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[riverfan]

I'm trying to setup PP as a remote control for MC 14.155 running on my Win 7 PC as a music server for my audio system. MC is both DLNA/UPnP server and renderer with PP as controller. Browsing and selecting tracks is working fine, but I can't get playback to work. When I try to play a track from PP I get the MC error message "Media Center encountered errors while trying to play the last several files. Please make sure that the path in your media library points to the right location." Huh??? The same track plays back fine when selected through MC. I've got debugging turned on in MC, but the log file is huge, even for one single attempt to play a track from PP (I clear the log before issuing the command). There are a number of occurrences of the error message "0121120: 3036: Sharing Plugins: CHTTPRequestMessage::ReadPreamble: Failed to read Method". I can send in the entire log if necessary. Any suggestions? Thanks.

[riverfan]

Update: I've started a thread in the PP forum about this (http://www.plugplayer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=350&sid=8e95c3ca6a57d0263615527825502feb), and I've added the following observations:
If I'm watching the MC Playing Now view, when I attempt to playback a track using PP, a nonsensical track name appears (i.e. F1768), and MC errors out with the message "Media Center encountered errors while trying to play the last several files. Please make sure that the path in your media library points to the right location." However, the PP Now Playing view shows the correct artist/track/album art for the track, but the elapsed time shows 00:-1 and the remaining time shows 00:01. I can move the slider control between the elapsed and remaining time, but nothing happens - no playback, and the elapsed/remaining values don't change. If I select a track with MC, start playback with MC, and then connect with PP, the PP Now Playing view correctly shows all information about the currently playing track sync'd with MC, and the track is added to the PP Playlist view as well. If there are more tracks to be played, MC moves on to the next track as expected, but PP doesn't, or at least not completely. The PP Now Playing view does not update the artist/track name/album art for the subsequent track, but it does update the elapsed/remaining time values correctly and stays in sync with MC. To get the PP Now Playing view to accurately reflect all the information about the track being played by MC, PP must be closed and re-opened. If a single track is selected for playback through MC, once the track finishes the PP Now Playing view shows 00:-1/00:01 for the elapsed/remaining time. If playback moves on to the next track, the PP Now Playing view only updates the elapsed/remaining time values correctly. Once again, any suggestions? Thanks.

[JimH]

Thanks.  You could let them know that we're eager to get things working smoothly with PlugPlayer.  We recognize that it is widely used and respected.  We'll provide a free license.  He could write me.  I'm jimh at jriver.

[riverfan]

Done. Thanks.

[bob]

Try the latest build (14.0.158). I'm using PP 3.1.2 here with MC as server and renderer in Playing Now and it's working perfectly. I'm playing mp3 files. I've also noticed that the track advance works better with 3.1.2 than it did with 3.1.1 though it's still not error free.

[riverfan]

Hi bob. Thanks for the reply. I got past my MC error message by setting Conversion to Never Convert in the Audio section of Generic DLNA. I had it set for Convert unsupported formats, and this caused the error message when I attempted to initiate playback with PP. My whole library is .wav, and it looked like MC was attempting to convert to .mp3 between the server and renderer. Who knew??? Anyway, PP is working great for browsing and selecting tracks, but it still will only play one track at a time. I have to >> to the next track and then select > to play it. I did upgrade to MC 14.0.158, but this hasn't changed anything with PP.
Are you able to get PP to play more than one track sequentially when playback is initiated by PP? Thanks. Riv

[bob]

Hi bob. Thanks for the reply. I got past my MC error message by setting Conversion to Never Convert in the Audio section of Generic DLNA. I had it set for Convert unsupported formats, and this caused the error message when I attempted to initiate playback with PP. My whole library is .wav, and it looked like MC was attempting to convert to .mp3 between the server and renderer. Who knew???

Aha, that explains some things.  Unsupported formats currently are anything other than mp3. All DLNA devices support mp3 (and LPCM). At some point we could allow the profile to specify explicitly which formats are supported but we are not there yet.

Anyway, PP is working great for browsing and selecting tracks, but it still will only play one track at a time. I have to >> to the next track and then select > to play it. I did upgrade to MC 14.0.158, but this hasn't changed anything with PP.
Are you able to get PP to play more than one track sequentially when playback is initiated by PP? Thanks. Riv

Yes, but none of mine are wave and all have fairly large embedded cover are which might change some timings. Need to do more checking...

