BubbleUPnP > HQPlayer OS repeats the beginning of tracks

[ohshitgorillas]

First, I should say that I'm testing HQPlayer and very impressed with the results so far. Everything works flawlessly with the HQPDcontrol app, but when I switch to BubbleUPnP, I get stuttering at the beginning of tracks--basically the first few seconds of the track are repeated before playing through the rest of the song.

 

Has anyone had this problem before and is there a solution?

[bogi]

I'm, not BubbleUPnP user with HQPlayer Embedded, just a suggestion what to try:

Try setting a suitable "Idle time" in Embedded settings. HQPlayer Desktop has such a setting so I expect it exists in Embedded configuration too. It may not help on the 1st playback start, but then between tracks it possibly could help.

[bubbleguuum]

BubbleUPnP developer here.

 

This looks like a HQPlayer issue but where are the tracks coming from and what format are they (codec, samplerate, bitdepth) ?

[Miska]

12 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

First, I should say that I'm testing HQPlayer and very impressed with the results so far. Everything works flawlessly with the HQPDcontrol app, but when I switch to BubbleUPnP, I get stuttering at the beginning of tracks--basically the first few seconds of the track are repeated before playing through the rest of the song.

 

Has anyone had this problem before and is there a solution?

 

Sounds like the source is not able to provide content quite quickly enough. You are on gigabit ethernet? But what is the source? If it is doing any transcoding or such, that could potentially be the issue.

 

You could also try with the settings @stefano_mbp has recommended for example here at the beginning of the post:

 

[ohshitgorillas]

On 12/20/2023 at 4:45 AM, bubbleguuum said:

BubbleUPnP developer here.

 

This looks like a HQPlayer issue but where are the tracks coming from and what format are they (codec, samplerate, bitdepth) ?

 

I assume it's not an HQPlayer issue since, when I use HQPDcontrol, everything works fine. The issue is exclusive to BubbleUPnP. I do, however, have several other unrelated issues with HQPDcontrol, and I'd strongly prefer to use BubbleUPnP.

 

The files are FLAC, hosted on an external media server via Plex and Jellyfin, and range from 16/44.1 to 24/192.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 5:03 AM, Miska said:

 

Sounds like the source is not able to provide content quite quickly enough. You are on gigabit ethernet? But what is the source? If it is doing any transcoding or such, that could potentially be the issue.

 

You could also try with the settings @stefano_mbp has recommended for example here at the beginning of the post:

 

 

Yes, gigabit ethernet. The source is Plex or Jellyfin DLNA and FLAC (redbook to 24/192). HQPlayer is oversampling to 176.4/192 with sinc-Lm (for now). I've only had these problems with HQPlayer before, never with moode which is what I used before.

I will give the settings a try tomorrow, thanks.

 

I should also mention that this only happens with subsequent tracks in a playlist, the first track never skips.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, ohshitgorillas said:

I assume it's not an HQPlayer issue since, when I use HQPDcontrol, everything works fine. The issue is exclusive to BubbleUPnP. I do, however, have several other unrelated issues with HQPDcontrol, and I'd strongly prefer to use BubbleUPnP.

 

I suspect it could be more of issue with the UPnP Media server in question... If you are talking about the BubbleUPnP Android app.

 

1 hour ago, ohshitgorillas said:

The source is Plex or Jellyfin DLNA and FLAC (redbook to 24/192).

 

I have no experience with these, so cannot comment much.

 

1 hour ago, ohshitgorillas said:

HQPlayer is oversampling to 176.4/192 with sinc-Lm (for now).

 

Does it happen also with default filters?

 

[bubbleguuum]

6 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

I should also mention that this only happens with subsequent tracks in a playlist, the first track never skips

 

In BubbleUPnP, did you enable More > Settings > Renderer settings > (pick HQPlayer) > Gapless control?

If you did can you check if you have this issue with it disabled ?

[ohshitgorillas]

12 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I suspect it could be more of issue with the UPnP Media server in question... If you are talking about the BubbleUPnP Android app.

