Minimserver compatible replacement for two Sonos Play 5s.

[simbun]

(05-03-2022 11:33)mightyoakbob Wrote:  

(04-03-2022 23:34)simbun Wrote:  Anyway, I'll be listening and comparing it to the Sonos over the weekend, and if I can be assured that I can stereo pair/group them whilst using BubbleUPnP (control point) to control them then it's still a win over Sonos.

Slightly surprised you don't like the idea of a minisystem and prefer two stand alone wireless speakers. A minisystem gives you optical and analogue inputs and your choice of speakers. I suppose it depends on intended usage.

I have a hifi for "proper" listening, these are just dotted around the house for background listening really. I only have one per room but it'd be nice if I could (should I ever want to) have them paired/synched, and it'd be one up on the Sonos which otherwise is a great UPnP renderer.

(05-03-2022 11:33)mightyoakbob Wrote:  Not playing inverted top trumps here but I first tried it on a Pi4 and then tried an old pi2 model B. Yes a Pi 2 £25 and it worked fine on that too.

I only suggested a Pi4 as the networking is SO much better, not really that it's necessary for BubbleUPnP server, but should you want to use if for anything else it's an extra £10 well spent.
Speaking of top trumps, did you see this guy who's running MinimServer off a Pi1 with ~300,000 tracks. It's a testament to MinimServer that it can handle the indexing, let alone be performant on that hardware!

[simbun]

(05-03-2022 10:19)simoncn Wrote:  Thanks for this. I would like to see a debug log of what is happening (test 1). I would also like to see a debug log of the browse request that shows an empty Genre folder (test 2). Please do the following:

1) In the log window, change the logging level to Debug
2) In the log window, select Clear
3) Run the test (test 1 or test 2, each as a separate test with its own log)
4) In the log window, select 'Save as' to save a log file
5) Zip or compress the log file to save space

Please post the two log files here. Many thanks.

Here you go.
If you need any trace logs just let me know.

[simoncn]

Thanks very much for these logs.

The empty genres list problem is caused by a current limitation of MinimServer. This limitation could be removed with a moderate amount of work. This is not a very high priority because 1) as far as I know it doesn't affect any other control points except for the HEOS app and 2) because of this it would not be easy for me to test the new code.

The inconvenient behaviour with Browse Folders is caused by the HEOS app deliberately bypassing the MinimServer top-level menu and forcing the [folder view] selection to be displayed. It seems that the HEOS app does this only when it detects that the server is MinimServer. There is not much that MinimServer can do to circumvent this intentional control point action.

Is it possible to use a better control point (such as BubbleUPnP) with the HEOS speaker? If so, this provides a way for the user to avoid the quirks and limitations of the HEOS app.

[simbun]

(05-03-2022 21:32)simoncn Wrote:  The inconvenient behaviour with Browse Folders is caused by the HEOS app deliberately bypassing the MinimServer top-level menu and forcing the [folder view] selection to be displayed. It seems that the HEOS app does this only when it detects that the server is MinimServer. There is not much that MinimServer can do to circumvent this intentional control point action.

I did just try having BubbleUPnP server proxy MinimServer to see if it made a difference, but it still identifies as MinimServer. Just for fun, is there any way to modify how MinimServer identifies itself?

(05-03-2022 21:32)simoncn Wrote:  Is it possible to use a better control point (such as BubbleUPnP) with the HEOS speaker? If so, this provides a way for the user to avoid the quirks and limitations of the HEOS app.

It seems to work fine with BubbleUPnP, and it's much better visually, the one thing I can't test though is whether you'd be able to control groups or stereo pairs that have been defined within the HEOS app (as I only have one speaker to hand), as I know with Sonos you can't.

[simoncn]

(05-03-2022 23:19)simbun Wrote:  Just for fun, is there any way to modify how MinimServer identifies itself?

I can think of three ways the HEOS App might be identifying MinimServer. The only one that can be modified is the displayName configuration property (which defaults to MinimServer[hostname]). After changing this property, you need to relaunch MinimServer.