HQPlayer Linux Desktop and HQplayer embedded

[guiltyboxswapper]

Has anyone succeeded in a bridge network, with Upnp from Rygel available on the network interfaces?  From what I've checked of my bridge configuration, there shouldn't be any reason multicast is blocked, though any suggestions to check would be welcome. 

 

May try another multicast app to rule out any issues with Rygel embedded.

 

HQPlayer Embedded logs do show that it is listening to all network interfaces.  Can that be restricted to a certain interface?

[Miska]

1 hour ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

Has anyone succeeded in a bridge network, with Upnp from Rygel available on the network interfaces?  From what I've checked of my bridge configuration, there shouldn't be any reason multicast is blocked, though any suggestions to check would be welcome. 

 

You could try the HQPlayer OS image. It runs network interfaces bridged.

 

1 hour ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

HQPlayer Embedded logs do show that it is listening to all network interfaces.  Can that be restricted to a certain interface?

 

Yes, instead of default "auto" in HQPlayer configuration you can set it to an interface name. It is just one of those options you need to manually edit in the configuration file, because it is something supposed to be configured by the hardware manufacturer.

 

[Superdad]

Hi @Miska:

Thanks for fixing HQPe so that it both recognizes NAAs on the network and is automatically seen by HQP Client on other machine.  Both of those things work perfectly now.

 

Today for the very first time I was able to play a couple of tracks--from HQPe on custom Mac mini to highly tuned NUC running AudioLinux/NAA--out to modified Singxer SU-1 to Holo Spring L3 via I2S/LVDS/HDMI.  With control from your Client on my desktop iMac.

Sound is glorious.  Quite clearly better than HQP Desktop on iMac through to NAA.  Spooky real!

 

I barely managed to get the Library scanner in HQPe to find a thumb drive with a couple of files.  Seems like the USB ports mount thumb dives as "sdc" sometimes...  Something is inconsistent here and now scans of all my thumb drives result in "Fail!" from HQPe.

 

Plus now the main HQPe window mysteriously has loaded a series of test tracks that are not mine.  They appear as:

/run/media/mmcblk0p2/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav   

There is no button to clear that queue.  Those are not in the Library--which is now empty.

 

So I am really confused about getting music tracks into the HQPe Library.  And what I actually need to arrive at is a way to get HQPe to scan (reliably) a hard drive full of music (attached to the iMac at my desk) that I have shared as an smb: volume.  MacOS Sharing tells me that other computers should be able to see my shared volumes at smb://192.168.8.109.  But how on earth do I point HQPe to that?

 

I would consider directly attaching my music drive via USB to the HQPe-running Mac mini.  But that would leave me without any means to manage or add to my music library.  If figure if HQPe can see my Mac drive with music, I could continue to use iTunes (or the lovely DSD and FLAC supporting Swinsian) to manage files.

 

Looking forward to your guidance.  For a short while the music was heavenly.  Now I can get any tracks into it.

 

Best,

--Alex C.

 

P.S.  Can you please also explain the purpose and usage of the Input menu in HQP Embedded?

[Miska]

3 hours ago, Superdad said:

I barely managed to get the Library scanner in HQPe to find a thumb drive with a couple of files.  Seems like the USB ports mount thumb dives as "sdc" sometimes...  Something is inconsistent here and now scans of all my thumb drives result in "Fail!" from HQPe.

 

That may happen if you have unrelated drives connected to the computer. So other than the boot drive and media.

 

3 hours ago, Superdad said:

Plus now the main HQPe window mysteriously has loaded a series of test tracks that are not mine.  They appear as:

/run/media/mmcblk0p2/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav   

There is no button to clear that queue.  Those are not in the Library--which is now empty.

 

Looks like you've booted from SD-card. Those are standard ALSA test files. Either library or removable media has been pointed at some point plain /run /media folder which contains all mount points.