 

 

I have no experience with these, so cannot comment much.

 

 

Does it happen also with default filters?

 

 

Yes, the BubbleUPnP Android app. Which UPnP server do you recommend? The media server runs on Ubuntu Server.

 

Yes, even with the default filters. As far as I can tell, it happens with all the filters I've tried.

 

7 hours ago, bubbleguuum said:

 

In BubbleUPnP, did you enable More > Settings > Renderer settings > (pick HQPlayer) > Gapless control?

If you did can you check if you have this issue with it disabled ?

 

Gapless playback was not enabled.

[ohshitgorillas]

It's also probably worth mentioning that I am running HQPlayer OS on a Raspberry Pi4 with a Pi2AES hat. I am not running HQPlayer Embedded on the media server, as I'd prefer my HQPlayer to be at least somewhat portable.

[Miska]

16 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

Yes, the BubbleUPnP Android app. Which UPnP server do you recommend? The media server runs on Ubuntu Server.

 

I've used Rygel server (which is also UPnP stack used by HQPlayer) as well as MiniDLNA that is nowadays called ReadyMedia.

 

I also have used MinimServer some amount, but it's challenge is the unpredictability of Java runtime.

 

16 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

Yes, even with the default filters. As far as I can tell, it happens with all the filters I've tried.

 

Do you have convolution in use? Because some filters and sometimes convolution can cause load spikes on content change situations.

 

[Miska]

15 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

It's also probably worth mentioning that I am running HQPlayer OS on a Raspberry Pi4 with a Pi2AES hat.

 

That imposes some performance limitations, since RPi4 is not particularly powerful computing hardware. But OTOH, Pi2AES will limit the output resolution quite a lot as well, so the net result shouldn't be much of an issue in CPU load terms.

 

[ohshitgorillas]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I've used Rygel server (which is also UPnP stack used by HQPlayer) as well as MiniDLNA that is nowadays called ReadyMedia.

 

I also have used MinimServer some amount, but it's challenge is the unpredictability of Java runtime.

 

 

Do you have convolution in use? Because some filters and sometimes convolution can cause load spikes on content change situations.

 

 

Thanks, I'll give those a try.

 

No, I am not using convolution.

 

5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

That imposes some performance limitations, since RPi4 is not particularly powerful computing hardware. But OTOH, Pi2AES will limit the output resolution quite a lot as well, so the net result shouldn't be much of an issue in CPU load terms.

 

 

As it is, I'm quite happy running oversampling at 176.4/192 kHz with my DAC in NOS mode. My DAC can accept higher sampling rates over LAN directly, but the Pi2AES sounded better than the LAN streamer without oversampling so I figured this setup would be optimal. The only filters I've found that I can't run are poly-sinc-gauss-xl and poly-sinc-gauss-xla, those stutter, but that's fine because so far I prefer pure sinc to poly-sinc.

[ohshitgorillas]

Ok, I've set up Rygel, but it has the same behavior of repeating the first second of all tracks after the first track. It also refuses to display tracks in any order except alphabetical, so I'll probably stick with Plex/Jellyfin as media servers.

 

I recently renewed my TIDAL subscription, and I'm getting the same effect using TIDAL as a source as well as pretty bad drop-outs. Occasionally when a song drops out for long enough, it will just skip to the next track.

 

Clearly this isn't related to the source. It has to be something about HQPlayer or BubbleUPnP.

 

EDIT; I just experienced a drop-out from Rygel as well.

[Miska]

6 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

I recently renewed my TIDAL subscription, and I'm getting the same effect using TIDAL as a source as well as pretty bad drop-outs. Occasionally when a song drops out for long enough, it will just skip to the next track.

 

Clearly this isn't related to the source. It has to be something about HQPlayer or BubbleUPnP.

 

EDIT; I just experienced a drop-out from Rygel as well.

 

I've mostly recently used mConnect Player for UPnP and didn't notice anything unusual. But OTOH, I cannot remember when I last tried UPnP on Pi4 hardware. I've been usually testing UPnP on i5-7600T CPU with upsampling to DSD256 using ASDM7EC-light modulator and default filters. And in these cases mConnect Player with gapless enabled and Tidal as source.

