INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: John Gateley on March 29, 2005, 03:16:33 pm
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Hi DavisFord
Two things to try:
1) UNPLUG the Roku, don't just hit the power button. Stop UPnP server. Start UPnP Server, plug the Roku back in.
2) Change your library structure - the top level of audio has a large number of genres (200+). Instead, create a second library
with smaller nodes in the tree. See if this works better.
Let me know the results,
j
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John -- Thx.
Roku doesn't have a power button as far as I know. It has a standby button. I have been doing the unplug / start-stop UPnP server or derivations thereof. Sometimes this helps get the Browse Playlist to load..other times not.
I think we are narrowing it down to certain files within the playlist. I will try to restructure the lib, and see what results I can get and report back. Thx for looking into it.
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John, tried a few things...
Grabbed about 30 MP3 tracks and imported into a fresh new library. no genre tags at all on these.
plugged roku into wall socket -- found the media server, connected to it...then:
Browse -> Artists -> "Failed to load browse data >OK<"
Browse -> Playlists -> Recently Imported -> this works and I can see the songs.
This is a pretty simple test. Actually I could probably make it fail with a library of one song, and capture the network traffic if you think that will be helpful.
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I wonder if the Roku you have and the one we have are using different firmware.
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Here's what I have:
Roku Soundbridge M1000
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SoundBridge is running software version 2.1.20
I think you have the M500. As far as I know (this may not be correct) -- the main difference is the display size, but the processor is the same in each (Analog Devices Blackfin -- and I assume the firmware would be the same except for the stuff that handles the display size (which can be a config param), but I can verify with them. What firmware rev. do you have? 2.1.20 was release in the last week. I upgraded as soon as I saw it b/c I was hoping it would fix this problem, but it had no effect. The release notes on it do not mention anything about UPnP at all.
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Yes, send me the sniff. I don't know if it will help, the last one didn't.
Also start theater view, make sure that works...
j
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theater view seems to work w/o a problem. will email a snooped session with a lib of one song.
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Hi John -- it's been a while. Have not had time until recently to look more into this. D/L the latest MC 11.0.234 with UPnP 1.0.17.
Did a simple test with a laptop -- created a library of one song, hardbooted Roku, connected to it, and lo and behold, I could finally browse Artists and play the song! I was very excited.
So, I took it to the next level, and upgraded my main server machine to 11.0.234 and tried to do the same thing. Unfortunately, Browse -> Artists on Roku returns "Failed to load browse data >OK<" like usual. In addition, it caused a Media Core error on the server side (MC11 crashed).
So, it seems to me that a couple of things could be happening here:
1) special characters that confuse the client or server side
2) too much data from server to client (db is rather large)
3) could be timing issue between different hardware/software (laptop vs. server) - although the server hardware is much more powerful
I'm looking for guidance on how to narrow the problem down. Without knowing the code, I could devise one of many thousand test cases, but I simply don't have that kind of time. Can you recommend anything I can try next to narrow down why the server (MC core crashes) and why browse artist data fails on the roku?
Summary:
* 11.0.234 on laptop works with library of 1 song
* 11.0.234 on main server presents same behavior as previously mentioned with large db
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Hi Davisford,
I don't think it is database size - the Roku only asks for pieces, not the whole database.
Timing is a possibility, but a small one.
Instead, I'd focus on the bad song. The easiest way to test this is create a copy of your main database. Delete half the items in it, and try rowsing that. If it still fails, cut out half again, and keep going til it doesn't fail. When it doesn't fail, you know the bad items are in the other half (the half you just deleted). This will narrow it down very quickly, even with large databases.
j
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ahh...this is what i was afraid of. the binary search algorithm. ok, will do, but this will take some time. will report back later. :)
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I just like to add that i'm having exactly the same problems as Davisford.
Just to show that it's not aproblem with the model he owns.
Mine is doing the same things.
I reported it in an old thread:
Hi,
i'm having the same problem when browsing on my Roku:
<- Roku Reports: Failed to load browse data > OK <
My library has 12227 files, 409 Artist, 986 Albums.
It depends on my view schemes if i'm able to browse or not.
It only works if there is few data to browse.
I'm using a wired LAN connection.
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I have the same issue as well. It doesn't seem to be associated with a bad file. It seems to be related to the number of items in a view.
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Hi Y'all,
It would help if anyone could confirm that it is based on number of items rather than a particular file. The same technique applies: create views with 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and so on items, and narrow it down from there. I'll take a look when I get a chance, but I'm not sure how long it will be.
j
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I have been having this same problem on my Roku 1000.
