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control point for android that can chromecast
28-07-2017, 17:35
Post: #1
control point for android that can chromecast
I'm trying out Chromecast as a method for driving speakers in multiple rooms. But the control point I'm using, BubbleUPNP seems to be unreliable and has lost the ability to connect to Chromecast. (Even if I restart everything BubbleUPNP no longer works. Perhaps it updated and installed a broken version?)

I was looking around for an alternative and I tried Neutron, which worked fine for talking to Chromecast (demonstrating that the problem is BubbleUPNP and not Chromecast) but Neutron is abysmal for actually using your music library.

Does anybody have any recommendations of control points for Android that are robust and can use Chromecast? (I'm also interested in the same thing fir iOS, but that's less important.)
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28-07-2017, 19:49 (This post was last modified: 28-07-2017 19:51 by Cebolla.)
Post: #2
RE: control point for android that can chromecast
I have no problems detecting, accessing and controlling my Google Cast devices (3 Chromecast Audios, 2 Chromecast Audio groups and 1 Chromecast video) with the excellent BubbleUPnP Android app (with the license). BubbleUPnP has been rock solid for months (if not years) and have kept it up to date, so I am using the current version (2.8.10).

What exactly is this unreliability?
What exactly do you mean by 'lost the ability to connect'?
What exactly 'no longer works' in BubbleUPnP when you restart 'everything' and what is this 'everything' you are restarting?
Do you experience any of these BubbleUPnP Android app problems with devices other than Chromecast ones, ie, UPnP/DLNA devices?
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30-07-2017, 03:19
Post: #3
RE: control point for android that can chromecast
My initial effort was using BubbleUPNP Server to convert the chromecast devices to openhome. I tried to control with Kazoo. Kazoo crashes fairly often. And BubbleUPNP Server crashes maybe weekly. The author said something about a problem with how it ran on the NAS and there was no fix. Response is also very slow so it can be hard to tell if it's working but slow or crashed.

I figured I would try abandoning openhome and just use chromecast to see if that would do what I needed. I bought a licence to BubbleUPNP. I think BubbleUPNP worked for a day and then it quit working. I rebooted all the chromecasts and the tablet where BubbleUPNP runs and restarted BubbleUPNP and I still couldn't connect to chromecast devices, though openhome was still working via bubbleupnp server, somewhat more erratically than before. I was getting BubbleUPNP messages like "Action failed not connected to google play services for casting" or "google cast connection error NETWORK_ERROR".

I recently discovered that restarting bubbleupnp server by clicking "restart" on its web interface may not actually restart it. It seems that restarting it in the NAS OS interface has improved things. I can again access chromecast from BubbleUPNP. I wonder if somehow BubbleUPNP server interferes with other uses of chromecast; perhaps I should turn it off while not using it. The BubbleUPNP author told me (based on log files) that there was some kind of deadlock. But Chromecast was working for other apps even while it wouldn't for BubbleUPNP.

I haven't tried any other UPNP/DNLA devices. I don't have any other devices.
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30-07-2017, 09:52
Post: #4
RE: control point for android that can chromecast
(28-07-2017 17:35)adrian Wrote:  Does anybody have any recommendations of control points for Android that are robust and can use Chromecast? (I'm also interested in the same thing fir iOS, but that's less important.)

Hi-Fi Cast , I have tested once, nice surface , works perfect with minimserver.
For me no advance, I use BubbleDS Next.
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30-07-2017, 12:15 (This post was last modified: 30-07-2017 12:20 by Cebolla.)
Post: #5
RE: control point for android that can chromecast
(30-07-2017 03:19)adrian Wrote:  My initial effort was using BubbleUPNP Server to convert the chromecast devices to openhome. I tried to control with Kazoo. Kazoo crashes fairly often. And BubbleUPNP Server crashes maybe weekly. The author said something about a problem with how it ran on the NAS and there was no fix. Response is also very slow so it can be hard to tell if it's working but slow or crashed.

I figured I would try abandoning openhome and just use chromecast to see if that would do what I needed. I bought a licence to BubbleUPNP. I think BubbleUPNP worked for a day and then it quit working. I rebooted all the chromecasts and the tablet where BubbleUPNP runs and restarted BubbleUPNP and I still couldn't connect to chromecast devices, though openhome was still working via bubbleupnp server, somewhat more erratically than before. I was getting BubbleUPNP messages like "Action failed not connected to google play services for casting" or "google cast connection error NETWORK_ERROR".

I recently discovered that restarting bubbleupnp server by clicking "restart" on its web interface may not actually restart it. It seems that restarting it in the NAS OS interface has improved things. I can again access chromecast from BubbleUPNP. I wonder if somehow BubbleUPNP server interferes with other uses of chromecast; perhaps I should turn it off while not using it. The BubbleUPNP author told me (based on log files) that there was some kind of deadlock. But Chromecast was working for other apps even while it wouldn't for BubbleUPNP.

I haven't tried any other UPNP/DNLA devices. I don't have any other devices.
Certainly does sound like some sort of odd Google Cast conflict between the BubbleUPnP Server on the NAS and the BubbleUPnP Android app. Given that the BubbleUPnP Server isn't working properly on the NAS anyway, may be it's just another symptom of that. Is there any reason why you can't remove the BubbleUPnP Server from your NAS?

