Failed to load browse data on 1586 Debian Etch Arm

[MrE]

Hi,

I have recently acquired a SoundBridge M1001 which is connected to a Slug running Debian Etch with Firefly 1586 SVN

My database is currently 28MB and holds nearly 18,000 songs.

Whenever I try to use any of the browse functions, I receive the “Failed to load browse data” error after approx 10 secs.
Having read a couple of threads on the forum regarding similar issues, I thought it might be a limitation issue with the slug being underpowered and all that.

However when I install TwonkyMedia on the slug, I have no problems browsing and playing my collection, not even when I browse the entire song list which takes 20-30 seconds to load all 17,898 songs.

I’d much rather run Firefly though cos
1) Twonky doesn’t support searching (a must with this many tracks)
2) It does list my Ogg and FLAC tracks but shows a cross and reports it can’t play them (it appears this is a transcoding issue with TwonkyMedia on underpowered devices such as the slug)
3) I don’t really like Twonky’s interface on the SoundBridge
4) I can’t afford paying for Twonky at the moment as I’m unemployed and really strapped for cash (the SoundBridge was a birthday present, in case you wonder 🙂 ) and the free trial version will run out in three weeks.

I tried indexing the Artist field as suggested in one of the other threads but this hasn’t made any difference.

Here’s my mt-daapd.conf file, with all the unnecessary comments removed to keep it short and legible.

# $Id: mt-daapd.conf.templ 1526 2007-04-09 04:23:51Z rpedde $



[general]

web_root = /usr/share/mt-daapd/admin-root

port = 3689

admin_pw = xxx

db_type = sqlite

db_parms = /var/cache/mt-daapd

mp3_dir = /media/share/public/media

servername = Firefly %v on %h

runas = nobody

playlist = /usr/etc/mt-daapd.playlist

#password = mp3

extensions = .mp3,.m4a,.m4p,.ogg,.flac,.mpc

ssc_codectypes = ogg,flac,alac,mpc

ssc_prog = /usr/bin/mt-daapd-ssc.sh

logfile = /var/log/mt-daapd.log

#rescan_interval = 300

# always_scan = 0

# process_m3u = 0

scan_type = 2

rescan_interval = 6000

#compress = 0



[plugins]

plugin_dir = /usr/share/mt-daapd/plugins



[scanning]

concat_compilations = 1

I think you’ll probably want to see my log file, so please let me know which debug level you need.

Thanks
Emile

[rpedde]

@MrE wrote:

Hi,

I have recently acquired a SoundBridge M1001 which is connected to a Slug running Debian Etch with Firefly 1586 SVN

My database is currently 28MB and holds nearly 18,000 songs.

Whenever I try to use any of the browse functions, I receive the “Failed to load browse data” error after approx 10 secs.
Having read a couple of threads on the forum regarding similar issues, I thought it might be a limitation issue with the slug being underpowered and all that.

However when I install TwonkyMedia on the slug, I have no problems browsing and playing my collection, not even when I browse the entire song list which takes 20-30 seconds to load all 17,898 songs.

I’d much rather run Firefly though cos
1) Twonky doesn’t support searching (a must with this many tracks)
2) It does list my Ogg and FLAC tracks but shows a cross and reports it can’t play them (it appears this is a transcoding issue with TwonkyMedia on underpowered devices such as the slug)
3) I don’t really like Twonky’s interface on the SoundBridge
4) I can’t afford paying for Twonky at the moment as I’m unemployed and really strapped for cash (the SoundBridge was a birthday present, in case you wonder 🙂 ) and the free trial version will run out in three weeks.

I tried indexing the Artist field as suggested in one of the other threads but this hasn’t made any difference.

Here’s my mt-daapd.conf file, with all the unnecessary comments removed to keep it short and legible.

# $Id: mt-daapd.conf.templ 1526 2007-04-09 04:23:51Z rpedde $



[general]

web_root = /usr/share/mt-daapd/admin-root

port = 3689

admin_pw = xxx

db_type = sqlite

db_parms = /var/cache/mt-daapd

mp3_dir = /media/share/public/media

servername = Firefly %v on %h

runas = nobody

playlist = /usr/etc/mt-daapd.playlist

#password = mp3

extensions = .mp3,.m4a,.m4p,.ogg,.flac,.mpc

ssc_codectypes = ogg,flac,alac,mpc

ssc_prog = /usr/bin/mt-daapd-ssc.sh

logfile = /var/log/mt-daapd.log

#rescan_interval = 300

# always_scan = 0

# process_m3u = 0

scan_type = 2

rescan_interval = 6000

#compress = 0



[plugins]

plugin_dir = /usr/share/mt-daapd/plugins



[scanning]

concat_compilations = 1

I think you’ll probably want to see my log file, so please let me know which debug level you need.