Playlists have been working well but no other browse of artist or album.
After reading this thread, I thought I would try and figure this out. I tried my playlists that normally work, but one of the random 2 hour playlist failed intermitenly. (this is the first time I noticed this.) This gave me an idea. I thought I could recreate this with the playlist instead of remaking a library.
So, I put in a few hundred titles and it worked. I put in a few hundred more and it failed. Next I took out the first few hundred to see if I had narrowed it down to the second few hundred, but it worked. I tried this a few times, but it seemed to be more related to the number than the actual titles or artists.
So, to try out the number theory, I put one song in and tried. This worked. Next, I copied the same song 100 times in my playlist, and it also worked. Next I copied it so that I had 300 and it failed. Next I backed off to 275 copies and it worked. I could not always get it to fail on the same number, but it would fail right around the 300 mark.
I think this has to do with the number of charachters in the total length. It is not related to special charachters.
Hope this helps, let me know if there is anything else I can do to help debug.
I really want to get this to work, although I want my iPod photo to stop skipping long names first!
Thanks -Dons
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Hi Dons,
Thanks very much. This helps a lot...
j
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Mr. Dons -- you are the man...I thought I was alone on this one, but glad to see others are having the same problem. Thanks for this valuable footwork...
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Hi guys,
Finally got a chance to take a look. I made a post in the Roku forum. It might help if y'all post followups saying you are interested :)
j
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Submitted a response on the Roku forum. Note, there is a response from the Roku folks as well.
In addition, if I try to download long lists enough times (4-5), I can pretty consistently crash MC. The interesting thing is that when I check the server, there is no message. It's like MC just exited.
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I just posted there as well. To make it easier, this is the link to the roku topic:
Playlist length limitation (JRiver Media Center UPnP)
http://www.rokulabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=15579#15579
It would be so nice if you guys could support each other because besides MC being the best
music database around i think that the roku is the smartest peace avalaible as well.
Best regards
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I agree. It's really hard to beat either product, so it would be great if they worked better together.
One more thing that would be great to get right is the ability to press Play at any point. From a usability standoint, it's a pain to have select through 4-5 levels before being able to play. For example, if I want to play the blues Genre, I have to select blues, all artists, all songs, then play. With WMC, I can highlight Blues and press play. Same deal for Playlists. It is unclear to me where the issue is here, but I know two other UPnP servers I've tried allow Play to work anywhere, so that makjes me think it's something MC could support.
For now, I continue to use WMC because I get these timeouts all the time.
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Press play is on my list...
j
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Great!
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Press play is on my list...
This would be great because maybe it would make things work a little better with the Noxon... :)
-Martin
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Any solution yet? I just bought a Soundbridge 500 and am running into the exact problem described in this thread. I followed the Roku thread as well and ran into a dead-end. The last thing I saw was a Roku engineer stating that the MC server might be too slow. Are the two companies talking?
Chris
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Release 276 doesn't solve the problem.
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How big is your playlist?
j
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I didn't test with a playlist. But my database is about 14,000 tracks. Unfortunately, I won't be able to test anymore with the Roku Soundbridge since I was setting it up for a friend. I no longer have it. I wound up setting it up with iTunes which works reliably. My friend is not technical so I needed something reliable for him.
Another point about the Roku Soundbridge 500. There is a very good deal going right now at Best Buy. They are selling m1000's packaged as m500's with a $50 rebate. I stumbled upon this by accident, but it's all over the Roku forum. I paid $149 (after rebate) for a m1000 which is an excellent price. The packaging says m500, but it is a m1000. I do like this device, but I think I will wait it out until the UPnP support gets sorted out, before I look at Roku again. I currently own a HomePod which is at least as good as the Roku - maybe better. I don't think it has UPnP support though.
Good luck with the UPnP work...
Chris
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Following up this problem. I also have a similar device - the HomePod, by MacSense. I didn't realize it supported UPnP until today. I just tried it with MC 11/UPnP server and it seems to work just fine. The database is the same one I had trouble with Roku Soundbridge. This proves to me that the problem is NOT with MC, but with Roku.
If anyone is interested, the HomePod is a very cool device. It has all the features the Roku Soundbridge has, plus has an FM tuner, USB port and speakers built in (the speakers are terrible). I love it. I wound up getting an unbelievable deal on it because I think they were closing it out at Fry's. I only paid $69 for it. I haven't seen it for anywhere near that price since then. I highly recommend it, even at a higher price - especially now that I discovered it works with MC11.
HomePod (http://shop.store.yahoo.com/gloolabs/homepod1.html)
Chris