Official Qobuz Issues Thread

[Mark Dirac]

12 minutes ago, LowOrbit said:

Hi Mark

...

A bug list would be nice, but can be a pain to maintain and it does expose your issues publicly which many developers don't like!

...

Mark

Thanks Mark. I hope you will forgive my urge to respond:

• A bug list would be far more than nice.
• I don't believe that Tidal and Spotify and Amazon would be in the slightest bit interested that Qobuz have bugs in their software.
• Qobuz's issues are exposed publicly - and not resolved very effectively - in this very thread. In fact, anyone Googling for Qobuz on this site will come across this thread entitled "Issues" long before any thread about "Qobuz brilliance" or some such.

[MarkusBarkus]

I would bet a dozen Dr. Fauci donuts that Qobuz has a bug list and the software to manage it. That's how that process works.

Making that list public? I wouldn't do it for all the donuts in the world.

 

As a former recipient of daily ass-whippings by non-technical managers in 5:00 "daily reviews," making your bug list public means you now have lots of people in global fora, in multiple languages, managing your software development efforts...with no insight into the reasons why/how a bug exists, what it would take to fix/test it, windows for pushing code out, business road-map, etc. 

 

The public criticism would be driven by users' desires and speculative assessments of how important the defect is (to them), what they think it would take to resolve it, etc.

 

"What's the status on Bug #27?"

"These guys have 97 open, P2bugs?"

"When are they gonna add decaf?"

"Isn't that just a database change?" (my fav).

...etc. 

 

IMO it's not reasonable to ask/expect any company to publish their internal software dev bug lists.
 

That doesn't translate to contempt for users. And let's say they are somewhat understaffed (who isn't?), now they need a full-time person to manage on-line PR and bug reviews.
 

And no matter how well you do that, you will have your daily ass-whippings, now performed in public. 

 

They offer a place and method for reporting issues. They respond to issues (sometimes slower than desired). They fix issues. Seems reasonable to me. The marketplace sorts out the rest: faster, better, stronger.
 

 

 

[Jud]

5 hours ago, MarkusBarkus said:

I would bet a dozen Dr. Fauci donuts that Qobuz has a bug list and the software to manage it. That's how that process works.

Making that list public? I wouldn't do it for all the donuts in the world.

 

As a former recipient of daily ass-whippings by non-technical managers in 5:00 "daily reviews," making your bug list public means you now have lots of people in global fora, in multiple languages, managing your software development efforts...with no insight into the reasons why/how a bug exists, what it would take to fix/test it, windows for pushing code out, business road-map, etc. 

 

The public criticism would be driven by users' desires and speculative assessments of how important the defect is (to them), what they think it would take to resolve it, etc.

 

"What's the status on Bug #27?"

"These guys have 97 open, P2bugs?"

"When are they gonna add decaf?"

"Isn't that just a database change?" (my fav).

...etc. 

 

IMO it's not reasonable to ask/expect any company to publish their internal software dev bug lists.
 

That doesn't translate to contempt for users. And let's say they are somewhat understaffed (who isn't?), now they need a full-time person to manage on-line PR and bug reviews.
 

And no matter how well you do that, you will have your daily ass-whippings, now performed in public. 

 

They offer a place and method for reporting issues. They respond to issues (sometimes slower than desired). They fix issues. Seems reasonable to me. The marketplace sorts out the rest: faster, better, stronger.
 

 

 

 

I have seen both. Most open source projects I'm familiar with also have open bug lists with user comments. It's a choice, like the choice of whether to make your source open or proprietary, and I am not particularly religious about which a company or project decides to do.

 

There are companies and projects I prefer (Qobuz among them), and for these I try to provide detailed, careful reports if I encounter bugs.

 

I tend to use Audirvana most often to access Qobuz, which works very nicely. I also do occasionally use the app, and I've been lucky enough not to encounter any debilitating bugs that I can remember.  A project for when I have some time is to get the app working with hi res on Linux (there are simple directions available to get the web player working at CD resolution).

 

By the way Qobuz, if you ever want a beta tester for a Linux app.... 🙂

[BrownMagic]

Hi

 

I am streaming to a Chromecast audio puck from the Qobuz app on my iPhone. I am able to cast but the song plays on the casted device and then it also starts playing on the phone speaker. Is this a known bug? 

Thanks

[David Craff]

On 3/2/2021 at 11:22 PM, LowOrbit said:

I have been buying music from Qobuz for a long while, and recently took a subscription for the streaming service. I don't use Roon or any other form of library integration. 

