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Author Topic: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio  (Read 2472 times)

madbrain

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JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« on: February 10, 2018, 05:32:27 am »

I just bought JRemote and am using it on my Galaxy Note 8 smartphone (Android 7.1).

1) gave it the key to connect to my server.
2) on startup, I select "office", one of my 15 Chromecast audio (wired directly via ethernet - not wifi). I get the message at the bottom "connected to <name of my CCA>"
3) I go to "search" and type the query "Schenkman"
4) it finds one matching album "Handel harpsichord variations", which I press
5) I press on the first track, "keyboard suite in Bb" . I get a message "playing all files, starting with "keyboard suite in Bb".

The first track starts playing on my Chromecast audio. When it completes, audio stops.
At that point, I can't play anything anymore through the Chromecast, even if I select another album or track. I'm told things will play starting with the other track, but it doesn't happen - it says "nothing is playing" at the bottom. And frequently, it crashes after that. I have had app crashes in a variety of situations that are hard to pinpoint. I tried submitting the feedback when I got the chance. But I have never been able to play more than one album track successfully so far with Chromecast.


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madbrain

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2018, 05:38:41 am »

Just did it again, and JRemote crashed a few seconds after the end of the first track.
Then, after I submitted the crash feedback, the second track started playing.
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madbrain

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2018, 05:43:09 am »

If I play the same album on the phone without casting to Chromecast audio, JRemote goes to the second album track properly. However, there is a short but very audible gap between tracks, though. This is a gapless album.  When I play it in JRiver MC23 on my PC, there is no gap.
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AndrewFG

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2018, 01:00:10 am »

Right click on the renderer, DLNA settings, and toggle Enable SetNext support. Also try toggling Ignore Transport Events..
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hoyt

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2018, 10:49:38 am »

Right click on the renderer, DLNA settings, and toggle Enable SetNext support. Also try toggling Ignore Transport Events..

Interesting.  I didn't realize that was an option that needed to be set.  I had given up on casting directly from MC to my Google Home.  I put BubbleUPnP on a Raspberry Pi, linked it as a zone in MC, and have been happy with it:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,111681.0.html

Madbrain - I'll be curious to know if these setting resolve the issue.
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abettik

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2018, 02:39:56 pm »

Hi,

I don't see the SetNext and Ignore Transport. Are they supposed to be in Generic DLNA - Advanced section...

André
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madbrain

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2018, 02:20:43 am »

Interesting.  I didn't realize that was an option that needed to be set.  I had given up on casting directly from MC to my Google Home.  I put BubbleUPnP on a Raspberry Pi, linked it as a zone in MC, and have been happy with it:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,111681.0.html

Madbrain - I'll be curious to know if these setting resolve the issue.

Sorry I'm very late replying. JRemote was crashing very badly with CCA, unlike Gizmo, which did not. I requested a refund for JRemote due to the stability problems.
I don't recall now, but I don't think I was using DLNA at all when I tried. I wanted to play directly from JRemote/Gizmo onto the CCA, without using a DLNA server.

I do have a Raspberry Pi, but have not setup BubbleUPNP on it. I would need to run 15 instances of it, as I have 15 CCAs in the house.

I have been casting to my CCAs using the Tidal Android app for the most part, or casting the device audio to play the sound of Youtube videos, or other apps, such as the Dish Network Dish Anywhere app. There is a sync delay between audio and video, but it's better than nothing.

Tidal still has issues with the CCAs, though. It does not play gapless, and when switching from one CCA to another CCA, often hangs, until one switches to another track. Very annoying. I'm using a friend's account though, so cannot really complain about the bugs. Not sure if they are on the Tidal side or Google Chromecast audio side. If the later, I might have a shot at getting them fixed some day, as I now work at Google - but not on the Chromecast software/firmware.  I suspect there are bugs on both sides, though.
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DJLegba

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2018, 07:54:35 am »

Give the MO 4Media app a shot. It works well with my CCA devices (although so far, as with most other apps casting to CCA, no gapless).
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madbrain

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2018, 04:56:41 pm »

Give the MO 4Media app a shot. It works well with my CCA devices (although so far, as with most other apps casting to CCA, no gapless).