 

3 hours ago, Superdad said:

So I am really confused about getting music tracks into the HQPe Library.  And what I actually need to arrive at is a way to get HQPe to scan (reliably) a hard drive full of music (attached to the iMac at my desk) that I have shared as an smb: volume.  MacOS Sharing tells me that other computers should be able to see my shared volumes at smb://192.168.8.109.  But how on earth do I point HQPe to that?

 

I will later add tools for mounting SMB shares.

 

You can already do that if install HQPlayer Embedded for example on Ubuntu Server 18.04, or minimal Fedora 29 (no GUI). But either way you'll need to get familiar working with Linux command line for such...

 

If you just want to use HQPlayer Embedded as a UPnP Renderer or from Roon, then it is much simpler.

 

3 hours ago, Superdad said:

I would consider directly attaching my music drive via USB to the HQPe-running Mac mini.  But that would leave me without any means to manage or add to my music library.

 

You could just take the drive to another computer to do that. Or if you install HQPlayer Embedded on Ubuntu Server or Fedora Minimal (or minimal Debian 9), you can also share the drive through SMB.

 

3 hours ago, Superdad said:

P.S.  Can you please also explain the purpose and usage of the Input menu in HQP Embedded?

 

You can

1. Load CD discs, assuming you have a CD drive
2. Load thumb drives with media
3. Play from analog and digital inputs, such as another computer or Google Chromecast Audio dongle

 

Just like library, inputs are also available for selection from HQPlayer Client.

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

4 hours ago, Superdad said:

Hi @Miska:

Thanks for fixing HQPe so that it both recognizes NAAs on the network and is automatically seen by HQP Client on other machine.  Both of those things work perfectly now.

 

Today for the very first time I was able to play a couple of tracks--from HQPe on custom Mac mini to highly tuned NUC running AudioLinux/NAA--out to modified Singxer SU-1 to Holo Spring L3 via I2S/LVDS/HDMI.  With control from your Client on my desktop iMac.

Sound is glorious.  Quite clearly better than HQP Desktop on iMac through to NAA.  Spooky real!

 

I barely managed to get the Library scanner in HQPe to find a thumb drive with a couple of files.  Seems like the USB ports mount thumb dives as "sdc" sometimes...  Something is inconsistent here and now scans of all my thumb drives result in "Fail!" from HQPe.

 

Plus now the main HQPe window mysteriously has loaded a series of test tracks that are not mine.  They appear as:

/run/media/mmcblk0p2/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav   

There is no button to clear that queue.  Those are not in the Library--which is now empty.

 

So I am really confused about getting music tracks into the HQPe Library.  And what I actually need to arrive at is a way to get HQPe to scan (reliably) a hard drive full of music (attached to the iMac at my desk) that I have shared as an smb: volume.  MacOS Sharing tells me that other computers should be able to see my shared volumes at smb://192.168.8.109.  But how on earth do I point HQPe to that?

 

I would consider directly attaching my music drive via USB to the HQPe-running Mac mini.  But that would leave me without any means to manage or add to my music library.  If figure if HQPe can see my Mac drive with music, I could continue to use iTunes (or the lovely DSD and FLAC supporting Swinsian) to manage files.

 

Looking forward to your guidance.  For a short while the music was heavenly.  Now I can get any tracks into it.

 

Best,

--Alex C.

 

P.S.  Can you please also explain the purpose and usage of the Input menu in HQP Embedded?

Hi Alex,

 

I'm "afraid" I share your opinion about SQ; only heard 3 tracks so far but those let me in a state of disbelief : if I'm not delusional now, how have I missed that for so long and considered Desktop on WS2012, better yet with my TEAC than on macOS,  so good...

 

If you actually booted from a SD card on your Mac, which did you use, what's the trick ?(failed with 3, including 2 from back your osx trick). Works with a usb stick

 

I don't master either the Library; works don't know how

 

through df & mount I found my music on sdc1 and once saw under the Library tag the folder "4embedded" I created (after I had chosen removable in Imput"). Now it keeps saying 0 album but the files show nevertheless on the Main page.

