server stops running (newbie)

[marcs12020]

I am a new Firefly user. Running a Soundbridge 1001 w/latest software, Windows XP , and Windows MP 10. Windows MP was constantly glitching, so I installed Firefly. After installing Bonjour and Firefly successfully I opened the configuration window to point to my music library which is on a second drive [Z:Music Folders]. It appears to scan correctly and Firefly restarts.

The Soundbrige works better than ever (Thanks!)–much faster browse and loads. However, the firefly sometimes seems to turn itself “off” inexplicably, usually while the SB is idle, although once while playing. The SB is on a wireless connection.

Also, is there a limit to the amount of songs or data that the SB can queue up? I have 200G of music, and if I try to load too much (say, all of Rock, Jazz and R&B) the SB will shut itself off!

[rpedde]

@marcs12020 wrote:

The Soundbrige works better than ever (Thanks!)–much faster browse and loads. However, the firefly sometimes seems to turn itself “off” inexplicably, usually while the SB is idle, although once while playing. The SB is on a wireless connection.

This can be a couple things. If you get an error in the logs that says something like “database in use”, then it’s because antivirus software is locking the database. The fix for that is to use nightlies (http://nightlies.mt-daapd.org), which has a new database version that is more forgiving of antivirus software.

It could also be firewall related if the service itself shows it’s still running but you can’t see it from the soundbridge. Then check to make sure you are allowing UDP port 5353 from 224.0.0.251.

Also, is there a limit to the amount of songs or data that the SB can queue up? I have 200G of music, and if I try to load too much (say, all of Rock, Jazz and R&B) the SB will shut itself off!

Ya. The soundbridge itself has limited memory. When you try and shuffle a huge playlist or something, it sucks the whole database into memory, runs out of memory, and promptly falls over.

I know that’s something Roku is working on — scalability to huge playlists, and I think you’ll see a firmware update for this on the Roku side soonish.

— Ron

[marcs12020]

The fix for that is to use nightlies (http://nightlies.mt-daapd.org), which has a new database version that is more forgiving of antivirus software.

I am not sure if that is the problem, and I (being a newbie) do not understand what to do to solve it if it is….could you guide me along any further?

Here is the most recent log, which ends with “unable to open database file” “Aborting”

Log file: firefly.log

2007-05-17 16:02:37 (cd9108b2): Starting with debuglevel 0
2007-05-17 16:02:37 (cd9108b2): Starting rendezvous daemon
2007-05-17 16:02:37 (cd9108b2): Initializing database
2007-05-17 16:03:09 (cd9108b2): Starting web server from C:Program FilesFirefly Media Serveradmin-root on port 9999
2007-05-17 16:03:10 (cd9108b2): Registering rendezvous names
2007-05-17 16:03:10 (cd9108b2): Serving 35760 songs. Startup complete in 33 seconds
2007-05-17 16:03:10 (cd9108b2): Rescanning database
2007-05-17 16:03:18 (cd9108b2): Short file: Z:Music FoldersAdrian BelewAcoustic Adrian Belew11 – Martha Adored – Adrian Belew – Acoustic Adrian Belew.mp3
2007-05-17 16:26:42 (cd9108b2): Short file: Z:Music FoldersJocamoUnkown8 – Jocamo – 8 – Unkown.mp3
2007-05-17 16:31:52 (0ae03343): Session 0: Streaming file ’01-Dead Meat-Friendly Fire.mp3′ to 192.168.2.5 (offset 0)
2007-05-17 16:34:07 (cb8e002a): Session 0: Streaming file ’01-Dead Meat-Friendly Fire.mp3′ to 192.168.2.5 (offset 0)
2007-05-17 16:37:36 (0ae2f128): Session 0: Streaming file ’07 – Ash Wednesday.mp3′ to 192.168.2.5 (offset 0)
2007-05-17 16:44:00 (0ae37d89): Session 0: Streaming file ’06-shannon_wright-don’t_you_doubt_me.mp3′ to 192.168.2.5 (offset 0)
2007-05-17 16:47:15 (0ae409ea): Session 0: Streaming file ’10-charlotte_gainsbourg-everything_i_cannot_see.mp3′ to 192.168.2.5 (offset 0)
2007-05-17 16:48:40 (cb92ef93): Session 0: Streaming file ’09-the_nightwatchman-maximum_firepower.mp3′ to 192.168.2.5 (offset 0)
2007-05-17 16:52:44 (cb937bf4): Session 0: Streaming file ’07-the_clientele-the_queen_of_seville.mp3′ to 192.168.2.5 (offset 0)
2007-05-17 16:57:12 (cb940855): Session 0: Streaming file ’06-the_clientele-winter_on_victoria_street.mp3′ to 192.168.2.5 (offset 0)
2007-05-17 16:58:55 (cd9108b2): Short file: Z:Music FoldersVan MorrisonToo Long In Exile6- Till We Get The Healing Done.mp3
2007-05-17 16:59:22 (cd9108b2): Query: INSERT INTO updated VALUES (33552)
2007-05-17 16:59:22 (cd9108b2): Error: unable to open database file
2007-05-17 16:59:22: Aborting

[rpedde]

@marcs12020 wrote:

The fix for that is to use nightlies (http://nightlies.mt-daapd.org), which has a new database version that is more forgiving of antivirus software.

I am not sure if that is the problem, and I (being a newbie) do not understand what to do to solve it if it is….could you guide me along any further?

go to http://nightlies.mt-daapd.org, and download and install the latest nightly.

