[PROBLEM] Problem with bluetooth on MoOde 4.2

[Hugh Bond]

I just installed a fresh version of MoOde 4.2 a R-pi with a HiFi berry dac on top. After fiddling with it for about a hour I finely got buletooth to play from my Samsung S-7 to my wifi speaker which is run by the R-pi as mentioned above. My phone can see MoOde Bluetooth and even pair with it but will not connect. The only way I can get the devices to connect is to go through the R-pi (using bluetooth config on the MoOde interrface) and connect. This is kind of a backwards way to connect two devices together but it worked and I must say once I got it the sound  quality that I am getting is pretty good. I have been playing around with MoOde for about a year and this is the first time I have been able to pair and connect (get music to play out of my wifi speaker) with  MoOde bluetooth so i do consider this to a major victory for myself and MoOde.

  The issue that I am really having is that as the music is playing it cuts out for about a half of second every 3 seconds continuously. Any suggestions on what might be causing this to happen and how to fix it.

  Please keep in mind I am not a Sudo Commando and don't wont to be. So a detailed explanation in plain English would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance Guys

[Tim Curtis]

Hi Hugh,

The symptom "...as the music is playing it cuts out for about a half of second every 3 seconds continuously." suggests a network issue for example interference or signal attenuation from enclosure, building materials, etc.

Is your Pi in a metal case?
Is it a Hifiberry DAC+Pro
What model Pi?

-Tim

[Hugh Bond]

Hi Hugh,

The symptom "...as the music is playing it cuts out for about a half of second every 3 seconds continuously." suggests a network issue for example interference or signal attenuation from enclosure, building materials, etc.

Is your Pi in a metal case?
Is it a Hifiberry DAC+Pro
What model Pi?

-Tim

Tim,
I don't have the pi/DAC in any enclosure at this time. 
The couple of times that I was connected and playing music I was about 15' away. Maybe to far for bluetooth so I'll try again closer and see if that helps.
My DAC is a Hifiberry DAC+ RCA version not a pro.

[Tim Curtis]

Your config sounds fine :-)

Maybe try doing a Bluetooth connection from your PC or Mac to the Pi to rule out some sort of issue with the S7.

Of course I can't rule out an issue with moOde Bluetooth but since I don't have the luxury of having all the various client devices to test (I only have my 2 IOS devices) I have to fall back on basic troubleshooting or other users that can test Android devices.

-Tim

[TheOldPresbyope]

I just installed a fresh version of MoOde 4.2 a R-pi with a HiFi berry ... Samsung S-7 ... wifi speaker which is run by the R-pi ...

  The issue that I am really having is that as the music is playing it cuts out for about a half of second every 3 seconds continuously. Any suggestions on what might be causing this to happen and how to fix it.

...

Thanks in advance Guys

@Hugh Bond 

That 3s cycling is surely a clue but of what I don't know.

I have been testing the evolution of moOde's Bluetooth sink capability (e.g., to act as an audio receiver) using three different Android devices: Nexus 6P phone (Android 8.1.0), Nexus 9 tablet (Android 7.1.1), and Nexus 7 tablet (Android 6.0.1).

I find these devices all reliably pair/connect with moOde r42 and play music through it. In my case using either an RPi3B+ and its internal BT adapter or a RPi2B or RPi3B with an external USB-BT adapter at the end of a 3ft/1m cable. I'm using 5GHz WiFi on the RPi3B+ and 2.4GHz WiFi on the others.

As for moOde's Bluetooth source capability, I find r42 reliably pairs/connects with my JBL Flip 2 BT speaker and Sennheiser HD-4.50BTNC headphones.

Haven't heard from him in quite a while, but on the old DiyAudio forum, @Zootalaws used to remind us that environmental interference can be a problem. Bluetooth shares the 2.4GHz spectrum with WiFi, microwave ovens, some cordless phones, and other devices. Haven't myself suffered any interference problem but it does happen. I can easily range 15ft/ca 5m from my RPi3B+ wearing my Sennheiser headphones without issue.

I'm not sure I understand what you meant by "wifi speaker". Could you elaborate on your setup?

I don't have any Samsung devices to test with but they are well known for heavily modifying Android. It's unlikely but not inconceivable they have made a change which affects your connection process. Do you have any pure Android device you could test with?

Regards,
Kent

[Hugh Bond]

I tried reconnecting at a closer distance (within 2') and found that I could pair and connect from the S-7 to the R-pi with no need to go through the moode bluetooth config but the skip every 3 seconds was still there. I do have a fire stick running close by I'll try to connect with that turned off to see if that fixes the problem. (I don't that has anything to do with it but I'll try)

What I meant by Wifi speaker is that I built two speakers with a R-pi and a IQaudio digi amp+ to play music around the pool. I have moode 4.1 on both of them and use squeeze as my renderer to play music from my pc in the house which runs LMS. So I call them my Wifi speakers.

What I am actually working with now is another R-pi with a hifiberry dac hat running moode 4.2 connected to my Onkyo receiver via RCA cables. I am using this setup to test and see if I can get bluetooth to work and then upgrade my speakers to 4.2 and use bluetooth with them as well.

[Tim Curtis]

moOde's worker daemon polls every 3 secs for things to do so it might be worth logging the wake up event to see if it correlates with the audio glitch.

Add the workerLog() line to the following code block in /var/www/command/worker.php

Code:

//
// BEGIN WORKER JOB LOOP
//

while (1) {
    sleep(3);
    workerLog('wakeup');

Then reboot and while playing a bluetooth stream monitor the moOde log 

Code:

tail -f /var/log/moode.log

-Tim

[Hugh Bond]

This weekend I paired and connected my wife's Samsung S-7 with the same results cutting out about every 3 seconds. I also used my son in law's I-phone 7 plus and it sounded great with not cutting out. Must be something not syncing up between Samsung and Moode.

I'll try to monitor the moode log next and post the results

Has anyone else had trouble with a Samsung on Android using bluetooth on moode?

[koetermann]

I nearly have the same issue on Moode 4.2. Tried the bluetooth connection with my "everyday" BQ Aquaris X Pro and with my old Nexus 5x and the sound comes out in cuts.

Both devices are on Android 8.1.0.  The Raspberry is a 3B+ that runs with a Allo Boss 1.2. As the I2S-device I selected Allo Boss. Hope that's right?

Any parameters that I have to change?

[Tim Curtis]

Hi,

By "cuts" I assume you are referring to audio glitches or drop outs.

Are the glitches intermittent or do they occur at regular intervals?