[bob]

Posted over @ PP with latest dump info. Hopefully we'll get it figured out.

[riverfan]

Hi Bob. Thanks for following through on this. Abramsh has posted the following on the PP thread; "Thanks Bob. PlugPlayer looks for the STOPPED event and then should send a setTransportURI for the next track and then a play. If it's not doing that, it means PlugPlayer isn't getting/decoding the event properly. It will keep calling getposition regardless of the state; it's just lazy that way. Do I need a license to download/install/run the renderer for myself? Or does the 30 day trial give me everything I need?"
Thanks. Riv

[JimH]

The 30 day trial is a full version, but let him know we'll provide a license and appreciate the opportunity to work with him.

Thanks for your trouble with this.

[riverfan]

Hi Bob and JimH. Thanks for collaborating with PP on this. Here's hoping you guys get it figured out. FYI, I just posted this update on the PP forum:
"Make sure you use the latest build of MC (14.0.159). I just installed it, and they've made a few mods to the DLNA Renderer that improve things a bit. The Playing Now view in MC now shows the track selected by PP, and the playback can be successfully controlled by either device (PP and MC). This is nice, I'm liking this  A couple of things I noticed though; when pause is selected by either PP or MC, the PP elapsed time switches to 00:-1, the remaining time switches to full track length, and the "ball" on the slider bar between them goes all the way to the left. However, when play is selected again, the elapsed time, remaining time, and slider ball all correctly go back to where they were when pause was selected. Also, when manually advancing PP to the next track to be played (which is still the only way to do this), the Now Playing view in PP updates accordingly (except that elapsed/remaining time show 00:-1 and 00:01), but the Playing Now view in MC doesn't update until play is selected from PP. I think PP is really close to being an ideal remote (IMHO) for MC. If you can just get the automatic track advance to work I'd be a happy guy.
My one request for future enhancement would be for the playlists created and saved in PP to be saved in MC as well, but this may be a topic for another thread."
Thanks again for your efforts. Riv

[riverfan]

FWIW, automatic track advance works fine if I switch to PP on the Ipod as the renderer with MC staying as the server. Maybe automatic track advance is more of an issue with MC as the renderer rather than with MC as the server. Just my $.02. Riv

[bob]

I think it's something PP doesn't like about our STOPPED event. They are going to check into it this weekend.

[riverfan]

Just to keep things moving forward, abramsh just posted this on the PP forum; "So I ran 14.155 and for about 10 minutes I was unable to reproduce the problem. I loaded up an album with a bunch of 5 - 20 second tracks and it went nicely from one to the next. Then at some point MC hung and was unresponsive, restarting MC didn't help; every track I tried to play got a direct show error.
So, in short, it doesn't appear to be a problem with PlugPlayer seeing the "stop" event. When MC doesn't crash it seems to work just fine."
Bob, you did state on the PP forum that you could reproduce this. Any suggestions for abramsh? Thanks. Riv

[riverfan]

Bob and JimH; Just to keep you guys up to date, here's the latest posts from the PP forum:

by toonz » Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:04 am
Hi abramsh. Thanks for investigating this. I've posted your results on the MC forum, so we'll see what they say. Just a couple of questions; Are you using .wav files? Have you tried longer tracks, say 3-4 min. long? Several of these in a PP playlist should suffice. For testing, I just use the PP slider bar to FF through the track to the last 30 sec. or so and let it play out. No automatic track advance for me. How about trying MC 14.0.159 - it might not hang on you. If you don't mind, could you please post your MC DLNA settings so I can compare them to my own. Specifically the ones under Audio and Advanced. Thanks. Toonz

by abramsh » Sun Mar 28, 2010 7:07 am
I tired some longer tracks, it played one and then MC just crashed with direct show errors for the rest of the tracks.
My settings are fairly simple; I installed with the default settings, then set the check box to allow control via DLNA. For a server, I'm using mediatomb.

