iTunes loses connection after around 85 to 90 seconds

[Anonymous]

First of all, this isn’t a firefly problem exclusively because iTunes DAAP server does this as well. It may have something to do with Bonjour.

iTunes just loses the library, usually during the first song played after around 85 to 90 seconds. There’s no error on iTunes, I’m using iTunes on a Mac OS X 10.3.9 with latest version of iTunes.

The DAAP server, whether I use firefly or iTunes is on a Windows XP box. Again, no error within iTunes.

However, firefly gives me some messages. First, if I change the song it gives “Write error: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.” I don’t think this is the problem, but its not great error handling for something that’s not an error, switching songs in the playlist.

Second, when it disconnects, firefly gives the error: Thread NN: could not read: Unknown error”

What’s particularly strange about this problem is that it seems like if iTunes on the mac streams from the windows machine past that first 90 seconds or so, then it will play for hours with no problems. But if I stop it and restart it, sometimes the problem occurs again. Both computers are on the same network and as far as I know there are no software firewalls on either machine.

The other thing that really annoys me is that I have to restart iTunes each time this happens. There’s no refresh or anything like that and I’m wondering whether this is because the dapp protocol doesn’t call for periodically advertising its presence or if there’s some secret way of getting iTunes to refresh its shared playlists list.

I think this error has occurred both while I’ve been running bittorrent on the windows machine and while I have not been, but its remotely possible that the large number of bittorrent sockets (although really I don’t think its large enough to cause problems) might be causing socket write errors that iTunes on the mac interprets as the host going down. But this is a really far fetched guess and it doesn’t explain why the connection is sometimes stable for hours even with bittorrent after its passed that initial 90 seconds or so, nor the fact that I’m reasonably sure I’ve run it without bittorrent and its still dropped.

Also, firefly is windows binary version 1696 and iTunes on the mac is 7.5(19) and I just checked and I don’t even have to listen to music. If I load the playlist, after 90 seconds or so, sometimes, firefly log reports that thread unknown error as above.

[rpedde]

@peterius wrote:

First of all, this isn’t a firefly problem exclusively because iTunes DAAP server does this as well. It may have something to do with Bonjour.

iTunes just loses the library, usually during the first song played after around 85 to 90 seconds. There’s no error on iTunes, I’m using iTunes on a Mac OS X 10.3.9 with latest version of iTunes.

The DAAP server, whether I use firefly or iTunes is on a Windows XP box. Again, no error within iTunes.

However, firefly gives me some messages. First, if I change the song it gives “Write error: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.” I don’t think this is the problem, but its not great error handling for something that’s not an error, switching songs in the playlist.

Second, when it disconnects, firefly gives the error: Thread NN: could not read: Unknown error”

What’s particularly strange about this problem is that it seems like if iTunes on the mac streams from the windows machine past that first 90 seconds or so, then it will play for hours with no problems. But if I stop it and restart it, sometimes the problem occurs again. Both computers are on the same network and as far as I know there are no software firewalls on either machine.

The other thing that really annoys me is that I have to restart iTunes each time this happens. There’s no refresh or anything like that and I’m wondering whether this is because the dapp protocol doesn’t call for periodically advertising its presence or if there’s some secret way of getting iTunes to refresh its shared playlists list.

I think this error has occurred both while I’ve been running bittorrent on the windows machine and while I have not been, but its remotely possible that the large number of bittorrent sockets (although really I don’t think its large enough to cause problems) might be causing socket write errors that iTunes on the mac interprets as the host going down. But this is a really far fetched guess and it doesn’t explain why the connection is sometimes stable for hours even with bittorrent after its passed that initial 90 seconds or so, nor the fact that I’m reasonably sure I’ve run it without bittorrent and its still dropped.

Also, firefly is windows binary version 1696 and iTunes on the mac is 7.5(19) and I just checked and I don’t even have to listen to music. If I load the playlist, after 90 seconds or so, sometimes, firefly log reports that thread unknown error as above.

When iTunes thinks the daap server disappears, it closes down all the connections ungracefully, which is what the errors are.

As far as the disappearing itself, I’d suspect firewalls. Usually that’s when there is something blocking inbound or outbound to/from 224.0.0.251 on port 5353 udp.

If you have third party firewalls (or any, really), I’d try turning them off as a first attempt to solve the problem. If the machines are separated by a wireless router, see if the wireless router has an option on the admin page to enable IGMP or multicast.

Those are the likely suspects.

I think there is some writeup on that in the faq: http://wiki.fireflymediaserver.org/FAQ

— Ron

[Anonymous]

Well, like I said, both computers are on the same network… they’re on a switched ethernet hub. And I’m pretty sure I disabled the software firewalls on windows and that os x doesn’t have them active either.

Is it possible that its some kind of traffic collision? And that particular thread error seems really strange? And like I said, how come it sometimes doesn’t happen for a long period of time? Actually, turns out its not always stable after the first 80 or 90 seconds.

This morning, I listened for hours and then when I came on to check this forum, it cut out.

[rpedde]

@peterius wrote:

Well, like I said, both computers are on the same network… they’re on a switched ethernet hub. And I’m pretty sure I disabled the software firewalls on windows and that os x doesn’t have them active either.

Is it possible that its some kind of traffic collision? And that particular thread error seems really strange? And like I said, how come it sometimes doesn’t happen for a long period of time? Actually, turns out its not always stable after the first 80 or 90 seconds.

This morning, I listened for hours and then when I came on to check this forum, it cut out.

nope, there are lots of retries in the discovery. shouldn’t be traffic related. Usually it disconnects because the itunes server sends out discovery messages and the server doesn’t respond.

that’s usually because the server doesn’t see the discovery messages because of firewall, so doesn’t respond.

Probably though, if you stop and start the server, it pops back into itunes because it sends gratuitous service announcements at startup.

But then later, when itunes tries to find it again, it will drop off again.

That’s the behavior of inbound multicast being blocked on the server.

[Author]

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