 

The "app" on Windows 10 is garbage. Poor navigation, takes ages to initialise, and doesn't seem to handle mixed sample rate file streaming well to my Chord HugoTT2. It seems to get confused and the music replays at low speed so everything is dragged out - an interesting effect, but wears thin quickly. 

 

I shall buy an Audirvana license and see if that works better, otherwise I shall think seriously about cancelling the service which would be a shame.

 

Anyone else suffering this issue? I don't get playback issues with HQPlayer, JRiver (or the trial version of Audirvana) with local content.

 

Hi,

 

Can you send me screenshot of your garbage Qobuz Windows 10 application.

 

Regards

[David Craff]

22 hours ago, Jud said:

By the way Qobuz, if you ever want a beta tester for a Linux app.... 🙂

 

I will remember it :)

[David Craff]

On 3/2/2021 at 10:15 PM, jegreenwood said:

I heard back from Qobuz support directly.  I was quite surprised that the answer was works as designed (currently).

 

“If you log out of your account on our app, for legal reasons, all downloaded files are deleted. This eventually will only affect music downloaded for streaming not purchases. However, I don't have a timeline that I can currently share with you.”

 

My advice to them was that if this is the case, Qobuz should provide a notice to music purchasers selecting a download method.

 

Hi,

 

I have to review the feature. In fact for legal reasons you can't keep the import content. But for purchases content, we need to review this. We will do our best to find a more logical solution to this operation.

 

Regards

[David Craff]

On 3/3/2021 at 11:51 AM, Mark Dirac said:

I use a RPI/MoOde because the Qobuz W10 app is poor.

 

Hi,

 

Can you explain me what do you mean by "poor"? What do you want?

 

Regards

[jegreenwood]

1 hour ago, David Craff said:

 

Hi,

 

I have to review the feature. In fact for legal reasons you can't keep the import content. But for purchases content, we need to review this. We will do our best to find a more logical solution to this operation.

 

Regards

Thanks.

 

But I have to add that when I requested a refund of my duplicate purchase Qobuz denied it.

[LowOrbit]

1 hour ago, David Craff said:

 

Hi,

 

Can you send me screenshot of your garbage Qobuz Windows 10 application.

 

Regards

Hi David

 

I'm sure you know what your app looks like🙂 

 

My issues are not with the visual representation - I would have made other aesthetic choices but I can forgive the choice of layout and fonts. My issues are:

 

Why di I need to launch an installer every time I want to stream? Then wait while, briefly, a white shape with a logo-y thing appears, spins a bit then vanishes. Then, for many seconds there is not indication that anything is continuing - the process could have failed completely. Some indication that stuff is happening would be nice.

 

Once up and running, the issue is with the reliable replay of music at the correct speed. I listened to almost the whole of Nick Caves "Carnage" album. Was terrific until we got the last track which replayed at quarter speed. SImilar issues with the 29/192 remaster of "Sidewinder" by Lee Morgan. I restarted the app on numerous occasions (incurring more delays with the initialisation of the app) and each time from either the first track or sooner after replay would drop to this low rate. 

 

I have neither the time nor patience to get tangled up in your issues - my day job is managing resolution of P1/P2 incidents for network carriers and datacentres, music is a respite. 

 

I realise my assessment of your work as "garbage" could be seen as a bit harsh, but the app IS your streaming service and I want it to look nice and function transparently.

 

 

[Stereo]

@dmackta Thanks to you and David Solomon for doing this live stream. Great inside information. Can’t wait for the new features: https://m.facebook.com/groups/streamingmusicmatters/permalink/2619645778327644/?refid=18&_ft_=qid.6935931917694587972%3Amf_story_key.2619645778327644%3Agroup_id.1784625028496394%3Atop_level_post_id.2619645778327644%3Atl_objid.2619645778327644%3Acontent_owner_id_new.683093970%3Apage_id.1784625028496394%3Asrc.22%3Aphoto_id.10158920097188971%3Astory_location.6%3Astory_attachment_style.video_inline%3Afilter.GroupStoriesByActivityEntQuery%3Atds_flgs.3%3Aott.AX-voU4Z1fIfh50x%3Apage_insights.{"1784625028496394"%3A{"page_id"%3A1784625028496394%2C"page_id_type"%3A"group"%2C"actor_id"%3A683093970%2C"dm"%3A{"isShare"%3A0%2C"originalPostOwnerID"%3A0}%2C"psn"%3A"EntGroupMallPostCreationStory"%2C"post_context"%3A{"object_fbtype"%3A657%2C"publish_time"%3A1614891620%2C"story_name"%3A"EntGroupMallPostCreationStory"%2C"story_fbid"%3A[2619645778327644]}%2C"role"%3A1%2C"sl"%3A6}}&__tn__=*s*s-R