by toonz » Sun Mar 28, 2010 12:04 pm
Thanks for the reply. So you're using Mediatomb as your server, PP as your controller, and JRiver MC as your renderer. Is this correct? It's different from my scenario where I'm using JRiver MC as both server and renderer on the same PC (Win 7). Maybe this explains why we're getting different results. Any chance you could try a scenario like mine? If you enable both Controller and Renderer options in MC, PP should be able to see and control MC as both server and renderer. Please give this a try. I really want to see PP and MC work together; they're both top notch apps (IMHO), but this issue with automatic track advance is killing me.    Thanks. Toonz

Any thoughts? Thanks. Riv

[HiFiTubes]

If I can help troubleshoot, I'm willing to re-install PlugPlayer. I freaked out and uninstalled it last week because it was unreliable, locking up all the time, and returning 8K results on specific searches.

hifi

[riverfan]

Hi HiFiTubes; Welcome to the club   Thanks for the offer to troubleshoot, but I'm not sure how much more is needed from us on the end-user side of things. Bob has identified an issue with PP's response to MC's STOPPED event, and I think we're pretty much waiting for the PP team to look into this (check this thread out for the latest developments - http://www.plugplayer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=350&p=1464&sid=544be20570a614cbc5eb8eb40ba9af87#p1464).
Anyway, I haven't had PP lock up on me too much - occasionally it will, but I just close and restart it and it seems to come back OK. Are you using it with MC 14 or 15? Are you using it as a controller, or as a renderer too? I tried it with MC 15.0.8, but PP errored out when I attempted to connect to the MC server, so I figured DLNA in MC 15 wasn't ready for primetime yet and I went back to MC 14.0.159. I really like the look and feel of PP's UI - it's much better than others I've tried (XPtunes and JRiver's own Webremote - no offense JRiver guys, but on an Ipod PP does it right (IMHO)).
My only issue is with PP and automatic track advance - it's a drag to have to >> to the next track and manually start it playing every time. Were you seeing this behaviour too? Thanks. Riv

[HiFiTubes]

I still dig RiverMote but it isn't as robust as PP.

I'm using PP with MC14 on a 3GS on LAN as a remote for MC.

I could never get it to cleanly add files to play; I would be able to quickly drill down to an album, but would lock up doing anything.

I do have 120K files but PP was fast; I was impressed. The search was overloading with results. That drove me nuts.

Every time I loaded PP I would have to re-choose the MC server and re-select the correct Zone; it was crashing a lot on me.

Do you you see the Windows inon server in PP as well as MC? I tried to disable this on my PC and thought I did; not sure why it is still showing up in PP.

thanks!

[JimH]

I really like the look and feel of PP's UI - it's much better than others I've tried (XPtunes and JRiver's own Webremote - no offense JRiver guys, but on an Ipod PP does it right (IMHO)).

Anything less that MC 15.0.12 wouldn't be a fair test of WebRemote.  I hope you'll try again soon.

[riverfan]

I never tried Rivermote - browsing by playlist only was a non-starter for me so I didn't bother.
I was having trouble adding files to play with PP at first, but then I figured out how the Select/Done button worked - you have to drill down to the level you want first (artist/album/track), then press Select and you'll see a radio button appear on the left beside each title. Select the one(s) you want and the radio button(s) will turn green. Select Done, and you can continue browsing for more selections or go to the current playlist (queue) to review what you've selected and start playback. I was pressing Select before starting to browse and then drilling down to the tracks I wanted - this didn't work, I was adding the same tracks multiple times whenever I pressed Done etc. Once you get the hang of it, it really works quite well in my experience. Maybe you already know all this, but this was my initial problem. I don't have nearly as many files as you (7-8K), but they're all ripped as .wav with associated album art. PP has no problems with this.
I'm running Win 7 (64), but the only servers/renderers PP sees are MC and PP.
Have you experienced the automatic track advance issue with PP, or were you not able to get it to initiate playback at all?
Thanks. Riv

[riverfan]

Hi JimH; Yes, I'm more than willing to give WebRemote another try with MC 15 down the road. PP is just so close to what I'm currently looking for in a remote that I decided to wage this campaign first. I'm not yet an MC power user, so I'm not aware of all the things I may someday want in a remote control. What I saw of WebRemote with MC 15.0.8 does show a lot of promise. Thanks. Riv

