Minimwatch and Melco

[XCop2005]

Apologies if this has been discussed elsewhere.

I am an infrequent user of Minimwatch and only do so when I have ripped some of my new CD's to my Melco N1ZH/60.2 via a Buffalo CD/Bluray drive and USB connection.

I ripped a few new CD's yesterday and launched Minimwatch on my MacBook Pro. The Minimwatch icon at the top of the screen usually turns from grey to yellow, allowing a rescan and the new music to show up on the Lumin app on my Apple IPad2. However, this time, despite refreshing Minimwatch, I cannot get the icon to change from grey to yellow.

I am in my mis-60's, retired and unfortunately, not very computer-savvy!

Any (easy to understand) help or advice on resolving this issue would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks

Steve

[simoncn]

Is your Melco an N10 or N100 model with the new 4.01 firmware? If so, this requires a new version of MinimWatch. Please confirm and I will post detailed instructions for installing this.

[XCop2005]

Hi Simon.

No. My Melco is an N1ZH/60.2.

Minimserver and Minimwatch have always worked well before, but this time, I am unable to update the library with a Rescan!

[simoncn]

If you are running MinimWatch on Windows, this is usually caused by a Java update on your Windows PC that has caused a problem with the Windows firewall rules that enable MinimWatch to communicate with MinimServer. See this post for instructions for fixing this.

For future reference, you can rescan without MinimWatch. In a web browser, enter http://x.x.x.x:9790 into the address bar, where x.x.x.x is the IP address of your Melco. This will show a web page with a Rescan button.

[XCop2005]

Hi Simon.

I am a Mac user (MacBook Pro with Minimwatch installed and Apple IPad2 with Lumin app for listening to music on my Melco N1ZH/60.2 library.

I tried the IP address of the Melco and added 9790 in my web browser on the MacBook Pro and tried Rescan.

Nothing works now! I've tried rebooting the router, but ........... silence!

Really frustrating, as the Melco purchase was supposed to be a convenient way of listening to music, but my experience is not positive, having installed Minimserver on the Melco!

Perhaps I don't have the patience to keep constantly fiddling with computers, apps, routers etc. to deliver music. It's so much simpler just to stick a CD in the tray of my transport or lower the stylus into a record groove! At least you can more or less guarantee SOUND without software updates continually throwing everything up in the air and having to spend hours trying to get it all working again instead of relaxing to music, which is the whole point surely! An emotional experience!

Sorry about the rant, but I feel really frustrated!

[simoncn]

I am very sorry to hear about your problems and I will do my best to help.

I presume you did get the 9790 web page and you were able to click the Rescan button.

The rescan can take some time. It is easy to monitor progress using MinimWatch but not so easy from the 9790 page. On this page, you need to click 'Refresh status' periodically and look at what is displayed for 'Media server status'. When this changes form 'starting' to 'running', the rescan is complete.

As you have rebooted the router, the next step is to power the Melco off and on. Does this make the 9790 page available? If so, try doing another Rescan, then monitor its progress from the 9790 page as I have described above.

A new version of MinimServer for the N1 is coming soon and this should improve things.

When you have MinimServer running and rescanned and music playing, we can try to figure out what is happening with MinimWatch.

[XCop2005]

Thanks for your understanding and advice Simon.

It used to work okay, but since I ripped a few CD's yesterday, it's now not playing at all. I used to rip to the Melco, power it off and then launch Minimwatch on my MacBook Pro and Rescan. Now I can't get the Minimwatch icon to turn from grey to yellow, like it used to!

I've looked at your "troubleshooting" page and will try everything, including the advice contained in your last post.

Thank you for your help.

[simoncn]

For the time being, please ignore MinimWatch and the Troubleshooting page and use the 9790 web page as I described in my last post. I appreciate that this is less convenient than MinimWatch but it should enable you to get up and running.

If the 9790 page is not working as I have described, this means the problem is with MinimServer, not with MinimWatch or your network. I can advise on further diagnostic and recovery steps if this is the situation.

[XCop2005]

Hi Simon

Tried all of the above!

The Lumin app on my Apple IPad2 communicates with the Melco N1ZH. Music selection on the app translates to a scrolling display on the Melco front panel of the music selected for playing, but no sound from the speakers! Weird. It was working earlier today!

Checking the Lumin app, the new CD's I ripped yesterday now appear in the library, so the rescan from the 9790 page must have worked!

I'm just left scratching my head as to why I'm not getting any sound!

It may have nothing to do with Minimserver of course, but seems odd that I couldn't get Miniimwatch to rescan from my Apple MacBook Pro!

Any suggestions gratefully received!

[simoncn]

Looking back through your previous posts, I don't see what device you are using to play your music. Is it a DAC attached to the Melco via USB or a networked streamer? From your mention of the scrolling display on the Melco, I presume it is the former.

As you can see MinimServer from the LUMIN app on your iPad, it appears that MinimServer is working OK but MinimWatch communications from your Mac are blocked. This suggests to me that there might be a problem on your Mac. Have you tried powering your Mac off and on?