[David Craff]

13 hours ago, LowOrbit said:

I'm sure you know what your app looks like🙂 

Of course I know my app but I want to be sure we are talking to the same garbage application :)

 

14 hours ago, LowOrbit said:

My issues are not with the visual representation - I would have made other aesthetic choices but I can forgive the choice of layout and fonts

Thank you for forgiving us.

 

14 hours ago, LowOrbit said:

Why di I need to launch an installer every time I want to stream? Then wait while, briefly, a white shape with a logo-y thing appears, spins a bit then vanishes. Then, for many seconds there is not indication that anything is continuing - the process could have failed completely. Some indication that stuff is happening would be nice.

Sorry I don't understand. What is an installer for you? Can you send me screenshot for that?

 

14 hours ago, LowOrbit said:

Once up and running, the issue is with the reliable replay of music at the correct speed. I listened to almost the whole of Nick Caves "Carnage" album. Was terrific until we got the last track which replayed at quarter speed. SImilar issues with the 29/192 remaster of "Sidewinder" by Lee Morgan. I restarted the app on numerous occasions (incurring more delays with the initialisation of the app) and each time from either the first track or sooner after replay would drop to this low rate. 

For this issue I would like a video. I never had this problem. You said you are on Windows, did you use the Wasapi Exclusive mode for listening ?

 

14 hours ago, LowOrbit said:

I have neither the time nor patience to get tangled up in your issues - my day job is managing resolution of P1/P2 incidents for network carriers and datacentres, music is a respite. 

 

I realise my assessment of your work as "garbage" could be seen as a bit harsh, but the app IS your streaming service and I want it to look nice and function transparently.

We want the same thing.

 

Regards

[BrownMagic]

On 3/4/2021 at 6:03 PM, BrownMagic said:

Hi

 

I am streaming to a Chromecast audio puck from the Qobuz app on my iPhone. I am able to cast but the song plays on the casted device and then it also starts playing on the phone speaker. Is this a known bug? 

Thanks

 

@David Craff I would like to nudge you again. I tried again in a different device. A primare NP5. When I cast from the Qobuz app, the music starts playing on the cast device first and then after a few minutes it starts playing on the phone itself.  It is very annoying. I then have to reconnect via Chromecast again. I do not have this problem with Tidal or Spotify. I have tried both services now. Is this a known bug? if yes when can we expect a fix? Thanks

[David Craff]

31 minutes ago, BrownMagic said:

 

@David Craff I would like to nudge you again. I tried again in a different device. A primare NP5. When I cast from the Qobuz app, the music starts playing on the cast device first and then after a few minutes it starts playing on the phone itself.  It is very annoying. I then have to reconnect via Chromecast again. I do not have this problem with Tidal or Spotify. I have tried both services now. Is this a known bug? if yes when can we expect a fix? Thanks

 

Hi,

 

We are working on it. We update the receiver and plug our app on it. I have no delivery date to give you yet.

 

Regards

[Jud]

17 hours ago, jegreenwood said:

Thanks.

 

But I have to add that when I requested a refund of my duplicate purchase Qobuz denied it.

 

Ouch.

[jegreenwood]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Ouch.

I filed a dispute of the charge with Amex.  Only then, after I advised Qobuz of the fact, they responded that they would have offered me a complimentary download,  But since I had started a dispute, they could no longer do that.

[Stereo]

@dmackta Thank you and David Solomon for doing this. Nicely informative. Can’t wait for the new features to arrive.

 

Worth watching to help you understand more about Qobuz and how it works https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib9Eka_FQDs

[keeper]

On 3/2/2021 at 9:15 PM, jegreenwood said:I heard back from Qobuz support directly.  I was quite surprised that the answer was works as designed (currently).

 

“If you log out of your account on our app, for legal reasons, all downloaded files are deleted. This eventually will only affect music downloaded for streaming not purchases. However, I don't have a timeline that I can currently share with you.”

 

My advice to them was that if this is the case, Qobuz should provide a notice to music purchasers selecting a download method.

