Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[RD James]

Ever since the recent update(s) I can't play music locally on the device any more.
It seems to happen at random, but sometimes even on the first track, it just stops buffering the rest of the track and is stuck in a perpetual "playing" state that makes no progress.

I can see that it's going to happen at the very beginning of a song, because the buffer stops filling:


JRemote shows that playback is stuck at 01:34 but iOS' lock screen shows it progressing normally (1:57).



(track details removed by me, not a bug)

Sometimes skipping to the next track fixes it temporarily, but many times it will just happen again on the next track or a few tracks later, or JRemote stops playback entirely.
Enabling/disabling transcoding doesn't seem to make a difference.
 
This happens even on the same local network as Media Center, it's not connection-related.

[bob]

Are you transcoding?

[RD James]

Are you transcoding?

It happens whether transcoding is enabled or disabled.

[bob]

What idevice?
What MC server?
If you try the same test with Panel on a browser on your idevice instead of JRemote do you get the same behavior?

[RD James]

What idevice?
What MC server?
If you try the same test with Panel on a browser on your idevice instead of JRemote do you get the same behavior?

iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 12.1.4
Media Center 24.0.75 (x64)
 
It's difficult to test in Panel because it stops playback after every track on iOS and I have to unlock my phone again, instead of playing a full playlist of tracks. That seems to work okay, but I've only tested a handful of tracks.

[RD James]

This is still happening constantly for me.
Yesterday, I ended up having to stream music rather than playing it locally, and had to download another app and access the music via SMB instead of using JRemote. That performed flawlessly for playing music the entire day - so it doesn't seem like a network or device issue.

EDIT: The issues yesterday were streaming to an 11" iPad Pro, not an iPhone, and MC25 now rather than MC24.

[bob]

This is still happening constantly for me.
Yesterday, I ended up having to stream music rather than playing it locally, and had to download another app and access the music via SMB instead of using JRemote. That performed flawlessly for playing music the entire day - so it doesn't seem like a network or device issue.

EDIT: The issues yesterday were streaming to an 11" iPad Pro, not an iPhone, and MC25 now rather than MC24.

What are your settings under Advanced in Media Networking?

Can you try getting a log on your MC server? Start logging just before playing a track and stop as soon as the issue occurs then post it here. Thanks!

[Cinelder]

This is still happening constantly for me.
Yesterday, I ended up having to stream music rather than playing it locally, and had to download another app and access the music via SMB instead of using JRemote. That performed flawlessly for playing music the entire day - so it doesn't seem like a network or device issue.

EDIT: The issues yesterday were streaming to an 11" iPad Pro, not an iPhone, and MC25 now rather than MC24.

I am having the same issues playing to an 10.5" iPad Pro and an iPhone with MC 25.  Haven't tried whether same on MC24. 

[RD James]

What are your settings under Advanced in Media Networking?
Can you try getting a log on your MC server? Start logging just before playing a track and stop as soon as the issue occurs then post it here. Thanks!

I got "lucky" with this, and the very first track that I tried to play had this issue. I instinctively skipped to the next track rather than stopping though. I hope the log is still useful.

[bob]

I got "lucky" with this, and the very first track that I tried to play had this issue. I instinctively skipped to the next track rather than stopping though. I hope the log is still useful.

After looking at the log I have a few questions.

Here is the file I think it tried to play first:

Code: [Select]

D:\Media\Audio\Music\G\Goldfrapp\Silver Eye Deluxe Edition (Album)\Disc 01\01 Anymore.flacWhat is the sample rate/bitdepth/channels of this file?

It tried to get cover art from the file first then from a search based off of the filename.
Does it have cover art and if so, is it embedded in the tag or in a directory (if directory, where)??

If the sample rate/bit depth/channels of this file is something the iDevice can play, perhaps the parantheses in the path are an issue? Does that seem possible given what will/will not play?

Thanks.

[RD James]

After looking at the log I have a few questions.

Here is the file I think it tried to play first:

Code: [Select]

D:\Media\Audio\Music\G\Goldfrapp\Silver Eye Deluxe Edition (Album)\Disc 01\01 Anymore.flac
What is the sample rate/bitdepth/channels of this file?

2ch 16-bit 44.1kHz.

It tried to get cover art from the file first then from a search based off of the filename.
Does it have cover art and if so, is it embedded in the tag or in a directory (if directory, where)??

There is art embedded in the file, and as a cover.jpg in the directory. JRemote seemed to display the artwork just fine.

If the sample rate/bit depth/channels of this file is something the iDevice can play, perhaps the parantheses in the path are an issue? Does that seem possible given what will/will not play?

Thanks.

I tried playing it again and it worked correctly this time. I tried some other albums with parentheses or special characters in the path and they worked just fine.
The issue is intermittent and seemingly random, whether transcoding to MP3 is enabled or not.

[bob]

2ch 16-bit 44.1kHz.
There is art embedded in the file, and as a cover.jpg in the directory. JRemote seemed to display the artwork just fine.
I tried playing it again and it worked correctly this time. I tried some other albums with parentheses or special characters in the path and they worked just fine.
The issue is intermittent and seemingly random, whether transcoding to MP3 is enabled or not.

I wonder if it's a network timeout or a firewall issue on your computer?

[RD James]

I wonder if it's a network timeout or a firewall issue on your computer?

I have no problem streaming media from that PC to other apps on iOS. I've been using Infuse to stream TV shows/movies a lot recently and it never does this.
The Windows Firewall has been configured to allow MC25.
 
This only started happening after the recent JRemote updates.

[bob]

I have no problem streaming media from that PC to other apps on iOS. I've been using Infuse to stream TV shows/movies a lot recently and it never does this.
The Windows Firewall has been configured to allow MC25.
 
This only started happening after the recent JRemote updates.

Interesting, have you been keeping up with the updates? Any idea how many back when it started happening?
There haven't been much in the way of playback changes however the SDK has been updating, perhaps they introduced a bug.
Would you be willing run the beta builds?

[JimH]

I have no problem streaming media from that PC to other apps on iOS.

The same files?

[bob]

Is the iDevice unlocked the whole time?

[RD James]

Interesting, have you been keeping up with the updates? Any idea how many back when it started happening?
There haven't been much in the way of playback changes however the SDK has been updating, perhaps they introduced a bug.
Would you be willing run the beta builds?

3.26 I think? Whichever update was the first one recently, after about a year.
I don't mind beta testing.

Is the iDevice unlocked the whole time?

It doesn't seem to matter either way, but it was unlocked when this happened.

The same files?

Yes, the same files.

[RD James]

Something I thought might have been causing this is that a lot of my library is actually imported via junctions rather than the "real" location on disk, as it made file management a lot easier.
I have spent some time over the past week to completely overhaul my file organization system, so that Media Center is pointing at the files directly, and it hasn't made a difference.

I started playing some music to JRemote today and it broke in the first 15 seconds of playing track #2.
I restarted playback and it broke again a minute or so into the same track. Normally restarting playback works for at least one or two tracks.

[bob]

Would you email me a cover art from the directory of any track that won't play properly (and the track too if it's not too much trouble) so I can try to reproduce this?

bob (at) jriver (dot) com.

[RD James]

I think I have tracked this down to NetLimiter's traffic prioritization feature.
If it is enabled at all, it seems to interfere with many file transfers or media streaming across the network - even if that traffic is given a higher priority than default.