Thanks, just downloaded it. It seems to work fine as long as I'm playing onto the audio device of the MC server computer.

However, it doesn't see all my CCAs. The Google Home app (and Tidal) find all 15 (and the 16th, Chromecast Ultra in my home theater). Sometimes MO 4media finds 4 CCAs, sometimes 6 CCAs. Also, the CCA casting requires a subscription.

I also had difficulty getting MO 4media to play sound locally on my Galaxy Note 8. Sometimes, the play button would not start playback after I selected "this device" for playback.
It seemed to resolve itself after I switched to another album.

I was able to play to a CCA the following way :
1) select "this device" in MO 4media
2) use "Smartview" on my device, to redirect all audio playback to a CCA . This shows all of my CCAs, so I can select the right one.

Just for kicks, I selected a 6-channel SACD track. It managed to play, but clearly some channels were missing - it only played the first 2, and ignored the others - they didn't get mixed in to the stereo (CCA only supports 2 channels, as does Android device audio, AFAIK).

When I selected the 2-channel track from the same SACD (it's a hybrid disc), it played fine in stereo.  Looks like the DSD to PCM transcoding happening on the MC server is massively expensive - taking 75% CPU on my overclocked i7-5820k . That definitely wouldn't work if I moved the MC server to my Raspberry Pi (or rather Odroid XU4, which has much better I/O specs).
Wonder if there is a way to fix this. Other than not try to play SACDs :)

I tried again with a regular CD stereo track. Server CPU went down to 4% - probably no transcoding there.

Audio didn't skip a beat, though I was just sitting down with the phone on my desk.

This looks more promising than Gizmo and JRemote, though. Thanks for pointing it out ! Wish it saw all my CCAs and could play directly onto them.

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DJLegba

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2018, 05:12:43 pm »

The best thing is the app is still being actively supported, and the developer is very responsive to requests and bug reports. Sometimes it can take a few seconds for the CCA devices to show up. I only have two, and I used Google Home to group them as well, and all three show up in MO 4Media every time.
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madbrain

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #10 on: November 16, 2018, 05:19:40 pm »

I was able to play to a CCA the following way :
1) select "this device" in MO 4media
2) use "Smartview" on my device, to redirect all audio playback to a CCA . This shows all of my CCAs, so I can select the right one.

BTW, Smartview is only on some Samsung phones. You can also do this in the Google Home app. At least, you used to. I don't see that option anymore in the current version of the app :-( OK, found it :
1) Go to Settings - bottom right icon
2) Select "mirror device"
3) Then "cast to" and select the CCA (or CC video)

The advantage of this is :
- gapless, if the Android audio app is playing gapless to the local phone audio, which appears to be the case for MO 4media.

The downsides are :
- the Smartview or Google home mirror device audio fails on many Android devices. I have not found a single tablet currently on the market on which this works. Still looking for one. Google no longer makes one, only ChromeOS tablets. It fails on every single Samsung Android tablet I tried (and returned), even the most expensive ones. They say it's not supported. Tried a bunch of cheaper tablets too. I gave up trying to find one on which it works.
- audio is not bit-perfect, unlike casting directly to CCA.
- there is also more CPU overhead on the device .
- you will hear mixed audio from all other Android apps (for example, notifications)
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madbrain

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Re: JRemote android only plays first album track on Chromecast audio
« Reply #11 on: November 16, 2018, 05:25:49 pm »

The best thing is the app is still being actively supported, and the developer is very responsive to requests and bug reports. Sometimes it can take a few seconds for the CCA devices to show up. I only have two, and I used Google Home to group them as well, and all three show up in MO 4Media every time.

I have waited much longer than a few seconds - minutes (having to put my finger on the screen so it doesn't lock). No more devices show up.
I have 16 cast devices (15 CCA + 1 CC ultra) and 5 CCA groups. All CCA-enabled apps should list 21 cast devices.
Usually in Tidal they all show up after a while, maybe 10 - 15 seconds. Not so in MO 4media unfortunately.

I'm going on vacation abroad in less than a week, so it's not the right time for me to do the 7-day free trial. I generally hate subscription model software, but $4.99/year seems reasonable. I will do the trial in December when I'm back to check out the direct CCA support.
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