BTW, I run the current version of the BubbleUPnP Server on a Raspberry Pi2 (under Rasbian Jessie Lite) left switched on 24/7, with no issues whatsoever.
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30-07-2017, 15:43
Post: #6
RE: control point for android that can chromecast
(30-07-2017 12:15)Cebolla Wrote:  Certainly does sound like some sort of odd Google Cast conflict between the BubbleUPnP Server on the NAS and the BubbleUPnP Android app. Given that the BubbleUPnP Server isn't working properly on the NAS anyway, may be it's just another symptom of that. Is there any reason why you can't remove the BubbleUPnP Server from your NAS?

BTW, I run the current version of the BubbleUPnP Server on a Raspberry Pi2 (under Rasbian Jessie Lite) left switched on 24/7, with no issues whatsoever.

BubbleUPNP Server (apparently) works fine on the NAS until it crashes, so I'm not sure exactly what to make of that. What does Openhome provide that plain chromecast does not?

I had left it on because that meant when chromecast failed I could still play music using openhome. But clearly I need to test things a little more carefully. Last night I was able to play on chromecast from BubbleUPNP. I paused a track that was playing. This morning when I press "play" it blinks to acknowledge the touch and then nothing happens. So BubbleUPNP is no longer playing on chromecast. There are no error messages.

I stopped BubbleUPNP server in case it was causing some kind of problem. This didn't change the behavior. I restarted BubbleUPNP on the tablet and still got the same behavior. I also tried playing a new track and get a similarly unresponsive result.

As a test of the Chromecast function I installed the above mentioned Hi-Fi Cast and and it is working.
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03-08-2017, 16:03
Post: #7
RE: control point for android that can chromecast
I've been trying out hi-fi cast and one thing I noticed is that if I try to play a m3u file listed in a play list with MinimStreamer it fails with the error "Cannot play this song: missing audio URL". But this works with another control point I tested. I thought once I had MinimStreamer running it should be transparent and either work or not work everywhere.

Another observation is that after my NAS did an OS update, hi-fi cast lost contact with MinimServer and was not able to re-establish the connection until I rebooted the tablet.

Does anybody have any other suggestions of android apps that work with minimserver and can use google cast?
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03-08-2017, 20:08
Post: #8
RE: control point for android that can chromecast
(03-08-2017 16:03)adrian Wrote:  I've been trying out hi-fi cast and one thing I noticed is that if I try to play a m3u file listed in a play list with MinimStreamer it fails with the error "Cannot play this song: missing audio URL". But this works with another control point I tested. I thought once I had MinimStreamer running it should be transparent and either work or not work everywhere.

Please provide more detail on this scenario. Is this a .m3u playlist in the MinimServer library that contains an entry for another .m3u playlist in the MinimServer library? How is MinimStreamer involved?
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04-08-2017, 02:01
Post: #9
RE: control point for android that can chromecast
(03-08-2017 20:08)simoncn Wrote:  
(03-08-2017 16:03)adrian Wrote:  I've been trying out hi-fi cast and one thing I noticed is that if I try to play a m3u file listed in a play list with MinimStreamer it fails with the error "Cannot play this song: missing audio URL". But this works with another control point I tested. I thought once I had MinimStreamer running it should be transparent and either work or not work everywhere.

Please provide more detail on this scenario. Is this a .m3u playlist in the MinimServer library that contains an entry for another .m3u playlist in the MinimServer library? How is MinimStreamer involved?

I have a playlist with the following contents:

Code:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,[97.1] WASH-FM
http://wash-fm.akacast.akamaistream.net/7/668/20125/v1/auth.akacast.akamaistream.net/wash-fm
#EXTINF:-1,[99.5] WIHT HOT 99.5
http://wiht-fm.akacast.akamaistream.net/7/183/20127/v1/auth.akacast.akamaistream.net/wiht-fm
#EXTINF:-1,[88.5-1] WAMU
http://wamu-1.streamguys.com/
#EXTINF:-1,[88.5-2] WAMU Bluegrass Country
http://ice24.securenetsystems.net/WAMU2

When I select any of the four radio stations I get the above mentioned error if I use Hi-Fi Cast. But if I use other control points the radio station plays. As I recall, this didn't work at all until I installed MinimStreamer.
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04-08-2017, 09:09
Post: #10
RE: control point for android that can chromecast
(03-08-2017 20:08)simoncn Wrote:  
(03-08-2017 16:03)adrian Wrote:  I've been trying out hi-fi cast and one thing I noticed is that if I try to play a m3u file listed in a play list with MinimStreamer it fails with the error "Cannot play this song: missing audio URL". But this works with another control point I tested. I thought once I had MinimStreamer running it should be transparent and either work or not work everywhere.

Please provide more detail on this scenario. Is this a .m3u playlist in the MinimServer library that contains an entry for another .m3u playlist in the MinimServer library? How is MinimStreamer involved?

Hi Simon and adrian,

This is a bug in the Hi-Fi Cast app. It's assuming the media server will provide a mime-type (rather than *) in the ProtocolInfo field. I'll try and get this fixed ASAP.

- Brett
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