 

There I can only play them in sequential order or have to press the "next" arrow : can not select a track and launch it

 

I have TBs of Music on a macos formatted HDD (plays just fine with Windows through wifi or wired, thanks to SMB if I understand well ) and I'm happy Miska has the task on his to do list

[Le Concombre Masqué]

44 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

 

 

I will later add tools for mounting SMB shares.

 

 

great ! 

So, I would have to purchase a Embedded license (no upgrade coupon I guess...)

a thunderbolt/Ethernet adaptor

what about the ethernet connection ? I'm trialing with a "FTP CAT6E 4 PAIRS" cheapo ; what's the opinion here about the right cable/ optical decouplers or what have you? (I am perfectly happy with 5ghz wifi streaming from the HDD these days)

[Le Concombre Masqué]

@Miska I have FAT32 formatted a 500 GB hdd and filled it with music and it appeared and populated Library just fine

 

To play an album press play in front of the album. To play a track press play in front of the track. Fine. But it plays just that track

But how about not wanting to listen to the whole Heroes album but wanting to have Neukohln follow Moss Garden??!!

 

I tried the full monty with a borrowed extra MBP and the macOS networkaudiod and no chance.Perfect connection between the wired MBP the wifi mac and the wifi Vista PC, or so it seems, but the TEAC 501 would not start because of a non integer affair.

 

4.03 Client worked just fine on the 2nd MBP (did not try to have it run both as NAA and as Interface ; is it an option?)

 

Globally Embedded seems easy now that it works.

 

HUGE CAVEAT : heat ; is there a danger for my good ol' 2012 MBP? I have seen cpu temperature beyond threshold and cpu throttles messages. However it was followed by messages about speed being normal

But maybe it's the reason music stopped abruptly sometimes ? or maybe it's Trial mode ? (but it doesn't have the clock precise feeling given by 4 as trial). I also changed settings to default for number of bits and buffer for the TEAC 501; good idea?

 

I'm very motivated by the sound. I have not made comparisons. On some tracks I had greater souvenirs with 3 or 4 but the general feeling was that it might have been my mood/my perception today while I had the global feeling it was better than ever with incredible resolution of details on well known tracks, and always a soft gentle natural sound, as if a digitis that I did not suspect was there with Desktop on Windows and Mac OS and was now removed.

 

I have a gamer fan board that I used with the 2 rear fans only . I will activate the 2 front ones as well but the MAc gets maddening hot and that's my main fear now. That is mainly with DSD 64 convolved and upscaled to 128. Any suggestion.

 

I have another use for the usb hub I use now. Buying a second one is cheaper than the thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor ; do you expect a difference towards an even better SQ if I plug directly the usb stick with embedded and have the ethernet on a thunderbolt port?

 

Thanks and kudos

[Miska]

On 4/27/2019 at 8:27 PM, shadowlight said:

networkaudiod crashes and i have to restart but it's a continuous loop.  as soon as restart and select it it crashes again

 

I'm testing with HQPE 4.10.2 and NAA 3.5.6 using ASIO backend and T+A DAC8 DSD and it works perfectly fine:

 

So I think I need some more information... If you can drop me logs from both sides, it could help figuring out...

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

@Miska I have FAT32 formatted a 500 GB hdd and filled it with music and it appeared and populated Library just fine

 

To play an album press play in front of the album. To play a track press play in front of the track. Fine. But it plays just that track

But how about not wanting to listen to the whole Heroes album but wanting to have Neukohln follow Moss Garden??!!

 

OK, great!

 

So here...

...you can use the upper "Play" button to play the album immediately. And the lower "Queue" button to queue it on the playlist.

 

Note that there are two modes just like in HQPlayer Desktop 3/4, "album mode" where you load an album to the transport. Just like you load CD disc to CD player. The other mode is "playlist mode". Queues are always in "playlist mode", but playing an album is in "album mode". Reason for these two are that "album mode" contains some optimizations that "playlist mode" doesn't have. Primarily because of some assumptions about albums:

1. All tracks belong together and are in specific order
2. All tracks are same format (sample rate, file format, etc)
3. There's one common cover image for all tracks (not a strict limitation though)

When you click that "Burn" link, you get to the album view...

