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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 22 for Linux => Topic started by: cjohnson on March 06, 2017, 01:04:08 pm

Title: Library client playback never starts
Post by: cjohnson on March 06, 2017, 01:04:08 pm
My setup is:
- Media Center running at home on Windows 10. This is the main library and the server. (Version 22.0.77)
- Media Center running at work on Fedora 24 acting as a client to Media Center at home. (Version 22.0.75)

I'm playing music and sometimes it works fine. However often it will get into a state where playback never seems to start. I'll see the buffering message. Then the buffering messages goes away like buffering is complete but it never starts playing. If I restart Media Center on the client I can usually start playing again (for some period of time). This usually happens when I select a new song to play from the Now Playing list. I don't know that I've seen this happen when I just let playback continue from one song to another with manually changing tracks.

I've attached a log.
Title: Re: Library client playback never starts
Post by: aoqw76 on March 07, 2017, 02:46:36 am
Are you transcoding or playing the original format? If original, switch transcoding on to serve mp3 instead, does it then work flawlessly?
I suspect as you are running over the internet, and worse, using your client at work, you could be suffering from connection issues beyond your control.
This situation sounds similar to when i was using ipad/jremote at work, mc22 serving from home. Flaky connection, buffering but not playing back tracks in their entirety. Issues went away, i didnt change a thing, i put it all down to a network/ wifi change in the office.
Title: Re: Library client playback never starts
Post by: cjohnson on March 08, 2017, 12:41:30 pm
I had some time to run from more tests today.
The test is simple:
1. Add some songs to Playing Now.
2. Right-click on a song and select Play.
3. Wait for the music to start.
4. Goto 2 (pick a different song).

Eventually the song will never play and no song will play until I stop playback by pressing stop.
My library at home is mostly flac. I've repeated this test with all of the conversion options (low, medium, high, and don't convert). I've duplicated the problem with all options except low. If I had a guess I would say this is a timing bug and setting the transcode option to low simply makes this situation much less likely since the buffering doesn't take as long. Also the higher the bandwidth options in general make this problem more likely.

I have a Windows 10 laptop at work with me as well. I installed Media Center on it and ran the same tests on the same network. I couldn't reproduce the problem with any of the transcoding settings. Even no transcode of the FLAC files worked every time.

This leads me to believe this is a linux-specific problem. I can provide more information if needed.

Thanks,
Craig
Title: Re: Library client playback never starts
Post by: cjohnson on March 09, 2017, 04:12:57 pm
I can attach gdb and generate a core when it's in the bad state if that is useful.

Craig