MinimServer & MinimStreamer Update Practice

[tommyrot]

Dear Simon,

After some time away I noticed today from my control point (app) that my music server wasn't showing. So, i launched MinimWatch on my Mac and saw that there was an update available for MinimServer and MinimStreamer. My versions weren't particularly out-of-date – perhaps a few minor versions. Anyway, to see if it made any difference I updated and the music server appeared again in my control app. Hooray.

However, this leaves me wondering a few things. Is it now standard practice to disable older versions of MinimServer from working whenever newer versions are released? If so, I'd be keen to know why that is now the case. I know that having fewer versions simplifies support, so is that the reason? Or was there a critical issue with the previous version?

Thank you.

[simoncn]

Old MinimServer versions and updates should continue to work indefinitely. There is no policy of disabling these.

MinimWatch contacts MinimServer as part of the process of checking for updates. This means MinimServer was still running even though it wasn't shown in your control point. This can happen sometimes for various network-related reasons. Most control points have a rescan or refresh button that you can use to correct this situtation. Alternatively, selecting Restart from the MinimWatch menu will often fix this problem.

The most reliable way to check whether MinimServer is running is to use a web browser to open the MinimServer configuration web page. To do this, type the URL http://x.x.x.x:9790 into the address bar of the web browser, where x.x.x.x is the local IP address of the device running MinimServer. On a QNAP or Synology NAS, you can open this page from App Center or Package Center. If the web page responds, MinimServer is running. If the web page times out without responding, MinimServer isn't running.

[tommyrot]

(12-06-2024 10:23)simoncn Wrote:  Old MinimServer versions and updates should continue to work indefinitely. There is no policy of disabling these.

MinimWatch contacts MinimServer as part of the process of checking for updates. This means MinimServer was still running even though it wasn't shown in your control point. This can happen sometimes for various network-related reasons. Most control points have a rescan or refresh button that you can use to correct this situtation. Alternatively, selecting Restart from the MinimWatch menu will often fix this problem.

The most reliable way to check whether MinimServer is running is to use a web browser to open the MinimServer configuration web page. To do this, type the URL http://x.x.x.x:9790 into the address bar of the web browser, where x.x.x.x is the local IP address of the device running MinimServer. On a QNAP or Synology NAS, you can open this page from App Center or Package Center. If the web page responds, MinimServer is running. If the web page times out without responding, MinimServer isn't running.

Thanks, Simon. It's good to know that newer releases don't disable previous versions from running.

It seems like sods law that increased sophistication comes with increased fragility. Networked devices can be prone to losing connection from other devices on the network and this happens often enough to be a faff. It means entering 'diagnose' mode e.g. (1) check monitoring utilities (2) open webpages (3) restart NAS. A real PITA.

I long for the days of yore when hifi's just worked. Maybe that explains the resurgence of LP players. Anyway, that's off-topic muttering for another day.

[simoncn]

I agree completely. Unfortunately we are where we are, with UPnP as the only open standard for networked digital audio to be supported by a large proportion of audio products and manufacturers. Getting UPnP to work reliably requires every component in a home network to cater for a number of complex scenarios with other components going offline and coming back online at any time. If any component fails to do this with 100% reliability, this can result in the issues you are seeing.