Where you can either immediately play a track using "Play" button, or queue the track to the playlist using "Queue" button.

 

This same logic is also in the HQPlayer Client which you can also use to do the same thing, with some extra flexibility.

 

1 hour ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

HUGE CAVEAT : heat ; is there a danger for my good ol' 2012 MBP? I have seen cpu temperature beyond threshold and cpu throttles messages. However it was followed by messages about speed being normal

 

If it's cooling is doing it's job, it shouldn't have a problem. And at least the CPU has heat protections anyway. In addition, the image also contains some thermal management. Overheating may lead to audio drop-outs though, because CPU clocks and voltages are dropped to lower levels to keep thermals in bay (called "thermal throttling").

 

1 hour ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

I have a gamer fan board that I used with the 2 rear fans only . I will activate the 2 front ones as well but the MAc gets maddening hot and that's my main fear now. That is mainly with DSD 64 convolved and upscaled to 128. Any suggestion.

 

Laptops are tightly packed devices and tend to have some heat challenges always, not so much designed for constant high loads, although many professionals still do it all the time (for example video professionals rendering video/movie files which is much higher load than HQPlayer).

 

1 hour ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

Buying a second one is cheaper than the thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor ; do you expect a difference towards an even better SQ if I plug directly the usb stick with embedded and have the ethernet on a thunderbolt port?

 

Probably it makes a difference in many ways. I'm just not sure if the Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter on Mac will work with the image. I can try to find time to try it out some time with the Macs I have... Thunderbolt is essentially PCIexpress, which is much more efficient than USB. In addition, less traffic on USB removes quite a bit of extra load from the CPU too.

 

Mac is quite a lot like a PC, but Apple has done some things a bit differently, so things don't always work as expected...

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

8 hours ago, Miska said:

 

OK, great!

 

So here...

...you can use the upper "Play" button to play the album immediately. And the lower "Queue" button to queue it on the playlist.

 

Note that there are two modes just like in HQPlayer Desktop 3/4, "album mode" where you load an album to the transport. Just like you load CD disc to CD player. The other mode is "playlist mode". Queues are always in "playlist mode", but playing an album is in "album mode". Reason for these two are that "album mode" contains some optimizations that "playlist mode" doesn't have. Primarily because of some assumptions about albums:

1. All tracks belong together and are in specific order
2. All tracks are same format (sample rate, file format, etc)
3. There's one common cover image for all tracks (not a strict limitation though)

When you click that "Burn" link, you get to the album view...

Where you can either immediately play a track using "Play" button, or queue the track to the playlist using "Queue" button.

 

This same logic is also in the HQPlayer Client which you can also use to do the same thing, with some extra flexibility.

 

 

If it's cooling is doing it's job, it shouldn't have a problem. And at least the CPU has heat protections anyway. In addition, the image also contains some thermal management. Overheating may lead to audio drop-outs though, because CPU clocks and voltages are dropped to lower levels to keep thermals in bay (called "thermal throttling").

 

 

Laptops are tightly packed devices and tend to have some heat challenges always, not so much designed for constant high loads, although many professionals still do it all the time (for example video professionals rendering video/movie files which is much higher load than HQPlayer).

 

 

Probably it makes a difference in many ways. I'm just not sure if the Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter on Mac will work with the image. I can try to find time to try it out some time with the Macs I have... Thunderbolt is essentially PCIexpress, which is much more efficient than USB. In addition, less traffic on USB removes quite a bit of extra load from the CPU too.

 

Mac is quite a lot like a PC, but Apple has done some things a bit differently, so things don't always work as expected...

 

Thank you very much !

 

HDD + USB stick running Embedded + USB to Ethernet adapter on the same USB port does not seem "physiological" and I feel it accounts for the issues

 

the Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter is supposed to work just fine with my MBP and I'll order one as soon as you will be able to confirm it works with the image. 

