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Pastim · 21-02-2015, 00:33

(20-02-2015 22:20)PhilD Wrote:
(20-02-2015 10:08)simoncn Wrote:
(20-02-2015 09:59)PhilD Wrote: Good question, the clients are in different rooms so I only heard the i83 stuttering before stopping the stream. I'm currently at work so I'll try to recreate the problem tonight or over the weekend then report back.

Phil

Thanks very much!

I've had the chance to play now and managed to recreate the dropouts, making the following observations:

1) If I stream from the pi to either Logitech Media Server (LMS) or the i83 alone, everything works perfectly. I can monitor the buffer on the i83 and it remains full 99% of the time with only tiny dips from time to time.

2) If I stream to LMS then start streaming to the i83 I get frequent dropouts on the i83 but LMS continues to play perfectly. The buffer on the i83 constantly fluctuates, reaching 0 a couple of times per minute. If I stop streaming to LMS the i83 dropouts and buffer fluctuations continue.

3) If I stream to the i83 and then start streaming to LMS both play perfectly. The i83 buffer behaves the same as in scenario 1) above.

A final observation, both LMS and the i83 are a few seconds out of sync, with LMS leading.

Hope this is of some help in the diagnostics. Let me know if you'd like me to try anything else.

Thanks,

Phil

Sorry for butting in on this, but I am intrigued. When you say 'stream to LMS' are you somehow streaming from minimserver to LMS, and if so, how and to what end?

PhilD · 21-02-2015, 10:01

(21-02-2015 00:33)Pastim Wrote:
(20-02-2015 22:20)PhilD Wrote:
(20-02-2015 10:08)simoncn Wrote:
(20-02-2015 09:59)PhilD Wrote: Good question, the clients are in different rooms so I only heard the i83 stuttering before stopping the stream. I'm currently at work so I'll try to recreate the problem tonight or over the weekend then report back.

Phil

Thanks very much!

I've had the chance to play now and managed to recreate the dropouts, making the following observations:

1) If I stream from the pi to either Logitech Media Server (LMS) or the i83 alone, everything works perfectly. I can monitor the buffer on the i83 and it remains full 99% of the time with only tiny dips from time to time.

2) If I stream to LMS then start streaming to the i83 I get frequent dropouts on the i83 but LMS continues to play perfectly. The buffer on the i83 constantly fluctuates, reaching 0 a couple of times per minute. If I stop streaming to LMS the i83 dropouts and buffer fluctuations continue.

3) If I stream to the i83 and then start streaming to LMS both play perfectly. The i83 buffer behaves the same as in scenario 1) above.

A final observation, both LMS and the i83 are a few seconds out of sync, with LMS leading.

Hope this is of some help in the diagnostics. Let me know if you'd like me to try anything else.

Thanks,

Phil
Sorry for butting in on this, but I am intrigued. When you say 'stream to LMS' are you somehow streaming from minimserver to LMS, and if so, how and to what end?

No need to apologise!

I'm typing the MinimsStream url into the 'Tune in URL' of LMS. The reason is primarily to test the suitability of MinimServer/Stream as a stop-gap for my retired parents. I previously set them up running LMS on a basic NAS and I don't think it will be easy to implement the ffmpeg/bpa plugin solution for them. As it turns out, I inadvertently uncovered this problem so thought it was worth reporting to the community.

Phil

Pastim · 21-02-2015, 10:55

(21-02-2015 10:01)PhilD Wrote:
(21-02-2015 00:33)Pastim Wrote:
(20-02-2015 22:20)PhilD Wrote:
(20-02-2015 10:08)simoncn Wrote:
(20-02-2015 09:59)PhilD Wrote: Good question, the clients are in different rooms so I only heard the i83 stuttering before stopping the stream. I'm currently at work so I'll try to recreate the problem tonight or over the weekend then report back.

Phil

Thanks very much!

I've had the chance to play now and managed to recreate the dropouts, making the following observations:

1) If I stream from the pi to either Logitech Media Server (LMS) or the i83 alone, everything works perfectly. I can monitor the buffer on the i83 and it remains full 99% of the time with only tiny dips from time to time.

2) If I stream to LMS then start streaming to the i83 I get frequent dropouts on the i83 but LMS continues to play perfectly. The buffer on the i83 constantly fluctuates, reaching 0 a couple of times per minute. If I stop streaming to LMS the i83 dropouts and buffer fluctuations continue.

3) If I stream to the i83 and then start streaming to LMS both play perfectly. The i83 buffer behaves the same as in scenario 1) above.

A final observation, both LMS and the i83 are a few seconds out of sync, with LMS leading.

Hope this is of some help in the diagnostics. Let me know if you'd like me to try anything else.

