Topic: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote (Read 26650 times)

vigotone · « **on:** July 18, 2015, 10:37:37 am »

I know some have reported a similar problem in the past, but it seems it was never resolved, so I am starting a new thread...

My entire library is in Apple Lossless on a Mac Mini server. There are several albums that are giving me an "Audio Streaming Error" when streamed to both my iPhone and iPad. There is absolutely NO difference between the albums that play and the albums that don't (same bit rate, etc.) The same files that don't stream on the iPhone also won't stream on the iPad, but I don't have any problems streaming to a laptop in MC.

The only way I can stream those problematic albums is to transcode to MP3, which I don't want to do.

Any idea what the problem could be? Other streaming programs play the files just fine.

Thanks!

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** July 18, 2015, 10:45:40 am »

Are they old files purchase from the Apple store? Can you play them in MC on the server without using Quicktime?

Did you try updating MC to the latest from the forum?

vigotone · « **Reply #2 on:** July 18, 2015, 11:15:33 am »

Hi Jim,

No, they're ripped from CDs, just like almost all my files (I don't buy from the iTunes store because it's lossy). And the files play just fine on Media Center locally on my Mac Mini and when streamed (without transcoding) to my MacBook Pro.

I've tried quitting and relaunching MC on the server, but no luck. And other streaming apps (like iSub) have no problem streaming (at full-res) the albums that JRemote refuses to.

But JRemote is far and away the BEST streamer I've ever used, so I'm hoping this can be figured out!

AndrewFG · « **Reply #3 on:** July 18, 2015, 11:46:52 am »

Is the album cover art actually embedded in the M4A files, or is it a meta data link to a separate iTunes image file stored (encrypted) in the local iTunes folders? The former should stream fine, but you may have problems with the latter...

vigotone · « **Reply #4 on:** July 18, 2015, 11:48:22 am »

All art is embedded with the files.

Oh, and definitely using the latest version of MC.

vigotone · « **Reply #5 on:** July 20, 2015, 10:37:17 am »

I'm still wracking my brain trying to figure out something that distinguishes files that stream from files that don't. But I can't! Certain entire albums will not stream thru JRemote in full quality (16/44.1), but will stream when transcoded down to MP3. Is there a place I can send a developer an example of a track that streams and one that doesn't so they can eradicate this problem? Apparently, I'm not the only one to experience it.

AndrewFG · « **Reply #6 on:** July 20, 2015, 11:16:34 am »

Are the tracks that won't play by any chance 5.1 channel tracks?

If so then I have the same issue as you; my stereo M4A ALAC tracks all play fine via JRemote on the iPad (play to this device), but (not surprisingly) my 5.1 channel M4A ALAC tracks result in streaming errors.

I guess it would be cool if JRemote and MC could detect this and transcode the 5.1 channels down to 2 channel as needed. (But don't hold your breath on JRiver fixing this soon, since it is similar to an issue "parsing SinkProtocolInfo to determine the target streaming format" which I have been pushing for them to do for years now. Yawn... )

vigotone · « **Reply #7 on:** July 20, 2015, 12:47:20 pm »

Thanks for your reply, Andrew. No, I don't have any 5.1 files on my server, so that's not the differentiating factor.

Also, as noted, other streaming apps have no trouble playing these ALAC files at full-res. But JRemote is the best, so I'd love to figure this out!

AndrewFG · « **Reply #8 on:** July 20, 2015, 01:43:39 pm »

Quote from: vigotone on July 20, 2015, 12:47:20 pm

Thanks for your reply, Andrew. No, I don't have any 5.1 files on my server, so that's not the differentiating factor.

Can you upload one of the offending files to a dropbox or something similar? I would be happy to run a test on my setup.

vigotone · « **Reply #9 on:** July 20, 2015, 02:33:44 pm »

Thanks Andrew. I just PM'd you a link to one of the albums that refuses to stream at full-res through JRemote.

AndrewFG · « **Reply #10 on:** July 21, 2015, 12:11:06 pm »

I tried your album. And I can confirm that the tracks play fine on MC but they don't play on the iPad via JRemote. And I could not find any reasons for that either..

vigotone · « **Reply #11 on:** July 21, 2015, 02:03:26 pm »

Thank you for verifying that, Andrew. Can one of the developers please investigate? There must be something about certain rips that isn't playing well with JRemote...

adamt · « **Reply #12 on:** July 21, 2015, 02:07:03 pm »

Would you mind sending a link to the Dropbox? adam at jriver dot com.

vigotone · « **Reply #13 on:** July 21, 2015, 02:17:45 pm »

Just emailed it to you, Adam. Thank you so much for taking a look.

derf · « **Reply #14 on:** July 21, 2015, 02:56:53 pm »

Hi,

I'm facing the exact same problem with the same configuration (alac files on macmini running JRiver + JRemote)

I even have one album where there is just one track going wrong, and it doesn't make any sense to me since the whole album was purchased on Qobuz with same artwork, path and file naming .. I also used "repair authorizations" and maintenance scripts but it doesn't help.

