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[hoyt]

I'm running BubbleUPnP on a NUC and have turned my google home devices into DLNA renderers.  It works pretty well for the most part.

Just last week I realized that I could link multiple home devices together in the google app, and they would sync audio across.  I just got around to adding the DLNA renderers for these.  I opened up Bubble, the new groups showed as Chromecast devices, so I created DLNA renderers for these virtual Chromecast devices.  Those DLNA renderers immediately showed up in JRiver.  However, when I play back to one of those dynamic zones, I get two errors:
1) There was a problem controlling the selected DLNA device.  Double-check your device, server, and network settings.
2) Something went wrong with playback.

To rule out that these don't work with Bubble, I opened up VLC and set the renderer to my new "All" DLNA and playback started immediately.  Any ideas?  Thanks!

[hoyt]

This should likely be moved to the Mac forum.  I didn't think about that, but just did it on my Windows install and it played to the new "All" zone that I made without issue.  From my Mac, it does not.

EDIT: Or not.  JRiver on Windows stopped playing mid-track.  I restarted it and it went to the next track and stopped.  Seems there's something about these groups that it doesn't like.

[RoderickGI]

That is a lot of moving parts. Is it actually:

MC Server on a PC > BubbleUPnP on a NUC > Google DLNA Renderer(Chromecast virtual device[Google Home Devices Group{Google Home Devices}]) ?

Anyway, sounds like the usual broken DLNA Renderer issues/ Run AndrewFG's DMRA across the DLNA Renderer.

[hoyt]

You interpreted the hops correctly.  The only modification is that MC and BubbleUPnP are on the same NUC.

I'd not seen this tool before.  I'm on the Renderer Tests tab, but don't see how to get a file into the left side...  It found the DLNA Group, and my MC instance.

Thanks!

EDIT: Just realized I had to hit the filter check mark first, then it found files in the directory of the application.  Running tests now.

[hoyt]

Everything appeared to be fine after testing.  I changed a few suggested settings, but nothing changed.  MC played 1 song, then stopped.  I noticed that the groups had vanished, so I looked in BubbleUPnP, and they're gone from there as well.  So not sure what's different about Chromecast groups.  I still see the devices themselves in MC and BubbleUPnP. 

I opened up VLC and it played to the group, but it identifies it as a Chromecast group, so I think it's somehow actually casting, not seeing the DLNA device that I'm making with BubbleUPnP. 

I also can play through MO 4Media, which casts and that sees the group without issues.

I restarted BubbleUPnP and the groups showed up again - so something is certainly amiss before it gets to MC as a DLNA device. 

Has anyone tried using Chromecast groups like this?  Another wish for MC to support casting directly (like whatever VLC hacked together). 

[AndrewFG]

Could you please run the DMRA, from my sig, and post the renderer report?
It might help if you enable HTTP logging, and send me the log file too..

[hoyt]

Could you please run the DMRA, from my sig, and post the renderer report?
It might help if you enable HTTP logging, and send me the log file too..

You bet.  I've attached all of the logs.

When I run this test, it plays and the renderer stays in BubbleUPnP.  When I play from MC though, I get one track in and the Chromecast groups disappear.  I have two groups.  All: (Kitchen display + Bedroom + Smalls) and Kitchen + Bedroom.

[AndrewFG]

Thanks for the logs. It all looks as one would expect. There is an error right at the end of the log, when the DMRA sends SetAVTransportURI with an empty URI to clear the playlist; this is unexpected, and IMHO not a correct response from Bubble. But I don’t think that is the cause of the errors you report with MC. I guess the next step would be to do a Wireshark trace of the HTTP traffic when using MC as a Control Point..

[Scobie]

Bubble reports via the log that SyncPlay is not Supported, which is not surprising as this is rarely implemented.

Could this indicate that while you can do this if casting to the Chromecast, it is not supported if Bubble is being used as a DLNA renderer and this is what hoyt is trying to achieve?

[hoyt]

I just realized that the few albums I was playing with last night were DFF files.  I'm trying now with a normal FLAC album.  I would have expected the DFF to decode and be no different, but so far the FLAC album has at least advanced one track.

Is there anything in particular you want me to filter in Wireshark?  There's a lot of data gathering in those logs...

[hoyt]

Ok, it happened/ is going to happen.  I have MC open on another screen and I queued up an album of 10'ish tracks.  It made it through the first 4 without issue.  Then there was a decent pause before it played the 5th track, maybe 10 seconds, so I started thinking it was about to stop.  Eventually it started playing track 5, but while I sat there and watched it, the playing now screen removed all of the other tracks so that track 5 is the lone entry.

I will admit to doing one thing while track 4 was playing...  I changed the volume in the Google Home app. 

I'll gather up the log files in a few.

EDIT: The log files are 2.2 GB.  I assume there's too much stuff in there.  Let me know what the right filters would be, or what I can help look for.

[AndrewFG]

The issue is NOT about SyncPlay; Bubble doesn’t support it, and MC doesn’t either.

However, I notice from the renderer report that Bubble does not support SetNextAVTransportURI (i.e. does not support gap less play); so in MC you need to right click on the renderer, and disable SetNext support.

