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[bunglemebaby]

My understanding of Linked Zones is that they should stay sync'd together essentially no matter what happens.
From the wiki:

To link two zones, just drag one onto the other. If anything is playing in either zone, both should begin to play it in a few seconds. Anything you choose to play in either zone will now play in both. More than two zones can be linked.

When I skip a track using my local zone it doesn't always seem to skip to the next track on both machines. Currently my local machine is one track ahead in the playlist compared to the HTPC in the living room.
To further aggravate this, tracks don't always seem to skip when I press the skip forward button. The current track will always stop, but often (50% of the time maybe) that track will just restart.
Since it could be related, I'll also mention that track changes take a long time from my client machine (up to 15 seconds in some cases).
Is any of this behavior possibly due to some bad setup choices? I've had the server and zones generally working for a while now, but I haven't had the time to really test the setup apart from occasionally listening to some tunes from my client machine and Gizmo.

[bunglemebaby]

I'm still having serious issues with Linked Zones. Essentially the feature is buggy to the point of not being usable for me. I have to assume that others do not see problems here since I've not seen much on the boards here about it not working. I'm really not sure what to try to debug or fix this, as from the user side I expect the linked zones to just sort of work...but they don't...at all. Linking the zones (by dragging one on top of the other) will sometimes cause the second zone to begin playing, sometimes it will just show the PN list from the other zone, but with nothing playing. When it does begin playback in the second zone they are never actually sync'd up, often they are off by more than one song. Sometimes (arbitrarily to my observation) it will get stuck on a single song and repeat it until I manually skip it.

Another possibly noteworthy detail is that gapless playback does not seem to work at all when zones are linked. The whole GUI actually freezes for about 15 seconds while the next track loads up. It works fine enough when streaming from the server without zones being linked. I would sort of understand this if this time was being used to sync the songs back up, but this doesn't happen at all.

So, I know none of these details are super helpful, but I'd really appreciate any help on getting a reliable media server/network setup going. The wiki doesn't really help me out any here and admittedly many of the server related options don't necessarily lend themselves to my understanding them easily. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
-Jon

[Matt]

What types of zones are you linking?

Zone link will work best with local zones (ie. sound cards in your system).

TRemote zones also work reasonably well.

DLNA zones will probably not work well.  It's possible we should disable linking of DLNA zones to avoid confusion.

[JustinChase]

I reported issues with local zone timing in this thread also, so it's no just DLNA...

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=72464.0

[bunglemebaby]

This is DLNA zones, so I guess I'm out of luck. I'm not too concerned about a perfect timing sync though. I"d be happy if the playlist would just play on both ends even if they are off by an amount that would be easily noticeable if both audio streams could be heard simultaneously.

Edit: This might actually be a TRemote zone. It is two instances of Media Center, with all media on the server MC and linked via an access key. I'm not clear on how all this works though, so I could definitely be misunderstanding some of what I'm reading.

[Matt]

Edit: This might actually be a TRemote zone. It is two instances of Media Center, with all media on the server MC and linked via an access key. I'm not clear on how all this works though, so I could definitely be misunderstanding some of what I'm reading.

What happens if you play on the client and link on the client with a "There: ..." zone?  This would be using TRemote.

You'll have to have the client option to expose server zones checked (it's on by default).

[bunglemebaby]

What happens if you play on the client and link on the client with a "There: ..." zone?  This would be using TRemote.

If I understand you correctly, this is where I'm seeing the issue and so it is a TRemote zone. I do have DLNA options turned on because that seemed to be the only way to make the client's and server's zones visible from the remote machines. I don't know if that makes any difference, or if it's the right way to set things up. I do not have any non-MC devices connected, so I don't know that I actually need to utilize DLNA at all.

You'll have to have the client option to expose server zones checked (it's on by default).

I'm not sure what/where this option is, and per the second part of above this could be related? EDIT: Okay, just searched the options and found what you meant. It is checked.

[bunglemebaby]

So I'll go ahead and add onto the "this could be related too, but it doesn't help much" pile...

I am arbitrarily unable to connect to the server via my wifi connection. Sometimes when it happens I can connect with Gizmo, but not my Windows client machine, other times the opposite and sometimes I'm unable to connect with either. Most days the connection works fine, and I don't know of anything changing that would cause this. I've taken the time to set up both my router and Windows Firewall, so I don't think the problem with this part lies with either of them (but admittedly this current setup is my first with both tools). Also, given that the ability to connect will come and go within a period of an hour makes me think it's not a network setup problem (I'm able to access both the internet and the server machine via Windows Explorer during these times too.)

Does this add any useful information, or just confuse the other matters at hand?

[bunglemebaby]

Not the weekend anymore bump.

[phillil]

So the conclusion is really that linking zones cannot be achieved, especially if 1 zone is a DLNA device??

I too have experienced long delays, repeating the same track, mis-syncing etc....

Shame, looks like I'm gonna have to go for a Sonos??

[Matt]

Zone linking works best with local zones or Library Server zones.

DLNA does not support the high precision seeking necessary for a precise link.

[phillil]

But what would you define as precise?? Being a whole track out? 15 second pauses between tracks?? Repeating the same track over and over??

I'm not knocking MC as I guess it's a limitation of DLNA / hardware. Maybe it should be disabled as an option so people don't waste their time - I know a few people who have purchased MC on the strength of it's CLAIMED multiroom capabilities, which just aren't usable......

[Matt]

Maybe it should be disabled as an option so people don't waste their time - I know a few people who have purchased MC on the strength of it's CLAIMED multiroom capabilities, which just aren't usable......

You're implying we've been dishonest, and I don't think that's fair.  The ZoneLink wiki is pretty clear about DLNA:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/ZoneLink

But MC does have strong multiroom capabilities.  You just have to use the right hardware.  I use ZoneLinking personally around my house often.

So if you're having problems with local or Library Server zones, just report it as a bug and we'll work through it.

[phillil]

sorry, I didn't mean to come across that way - you clearly state that linking is dependent on the dlna device.

So I guess I wouldn't expect the sync to be that precise, but i would consider 15 second gaps, the playlist getting stuck and devices playing different tracks a bit of a bug

Thanks for an awesome - actually probably the best ever Windows app!! Much appreciated.

[phillil]

sorry forgot to mention. I'm using a couple of WDTV Live's if it makes a difference. If there are any other better more reliable DLNA devices then I'll be willing to give them a try.