And my saga continues....
After several days of additional testing I have some new input and I’ve captured additional Ethernet log files.
Summary (at least my take on the results):
- Failures appear to follow specific songs (files).
- Some songs appear to never exhibit the failure mode, others may fail intermittently and some fail consistently
(at least when using the NUC as the server)
- Some songs appear to fail consistently using the NUC, but when I attempted to reproduce the same failures using my Laptop they all passed (played correctly)
- While I able to reproduce (and log) failures using my laptop on multiple earlier runs I am now unable to reproduce any failures using the laptop as the server, even after backing out changes to files, network and laptop NIC configurations.
Testing Details:
First I decided to try and capture a failing cycle using a different server, my laptop running MC instead of the NUC.
I did this test before Wer’s email recommending a different test methodology so it used my initial test album, but I did eliminated the first short track (only 33 seconds long) and second track which appeared to be failing more often (about 80% of the time using the NUC). As this is a completely different device as the server I thought it may be useful to see if the network communication behavior is the same or different from the NUC.
- Test hardware Laptop & Primare
- Album: Modified 7-walkers (7_Walker_test_2)
* Metadata removed
* Files stored locally on Laptop SSD, no NAS involved
- Disconnected from the home network
- Only Laptop and Primare connected to Network switch
- Tracks 1 and 2 not selected to play
- Selected Network configurations disabled in device manager (per prior responses)
Results: Failed/stopped on the eighth song played (track 10 on the album)
Log 3:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tADNgJCvFdBrJtuprvKXwqvpbZX3SL3-/view?usp=sharingNext, once I read Wer’s email I worked to identify a song off my test album that doesn’t exhibit the failure. I went back to using the NUC to start off this testing.
- Test hardware NUC & Primare
- Album: Modified 7-walkers (7_Walker_test_3)
* Selected one song off this same album I’ve been using (7-Walkers) and that I didn’t recall having seen fail/stop before (track 12)
* Same song used 10 times with different track number and file name assigned.
* Metadata removed
- Files stored locally on NUC SSD, no NAS involved
- Disconnected from the home network
- Selected Network configurations disabled in device manager (per prior responses)
Results: Failed on the second song. I reran this test 3 more times, and it consistently hung on first or second song.
Log 4:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_DZ3_C60tqzgF6O_xi7gqsAfE_Ma00Oz/view?usp=sharingI then decided to repeat the last test configuration, but use my Laptop instead of the NUC
- Test hardware Laptop & Primare
- Album: Modified 7-walkers (7_Walker_test_3)
* Selected one song off this same album I’ve been using (7-Walkers) and that I didn’t recall having seen fail/stop before (track 12)
* Same song used 10 times with different track number and file name assigned.
* Metadata removed
- Files stored locally on Laptop SSD, no NAS involved
- Disconnected from the home network
- Selected Network configurations disabled in device manager (per prior responses)
Results: Out of 10 tracks (all the same song) it never failed. So this song which fails consistently on the NUC passes consistently on my Laptop.
Well that’s interesting, NUC and Laptop demonstrate different passing and failing behavior on the same song.
Given this result I decided to try another song/album looking for a passing song on the NUC. So I created yet another special “album using yet another single track from a completely different album.
- Test hardware NUC & Primare
- Created new modified test album (7_Test Album)
* Single track (track 1) off 10,000 Maniacs album (Few & Far Between) repeated 10 times (7_Test Album)
* Same song used 10 times with different track number and file name assigned.
* Metadata removed
- Files stored locally on NUC SSD, no NAS involved
- Disconnected from the home network
- Selected Network configurations disabled in device manager
Results: Looped thru three times (30 songs played) and no failures
Next I tried testing using Wer’s recommended test structure. I inserted a suspected failing track into the prior passing test configuration.
- Test hardware NUC & Primare
- Created yet another modified test album (7_Test Album_Test 2)
* For the suspected failing track I used 7-Walker, track 12 as it appears to fail every time (at least using the NUC) when part of sequential songs on a test album.
* I inserted it as track 4 in this test album (7_Test Album_Test 2)
* Metadata removed
- Files stored locally on NUC SSD, no NAS involved
- Disconnected from the home network
- Selected Network configurations disabled in device manager
Result: Hung/stopped on 4th song which was the suspect track. Tested 10 times, failed every time. (see link to log below)
(I also tried selecting a 3 song grouping with track 4 being the second song and again hung on the same suspect track as before)
Log 5:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17wK1xZLNy9XDSFYMe99Q-HwbOQqgD2A6/view?usp=sharingNext I reran the same test file just used with the suspect file inserted at track 4, but using Laptop in place of the NUC
- Test hardware Laptop & Primare
- Test Album: (7_Test Album_Test 2)
* Same test album as I used in the last test with the NUC where track four is the suspect song
* Metadata removed
- In this test run (to expedite test cycles thru-put) I selected to play only three tracks 3,4 and 5.
- Files stored locally on Lap Top SSD, no NAS involved
- Disconnected from the home network
- Selected Network configurations disabled in device manager
Result: Passed every time (unlike the NUC which failed every time), and I tried 10 passes. Consistent result from earlier testing, the suspect song (track 12 of 7 walkers) does not exhibit the failure mode when using my Laptop.
So based on this (limited) data sample it appears failures using the NUC follow a suspect song and they are not just random failures of any song.
However, I was surprised that the Laptop failure are not consistent with those see using the NUC. So I decided to start doing more testing using my laptop running MC as the server in place of the NUC.
- I moved my Laptop back to my office
- Backed out NIC configuration changes done in device manager
- Connected both Laptop and Primare to home network
- Rebooted laptop
- Reconnected all LAN on all entertainment devices back to Network switch in entertainment cabinet
- Selected playlist on shuffle play as well as tried playing entire original album (7 walkers) with no modification to files
Results: No failures observed. I’ll continue more testing, but I’ll be darned if I know what could have triggered this behavior change such that the Laptop has not hung on any song yet tried in later test configurations.