Thanks,

Phil
Sorry for butting in on this, but I am intrigued. When you say 'stream to LMS' are you somehow streaming from minimserver to LMS, and if so, how and to what end?

No need to apologise!

I'm typing the MinimsStream url into the 'Tune in URL' of LMS. The reason is primarily to test the suitability of MinimServer/Stream as a stop-gap for my retired parents. I previously set them up running LMS on a basic NAS and I don't think it will be easy to implement the ffmpeg/bpa plugin solution for them. As it turns out, I inadvertently uncovered this problem so thought it was worth reporting to the community.

Phil

Thanks. It just hadn't occurred to me that one could do this, but of course one can, and why not. I can see that for many people anything that keeps things simple and stable is sensible, and in this case particularly since NAS's have been giving grief with ffmpeg and LMS. A stable solution for ffmpeg with LMS may come in time, along with a way to 'listen again' once that has been defined. The Beeb will then change the plot to DASH, or whatever, and we'll go round again, with simoncn probably first out of the blocks with a simple and reliable solution Smile

simoncn · 21-02-2015, 14:35

(20-02-2015 21:47)Santelises Wrote: Since upgrading to the latest release of Minimstreamer/Minimserver I am seeing some issues with MinimWatch starting and stopping Minimserver running in my Synology 710+. I am also having a problem attempting to stream the new BBC streams to my renderer OPPO BDP105. This is an example of what I found in the log, but I see the same message for each attempt to play each BBC station:

HTTPSource: no working stream URL found in http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/man...extra.m3u8
Chain: error stopping chain
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.minimstreamer.HTTPRequestTarget.stop(HTTPRequestTarget.java:109)

The "no working stream URL" message means the stream you are trying to play is not available. You would get this message if you are not in the UK because this stream is for UK users only. If you are not in the UK, you need to use the nonuk/sbr_low version of the stream.

The NullPointerException is a bug in MinimStreamer caused by a race condition. I will fix it in the next update. Thanks for letting me know about this.

simoncn · 21-02-2015, 14:50

(20-02-2015 22:20)PhilD Wrote: I've had the chance to play now and managed to recreate the dropouts, making the following observations:

1) If I stream from the pi to either Logitech Media Server (LMS) or the i83 alone, everything works perfectly. I can monitor the buffer on the i83 and it remains full 99% of the time with only tiny dips from time to time.

2) If I stream to LMS then start streaming to the i83 I get frequent dropouts on the i83 but LMS continues to play perfectly. The buffer on the i83 constantly fluctuates, reaching 0 a couple of times per minute. If I stop streaming to LMS the i83 dropouts and buffer fluctuations continue.

3) If I stream to the i83 and then start streaming to LMS both play perfectly. The i83 buffer behaves the same as in scenario 1) above.

A final observation, both LMS and the i83 are a few seconds out of sync, with LMS leading.

Hope this is of some help in the diagnostics. Let me know if you'd like me to try anything else.

Thanks,

Phil

Thanks very much for investigating this so thoroughly. I think I understand what is happening. The problem is related to different internal buffer sizes for the i83 and LMS and (I think) insufficient internal buffering in MinimStreamer to handle this client buffer size difference when serving the same internet stream to multiple clients simultaneously.

I think you could work around the problem by stopping LMS streaming to give the i83 a chance to fill its buffer, then restarting LMS after a few seconds.

For a proper fix, I think a change to MinimStreamer buffering might solve this problem. I don't have the necessary equipment to reproduce the problem here. Would you be able to try a test build of MinimStreamer and let me know what happens?

Many thanks for letting me know about this.

PhilD · 21-02-2015, 15:23

(21-02-2015 14:50)simoncn Wrote:
(20-02-2015 22:20)PhilD Wrote: I've had the chance to play now and managed to recreate the dropouts, making the following observations:

1) If I stream from the pi to either Logitech Media Server (LMS) or the i83 alone, everything works perfectly. I can monitor the buffer on the i83 and it remains full 99% of the time with only tiny dips from time to time.

2) If I stream to LMS then start streaming to the i83 I get frequent dropouts on the i83 but LMS continues to play perfectly. The buffer on the i83 constantly fluctuates, reaching 0 a couple of times per minute. If I stop streaming to LMS the i83 dropouts and buffer fluctuations continue.

3) If I stream to the i83 and then start streaming to LMS both play perfectly. The i83 buffer behaves the same as in scenario 1) above.

A final observation, both LMS and the i83 are a few seconds out of sync, with LMS leading.

Hope this is of some help in the diagnostics. Let me know if you'd like me to try anything else.

Thanks,

Phil

Thanks very much for investigating this so thoroughly. I think I understand what is happening. The problem is related to different internal buffer sizes for the i83 and LMS and (I think) insufficient internal buffering in MinimStreamer to handle this client buffer size difference when serving the same internet stream to multiple clients simultaneously.