[hoyt]

The situation gets more fun.  Now when I open up MC, my "All" zone is there, I click on it, and it drops out of MC's listing.  I can quickly see that it still has the song queued up in it that I was playing last night.  I right click > Refresh Dynamic Entries, it shows back up, but then I click on it again and it's gone.

EDIT: When it vanishes, the other group ("Kitchen + Bedroom") goes away as well.

[RoderickGI]

You may be seeing the manifestation of an issue I haven't documented yet.

Basically, if you have more than one Zone in a MC Server, Dynamic Zones may not display, or may disappear when you try to use them. Dynamic Zones only display and remain when there is only one Zone, the default Player Zone. I have this issue with my TV acting as a DLNA Renderer.

[Scobie]

The issue is NOT about SyncPlay; Bubble doesn’t support it, and MC doesn’t either.

Yep fair enough. So what is the difference between Syncplay and what is Hoyt attempting to do?

Thanks

[hoyt]

You may be seeing the manifestation of an issue I haven't documented yet.

Basically, if you have more than one Zone in a MC Server, Dynamic Zones may not display, or may disappear when you try to use them. Dynamic Zones only display and remain when there is only one Zone, the default Player Zone. I have this issue with my TV acting as a DLNA Renderer.

I don't know if that's what I'm seeing because the child chromecast devices still show and can accept music (ie: Kitchen, Bedroom, and Smalls).  It might be related though.

[DJLegba]

As long as you're using Bubble, there's another way to approach this. Bubble can read your MC library, so use Bubble to select the album and have it play to your grouped CCA devices. This doesn't support gapless playback, and while it doesn't crash I do get the occasional drop-out.

[AndrewFG]

So what is the difference between Syncplay and what is Hoyt attempting to do?

If both Control Point and Renderer were to support SyncPlay then that would be the method that one would/should use to synchronise playing across multiple renderers. However as neither MC nor Bubble (nor any other renderer or Control Point) supports SyncPlay, — well — they don’t use it, and fall back to using the regular Play command instead.

[AndrewFG]

The situation gets more fun.  Now when I open up MC, my "All" zone is there, I click on it, and it drops out of MC's listing.  I can quickly see that it still has the song queued up in it that I was playing last night.  I right click > Refresh Dynamic Entries, it shows back up, but then I click on it again and it's gone.

EDIT: When it vanishes, the other group ("Kitchen + Bedroom") goes away as well.

Do all of your renderers have reserved IP addresses? The behaviour you describe above, might be caused by devices renewing their IP address leases, and thus changing their IP address. (Another reason might be that your router is not routing UPNP SSDP Multicasts or Monocasts properly..)

[hoyt]

As long as you're using Bubble, there's another way to approach this. Bubble can read your MC library, so use Bubble to select the album and have it play to your grouped CCA devices. This doesn't support gapless playback, and while it doesn't crash I do get the occasional drop-out.

I hadn't thought of this.  Good idea.  I'd like to be able to use my 'normal' MC apps, but this does work.  Ideally I want the control being sent from my server so it's all centralized and I can easily switch devices; phone, tablet, etc.

Do all of your renderers have reserved IP addresses? The behaviour you describe above, might be caused by devices renewing their IP address leases, and thus changing their IP address. (Another reason might be that your router is not routing UPNP SSDP Multicasts or Monocasts properly..)

No, they do not.  They are on their own subnet though (the Kitchen one is new and I see I didn't do that because it's on 192.168.1.x).  They all should be on 192.168.7.x.

But the group I have no idea what IP that would be.  I assume MC just sees what Bubble tells it, not the IP group?

EDIT: I also am hesitant to question the IPs because the individual devices play just fine if I sent to one of them.  The SSDP messages are a maybe, but wouldn't that also be what BubbleUPNP sends?  I have been playing from the BubbleUPNP Android app to the All group successfully while the MC app on Windows continues to see/ disappear/ see the two groups that I have.

[bubbleguuum]

CCA Groups work with one of the Chromecast acting as a master and the other as slaves. BubbleUPnP Server controls the master CCA which does its own magic to have the slaves playing.
Sometimes, the master CCA can change for unknown reasons, and I do not think BubbleUPnP Server handle that well which can result in disappearing/reappearing CCA group as UPnP renderer To make it short, playing to CCA groups is not super well tested and I think it is less reliable than playing to a single CCA due to the added complexity. But  assuming the master CCA does not change for a while and no other networking problems, you should be able to play several tracks to the group as if it was a single CCA.

[hoyt]

CCA Groups work with one of the Chromecast acting as a master and the other as slaves. BubbleUPnP Server controls the master CCA which does its own magic to have the slaves playing.
Sometimes, the master CCA can change for unknown reasons, and I do not think BubbleUPnP Server handle that well which can result in disappearing/reappearing CCA group as UPnP renderer To make it short, playing to CCA groups is not super well tested and I think it is less reliable than playing to a single CCA due to the added complexity. But  assuming the master CCA does not change for a while and no other networking problems, you should be able to play several tracks to the group as if it was a single CCA.

Thanks for the information!

I wonder if MC has an old address cached for the "All" renderer that I made and that's why it's vanishing when I click on it. 

BubbleUPnP is in fact able to play to the group fairly well.  I haven't had any instances of BubbleUPnP losing the group mid-playlist like MC has.