Thanks
Emile

It might be worth trying sqlite3 over sqlite, but beyond that, there probably isn’t a lot to do, until I get the gdbm backend back in. Hopefully fixes for the current nightlies won’t take too long, and then the db reorg will be the next thing I tackle.

[MrE]

Thanks for your prompt response.

I’m always impressed with how you deal with the forums and develop such a fine piece of software, all on your own.

Development might not progress as quickly as some would like, but what we get from you with Firefly is far better than some bigger companies with dedicated support staff and developers.

I’ll try the sqlite3 backend and will report the result here for the benefit of others, even if there’s nothing else you can do until the gdbm backend returns.

Cheers
Emile

[rpedde]

@MrE wrote:

Thanks for your prompt response.

I’m always impressed with how you deal with the forums and develop such a fine piece of software, all on your own.

Development might not progress as quickly as some would like, but what we get from you with Firefly is far better than some bigger companies with dedicated support staff and developers.

I’ll try the sqlite3 backend and will report the result here for the benefit of others, even if there’s nothing else you can do until the gdbm backend returns.

Cheers
Emile

We try our best. 🙂

Thanks.

— Ron

[MrE]

Good news to report!

I can now successfully browse all my songs on the slug, using the sqlite3 backend, hurray!

The svn-1586 Debian Etch Arm build doesn’t seem to include support for sqlite3 so I compiled it from source (on the slug 🙂 ).

Compiling from source was a bit of a painful exercise as the configure script stops the moment it’s missing something essential, instead of just continuing all the way until the end and THEN give you a full list of things missing 🙄 . This has got nothing to do with Firefly or the slug though and is just a general annoyance with compiling your own software.

I hope future builds will include sqlite3 support as ultimately installing from a deb file is a lot faster and easier with software upgrades etc.

There are only two problems left now:
– Musepack files, while browsable, result in ‘Unable to play’
– Ogg Vorbis files start buffering but as soon as the buffering reaches 100%, it instantly starts re-buffering at an incredibly slow pace (1% at a time)

FLAC files on the other hand play near instantly and if I wasn’t monitoring my SoundBridge to see what’s going on, I wouldn’t even notice it was transcoding.

I gather, from what I’ve read elsewhere on the forum, that the Ogg buffering problem has to do with the version of Oggdec.

When I run oggdec –version, I get OggDec 1.0.1, so not the Tremor version.
How do I go about obtaining a Tremor version of OggDec for Debian Etch ARM? There doesn’t appear to be a Debian package for it.

As for the Musepack problem, I think I’ve got all I need:

I used the following options to compile:

./configure --enable-sqlite3 --enable-oggvorbis --enable-flac --enable-musepack

and installed all the required libraries

libogg0
libogg-dev
libvorbis0a
libvorbis-dev
libvorbisenc2
libvorbisfile3
flac
libflac7
libogglflac3
liboggflac-dev
libmpcdec3
libmpcdec-dev
libtagc0
libtagc0-dev
libtag1c2a
libtag1-dev
vorbis-tools

Am I missing anything?

[rpedde]

@MrE wrote:

I can now successfully browse all my songs on the slug, using the sqlite3 backend, hurray!

Good to know. I guess I should probably start shipping with sqlite3 rather than 2.

The svn-1586 Debian Etch Arm build doesn’t seem to include support for sqlite3 so I compiled it from source (on the slug 🙂 ).

That’s pretty painful, experience tells me. 🙂

– Musepack files, while browsable, result in ‘Unable to play’

I don’t have transcoding turned on for musepack. If you know the command to do musepack to wav, I can guide you toward setting up transcoding for it.

When I run oggdec –version, I get OggDec 1.0.1, so not the Tremor version.
How do I go about obtaining a Tremor version of OggDec for Debian Etch ARM? There doesn’t appear to be a Debian package for it.

Yup, that’s the issue there.