BTW, I tried to put music on a FAT32 SD card and the image does not see it. And I still can't boot from SD card either (loops on writing timout

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

On 5/28/2019 at 4:07 AM, Superdad said:

Hi @Miska:

Thanks for fixing HQPe so that it both recognizes NAAs on the network and is automatically seen by HQP Client on other machine.  Both of those things work perfectly now.

 

Today for the very first time I was able to play a couple of tracks--from HQPe on custom Mac mini to highly tuned NUC running AudioLinux/NAA--out to modified Singxer SU-1 to Holo Spring L3 via I2S/LVDS/HDMI.  With control from your Client on my desktop iMac.

Sound is glorious.  Quite clearly better than HQP Desktop on iMac through to NAA.  Spooky real!

 

I barely managed to get the Library scanner in HQPe to find a thumb drive with a couple of files.  Seems like the USB ports mount thumb dives as "sdc" sometimes...  Something is inconsistent here and now scans of all my thumb drives result in "Fail!" from HQPe.

 

Plus now the main HQPe window mysteriously has loaded a series of test tracks that are not mine.  They appear as:

/run/media/mmcblk0p2/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav   

There is no button to clear that queue.  Those are not in the Library--which is now empty.

 

So I am really confused about getting music tracks into the HQPe Library.  And what I actually need to arrive at is a way to get HQPe to scan (reliably) a hard drive full of music (attached to the iMac at my desk) that I have shared as an smb: volume.  MacOS Sharing tells me that other computers should be able to see my shared volumes at smb://192.168.8.109.  But how on earth do I point HQPe to that?

 

I would consider directly attaching my music drive via USB to the HQPe-running Mac mini.  But that would leave me without any means to manage or add to my music library.  If figure if HQPe can see my Mac drive with music, I could continue to use iTunes (or the lovely DSD and FLAC supporting Swinsian) to manage files.

 

Looking forward to your guidance.  For a short while the music was heavenly.  Now I can get any tracks into it.

 

Best,

--Alex C.

 

P.S.  Can you please also explain the purpose and usage of the Input menu in HQP Embedded?

@Superdad I have writing timeouts preventing me from booting from a SD card

 

Have you found a way around or can you please tell me which model has worked for you on Mac hardware?

[Superdad]

26 minutes ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

@Superdad I have writing timeouts preventing me from booting from a SD card

 

Have you found a way around or can you please tell me which model has worked for you on Mac hardware?

 

No, as far as I have ever been able to tell, you can never boot Linux on a Mac from an SD card.  USB only.  Except for macOS of course.

[Superdad]

Duplicate post.

[Miska]

Now the latest HQPlayer OS image contains support for SMB/CIFS mounts.

 

Auto-mounting at boot should (I didn't test much) work following kind of line in /etc/fstab

//server/share		/mountpoint		cifs	user=myuser,pass=mypass		0 0

Replace "//server/share" with the correct one and "/mountpoint" with a folder path that you create for the purpose. Then "myuser" with your server side username and "mypass" with server side password.

 

[Superdad]

Dear Jussi:

Now that you have kindly added to Embedded support for mounting/scanning SMB volumes, can you please explain to us (non-Linux layfolk) the exact syntax to enter in the Path field on Library page before hitting the “Scan” button?

 

On the Mac when I set an attached drive or directory to be shared, it tells me that other computers will be able to connect to it at smb://192.168.8.112.  Though that would seem to be the address/path for all drives being shared by that machine—so more specifics will likely be needed.  Still, how do I begin to point HQPe to such volumes?

 

Given that the packaged HQPe image I am booting does not let us log in (you don’t give out login name or password), my Linux friends can not help me scan the network to see how shares look from its perspective.

 

Thanks very much,

ALEX

[Le Concombre Masqué]

2 minutes ago, Superdad said:

Dear Jussi:

Now that you have kindly added to Embedded support for mounting/scanning SMB volumes, can you please explain to us (non-Linux layfolk) the exact syntax to enter in the Path field on Library page before hitting the “Scan” button?

