Loading Up My Catalogue

[JazzDoc]

Hi Simon

I use MinimServer in a Windows Server 2012 R2/JPLAYStreamer/MinimServer/Audiophile Optimizer 1.31 Beta 10/Fidelizer Pro 6.7 setup. I run BubbleUPnP on a Tesco Hudl2 for remote control.

After much initial hassle, which I have documented on the JPLAY Forum, I now have everything working well. The sound is great ... The current setup is the best digital sound I have achieved on my system.

There is just one downside ... When I first boot my computer and start MinimServer it takes about 15 minims for it to see my catalogue of albums. If there currently a way around this or might this issue be addressed in a future release of MinimServer?

Thanks

[tboooe]

(15-05-2015 20:41)JazzDoc Wrote:  Hi Simon

I use MinimServer in a Windows Server 2012 R2/JPLAYStreamer/MinimServer/Audiophile Optimizer 1.31 Beta 10/Fidelizer Pro 6.7 setup. I run BubbleUPnP on a Tesco Hudl2 for remote control.

After much initial hassle, which I have documented on the JPLAY Forum, I now have everything working well. The sound is great ... The current setup is the best digital sound I have achieved on my system.

There is just one downside ... When I first boot my computer and start MinimServer it takes about 15 minims for it to see my catalogue of albums. If there currently a way around this or might this issue be addressed in a future release of MinimServer?

Thanks

Strange, is Minimserver rescanning your library on startup? I dont have this problem. When my PC restarts it takes about 1 min for Minimserver is up and running (Icon turns green). Once that happens I see it in Bubble right away.

[antonmb]

Check the "startupscan" setting in Properties under the Advanced tab. As I understand it, when Minimserver starts for the first time it builds a cache of your file/metadata, which takes some time. If the "startupscan" property is set to "True", when you restart, Minim does a scan for new or changed files and updates the cache. This is a fairly quick process and, depending of course on the size of your library and your equipment, may take a couple of minutes. If "startupscan" is set to "Full" however, Minim ignores the cache and rescans your entire library. This can take a lot longer. Normally you should leave this property at "True" and only use "Full" if you suspect the cache is corrupted. I change to "Full" once a week or so just on general principal.

[JazzDoc]

Thanks for the reply Anton. When I checked my 'startupscan' setting it is set to true. I am scanning 4 x 2TB External USB drives connected to my PC via USB hub. Do you have any other ideas? I would say that the scan takes 10-15 minutes every time I boot my PC and run MinimServer

[simoncn]

(15-05-2015 21:30)JazzDoc Wrote:  Thanks for the reply Anton. When I checked my 'startupscan' setting it is set to true. I am scanning 4 x 2TB External USB drives connected to my PC via USB hub. Do you have any other ideas? I would say that the scan takes 10-15 minutes every time I boot my PC and run MinimServer

How many tracks are there in your library?

What is the file type of these tracks (e.g., FLAC, ALAC, WAV, MP3, M4A, etc.)?

Are your drives connected via USB3 or USB2?

As a workaround for the problem, you can set startupScan to 'false'. This will mean you need to do a manual rescan every time you add music to your library.

[JazzDoc]

In answer to your question Simon ... Lots! I guess I have around 6000 albums on 4 external 2TB USB drives connected to my PC via USB hub. Connection is USB2.

Anton ... When I set 'startupscan' to Full, the MinimServer icon turned red and I got an error message telling me that the syntax was not right. I can use both true and false but not full. When I use false, it doesn't seem to make any difference. Maybe this is the downside of using dated USB2 external drives?

[simoncn]

(16-05-2015 12:24)JazzDoc Wrote:  In answer to your question Simon ... Lots! I guess I have around 6000 albums on 4 external 2TB USB drives connected to my PC via USB hub. Connection is USB2.

