Strangeness with Minimserver and BubbleUPnP and m4a files

[mightyoakbob]

Hi,
Kit involved: Synology DS214+, MinimServer, BubbleUPnPServer, Linn Kazoo (iPad), Linn Akurate DS & Denon CEOL RCDN9

I have a couple of really odd things happening with my system and although it is *unlikely* to be a problem with MinimServer it is not impossible. I've already exhausted the available help from the BubbleUPnP forum (Bubbleguuum) and some of his comments did indicate I should really ask on here as well, I'm grateful for your time and any advice.

First of all the Linn Akurate works perfectly as it always has on any music file. The Denon works perfectly when controlled from the Denon iPad app. When I use BubbleUPnPServer, Linn Kazoo and the Denon all flac files play fine including gapless hi-res.

The problems are with m4a files which dbPoweramp says are AAC (LC) files. On the Denon, 9 out of 10 will not play and throw up an error on the Denon screen "File Format Error". These files were originally from iTunes and here is where it gets interesting.

I examined the tags on the m4a albums that play and those that don't and it is albums not tracks. I could see no pattern or anything odd. I purchased real CDs of each type, ripped them to flac and both played fine. I then converted them to m4a (just to test) and now I was astonished to find I got the same result as the iTunes files, one album would play the other would not.

Having looked at my logs from BubbleUPnPserver, Bubbleguuum (forum) said that I should look to see if the MinimServer logs showed the http request for the non playing tracks. I could do with help/some pointers on that please.

The second odd item is that on the m4a albums that will play the stop/pause button does not function. Bubbleguuum also investigated this for me and said:

**** quote ****
For the pause/stop issue, this is because (according to the log) MinimServer does not transmit a duration as part of the XML metadata it returns for that Michael Buble track. Kazoo will not allow to seek/stop/pause if it does not know the duration which is inferred either from this metadata or from the renderer indicating a duration when playback starts (which it doesn't either here). I suggest you contact Simon on the MinimServer forums and send him that Michael Buble track so it can check why MinimServer does not return a duration it. I briefly tested with a m4a track here, and it did set a duration for it so that must be unusual (probably due to how the m4a was encoded).
**** end quote ****

Any advice or help with this would be appreciated though I do realize it is likely to be no fault of MinimServer.

Thanks.

Cheers,

Bob.

[mightyoakbob]

Hope this is of passing interest to someone.

In case anyone is interested I have more information on this now.
The issue seems to be unique to using Linn Kazoo. If you instead use Kinsky or Lumin the problem goes away.

Bubbleguuum just emailed the following to me:
"The fact that you use Kazoo explain the inability to seek, as it does not transmit the duration to the OpenHome renderer (eg BubbleUPnP Server)"

I intend to email Linn about this though I can see no reason why they should bother to fix it just so people can use Kazoo with other people's kit via BubbleUPnPServer.

Cheers,

Bob.

[DavidHB]

(23-10-2016 20:43)mightyoakbob Wrote:  I intend to email Linn about this though I can see no reason why they should bother to fix it just so people can use Kazoo with other people's kit via BubbleUPnPServer.

Linn favour open systems, and seem to have gone to some trouble to make Kazoo compatible with MinimServer, so they may take an interest. And you are already a Linn user ...

David

[bubbleguuum]

(24-10-2016 13:08)DavidHB Wrote:  

(23-10-2016 20:43)mightyoakbob Wrote:  I intend to email Linn about this though I can see no reason why they should bother to fix it just so people can use Kazoo with other people's kit via BubbleUPnPServer.

Linn favour open systems, and seem to have gone to some trouble to make Kazoo compatible with MinimServer, so they may take an interest. And you are already a Linn user ...

David

In fact I reported this issue to Linn previously but somewhat forgot about it and it got no reply. This issue does not concern Linn DS nor probably most OpenHome renderer implementations, only BubbleUPnP Server managed OH renderers from UPnP AV renderers that do not return a track duration (such as this Denon one) and the fallback is to use the Control Point provided duration (which is not transmitted by Kazoo, unlike BubbleDS and Lumin). Pinged Linn about it again.