The problem does occur the same way on different terminals (iphone and ipad)

It occurs only when I select "this device" for the output but it does not when I select a upnp streamer for the output

Best regards

arjunluthra · « **Reply #15 on:** July 22, 2015, 02:35:17 am »

I have this problem with WMA lossless files but if I convert the file to FLAC it works fine. I checked by converting a single file to FLAC.

This is probably related to the ALAC problem, does this help isolate the issue?

For folks who are seeing this issue in with ALAC, can you try converting one file to FLAC and see what happens?

AndrewFG · « **Reply #16 on:** July 22, 2015, 11:00:59 am »

Quote from: arjunluthra on July 22, 2015, 02:35:17 am

I have this problem with WMA lossless files but if I convert the file to FLAC it works fine. I checked by converting a single file to FLAC.

This is probably related to the ALAC problem, does this help isolate the issue?

For folks who are seeing this issue in with ALAC, can you try converting one file to FLAC and see what happens?

Personally I would expect JRemote running on an Apple device to be able to play Apple formats (M4A ALAC/MP3/AAC) much better, and that it would rather have problems with non Apple formats (FLAC, WMA). So converting ALAC to FLAC seems entirely counter intuitive to me.

Rather what I would suggest trying is converting ALAC => WAV => ALAC and see if the new ALAC plays Ok. You might lose the tags in the process (although I think MC does append ID3v2 tags even onto WAV files, so perhaps even the tags would survive the process.. )

PS what application did you use to rip the CDs? (I use dbPowerAmp and I do recall that about a year ago they did have an issue with their ALAC encoder, where I had to re-rip some tracks again).

vigotone · « **Reply #17 on:** July 22, 2015, 11:58:28 am »

Thanks guys. All my rips were done with either Max or XLD. I'll try converting to WAV and back and see what that does. But that would be a lot of work if even 1% of my albums don't stream!

AndrewFG · « **Reply #18 on:** July 22, 2015, 02:05:34 pm »

Quote from: vigotone on July 22, 2015, 11:58:28 am

Thanks guys. All my rips were done with either Max or XLD. I'll try converting to WAV and back and see what that does. But that would be a lot of work if even 1% of my albums don't stream!

My guess is that the ripper app may have inserted a non standard MPEG4 "box" in the M4A file, that kills the iPad play engine. The convert to WAV and back would probably strip that box out. Then by doing a delta on the original and reconverted file we might find out which was the bad box...

vigotone · « **Reply #19 on:** July 23, 2015, 01:47:47 pm »

I've just found a whole bunch of albums that won't stream which were NOT ripped form CD. I am a big Phish fan and have many of their concerts on my server. These were downloaded as 24/48 FLAC and converted to 24/48 ALAC. Some of the shows play, some do not, but there is NO differentiation between the ones that do and don't!

adamt · « **Reply #20 on:** July 23, 2015, 04:01:34 pm »

Confirmed here. Thanks for the files. Not sure yet what's causing it though...

vigotone · « **Reply #21 on:** July 23, 2015, 10:34:38 pm »

Thanks Adam. Is there any way to find out? Let me know if you need any further info. Every day I'm discovering more and more albums that won't stream.

AndrewFG · « **Reply #22 on:** July 24, 2015, 02:59:51 am »

Quote from: vigotone on July 23, 2015, 10:34:38 pm

Is there any way to find out? Let me know if you need any further info. Every day I'm discovering more and more albums that won't stream.

There is an application called AtomicParsley that can be used to analyze and modify MPEG4 files (such as the Apple M4A format) which you can get here http://sourceforge.net/projects/atomicparsley/

To run the app (on Windows), open a CMD.exe window and run the command line AtomicParsley.Exe YourTrack.m4a -T

This command will show you a map of the MPEG4 "boxes" within your track (see example screenshot).

I suggest to run this on some files that do play in JRemote and some that don't, in order to see if there are any obvious differences in the box structure.

Warning: the -T switch is an analysis (read only) command; take care not to use any other switches because some are write commands that might mess up the tags embedded in the track.

vigotone · « **Reply #23 on:** July 24, 2015, 09:40:29 am »

Thanks Andrew. I don't see a way to open in in Mac (even though the download page says it's compatible). Also, I'm not very command line savvy! Could someone else try this?