I had the same issue when support asked me to log out and I lost the lot.

 

I had issues also with CarPlay only displaying downloaded content, and in the IOS app it did not show all albums for the artist.

 

I raised all the tickets got no where with Qobuz, asked support to raise it to the management team, nothing.

 

Paid a years subscription to find lots of the mobile offerings did not work, raised a case to PayPal , no reply from Qobuz, reviewed by PayPal who found in my favour and provided a refund.

 

These guys clearly need to advertise what the current product offering is and how it works.

The terms of contract don’t seem to match the offering, I’m out and won’t use the service again.

 

Pity the sound quality is very good, support for the product is poor, and unless the team rapidly grows will only get worse if they expand to more countries as detailed in the podcast.

 

Seems strange Tidal allow you to log out for a period and actually provide a method to restore your offline content if required.

[Polyglot]

A few days ago the program was updated and now the search results have been limited. After a few pages of results have been shown, no more results are loaded. This is a tremendous hindrance to exploring deep catalogue titles and discovering new music, one of the biggest appeals of streaming. Please correct this as soon as possible.

 

Also, this is a good opportunity to fix the scroll position memory bug. Qobuz is a good service, however the annoyances add up and do make a difference. Even though I am a customer of the download store, I am not currently a streaming subscriber, and will not resubscribe unless these issues are fixed. Thank you!

[jegreenwood]

And of course the troubles continue. There are a number of clicks in one of the download files (CD1 Part IV, and that’s as far as I got). I tried re-downloading with the same result. Haven’t listened to Guston yet.

 

So far, every aspect of my purchase from Qobuz has been a negative experience. I will not be purchasing from them again.

[David Craff]

On 3/7/2021 at 1:23 AM, Polyglot said:

A few days ago the program was updated and now the search results have been limited. After a few pages of results have been shown, no more results are loaded. This is a tremendous hindrance to exploring deep catalogue titles and discovering new music, one of the biggest appeals of streaming. Please correct this as soon as possible.

 

Also, this is a good opportunity to fix the scroll position memory bug. Qobuz is a good service, however the annoyances add up and do make a difference. Even though I am a customer of the download store, I am not currently a streaming subscriber, and will not resubscribe unless these issues are fixed. Thank you!

 

Hi, can you send me a PM about this issue. We can look at this together and find a solution.

[David Craff]

44 minutes ago, jegreenwood said:

And of course the troubles continue. There are a number of clicks in one of the download files (CD1 Part IV, and that’s as far as I got). I tried re-downloading with the same result. Haven’t listened to Guston yet.

 

So far, every aspect of my purchase from Qobuz has been a negative experience. I will not be purchasing from them again.

 

Hi,

 

Can you send me a PM about that. Try to understand your issue and find a solution.

[DarginMahkum]

On 2/19/2021 at 5:13 PM, 111MilesToGo said:

Huge usability issues resulting from the Qobuz way of storing offline contents, at least in the Qobuz Android App

 

I am a Qobuz Studio subsriber for for a number of years now, i.e. a HiRes customer. For a long time, I used it on a Windows PC in stand-alone and in integration within Roon. A while ago, I added an Android DIgital Audio Player to my gear. I do now face the need to address the a.m. topic in public. Please bear with me for writing a long post. I e-mailed the Qobuz support last December and again early January. Answers haven't been entirely satisfactory, in essence "we have forwarded your request to our software engineers, they will follow up on it" and "... they will work on the performance of the app", nothing more as of now. So today I feel a need to "go public" and ask the folks here for your experience, and hopefully get the attention of a Qobuz staff member in order to assist.

 

Qobuz has opted to use the "chunk file method" (similar to YouToube) as one of the methods to provide piracy protection for offline contents ("imported" tracks). Each track is split and stored as a bunch of *.exo chunk files of 2 MB size in the import directory. In fact, these are tiny files as compared to the full size of a track's file, in particular as audo resolution is increasing when going up the HiRes steps.

 

My use case is maybe a bit out of the ordinary, but I do firmly think it is not an abuse: I wanted to follow up on the discography of one artist (Keith Jarrett), so I offlined approx. 100 albums. This resulted in taking up 100 GB of storage as a total of 50,000 (sic!) files, all in the import directory. My audio device is really choking on this, cf. below.