 

Also in BubbleUPnP, gapless support needs to be enabled.

 

But overall it sounds like you are running out of CPU power for HQPlayer with your current settings. I assume you have sufficient cooling for the RPi4 CPU and RAM, so that it doesn't thermal throttle? Likely it cannot keep up doing uninterrupted playback while prefetching the next track and possibly reinitializing the DSP engine at the same time.

 

[Boomboy]

It was doing it for me too . I just updated audiolinuxs menu which had an mpd.config update so I thought it maybe that . I use bubbleupnp for tidal so I think the issue might be with bubble and also I don't use hqplayer

[ohshitgorillas]

9 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I've mostly recently used mConnect Player for UPnP and didn't notice anything unusual. But OTOH, I cannot remember when I last tried UPnP on Pi4 hardware. I've been usually testing UPnP on i5-7600T CPU with upsampling to DSD256 using ASDM7EC-light modulator and default filters. And in these cases mConnect Player with gapless enabled and Tidal as source.

 

Also in BubbleUPnP, gapless support needs to be enabled.

 

But overall it sounds like you are running out of CPU power for HQPlayer with your current settings. I assume you have sufficient cooling for the RPi4 CPU and RAM, so that it doesn't thermal throttle? Likely it cannot keep up doing uninterrupted playback while prefetching the next track and possibly reinitializing the DSP engine at the same time.

 

 

But it's able to play back smoothly using the HQPDcontrol app... so I suspect the issue is elsewhere. But I could be wrong.

[ohshitgorillas]

I'm trying to setup hqplayerd on my media server to test but it's not finding any NAA devices. I should have two on the network: the internal renderer from my Gustard R26, and the RPi4/Pi2AES which I've currently installed NAA on. Any advice?

 

Also, how does one stream oversampled TIDAL from hqplayerd to NAA? Or is that only possible with HQPlayer Embedded?

[ohshitgorillas]

Since the HQPlayer Embedded failing to find NAA devices is a separate problem, I gave it a separate topic

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

But it's able to play back smoothly using the HQPDcontrol app... so I suspect the issue is elsewhere. But I could be wrong.

 

That is certainly possible...

 

Of course depends on where the storage is when you play with HQPDcontrol, because it is sort of "local" to HQPlayer. Could be a NAS, but still the content access method is very different from UPnP.

 

2 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

I'm trying to setup hqplayerd on my media server to test but it's not finding any NAA devices.

 

Possibly more than one network interface on your media server?

 

2 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

Also, how does one stream oversampled TIDAL from hqplayerd to NAA? Or is that only possible with HQPlayer Embedded?

 

hqplayerd and Embedded are the same thing? Or do you mean something else?

 

There are now various different ways to achieve that.

 

But Qobuz is natively supported by HQPlayer. Tidal needs some third party thing.

 

[ohshitgorillas]

7 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

That is certainly possible...

 

Of course depends on where the storage is when you play with HQPDcontrol, because it is sort of "local" to HQPlayer. Could be a NAS, but still the content access method is very different from UPnP.

 

 

Possibly more than one network interface on your media server?

 

 

hqplayerd and Embedded are the same thing? Or do you mean something else?

 

There are now various different ways to achieve that.

 

But Qobuz is natively supported by HQPlayer. Tidal needs some third party thing.

 

 

The media server has two network interfaces, but I've manually defined the LAN interface in hqplayerd.xml:

        <upnp interface="enp3s0">

 

 

 

What I mean is that I can theoretically use BubbleUPnP to stream Tidal to HQPlayer Embedded on my Pi4, but when I have hqplayerd installed on the media server, how can I stream Tidal to that? It isn't showing up as a UPnP renderer in BubbleUPnP anymore. Possibly related to the fact that it can't find the NAA devices either?

[ohshitgorillas]

Just to follow up on this, I have explicitly disabled the other interface with systemd-networkd.

 

I can also see the NAA devices from HQPlayer Embedded on my RPi4, just not from my media server.