[riverfan]

Hi JimH; OK, so to be fair, and as you suggested, I've loaded up MC 15.0.12 and I'm giving WebRemote another try. You may want to move this post to the 15.0.12 thread, but I'm posting it here because the conversation started here. Frankly, I don't see much change in it from 15.0.9. Don't forget that my goal is to use my Ipod as a remote control for MC, so my comments stem exclusively from this perspective. Also, some of the issues I have may be configurable, but I don't know how to do this just yet, so here's what I see "right out of the box", so to speak.
1. Browsing the library is awkward. There's no alphabetical quicklinks (like in PP) to jump to specific groups of selections (artists or albums). It takes a lot of finger scrolling to get to selections by Neil Young or Frank Zappa.
2. I can't find a search function, this should be right at the top of the browsing page (again like PP).
3. Album art thumbnails are great, I love 'em in MC on my host PC and I browse with them all the time, but on my Ipod they take up too much space when browsing. I just need to see a text listing in order to get more information on the screen at one time.
4. When I finally drill down to a track I want, the Add option does not work. It will work at the album or artist level, but I cannot select individual tracks this way.
5. The Play/Add/Shuffle options do not offer secondary confirmation; it appears they activate immediately. It's too easy to accidentally touch Play under Artists or Albums and have the whole library queued up.
6. Speaking of queued up, how do you clear entries from the Playing Now list? I have to go to MC on the host to edit this list.
7. In the Playing Now view, the elapsed time jumps at 6 sec. intervals. Not a big issue, but awkward to watch.
8. Also, the Playing Now view is just too big on the Ipod screen. It's awkward to have to scroll up and down just to control the playback. Once again, like in PP, this should all be on one screen.
I'm not trying to slam WebRemote, as I said before it shows promise, especially for full-screeen web browsers with mouse/keyboard support. However, on an Ipod touch, I still like PP - it's compact, tight, and efficient.
On the upside, for me at least, I can now get PP to browse correctly with MC 15.0.12, so I'll stay with this build for now and not go back to 14.0.159. Now if the PP team can only fix the automatic track advance (please, please, please ...). Thanks. Riv

[JimH]

Hi JimH; OK, so to be fair, and as you suggested, I've loaded up MC 15.0.12 and I'm giving WebRemote another try. You may want to move this post to the 15.0.12 thread, but I'm posting it here because the conversation started here. Frankly, I don't see much change in it from 15.0.9. Don't forget that my goal is to use my Ipod as a remote control for MC, so my comments stem exclusively from this perspective. Also, some of the issues I have may be configurable, but I don't know how to do this just yet, so here's what I see "right out of the box", so to speak.
1. Browsing the library is awkward. There's no alphabetical quicklinks (like in PP) to jump to specific groups of selections (artists or albums). It takes a lot of finger scrolling to get to selections by Neil Young or Frank Zappa.

It's possible now to set up a view that has letters A-Z
"15.0.9 (03/23/2010)
"1. NEW: WebRemote allows changing appearance, port, and views in Options > Network."

2. I can't find a search function, this should be right at the top of the browsing page (again like PP).

Would be nice.

3. Album art thumbnails are great, I love 'em in MC on my host PC and I browse with them all the time, but on my Ipod they take up too much space when browsing. I just need to see a text listing in order to get more information on the screen at one time.

May happen.

4. When I finally drill down to a track I want, the Add option does not work. It will work at the album or artist level, but I cannot select individual tracks this way.

It might be better to make playlists.

5. The Play/Add/Shuffle options do not offer secondary confirmation; it appears they activate immediately. It's too easy to accidentally touch Play under Artists or Albums and have the whole library queued up.
6. Speaking of queued up, how do you clear entries from the Playing Now list? I have to go to MC on the host to edit this list.

Check your options under General/Behavior.  Play can add to a list or replace it.

7. In the Playing Now view, the elapsed time jumps at 6 sec. intervals. Not a big issue, but awkward to watch.

Will be fixed.

8. Also, the Playing Now view is just too big on the Ipod screen. It's awkward to have to scroll up and down just to control the playback. Once again, like in PP, this should all be on one screen.