 

On the Mac when I set an attached drive or directory to be shared, it tells me that other computers will be able to connect to it at smb://192.168.8.112.  Though that would seem to be the address/path for all drives being shared by that machine—so more specifics will likely be needed.  Still, how do I begin to point HQPe to such volumes?

 

Given that the packaged HQPe image I am booting does not let us log in (you don’t give out login name or password), my Linux friends can not help me scan the network to see how shares look from its perspective.

 

Thanks very much,

ALEX

root is the password at login 

[Superdad]

1 minute ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

root is the password at login 

 

Is root also the login name?

[Superdad]

@Miska, aside from loading music from shared network drives, the final puzzle piece for me is to understand what music player front ends—available for macOS or simply to run in a browser—that will allow me to play though HQ Player Embedded.

I promise I am trying to give love to your Client, but it is tough.

THANKS!

[Le Concombre Masqué]

9 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

Is root also the login name?

once booted just type root in front of "login" 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

1 minute ago, Superdad said:

@Miska, aside from loading music from shared network drives, the final puzzle piece for me is to understand what music player front ends—available for macOS or simply to run in a browser—that will allow me to play though HQ Player Embedded.

I promise I am trying to give love to your Client, but it is tough.

THANKS!

I think I saw Roon suggested by Miska

[Miska]

Just now, Superdad said:

@Miska, aside from loading music from shared network drives, the final puzzle piece for me is to understand what music player front ends—available for macOS or simply to run in a browser—that will allow me to play though HQ Player Embedded.

I promise I am trying to give love to your Client, but it is tough.

 

For the built-in library, my Client, or alternatively the built-in web interface of HQPlayer Embedded. (for Android there are couple of apps)

 

You can also use Roon from it's own library (HQPlayer control protocol). Or Audirvana from it's own library (through UPnP). JRiver may also work through UPnP, but I have never touched it. There may be others too, I just don't know about.

 

Of course if you use some suitable input device, you can use any application (Spotify, Tidal, etc) from Mac through AES/EBU for example like I'm doing.

 

With UPnP you also have app options for iOS and Android.

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

31 minutes ago, Miska said:

Now the latest HQPlayer OS image contains support for SMB/CIFS mounts.

 

Auto-mounting at boot should (I didn't test much) work following kind of line in /etc/fstab

//server/share		/mountpoint		cifs	user=myuser,pass=mypass		0 0

Replace "//server/share" with the correct one and "/mountpoint" with a folder path that you create for the purpose. Then "myuser" with your server side username and "mypass" with server side password.

 

afp seems to be the incumbent protocol ; is it supposed to work as well ?

 

afp://AirPort._afpovertcp._tcp.local

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

afp seems to be the incumbent protocol ; is it supposed to work as well ?

 

afp://AirPort._afpovertcp._tcp.local

 

That's some Apple thing, I have never heard of anybody using it on Linux (or Windows for that matter). No, it is not supposed to work.

 

SMB/CIFS is most universal these days...

 

[Superdad]

4 minutes ago, Miska said:

Or Audirvana from it's own library (through UPnP).

 

Does anything need to be set in HQPe for it to be seen (by Audirvana for example) as a UPnP renderer?  And will HQPe still be able to pass its stream through to the NAA?

(Sorry, I’m a real noob regarding UPnP stuff. Just been using HQ Player Desktop to NAA for so long. )

[Miska]

7 minutes ago, Superdad said:

Does anything need to be set in HQPe for it to be seen (by Audirvana for example) as a UPnP renderer?  And will HQPe still be able to pass its stream through to the NAA?

(Sorry, I’m a real noob regarding UPnP stuff. Just been using HQ Player Desktop to NAA for so long. )

 

Only that you have audio output functional from HQPlayer. If it works, then UPnP works too. You can name the renderer the way you like through HQPlayer configuration (useful if you have more than one HQPlayer Embedded device).

 

NAA is just another backend for HQPlayer, it is unrelated to the frontend (UPnP being one of the many).