There isn’t (afaik) a debian package for it, but I can probably put together a debian source package for it, or failing that, a kit for building the tremor decoder. There has been a fair amount of calls for it.

Lemme work on this a while and get back.

— Ron

[MrE]

That’s pretty painful, experience tells me. 🙂

No pain, no gain 🙂 as turned out to be true in this case for I can now browse and play my Slug’s music collection whereas before I couldn’t!

But… shared pain is half the pain,,, now you know, you’re not alone in this! I share your pain! 😆

don’t have transcoding turned on for musepack. If you know the command to do musepack to wav, I can guide you toward setting up transcoding for it.

I hope the following is what you meant:

I had a look around for a way to transcode Musepack files and managed to track down this hard to come by musepack-decoder package http://www.rarewares.org/debian.php

The syntax is ultra simple:

mppdec inputfile.mpc outputfile.wav

Now, on the one hand I’m not really that bothered about MPC files as I only have 15 tracks in that format. I’m not an audiophile and quite happily transcode 256 or 320 Kb/s into Ogg q5 files and it still sounds like CD quality to me – heck, even q1 sounds like CD quality!. On the other hand, Firefly is ‘advertised’ as having support for Musepack and so it should work.

Having read a couple of forums, I know there are people out there who have entire collections in Musepack, unable (unwilling?) to convert to other formats, who might well want Firefly to do on-the-fly transcoding so that they can listen to them on their SoundBridge.

I’m more than happy to do some testing to get Firefly to transcode MPC files, if only for the benefit of others who might have settled on the format.

I can probably put together a debian source package for it, or failing that, a kit for building the tremor decoder.

I’d be very grateful for the tremor decoder and I’m sure several other users of slow embedded devices would be too.

While the bulk of my songs are in MP3 format, I still have a good 3,500 Ogg tracks and any music I rip off CD myself I do in Ogg as it’s my preferred audio format so I’m only gonna get more Oggs in the future.

[rpedde]

@MrE wrote:

mppdec inputfile.mpc outputfile.wav

Okay, great. The “fix” for this is in two steps:

1. add “mpc” to the ssc_codecs line in the config

2. Fix the transcoder to support mppdec. (this is the harder step). 🙂

Basically, edit the mt-daapd-ssc.sh script (probably in /usr/sbin, but check your config to be sure). You can see the stuff that transcodes the other files, and you can add mpc support by using the “copy-and-paste” method of shell scripting.

You’ll need a block like this up at the top:

MPCDEC=/path/to/mppdec



mpc_file() {

$MPCDEC "$FILE" | $WAVSTREAMER -o $OFFSET $FORGELEN

}

and then another block at the bottom like:

if ( echo $1 | grep -i ".mpc$" > /dev/null 2>&1 ); then

mpc_file

exit;

fi

That should do it.

I can probably put together a debian source package for it, or failing that, a kit for building the tremor decoder.

I’d be very grateful for the tremor decoder and I’m sure several other users of slow embedded devices would be too.

Still haven’t gotten to this. It’s been crazy at work, and haven’t been getting home until.. well.. what time is it? 2:30am. Oof…

Off to bed. But I’ll take a look at it this weekend.

— Ron

[/img]

[MrE]

I haven’t been following the Firefly development for a while due to other things taking priority. There have been quite a few new nightlies I see (I was still on 1586) so I have just successfully compiled 1676.

This made me wonder about a few things:

– Do I still need to compile from source in order to get sqlite3 support?
– Have you had a chance to build a Debian package for the Ogg Tremor codec? I would really like to play the 3,500+ Oggs on my SoundBridge 🙂
– Is there any progress on the gdbm backend?

Regarding the Musepack transcoding, sadly I have not been able to find an ARM version of mppdec so no progress there, and I haven’t had the time yet to experiment with mppdec on my PC.

Cheers
Emile

[rpedde]

@MrE wrote:

Do I still need to compile from source in order to get sqlite3 support?

Dang it. I forgot. But I just checked it into the build sources, so next nightly.

– Have you had a chance to build a Debian package for the Ogg Tremor codec? I would really like to play the 3,500+ Oggs on my SoundBridge 🙂

No, but several more requests for it. :-/

– Is there any progress on the gdbm backend?

Barely. That’s next though. As soon as I can scrape together some time, that’s what I’ll be working on.

— Ron

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