Adding letters to the view would help you.

[riverfan]

Hi JimH; Thanks for the info about WebRemote. I'll take another look at configuring it under Options > Network.

Hi Bob; abramsh posted this response on the PP forum;
   "by abramsh » Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:31 pm
    bob, can you try using a different server? Perhaps you'll be able to reproduce my success. When I get a few minutes, I'll try    
    reproducing your setup using the MC as both the server and renderer."

I'd be interested in trying out another DLNA controller (on a separate PC) that you guys know works with MC as server/renderer. This would be just to use as a comparison to PP. I tried with Cidero on another PC in my network; it sees the MC server and MC renderer OK, it can browse the server library, it can add selections to the renderer playlist, but nothing happens when I attempt playback and all the Cidero logs indicate everything is OK. This happens with either MC or PP as renderer. There's no apparent support forum for Cidero so this is pretty much a dead-end for me. Any suggestions on another DLNA controller I can try? Thanks. Riv

[riverfan]

Hi Bob;
Latest updates from the PP forum:
by abramsh » Fri Apr 02, 2010 10:38 pm
And just to confirm, this is with PLugPlayer on and with the screen unlocked the entire time?

by toonz » Sat Apr 03, 2010 1:23 am
I can't speak for Bob, but in my case PP is definitely on and the screen is always unlocked. Have you tried yet with MC as both server and renderer as we've asked? Thanks. Toonz
 
Riv

[riverfan]

Hi Bob;
More updates from the PP forum:
by abramsh » Sat Apr 03, 2010 10:19 am
Yes, I tried using the MC as both the renderer and server, but I'm unable to play any songs as all. When I try to play a song, both PlugPlayer and the MC just seem to "hang" for about 30 seconds and then I get an error in the MC saying that it could not play the song and there must be an error in my library. (But I'm able to play the song through the MC interface and the current song, time, etc shows on PlugPlayer).
Bob, any clues on why MC no longer works for me?abramsh

by toonz » Sat Apr 03, 2010 12:08 pm
Thanks for trying. Which build of MC are you using? If not their latest beta (14.0.161), then please try this one. They've made a number of mods to their DLNA and renderer functionality since 14.0.155. I've had errors with MC that sound like yours - can't remember the wording exactly, but something about checking the path to the files. If you post your error message, I'll see if it looks like the ones I was getting. I think I got past it by adjusting the Buffering under Tools -> Audio -> Output mode settings. Right now I'm set for 1.11 sec., but I'm also using Win7 and WASAPI. Thanks. Toonz

abramsh » Sat Apr 03, 2010 12:20 pm
where do I get 161 from? I only see 155 for download.

toonz » Sat Apr 03, 2010 2:25 pm
Try this link http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.p ... ic=56832.0. This is from their "INTERACT FORUM > General > Media Center 14" forum found here http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=17.0.
Please let me know if these links work for you or not.
Also, you've probably already done this, but in MC 14 under Tools -> Options -> DLNA make sure all three options Controller/Renderer/Server are checked. Thanks. Toonz

Riv
 

[riverfan]

Hi Bob;
This just in from the PP forum:
abramsh » Sat Apr 03, 2010 4:30 pm
Ok, I think I got it now.
The playback problems I was having I think are related to the media types I was playing, AAC. When using MP3's I was able to consistently get songs to play.
Once I had that working, I watched the events come in from the MC renderer. Here is the deal: PlugPlayer watches for a "Stop" command when it is currently in "Play" mode. What is happening is that the MC renderer is sending a "Pause" command before the stop, so PlugPlayer is in "pause" mode when it is stopped and it assumes that the next song does not need to be played.
Get rid of the pause event from MC, and it should work fine with PlugPlayer.abramsh
 
The ball is back in the JRiver court now. Riv

[riverfan]

Hi Bob;
Any thoughts on abramsh's observation that the MC renderer sends a "pause" before a "stop"? Thanks. Riv

[riverfan]

This is still an issue with MC 15.0.16, and a new thread has been started for it in the MC 15 forum - http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=56965.0.

[Robo983]

I am going to bump all these post for Plug Player for any that find these posts.

Now that this is fixed in 15.20 will this be fixed in MC14?

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=56965.0