[ohshitgorillas]

It was a firewall issue. Can you please tell me which ports hqplayerd needs to operate behind a firewall?

 

New issue, hqplayerd on the media server cannot see the USBridge NAA device running RoPieee, but HQPlayer Embedded on the RPi4 can see it. How can I get it to show up on hqplayerd?

[Miska]

Note that HQPlayer Desktop doesn't have UPnP functionality. Only HQPlayer Embedded has...

 

You can play Tidal through Desktop using for example Roon as a front-end, or through hardware or loopback inputs.

 

[ohshitgorillas]

13 hours ago, Miska said:

Note that HQPlayer Desktop doesn't have UPnP functionality. Only HQPlayer Embedded has...

 

You can play Tidal through Desktop using for example Roon as a front-end, or through hardware or loopback inputs.

 

 

I'm not really interested in HQPlayer Desktop as everything here is done through streamers, and I often listen to music when my PC is off.

 

Using BubbleUPnP to stream Tidal to hqplyerd on the media server as a renderer, the first second of each track still skips, so the problem is still there. However, when streaming local files from Plex DLNA via BubbleUPnP, this approach (as opposed to using HQPlayer OS on the Pi4) does prevent the skipping of the first second. That said, I still get drop-outs from both Plex and Tidal as sources.

 

I also realized that the reason the USBridge NAA wasn't showing up for hqplayerd on the media server was that HQPlayer OS on the Pi4 already had control.

 

I'm not entirely opposed to switching to Qobuz, since they provide hi-res streaming for the same cost as Tidal's redbook-only plan... but is it possible to stream Qobuz to HQPlayer other than through HQP Client? Again, some of my listening is done when my PC is off and I'd prefer to be able to access these things through a tablet or phone. Is there a similar feature in HQPDcontrol?
 

[Miska]

15 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

Using BubbleUPnP to stream Tidal to hqplyerd on the media server as a renderer, the first second of each track still skips, so the problem is still there.

 

OK, yesterday I was playing Tidal for 3 hours using mConnect Player (on my iPhone) to Embedded running on Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS on i5-7600T machine. Upsampling to DSD256 using poly-sinc-gauss-long/poly-sinc-gauss-hires-lp and ASDM7EC-light. Not a single issue during those 3 hours.

 

15 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

That said, I still get drop-outs from both Plex and Tidal as sources.

 

Any wireless network involved? Any managed switches on the path? One potential issue is if 802.3x Flow Control doesn't become active. For example about half of managed switches default to 802.3x disabled. Without functional 802.3x, low power devices like Pi4 cannot keep up with full gigabit speed, and instead the hardware packet buffer overflows, leading to packet loss, which leads to resends of the data, which leads to more overflows and packet loss. Thus to occasional network stalls.

 

15 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

I also realized that the reason the USBridge NAA wasn't showing up for hqplayerd on the media server was that HQPlayer OS on the Pi4 already had control.

 

Oh yes, NAA can be used by only one server at a time, since it is exclusive access.

 

15 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

I'm not entirely opposed to switching to Qobuz, since they provide hi-res streaming for the same cost as Tidal's redbook-only plan...

 

And Tidal is still mostly infested with lossy MQA "not-really-hires" content...

 

15 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

but is it possible to stream Qobuz to HQPlayer other than through HQP Client?

 

To HQPlayer Embedded yes, through UPnP, for example using mConnect Player. To Desktop, Client is the only option. But overall you get better feature set and usability if you play the content natively using Client.

 

mConnect Player is portrait display version for phones. And mConnect Player HD is landscape display version for tablets.

 

15 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

Again, some of my listening is done when my PC is off and I'd prefer to be able to access these things through a tablet or phone.

 

I'm running Client on an Intel-based Microsoft Surface tablet with Windows 11. That tablet is dedicated for this purpose. Otherwise using Windows 11 on a tablet is pretty horrid experience.

 

15 hours ago, ohshitgorillas said:

Is there a similar feature in HQPDcontrol?

 

AFAIK, no...