AndrewFG · « **Reply #24 on:** July 25, 2015, 04:13:29 am »

Two reports attached. Track A does not play on JRemote. Track B does play on JRemote. Any thoughts ??

glynor · « **Reply #25 on:** July 25, 2015, 09:10:45 am »

Quote from: vigotone on July 23, 2015, 10:34:38 pm

Thanks Adam. Is there any way to find out? Let me know if you need any further info. Every day I'm discovering more and more albums that won't stream.

If Adam has a sample and confirmed it wouldn't play, I'm sure they'll figure it out.

AndrewFG · « **Reply #26 on:** July 25, 2015, 04:55:18 pm »

Two things:

1. I did not find anything obviously different between the box (atom) structure of tracks that play and those that don't..

2. I tried converting one of the OPs unplayable tracks to wav and then back to alac, and it still would not play. This means that either whatever is preventing playing is in the media stream data itself, or alternatively there is something in the tags that kills the play process. My next trial will be to strip the tags, and see if it plays after that..

AndrewFG · « **Reply #27 on:** July 26, 2015, 06:08:20 am »

I found the problem.

It is due to a problem with the Album Art embedded in the M4A file.

If you run the command "AtomicParsley /path/your.m4a --artwork REMOVE_ALL" on one of your bad tracks, that will remove the art work, and after that the track plays fine on JRemote.

I don't know what aspect of the album art it is that causes JRemote to choke (maybe it is just too large), but anyway I think the JRiver / JRemote guys have to look into a fix for that.

vigotone · « **Reply #28 on:** July 26, 2015, 11:57:40 am »

Thank you Andrew!

That's really strange though, since my embedded artwork varies greatly in size across different albums. Some have large artwork, some small. Is this something that can be fixed by the developers?

AndrewFG · « **Reply #29 on:** July 26, 2015, 12:21:22 pm »

Quote from: vigotone on July 26, 2015, 11:57:40 am

Is this something that can be fixed by the developers?

I would hope so. Principally the player should ignore all the embedded meta data (because JRemote gets that another way). However I think the question is perhaps whether the issue is inside JRemote's code or in the iOS media play support code...

vigotone · « **Reply #30 on:** July 26, 2015, 12:31:01 pm »

Well, for what it's worth, no other streaming app has a problem with these files, including iSub, Audiotap, StreamToMe and Plex. But as I said, JRemote is by FAR the superior app, so it would be great to have all my files play.

AndrewFG · « **Reply #31 on:** July 26, 2015, 02:09:23 pm »

Just for info: in one of your "bad" tracks the cover art was 24MB in size, whereas in one of my "good" tracks it was only 1.2MB ..

vigotone · « **Reply #32 on:** July 26, 2015, 03:07:04 pm »

Are you sure? I just looked at the site where I downloaded the artwork from and it was 1.3mb! Could something have artificially inflated the size of the artwork? I would never embed an image that large!

AndrewFG · « **Reply #33 on:** July 27, 2015, 12:52:21 am »

What application are you using for ripping an tagging.

vigotone · « **Reply #34 on:** July 27, 2015, 01:15:43 am »

I use either Max or XLD for all my ripping.

AndrewFG · « **Reply #35 on:** July 27, 2015, 02:42:29 am »

Oops. I think I made a mistake in my earlier post about the cover art size.
I was looking at the following cover art image atom in your first "Aeroplane" track

Atom covr @ 7277 of size: 1747863, ends @ 1755140 Atom data @ 7285 of size: 1747855, ends @ 1755140

I thought that the size figure 1747855 was a Hex number (that would indeed be 24MB) but in retrospect I think it is a Decimal number (so only 1.7MB).
And by the way, the image in that "Aeroplane" track is a 900 x 900 image which is entirely consistent with a 1.7MB size.

Nevertheless I did the exercise of stripping out all the cover art from the tracks of your album, and replaced them all with a 500 x 500 image that I found on Google images. And whereas the original tracks did not play on JRemote the modified versions all did play fine.

Note, in case anyone is interested: On the first few tracks I used the aforementioned "AtomicParsley /path/your.m4a --artwork REMOVE_ALL" command to strip the old images, and then I used iTunes to add the new images. But actually for the rest of the tracks I just used iTunes to both delete the existing cover art, and then to add the new image.

vigotone · « **Reply #36 on:** July 27, 2015, 10:36:50 am »

You're right, Andrew. I replaced the artwork on that file with a 532k file, and it streams now. But I have thousands of albums that won't stream where the artwork is only about 800k. It would take a year to go through them all and replace them with smaller files. Do you think the JRemote developers could figure out a workaround?

