Ripping / Playing / Skipping issues

[Paul Becker]

Hello,

  I just purchased a B2 from Amazon and I have to say it is beautiful.  I'm an embedded hardware / software developer with 30 years experience and toyed with the idea of designing & building something similar.  When I found the B2, I decided that if I only built 1 of my design, I couldn't do it for anywhere near the price of this unit, so I bought the Brennan.

  I'm having issues, though, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

  The biggest issue is that when I rip CDs, sometimes the tracks won't play.  FLAC conversion happens as desired, and when I access the Brennan files directly and copy the FLACs from the Brennan to my PC, they play just fine.  The FLAC conversion looks correct, and is certainly audibly correct, yet the Brennan refuses to play them.  

  This might not be a huge issue, except it happened on multiple CDs that I ripped with the Brennan.

  I've tried re-scanning the drive, but I suspect that that just refreshes the database, so no luck there.

  Another issue, perhaps related, is that if I switch between playing tracks with the web UI maybe once per second, just to hear the beginning of a track to see what it is, the playback stutters and the web UI goes unresponsive for a bit.  Eventually the UI changes to a completely unrelated artist/album, the volume goes to zero, and clicking on other things to play causes the new chosen track to play, yet it stutters.  Sometimes, it is playing two tracks at once, both stuttering, and both sort of interleaving and competing for the DAC.  I suspect whatever FLAC player is being launched is being launched more than once.  Sometimes there are portions of a much earlier track still left in a buffer that streams out at the beginning of the new track.  My thoughts are that this would probably not reveal itself as often or ever if operation was limited to the front panel only - I think that the underlying daemon instance is not getting cleaned up prior to launching a second.

  As far as the unplayable tracks, I have no idea why they won't play.  They are not damaged in any way I can see.

  Any thoughts?

  Thank you for your time,

  Paul

[Paul Becker]

Well, I've figured something out...

If coverart.jpg is present, the tracks won't play.  If I delete it, they will (same if I rename it to coverart.jpgx).  Haven't tried this for multiple albums yet, but just putting this out there for the devs to investigate.

If it matters, the cover art I fetched is from Amazon.  Looks to be 427 x 436 px, 39KB.  Looks normal in the UI.

Paul

[Steve Peers]

Hi Paul,

There are a bunch of possible reasons for the symptoms you see, and the copy to PC and scan processes usually show these up.

Have a look at folder and file name lengths (beyond 170 characters is trouble).

Have a look at folder and file name special characters (some similar to apostrophe and quotation marks are trouble).

I've toyed with raspberry pi-3 and B2, neither are great at multi-tasking. When using the B2 I try to be patient, and make sure it's finished the last process before I insert a new command. That, and the Settings->Scan Disk fall back process have led to a tolerable working relationship.

You haven't said, so I assume you may not yet have found support pages   https://www.brennan.co.uk/itemcontent.php/content/help

If the "not playing" tracks are still an issue, please post an extract of the artist/album from file  b2db.  Settings->Maintenance->b2db to USB C.

Steve

[Steve Peers]

Hi Paul,

Our posts crossed.

I haven't noticed album art creating a routine playing problem; for myself I did my CD ripping before the time of UI and art support.

I can only imagine possible art interaction with folders (albums) and tracks (files).

Steve

[Fatally Wanderer]

Paul, if the cover art file is renamed to covertart.jpg, or reinstated if deleted, does the skipping, etcetera, behaviour return, or is it solved for good?
(I agree, the double playing of tracks is most likely an issue of two play processes competing or feeding the buffer at once).

Tim

[Paul Becker]

Yes.  Problem shows up / disappears based on the presence of that file.

In fact, I can rename the file to coverart.jpgx, play the album (from the front panel), rename the file to coverart.jpg, press Next (also from the front panel), and the next track will not play.   Brennan goes back to main screen and volume goes to 0.

[Steve Peers]

Hi Paul and Fatally,

Stuck in my mind is a tale on this forum whereby three different variations of a file type (i.e. extension) could lead to strange behaviour.

My best recollection is the files were pictures, but I'm not certain jpg.

My best recollection is the strange behaviour was associated with exports to car stereo.

If so it may be worth a check that an undeclared file sub-type of an alternate coverart.jpg (that "works" normally with another album), "works" or fails the one in question.

Steve

[Paul Becker]

Interesting thoughts, thank you for this.  Your point about "poison artwork" is a good one, and I really need to try it.  I deleted all of my cover art and my B2 is working fine on every album I've tried.

I may try this later.

Paul

[Steve Peers]

Hi Paul.

The thread I was thinking of is   https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/brennanb2/BMW/brennanb2/oSHjKZIUTWc/sMf4-qwbBQAJ
See post by  Brian R  28 March.
N.B. Original search foiled by forum tags including both  Album-art  and  Cover-Art!

Steve

[PMB]

HI Paul,

What's the latest on the 'cover art present - no pay issue'? Are you simply having no cover arts at present?

Did any album/tracks play when cover art was present? How did you add the cover arts - using 'Get Art' for example or did you add them another way? Did you add the 'arts' at the time of ripping or afterwards?

It might be worth getting NAS mode going so you can view the B2's HDD contents on your computer. This might show up any anomalies in file structure, naming irregularities, special characters, etc.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Paul Becker]

Hello Paul,

  For now I don't have any cover art and the unit is behaving.

  I will have some time this coming weekend to dig in further and I will report back with my findings & provide responses to your questions.

Thanks,

Paul