM, shadowlight said:

Recently, I have been trying various things with HQPlayer Embedded and was keeping track of how I was installing the OS and HQPlayer Embedded.  Since, I was keeping track of everything, I converted the steps into a installation guide for HQPlayer Embedded under Debian/Ubuntu.  The guide also has configuration information on how to configure JRiver as controller.  The goal of the guide is to keep it updated and to start including common errors and resolution.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2cLWlF9cpc9MkQxTTVDdHJTSEk/view?usp=sharing

 

If you would like a complete turn key solution the AudioLinux distribution is what you want to get.

how do you download hqpe_startup file?

there is nothing linked to embedded image in my pdf file of the guide.

 

[cat6man]

On 10/21/2017 at 5:39 PM, shadowlight said:

 

I ran some tests today with beta 1 and beta 9.  I am having problems with both version where playback stops randomly.  I used BubbleUPnP as the remote connecting to a Minimserver to keep it consistent.  On BubbleUPnP I noticed that the line which tracks playing time does not move at all.  Could it be that some communication has gone missing between BubbleUPnP and HQPe?

 

I am using the latest version of NAA running on Win10 and HQPe is running under Ubuntu Xenial with Jussi's latest kernel build 4.9.56-jl+.  Previously I was using standard Xenial 4.11.9 low latency kernel with the same issue.

 

Any pointers on where to start looking to troubleshoot.  Previously, I was having similar issues with JRiver as controller also.

 

i have seen this occasionally and haven't yet had a chance to track it down.

one thing i think (??) i see is that the problem occurs more with bubbleupnp on my tablet running Marshmallow and maybe not (??) on my Pixel XL running Oreo............what are you running bubbleupnp on?

[cat6man]

On 10/27/2017 at 2:39 PM, cat6man said:

 

i have seen this occasionally and haven't yet had a chance to track it down.

one thing i think (??) i see is that the problem occurs more with bubbleupnp on my tablet running Marshmallow and maybe not (??) on my Pixel XL running Oreo............what are you running bubbleupnp on?

 

i was getting great stability for a while, then things got very flaky (not playing entire playlists, play icon disappearing, etc).

unfortunately, i had changed many things............bubbleupnp updated, ultraRendu updated (including network audio daemon), ubuntu updates.

 

a couple of observations along the same lines.

 

1.  old nexus tablet with old android OS 'seemed' to have more problems than pixel2 with latest OS, but problem still occurred with pixel2

2.  restarting bubbleupnp did not solve problem

3.  ==> rescanning minimserver did help significantly.  i have had only one stop in last two days and previously had zero chance of playing through an album successfully.

 

not sure what might be going on, but some of you might want to try a re-scan of minimserver and see if that helps.

 

[cat6man]

6 hours ago, shadowlight said:

I will there was equivalent to bubbleupnp that worked on a Windows laptop.  If it did I would just wire up the laptop to control, which I hope would help with potential stability issues.

 

Also, is there a way to to restart Minimserver after your system has rebooted and rescan your library?  

 

go to 192.168.1.xxx:9790 [i.e. whatever your ip running minimserver is) and you can re-scan.........nor sure about restarting, but re-scan was sufficient here (at least once )

[cat6man]

another clue:

 

the problem started again today.......another symptom is a long 5-7 second wait before a new playlist starts playing music, then only played first song in playlist.

 

this time i did not restart minimserver.

i went into bubbleupnp, cleared the playlist,  changed render to local and library to another location.

then i just switched back to to hqpe for renderer and back to my regular music library.

loaded a new playlist and running fine right now, and playlist started to play after only about 1 second.

 

something getting messed up in bubbleupnp?

how do we check what is going on?

 

 

[cat6man]

2 hours ago, shadowlight said:

 

I think I have my minimserver startup configured wrong.  I will have to figure out why it does not start up when the system reboots.  I just hope that it runs as a service and does not require me to logging in before it starts.

 

one problem i've seen is that i seem to break minimserver whenever i update it.

[cat6man]

Can anyone send me a working example of a *.m3u file that works to stream radio?

