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+--- Thread: Audio dropouts (/showthread.php?tid=4943)
Audio dropouts - randyhat - 15-06-2018 13:10
I running Minimserver on a Synology DS116. Everything has been working great for about a year since I set it up. I am streaming to a Lumin T1 network streamer. Recently I have had problems when streaming from the NAS. Dropouts in the sound. Sometimes short pauses sometimes long pauses. The occurrence of these dropouts may be related to a power outage as the problems only started occurring after I manually restarted the NAS. I have pretty much isolated the problem to Minimserver since Internet streaming is not affected and I am able to stream this NAS to another streamer (blue sound) that does not use Minimserver. When I contacted Lumin support they recommended re-booting the NAS. I have done this and it will work for a while but ultimately the dropouts will re-occur. Any suggestions? I am a novice so my troubleshooting skills are pretty limited.
Thanks
Randy
RE: Audio dropouts - simoncn - 15-06-2018 16:02
The first step is to power off everything and power it back on in the following order:
1) The router (then wait 5 minutes)
2) Any switches (then wait 3 minutes)
3) The NAS (then wait 5 minutes)
4) The LUMIN
If this doesn't fix the problem, it might be caused by a faulty switch, router or Ethernet cable. You could try swapping these (as far as possible) to see if things improve.
RE: Audio dropouts - randyhat - 15-06-2018 21:45
(15-06-2018 16:02)simoncn Wrote: The first step is to power off everything and power it back on in the following order:
1) The router (then wait 5 minutes)
2) Any switches (then wait 3 minutes)
3) The NAS (then wait 5 minutes)
4) The LUMIN
If this doesn't fix the problem, it might be caused by a faulty switch, router or Ethernet cable. You could try swapping these (as far as possible) to see if things improve.
Thank you for the recommended steps to resolve the issue. Unfortunately it did not work. I did everything your suggested in the correct order and intervals. When that didn't work I tried switching the ethernet cable between my NAS and router...no change.
If anything, since going through this process, the problem is worse :-). Sometimes the Lumin is not not even recognizing Minimserver...and when it does it will give me a "server offline" message when I select an album. If I am persistent I can get it to start playing after a long wait but the dropouts start again...usually very soon.
Would there be any value in attempting to re-install Minimserver on the NAS...or even resetting the NAS to factory defaults and reinstalling not only Minimserver but the Synology DSM software as well (starting from scratch)?
RE: Audio dropouts - simoncn - 16-06-2018 10:21
These symptoms indicate a network issue, so reinstalling MinimServer and/or the other NAS software won't make any difference.
You said you have switched the Ethernet cable to the NAS. Did you try this with the cable to the LUMIN?
What router and switches (if any) do you have in your network? What decices are connected to the network and how are these connected (e.g., directly to the router via Ethernet cable or in some other way)?
RE: Audio dropouts - randyhat - 16-06-2018 13:51
I agree that sounds like an issue with my network. That was my first thought. However, if this is a network problem why is it that Internet streaming is not affected? Also, streaming from the NAS when not using MinimServer is flawless. It's only when I attempt to use MinimServer that the issues arise. I did not swap out the ethernet cable between the router and the Lumin because most of that cable goes up a wall and across the ceiling to another room where the Lumin resides. A short network cable connects the Lumin to the wall outlet. Again, wouldn't a network issue show up with other streaming sources and not just when attempting to stream from the MinimServer database?
I have no switches in my network. My router is an Apple Time Capsule. Aside from the Synology NAS, the only other device attached to the router is a wireless access point that extends the network to an out building. Thanks again.
RE: Audio dropouts - simoncn - 16-06-2018 14:46
Dropouts are sometimes caused by the CPU in the NAS being unable to handle the processing required for streaming together with other tasks. To check this, open Resource Monitor in Synology DSM and observe CPU usage while streaming is happening. If this gets close to 100%, it is likely to be the cause of the dropouts. However, this doesn't explain the network discovery issues you are seeing.
Streaming from a NAS is likely to require more network bandwidth than streaming from the internet. If you are streaming high-resolution files, this increases network bandwidth requirements. If you are transcoding using MinimStreamer, this can increase both CPU consumption and network bandwidth.
RE: Audio dropouts - randyhat - 22-06-2018 11:34
(16-06-2018 14:46)simoncn Wrote: Dropouts are sometimes caused by the CPU in the NAS being unable to handle the processing required for streaming together with other tasks. To check this, open Resource Monitor in Synology DSM and observe CPU usage while streaming is happening. If this gets close to 100%, it is likely to be the cause of the dropouts. However, this doesn't explain the network discovery issues you are seeing.
Update: The resource monitoring showed nothing unusual. For the past few days everything seemed to be working fairly well...only two minor dropouts. This morning I attempted to access the NAS from the Lumin. I did a search on an artist...that worked. However, when I selected an album from that search result I got the message that "server was offline, continue anyway" I selected yes. There was a long pause before the first appeared in the "now playing" box...but no music. Then the next song on the album appeared, then the next etc. but nothing would play. I am sharing this same information with Lumin in hopes they can help pinpoint the source of this problem. Thanks again for your help.
RE: Audio dropouts - steamfan - 22-06-2018 12:13
(22-06-2018 11:34)randyhat Wrote: Update: The resource monitoring showed nothing unusual. For the past few days everything seemed to be working fairly well...only two minor dropouts. This morning I attempted to access the NAS from the Lumin. I did a search on an artist...that worked. However, when I selected an album from that search result I got the message that "server was offline, continue anyway" I selected yes. There was a long pause before the first appeared in the "now playing" box...but no music. Then the next song on the album appeared, then the next etc. but nothing would play. I am sharing this same information with Lumin in hopes they can help pinpoint the source of this problem. Thanks again for your help.
Hello,
could it be that your hard drive in the NAS has become corrupted after the power outage (which you mentioned in your first post)?
This would explain your issues while streaming from the NAS but this would not affect internet streaming. I believe that on the Synology web interface there's a possibility to check the status of the hard drive.
RE: Audio dropouts - randyhat - 22-06-2018 13:11
(22-06-2018 12:13)steamfan Wrote:(22-06-2018 11:34)randyhat Wrote: Update: The resource monitoring showed nothing unusual. For the past few days everything seemed to be working fairly well...only two minor dropouts. This morning I attempted to access the NAS from the Lumin. I did a search on an artist...that worked. However, when I selected an album from that search result I got the message that "server was offline, continue anyway" I selected yes. There was a long pause before the first appeared in the "now playing" box...but no music. Then the next song on the album appeared, then the next etc. but nothing would play. I am sharing this same information with Lumin in hopes they can help pinpoint the source of this problem. Thanks again for your help.
Hello,
could it be that your hard drive in the NAS has become corrupted after the power outage (which you mentioned in your first post)?
This would explain your issues while streaming from the NAS but this would not affect internet streaming. I believe that on the Synology web interface there's a possibility to check the status of the hard drive.
I have considered this. The DSM software on the Synology drive does have a hard drive monitoring feature which reports no issues. I have considered reformatting the drive...or even replacing it altogether. Still trying to gather more information at the moment. Thanks for your suggestion.
Randy
RE: Audio dropouts - simoncn - 22-06-2018 15:59
Can you try another router or connect your equipment via a switch instead of directly to the router? The switch would be connected to the router for internet access. The symptoms you describe (server offline) sound like a network issue.