AndrewFG · « **Reply #37 on:** July 27, 2015, 05:20:57 pm »

Yes. I think the ball is indeed now in the hands of the JRiver developers.

adamt · « **Reply #38 on:** July 28, 2015, 08:33:23 am »

Thanks for all the information AndrewFG and vigotone, this will be very helpful.

derf · « **Reply #39 on:** August 31, 2015, 12:26:09 pm »

Hi,

Any news ?

Thanks

theriverlethe · « **Reply #40 on:** February 27, 2016, 03:04:01 pm »

Has there been any work on this? I'm having the same issue with some files, for no apparent reason. It does not appear to be related to bit-depth or sample rate, as similar files play just fine, but some files will only work if I "transcode audio."

Edit: Converting from ALAC to FLAC worked with one album, but not another one.

SOO JONG YOO · « **Reply #41 on:** March 19, 2016, 09:54:50 pm »

Any enhancement progress? I' have the same issue with some ALAC files when streaming to my IPad device with JRemote, but All works well when "transcode audio mode."

AndrewFG · « **Reply #42 on:** March 20, 2016, 03:29:37 am »

Quote from: SOO JONG YOO on March 19, 2016, 09:54:50 pm

Any enhancement progress? I' have the same issue with some ALAC files when streaming to my IPad device with JRemote, but All works well when "transcode audio mode."

The problem is because the embedded artwork images in your files are too large. The work around is to delete the large images and replace with smaller scale ones. Around 600x600 should be Ok.

SOO JONG YOO · « **Reply #43 on:** March 20, 2016, 10:44:05 am »

Hi, AndrewFG, thank for your reply.

I tried & followed your recommendation - I replaced artwork with smaller one, and even removed artwork for the ALAC files,
but still happened the same problem with my iPad device streaming ( Message: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote )

derf · « **Reply #44 on:** March 26, 2016, 06:53:08 am »

Quote from: SOO JONG YOO on March 20, 2016, 10:44:05 am

I tried & followed your recommendation - I replaced artwork with smaller one, and even removed artwork for the ALAC files,
but still happened the same problem with my iPad device streaming ( Message: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote )

I tried it too, it doesn't work either

nachocheese70 · « **Reply #45 on:** May 05, 2016, 08:43:40 am »

I believe I have found a solution (at least in my case). I had a few dozen albums that no songs can be streamed.

On my MC server, I went to COVER ART -> SAVE COVER ART TO EXTERNAL LOCATION SPECIFIED IN OPTIONS

I check the artwork for all the songs/albums that could not be streamed, and noticed they are all > 1 MB size. I went ahead and used MS Paint "edit" function to resize to 75%, and then all the cover art files became 200-500 KB.

I then went back to my MC server, and for all of the albums, I used REMOVE COVER ART, and then COVER ART -> ADD FROM FILE (using the reduced file). Note, in my case, I made a duplicate (actually, I did a convert with DSP turned on, Output Format reduced to below 96 kHz, PEQ, added my favorite TB_ISONE ... etc, so the converted audio had the audio the way I wanted), so deleting the higher rez art was no biggie. In my case, I have two separate folders of music with two separate libraries.

Anyways, when I replaced all of the COVER ART with <500 KB files, 100% of all my music will stream fine with JRemote. I hope this helps everyone. Of course, the best solution is for JRiver to fix this specific bug.

CWillCalho · « **Reply #46 on:** January 09, 2017, 08:59:10 pm »

I switched the files to Flac 24/96 and they played. Removing cover art did nothing. These were ripped from Blu Ray by the way. Smaller m4a bit rates fare better.

jedx02 · « **Reply #47 on:** April 16, 2017, 09:17:38 am »

Has anyone found a solution?

Afrosheen · « **Reply #48 on:** July 23, 2017, 04:39:04 pm »

Can we get a status report on the priority of this? Is there a way to troubleshoot a non-streaming track within an album where the other tracks are capable of being streamed?

donkrell · « **Reply #49 on:** January 22, 2020, 07:15:10 pm »

It looks like I have stumbled into an old problem. I am having failures attempting to play SOME albums ripped to m4a files. The problem occurs on an iPhone XR, a late model of the iPad mini, and also on a late model of the full size iPad. The same albums fail on all 3 of the devices. I have hundreds of albums in m4a format and most play OK. The problem albums play just fine on an android phone (using Gizmo) and on any other device I have tried.

I removed some of the larger album art files and that did not help. I finally converted on album from m4a to mp3 and (of course) it now plays just fine.

It looks like this issue was raised several years ago with no solution found. Is that still the case?

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Author Topic: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote (Read 26650 times)