 

I use minimserver and have just added minimstreamer.

I created a file, wnyc.m3u that contains the following:

 

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,[WNYC-FM] WNYC-FM
http://www.wnyc.org/stream/wnyc-fm939/mp3.pls

 

when i click on this file on the ubuntu pc, it opens vlc and plays the stream.

i thought this was the proper file format but when i browse and select this in bubbleupnp, nothing plays?

 

anyone have this working or know what i missed?

not looking for anything hi-rez or complex (yet)

 

running config:

bubbleupnp client on android phone

minimserver, minimstreamer,  hqplayerd 4beta12 on ubuntu xenial

wired LAN

ultraRendu(NAA) to DAC

 

thanks

[cat6man]

1 hour ago, cat6man said:

Can anyone send me a working example of a *.m3u file that works to stream radio?

 

I use minimserver and have just added minimstreamer.

I created a file, wnyc.m3u that contains the following:

 

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,[WNYC-FM] WNYC-FM
http://www.wnyc.org/stream/wnyc-fm939/mp3.pls

 

when i click on this file on the ubuntu pc, it opens vlc and plays the stream.

i thought this was the proper file format but when i browse and select this in bubbleupnp, nothing plays?

 

anyone have this working or know what i missed?

not looking for anything hi-rez or complex (yet)

 

running config:

bubbleupnp client on android phone

minimserver, minimstreamer,  hqplayerd 4beta12 on ubuntu xenial

wired LAN

ultraRendu(NAA) to DAC

 

thanks

 

forgot to add that i set file format conversion in minimstreamer 

mp3:wav24

 

i'm guessing that there may be a rate conversion needed as well as a format conversion for hqp to be happy?

[cat6man]

Not sure if this is a HQPd problem or not.

I've posted to bubbleupnp forum on XDA as well, and thought someone here might have some suggestions.

 

I use bubbleupnp on a pixelXL with HQPlayerd (running on ubuntu machine) as the renderer (feeding an ultraRendu NAA to my DAC) and the music library resides on the same ubuntu machine.
Most of the time I'm fine, but every now and then the renderer drops and then camps on local renderer.
This happens even when the wifi signal is very strong (and the mobile phone is stationary), so I'm assuming something momentarily interrupts the connection somewhere.
When this happens, music playback stops and I have to re-select the HQP renderer, at which point music can resume.

Any suggestions on how to make the connection to the renderer more robust?

Any ideas where the problem may lie?

[cat6man]

6 hours ago, shadowlight said:

Similar to cat6man, I have been struggling with playback stopping after the song has completed.  In the logs all I see is something similar to

 

 

 

i'm not sure the problems are similar @shadowlight

 

are you seeing bubbleupnp going back to local renderer?

if so, your log would probably show some sort of searching for a renderer.

 

p.s. i used to have occasional problems with no play after a song finished but not in a long time now.

i'm on r4beta13.  which hqplayerd load are you using?

[cat6man]

On 1/4/2018 at 11:21 AM, cat6man said:

Not sure if this is a HQPd problem or not.

I've posted to bubbleupnp forum on XDA as well, and thought someone here might have some suggestions.

 

I use bubbleupnp on a pixelXL with HQPlayerd (running on ubuntu machine) as the renderer (feeding an ultraRendu NAA to my DAC) and the music library resides on the same ubuntu machine.
Most of the time I'm fine, but every now and then the renderer drops and then camps on local renderer.
This happens even when the wifi signal is very strong (and the mobile phone is stationary), so I'm assuming something momentarily interrupts the connection somewhere.
When this happens, music playback stops and I have to re-select the HQP renderer, at which point music can resume.

Any suggestions on how to make the connection to the renderer more robust?

Any ideas where the problem may lie?

 

I got a suggestion on the XDA forum from the developer, bubbleguuum.

 

Make sure to exclude BubbleUPnP from Doze: Go into 'Android settings > Battery > 3-dot menu > Battery Optimization' and add BubbleUPnP in the 'Not Optimized' list.

 

I'm trying this now to see if the problem goes away.  Sounds like something all bubbleupnp users should be doing.