I think you could work around the problem by stopping LMS streaming to give the i83 a chance to fill its buffer, then restarting LMS after a few seconds.

For a proper fix, I think a change to MinimStreamer buffering might solve this problem. I don't have the necessary equipment to reproduce the problem here. Would you be able to try a test build of MinimStreamer and let me know what happens?

Many thanks for letting me know about this.

Happy to help in any way I can, just let me know what you'd like me to install and what tests you'd like me to try.

Thanks,

Phil

simoncn · 21-02-2015, 16:41

(21-02-2015 15:23)PhilD Wrote: Happy to help in any way I can, just let me know what you'd like me to install and what tests you'd like me to try.

Thanks,

Phil

Thanks very much!

For the first test, please reproduce the problem, then stop LMS streaming. Does this enable the i83 to fill its buffer and start playing normally? If so, please restart LMS streaming. Does this produce uninterrupted streamiing on both clients?

For the second test, I will be in touch via PM when the test build is available.

PhilD · 21-02-2015, 19:59

(21-02-2015 16:41)simoncn Wrote:
(21-02-2015 15:23)PhilD Wrote: Happy to help in any way I can, just let me know what you'd like me to install and what tests you'd like me to try.

Thanks,

Phil

Thanks very much!

For the first test, please reproduce the problem, then stop LMS streaming. Does this enable the i83 to fill its buffer and start playing normally? If so, please restart LMS streaming. Does this produce uninterrupted streamiing on both clients?

For the second test, I will be in touch via PM when the test build is available.

Right, I've immediately managed to recreate the problem using procedure 2) in my previous post (#159). I start streaming on LMS then start the i83. LMS continues to play perfectly and the i83 gives frequent dropouts with the buffer fluctuating wildly every few seconds.

When I stop LMS streaming but let the i83 continue the buffer fluctuations appear to become less severe but are still there. Having said that, dropouts are now infrequent, once every few minutes.

If I now stop, then restart streaming on the i83 (i.e. LMS still off), the i83 buffer immediately becomes full, without fluctuations). The station now plays perfectly.

If, instead of restarting the i83 I leave it fluctuating and just restart LMS streaming the i83 buffer continues fluctuating as before.

Thanks,

Phil

simoncn · 22-02-2015, 16:42

(21-02-2015 19:59)PhilD Wrote: Right, I've immediately managed to recreate the problem using procedure 2) in my previous post (#159). I start streaming on LMS then start the i83. LMS continues to play perfectly and the i83 gives frequent dropouts with the buffer fluctuating wildly every few seconds.

When I stop LMS streaming but let the i83 continue the buffer fluctuations appear to become less severe but are still there. Having said that, dropouts are now infrequent, once every few minutes.

If I now stop, then restart streaming on the i83 (i.e. LMS still off), the i83 buffer immediately becomes full, without fluctuations). The station now plays perfectly.

If, instead of restarting the i83 I leave it fluctuating and just restart LMS streaming the i83 buffer continues fluctuating as before.

Thanks,

Phil

Thanks for the quick response. From this information, I think the fix will be more difficult than I was hoping originally.

Please try something else:

1) Start playing a BBC 320 kbps stream using LMS only and time how long it takes for the music to start playing.

2) Start playing a BBC 320 kbps stream using i83 only and time how long it takes for the music to start playing.

Many thanks!

PhilD · 22-02-2015, 20:44

(22-02-2015 16:42)simoncn Wrote:
(21-02-2015 19:59)PhilD Wrote: Right, I've immediately managed to recreate the problem using procedure 2) in my previous post (#159). I start streaming on LMS then start the i83. LMS continues to play perfectly and the i83 gives frequent dropouts with the buffer fluctuating wildly every few seconds.

When I stop LMS streaming but let the i83 continue the buffer fluctuations appear to become less severe but are still there. Having said that, dropouts are now infrequent, once every few minutes.

If I now stop, then restart streaming on the i83 (i.e. LMS still off), the i83 buffer immediately becomes full, without fluctuations). The station now plays perfectly.

If, instead of restarting the i83 I leave it fluctuating and just restart LMS streaming the i83 buffer continues fluctuating as before.

Thanks,

Phil

Thanks for the quick response. From this information, I think the fix will be more difficult than I was hoping originally.

Please try something else:

1) Start playing a BBC 320 kbps stream using LMS only and time how long it takes for the music to start playing.

2) Start playing a BBC 320 kbps stream using i83 only and time how long it takes for the music to start playing.

Many thanks!

Thanks, I used the 320 kbps radio 4 stream. Both are very similar. LMS takes 3 seconds to start audio after play has been pressed. The i83 takes between 3 and 4 seconds.