Anton ... When I set 'startupscan' to Full, the MinimServer icon turned red and I got an error message telling me that the syntax was not right. I can use both true and false but not full. When I use false, it doesn't seem to make any difference. Maybe this is the downside of using dated USB2 external drives?

You need to set startupScan to 'full', not 'Full'.

If startupScan is set to 'false', MinimServer will not read any files from your library when it is started. It will read the metadata from its cache file instead (assuming that the cache file exists from a previous scan). On Windows, the cache file is located in the C:\Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\MinimServer\data folder which is presumably on a local disk with fast access.

I would be extremely surprised if it is taking MinimServer 10-15 minutes to read the metadata for 6000 albums from a local cache file.

[Martin H]

Simon,

I have finally got around to adding another chunk of my albums and pretty much completed a revamp of relevant tags, album covers and so on for approx 2,500 albums/30,000 tracks. For a while I had the collection in two halves largely because one half was updated and the other not. But nicely consolidated.

I know that there is currently some sort of album art issue with Kazoo/minimserver (mismatch of covers displayed within Kazoo) which is in hand but ignoring that. Is there any guidance on volumes, image size or things I should advised as the collection grows? i.e. from the minimserver perspective?

I like to scroll through the album cover view for inspiration and flick through this at a reasonable speed on an iPad (kazoo) but again I assume there shouldn't be any reason from a minimserver perspective that this would be a problem is there?

Also just to check - a 'rescan' is the re-indexing of the music which I think includes a restart (or it did do in the past) and a 'restart' is the same thing but without the re-index?

Yesterday it seemed I couldn't see a new album cover until I had restarted and it threw my understanding as a rescan didn't work.

[simoncn]

(13-06-2015 00:18)Martin H Wrote:  Simon,

I have finally got around to adding another chunk of my albums and pretty much completed a revamp of relevant tags, album covers and so on for approx 2,500 albums/30,000 tracks. For a while I had the collection in two halves largely because one half was updated and the other not. But nicely consolidated.

I know that there is currently some sort of album art issue with Kazoo/minimserver (mismatch of covers displayed within Kazoo) which is in hand but ignoring that. Is there any guidance on volumes, image size or things I should advised as the collection grows? i.e. from the minimserver perspective?

You should choose these according to your preference and convenience. MinimServer is designed to be "neutral" about such things

Quote:I like to scroll through the album cover view for inspiration and flick through this at a reasonable speed on an iPad (kazoo) but again I assume there shouldn't be any reason from a minimserver perspective that this would be a problem is there?

You will get slightly faster scrolling performance from smaller images because there is less data to send across the network.

The recent workaround for the Kazoo/Mobile Safari problem on iOS might have some impact on scrolling performance. I would be interested to hear if anyone notices a difference.

Quote:Also just to check - a 'rescan' is the re-indexing of the music which I think includes a restart (or it did do in the past) and a 'restart' is the same thing but without the re-index?

Yesterday it seemed I couldn't see a new album cover until I had restarted and it threw my understanding as a rescan didn't work.

Your understanding is correct and I am not sure why you couldn't see the new album cover after a rescan. Perhaps Kazoo requires you to exit the albums list and select it again to refresh it.

[Martin H]

Simon

Many thanks for the clarity.

Re this point:
- The recent workaround for the Kazoo/Mobile Safari problem on iOS might have some impact on scrolling performance. I would be interested to hear if anyone notices a difference. -

Not totally sure what this workaround is/was but in case it is relevant. The other day I was able to consistently crash something at will on my ipad air while scrolling album covers in Kazoo. I say something because the symptoms were that Kazoo remained open but the music server and most other tiles disappeared (Qobuz and Tidal etc.) and the minimserver disappeared from the available server list (others were there still). The only way to recover seemed to be to close Kazoo and reopen it. I could repeat this at will at the time.

I just tried to do it again and it seems OK and so nothing to pursue but at least you have the info.

I had assumed it was a Kazoo problem but not too sure. All good at the moment.