 

Why is offlining of utmost importance to me? I am using a portable Digital Audio Player (DAP), which hooks up to my home WiFi for internet connection. No internet available when out of the house, e.g. in the office. Plus, since it is a battery-powered device, one would like to limit WiFi usage in favor of overall battery life.

 

What are the huge usability issues resulting from this chunk file method? There are several:

1. My DAP is a Cayin N6ii running Android 8.1
   Sapdragon 425 CPU, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB internal storage
   1 TB SD card SanDisk Extreme Pro (top brand name product) - this storage holds the Qobuz import directory a.o.
   Not exactly the standard of today's smartphones, but still a top product in the niche market of Digital Audio Players.
   Software from Google Play Store, a.o. the Qobuz Android App (latest version 5.15)
2. At boot-up, it takes Android about 30 minutes (sic!) until it has done the first read of the 50,000 file import directory which resides on the SD card. So I have acquired the habit of switching the N6ii on half an hour before I actually want to start listening.
3. If I don't do (2), then the Qobuz Android App needs just this amount of time before getting ready for user input. (Wait spinner all the time.)
4. When I select an album from my offlined contents, the Qobuz Android App takes about 30 seconds to a minute gathering all the file chunks that would make up this album; wait spinner again.
5. When skipping forward or backwards within one track, or when skipping from one track to another, it takes some 10 seconds or more before replay continues.

I must say that (2), (4) and (5) are huge usability issues which can really spoil the joy of using Qobuz on this Android DAP. I figure this holds for many if not all DAPs, since there are at most a handful of Android DAPs which are closer to top smartphone standards. To my understanding, Qobuz targets demanding listeners, not the general mass audience. Again, my use case of offlining 100 albums is sort of unusual, but no abuse at all.

 

I hope to have explained clearly that there are two types of performance and thus usability issues resulting from the Qobuz way of storing offlined contents: One is due to Android as the OS, the others are due to the Qobuz Android App.

 

I am perfectly aware that the chunk file method is embedded deeply into the app, and that it is needed for piracy protection; thus I reckon it is an element in the licensing contracts with the record companies. But then, Tidal does store its offline contents in an optimum way regarding file system performance, i.e. as one file per one track, most probably encrypted.

 

So my questions and requests are:

1. What could Qobuz do to improve said performance / usability issues?
2. Could Qobuz entirely do away with the chunk file method? (Cf. Tidal)
3. Or could Qobuz reduce the number of chunk files drastically, let's say by a factor of 10 or 5 at least? E.g. by chosing the chunk file size dynamically depending on a track's resolution, instead of the current fixed 2 MB size?
4. At least, what could Qobuz do to improve their Android App's performance in handling such large numbers of chunk files?

Thank you for patiently reading such a long post, and thanks a lot in advance for feedback, help, and ultimately solutions.

 

PS, not to be omitted: I do absolutely like Qobuz, its repertoire with respect to genres, artists, and albums. And I absolutely cherish their HiRes offerings. Plus, I do appreciate Qobuz supplying pdf booklets - that's the least one can do to recover the old times approach to enjoying music / records and their environment.

 

Dear @David Craff, are you following up this issue? It is a serious performance bottleneck for DAP users. Can you please be so kind to consider this as a priority one, at least pass it to the software team for analysis? These days +100 GB imports are not unusual, and 2 MB chunks are too tiny when we have tens of thousands of them lying around to be organized before being able to play them, on a portable device.

 

Thank you.

 

[David Craff]

3 hours ago, DarginMahkum said:

Dear @David Craff, are you following up this issue? It is a serious performance bottleneck for DAP users. Can you please be so kind to consider this as a priority one, at least pass it to the software team for analysis? These days +100 GB imports are not unusual, and 2 MB chunks are too tiny when we have tens of thousands of them lying around to be organized before being able to play them, on a portable device.

 

HI,

 

I will sent this to the dev team. And come back to you if I have news. I don't know when I'll have information about this request but I'll do my best.

 

Regards

[David Craff]

7 hours ago, DarginMahkum said:

Dear @David Craff, are you following up this issue? It is a serious performance bottleneck for DAP users. Can you please be so kind to consider this as a priority one, at least pass it to the software team for analysis? These days +100 GB imports are not unusual, and 2 MB chunks are too tiny when we have tens of thousands of them lying around to be organized before being able to play them, on a portable device.

 

Android team tell me that they are aware about this issue. This will be manage in the Step 3 or 4 of the player refactoring. No date for the moment, the refacto will begin on april.

 

Regards