Unable to stream 192kHz on DSM 5

[Sorren]

I have been using Minimserver (and Minimstreamer) for a few months now on my Synology DS212j and haven't had any problems. Since updating to version 5 of DSM last night I can no longer stream 24/192 music as there are frequent pauses/drop outs. 24/96 music streams fine and the built in server on the Synology is also unable to stream 24/192 files. I also know it's not the network as firstly it worked OK before the update and secondly the player (Naim Unitiqute 2) and NAS are connected using CAT7 cable through a gigabit switch.

Does anyone have any idea why this should be and maybe a work around? Minim was also updated last night but as Synology's server also displays this problem I don't think it's a fault with Minim. Nothing in the logs jumps out at me so ...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[uk75]

Is your Synology busy right now, e.g. generating thumbnails? check the CPU usage in the Admin Control panel.

[Sorren]

Thanks UK75. The Synology wasn't busy (as far as I could tell) but we had a power cut this morning and when everything came back up the 24/192s are playing as normal with a CPU load of 40-55% while transcoding FLAC to WAV so I have no idea what was going on last night. I restarted the NAS box several times while trying to get it working so it shouldn't have been that.

Anyway all working now so I'm happy (for the moment anyway).

Russell

[AdamWysokinski]

DS213j here with DSM 5, absolutely no problems with transcoding files up to 24/192, even via my 100-base router.

[rweten]

I have had a similar problem today with Minimstreamer - it stopped working for transcoded 24/192 FLAC files.

I only installed Minimstreamer for the first time today. I'm assuming I set it up right - I put FLAC:WAV24 in the transcoding box in the Properties tab once I'd installed Minimstreamer. It worked first time and I was able to work it fine with normal 16/44 FLAC files.

I hit a problem when I decided to give it a go with a 24/192. The playback would work for about 6 secs, then think about it for another 6 secs, then give me another 6 secs of playback etc etc. It felt as though the server/streamer wasn't able to get the transcoded info into the renderer (Linn Klimax DS/1) fast enough. It's on a gigabit switch, though, and it would seem likely that there's plenty of capacity there.

After that, everything was screwed up in the server/renderer and I could just not get anything to play properly. I ended up uninstalling the streamer (no help), then restarted Minimserver (no help), reset the renderer (no help), and ended up completely uninstalling Minimserver and reinstalling. That did eventually fix it.

I'd like to try the streamer again but having had this series of problems this afternoon, I'm a bit wary of leaping in again in case I did something dumb and screwed up the server.

Any thoughts?

Richard

[simoncn]

(06-07-2014 21:22)rweten Wrote:  I have had a similar problem today with Minimstreamer - it stopped working for transcoded 24/192 FLAC files.

I only installed Minimstreamer for the first time today. I'm assuming I set it up right - I put FLAC:WAV24 in the transcoding box in the Properties tab once I'd installed Minimstreamer. It worked first time and I was able to work it fine with normal 16/44 FLAC files.

I hit a problem when I decided to give it a go with a 24/192. The playback would work for about 6 secs, then think about it for another 6 secs, then give me another 6 secs of playback etc etc. It felt as though the server/streamer wasn't able to get the transcoded info into the renderer (Linn Klimax DS/1) fast enough. It's on a gigabit switch, though, and it would seem likely that there's plenty of capacity there.

After that, everything was screwed up in the server/renderer and I could just not get anything to play properly. I ended up uninstalling the streamer (no help), then restarted Minimserver (no help), reset the renderer (no help), and ended up completely uninstalling Minimserver and reinstalling. That did eventually fix it.

I'd like to try the streamer again but having had this series of problems this afternoon, I'm a bit wary of leaping in again in case I did something dumb and screwed up the server.

Any thoughts?

Richard

I am assuming you are running MinimServer/MinimStreamer on a NAS.

Transcoding a 24/192 file requires more CPU cycles and network bandwidth than transcoding a 16/44.1 file. You should be be able to check the NAS CPU load while transcoding a 24/192 file by opening your NAS activity monitor. If the CPU load is close to 100%, the problem is caused by the CPU in your NAS being too slow. If the CPU load is less than about 70%, the problem is caused by network bandwidth issues. Are the NAS, switch and KDS/1 all connected by Ethernet cables?

[rweten]

(06-07-2014 22:32)simoncn Wrote:  [quote='rweten' pid='9693' dateline='1404678133']


I am assuming you are running MinimServer/MinimStreamer on a NAS.

Transcoding a 24/192 file requires more CPU cycles and network bandwidth than transcoding a 16/44.1 file. You should be be able to check the NAS CPU load while transcoding a 24/192 file by opening your NAS activity monitor. If the CPU load is close to 100%, the problem is caused by the CPU in your NAS being too slow. If the CPU load is less than about 70%, the problem is caused by network bandwidth issues. Are the NAS, switch and KDS/1 all connected by Ethernet cables?

Yes, all running on a NAS NV+. Everything is connected by cables; the switch is a Netgear FS108. CPU load is not high on the NAS.

Having switched back to normal FLAC serving rather than streaming, the files are playing fine. I would agree that it looks like there's a network bandwidth issue but really there should be more than enough bandwidth for this, shouldn't there?

Richard

[simoncn]

(07-07-2014 22:03)rweten Wrote:  Yes, all running on a NAS NV+. Everything is connected by cables; the switch is a Netgear FS108. CPU load is not high on the NAS.

Having switched back to normal FLAC serving rather than streaming, the files are playing fine. I would agree that it looks like there's a network bandwidth issue but really there should be more than enough bandwidth for this, shouldn't there?

Richard

It might be a faulty switch. The only way to find out for sure is to substitute another switch to see if this cures the problem.

[simoncn]

(07-07-2014 22:21)simoncn Wrote:  It might be a faulty switch. The only way to find out for sure is to substitute another switch to see if this cures the problem.

You could narrow down the cause of this problem by using dBpoweramp to do an offline conversion of a 24/192 FLAC file to WAV format. If the problem occurs when playing this converted file, it is a network issue. If the problem doesn't occur when playing this converted file, it is related to MinimStreamer transcoding.

[rweten]

(08-07-2014 07:44)simoncn Wrote:  

(07-07-2014 22:21)simoncn Wrote:  It might be a faulty switch. The only way to find out for sure is to substitute another switch to see if this cures the problem.

You could narrow down the cause of this problem by using dBpoweramp to do an offline conversion of a 24/192 FLAC file to WAV format. If the problem occurs when playing this converted file, it is a network issue. If the problem doesn't occur when playing this converted file, it is related to MinimStreamer transcoding.

The switch is fine. I've reinstalled Minimstreamer and checked with a different switch. The problem repeats with both switches and any port on the switch!

However I've noticed one particular oddity about the network connection. On the switch, only one of the status LEDs on the port comes on. It's the left one and it comes on a slow-blinking green. There is no light on the right-hand side, which for all the other connections is flickering green. [EDIT: Have now got hold of Netgear and they tell me that this means the link is operating at 100 Mbits; all the others are operating at 1 Gbit. I understand KDS only operates at 100 Mbits anyway. So it looks as though there's nothing obviously wrong here.]

On the Klimax, the left hand connection is solid green and the right one is flickering orange. So the Klimax appears to think there's a data transfer happening.

It looks as though the connection might be operating at a seriously degraded link speed based on what I'm now experiencing:

- I've now got the same drop-out problem streaming other kinds of files including ordinary 16 bit CD files.

- I am finding that the error is repeatable - i.e. the drop-outs occur in the same place each time I play the file.

- However, I've never had this problem before installing Minimstreamer, even when streaming 24/192 FLAC files.

Richard