— Ron

[marcs12020]

Well, first I tried to exclude folders from on-access anti-virus scanning, but Firefly still kept switching into “server not currently running” mode. I can switch it back on, but it shuts off in about 15 min. Then I disabled the anti-virus just to check it, but Firefly still shut off.

So I went and installed the “nightly” update, and now the SB reads “play firefly” but when selected states “no connection to server.”

Here is the log, if it is helpful:

Log file: firefly.log

2007-05-20 08:09:09 (357867a8): Firefly Version svn-1586: Starting with debuglevel 2
2007-05-20 08:09:10 (357867a8): Plugin loaded: w32-event/svn-1586
2007-05-20 08:09:10 (357867a8): Plugin loaded: ssc-wma/svn-1586
2007-05-20 08:09:10 (357867a8): Plugin loaded: ssc-ffmpeg/svn-1586
2007-05-20 08:09:10 (357867a8): Plugin loaded: rsp/svn-1586
2007-05-20 08:09:10 (357867a8): Plugin loaded: daap/svn-1586
2007-05-20 08:09:10 (357867a8): Starting rendezvous daemon
2007-05-20 08:09:10 (357867a8): Building drive mapping table from C:Program FilesFirefly Media Servermapping.ini
2007-05-20 08:09:10 (357867a8): Initializing database
2007-05-20 08:09:10 (357867a8): Full reload…
2007-05-20 08:09:10 (357867a8): Starting web server from C:Program FilesFirefly Media Serveradmin-root on port 9999
2007-05-20 08:09:11 (357867a8): Registering rendezvous names
2007-05-20 08:09:13 (357867a8): Serving 0 songs. Startup complete in 4 seconds
2007-05-20 08:09:13 (357867a8): Rescanning database
2007-05-20 08:09:33 (357867a8): Skipping Z:Music FoldersAdrian BelewAcoustic Adrian Belew11 – Martha Adored – Adrian Belew – Acoustic Adrian Belew.mp3 – scan failed
2007-05-20 08:13:23 (357867a8): Skipping Z:Music FoldersJocamoUnkown8 – Jocamo – 8 – Unkown.mp3 – scan failed
2007-05-20 08:19:24 (357867a8): Skipping Z:Music FoldersVan MorrisonToo Long In Exile6- Till We Get The Healing Done.mp3 – scan failed
2007-05-20 08:20:09 (357867a8): Starting playlist scan
2007-05-20 08:20:10 (357867a8): Updating playlists
2007-05-20 08:20:10 (357867a8): Scanned 36116 songs (was 0) in 657 seconds
2007-05-20 08:30:12 (357867a8): Rescanning database
2007-05-20 08:30:50 (357867a8): Skipping Z:Music FoldersAdrian BelewAcoustic Adrian Belew11 – Martha Adored – Adrian Belew – Acoustic Adrian Belew.mp3 – scan failed

Any ideas?
Thanks.
Marc

[rpedde]

@marcs12020 wrote:

Well, first I tried to exclude folders from on-access anti-virus scanning, but Firefly still kept switching into “server not currently running” mode. I can switch it back on, but it shuts off in about 15 min. Then I disabled the anti-virus just to check it, but Firefly still shut off.

If it dies with “cannot open database file”, then it’s a locking issue. Something on the windows machine is locking the db file. It could be AV software, it could be file synchronization software, it could be on-access backup software, it could be any number of things. The nightly uses a newer version of sqlite3 that tries longer and more aggressively to get a read lock on the db file without returning an error back to the client software. So it might not be AV software, it might be something else. Regardless, the fix is the updated sqlite3, which is in nightlies.

So I went and installed the “nightly” update, and now the SB reads “play firefly” but when selected states “no connection to server.”

Unless there is more log, it doesn’t look like the soundbridge is even trying to connect to the server. Thats one of two things — either the soundbridge is messed up (unplug power and reapply power), or there could be a firewall on the client (re-apply firewall exceptions for port 9999 inbound tcp).

— Ron

[marcs12020]

I installed the nightly and it is working much better, thanks a lot for your help.

I do still have a few less serious issues:

1. Whenever I re-boot the PC, Firefly starts up and says it is running, but the SB says “no connection to server” when I enter “play firefly.” But if I restart the firefly, by selecting a different destination folder it works again (I usually back away from the source folder Z:/Music Folder and select Z:/ instead…then the next time I need to re-boot, I do the reverse.)

2. No playlists are turning up in the SB, even though there are a number of m3u playlists in the destination folder. Do they need to be in a specific place? Many are stored in the artists’ subfolders, etc. I tried putting them in My Playlists subfolder, which didn’t work. But I didn’t have any reason to think that it would.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[rpedde]

@marcs12020 wrote:

1. Whenever I re-boot the PC, Firefly starts up and says it is running, but the SB says “no connection to server” when I enter “play firefly.” But if I restart the firefly, by selecting a different destination folder it works again (I usually back away from the source folder Z:/Music Folder and select Z:/ instead…then the next time I need to re-boot, I do the reverse.)

Right on boot it does a file scan. Is it possible that you are trying to connect to it while it’s still doing its startup scan? Because it doesn’t start serving until it finishes the startup scan.

2. No playlists are turning up in the SB, even though there are a number of m3u playlists in the destination folder. Do they need to be in a specific place? Many are stored in the artists’ subfolders, etc. I tried putting them in My Playlists subfolder, which didn’t work. But I didn’t have any reason to think that it would.

They can be anywhere under the music directory, but have to be relative, not absolute pathed. Stuff running as a service doesn’t have the same drive mappings, so if stuff has drive letters in it (like Z:) then it gets confused and can’t find the files.

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