Interruptions with AirPlay on moOde 8.2.1

[romain]

I posted a comment on Google Play to point out the problem, below the reply of the developer:

"Hey Romain, the user agent header is not relevant. Interruptions are normally related to Android's 'app optimization' that reduces background apps like AirMusic. Please contact me at support@airmusic.app for help, it's normally easily solved. Cheers and kind regards."

I've sent him an email and will post the solution here if the problem is fixed.

[TheOldPresbyope]

I posted a comment on Google Play to point out the problem, below the reply of the developer:

"Hey Romain, the user agent header is not relevant. Interruptions are normally related to Android's 'app optimization' that reduces background apps like AirMusic. Please contact me at support@airmusic.app for help, it's normally easily solved. Cheers and kind regards."

I've sent him an email and will post the solution here if the problem is fixed.

Interesting. It’s not quite true that the header is irrelevant since we don’t know what the receiving app does or doesn’t do with it. Still, if he thinks the problem is easily solved then great. Does he happen to say that his app supports AirPlay 2?

Nice to see how responsive the AirMusic dev is, BTW.

Regards,
Kent

[romain]

I posted a comment on Google Play to point out the problem, below the reply of the developer:

"Hey Romain, the user agent header is not relevant. Interruptions are normally related to Android's 'app optimization' that reduces background apps like AirMusic. Please contact me at support@airmusic.app for help, it's normally easily solved. Cheers and kind regards."

I've sent him an email and will post the solution here if the problem is fixed.

Interesting. It’s not quite true that the header is irrelevant since we don’t know what the receiving app does or doesn’t do with it. Still, if he thinks the problem is easily solved then great. Does he happen to say that his app supports AirPlay 2?

Nice to see how responsive the AirMusic dev is, BTW.

Regards,
Kent

Kent, here's the follow up to my email: 

"Hello Romain,

thanks for contacting me directly.

AirPlay2 should work fine too - AirMusic is used on many Homepods or Sonos for example without issues.
It might be possible that your AP2-device uses another Wifi-frequency than your AP1-device, or your AP1-device has a wired-connection?

On your Android, you might have a look at Android's "app optimization", it's a killer for background-apps like AirMusic:
https://dontkillmyapp.com/

If the problem persists, can you reproduce it, then open AirMusic's menu -> About AirMusic -> "Create & send logs"?
Maybe we can see something useful in the background :-)

Best regards from Germany / Mit freundlichen Grüßen,"

I'll send him the application log file when I'm back home in the evening

[TheOldPresbyope]

@romain

So I looked at the dontkillmymusic dontkillmyapp site. It suggests my Pixel phone shouldn't be a problem so I tried again. 

Maybe I just didn't understand yesterday how to configure the AirMusic settings (did I mention no documentation? or at least not any I could find). 

Today I've managed to get to where I'm listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers tracks streaming via the Qobuz app on my Pixel 3a (Android 12) through the AirMusic app (running in the background) to the Airplay renderer on my moOde 8.2.1 player. Shazaam! (I'm running AirMusic in free demo mode so there's a periodic interruption to the stream but I assume that goes away if I pay up.)

AirMusic also detects all the UPnP Media Renderers running here as well as the Sonos Beam soundbar under my TV. Seems like a Swiss Army knife

Regards,
Kent

[romain]

So Kent, if you can stream music flawlessly with AirMusic from your Pixel 3a to moOde 8.2.1 running AirPlay2, this would mean that the problem is with Android on my Poco F3 rather than with the app. I'll test further when I'm back home.

[romain]

Hello,

the last message from AirMusic's main dev: 

"Hello Romain,

many thanks for sending the logs.

With AirMusic's current version, I have implemented some extra functions (to support play/pause etc from the device's side) for the AirPlay-protocol that haven't been available at all before.
It seems your AP2-device is accessing this new extra functions but triggering something that hasn't been implemented by me.
There are a lot of frequent error-messages like this:
10-17 23:39:41.538 15153 16829 E AirMusic: Got exception while handling DACP-command 'GETPROPERTY'!
10-17 23:39:41.538 15153 16829 E AirMusic: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No enum constant c.a.v.u.o.GETPROPERTY

Can you tell me how the issue is recognized by you? Is it a constant "hiccup" or so? Maybe each second?
Maybe it's related to this error and might be solved if I remove this extra-feature for a test?

Would be great if we can figure this out :-)"

[TheOldPresbyope]

@romain

This is an interesting response from the AirMusic dev. It suggests the interruption I was hearing in my quickie test is due to this “new extra” function and not something intentional as I had conjectured.

Candidly, I have no interest in using his app long term—my phone is my phone, not my A/V controller—but he’s been delightfully responsive to you so I’ll capture and send a log to him and describe the aural effect. I’ll point him to the shairport-sync project as well, since those are the devs wrestling with the AirPlay 2 protocol, not us.

Regards,
Kent

[romain]

@romain

This is an interesting response from the AirMusic dev. It suggests the interruption I was hearing in my quickie test is due to this “new extra” function and not something intentional as I had conjectured.

Candidly, I have no interest in using his app long term—my phone is my phone, not my A/V controller—but he’s been delightfully responsive to you so I’ll capture and send a log to him and describe the aural effect. I’ll point him to the shairport-sync project as well, since those are the devs wrestling with the AirPlay 2 protocol, not us.

Regards,
Kent

Kent,
I've already pointed the AirMusic dev to the shairport-sync GitHub repo  
Thanks !
Romain

[romain]

The last message of Martin, AirMusic's dev:

"Hello Romain,

thanks for your feedback.

I found the part inside shairport-sync that is triggering the error-message inside the logs I have found before.
it's really unrelevant..

I found an interesting sentence inside shairport-sync (https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-s...IRPLAY2.md) about AirPlay2.

"Lossless and High Definition Lossless material is transcoded to AAC before it reaches Shairport Sync. "

=> AirMusic sends lossless audio to your speaker, which means it's transcoded to AAC if you use AirPlay2.
Might this cause the problems here?
With AirPlay1, the lossless audio is directly played by shairport-sync as far as I know.
Maybe this transcoding causes a little too much processing with the RPi?

As said, AirMusic work fine with all AirPlay2-devices as far as I know, eg. Sonos, Apple's Homepod and so on.. it's likely that this issue is somehow related to shairport-sync.


Best regards from Germany / Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Martin Lehmann - AirMusic - stream your music! Support"

Romain

[TheOldPresbyope]

There’s really nothing more I can add to this. Tim is introducing the ability to select either AirPlay2 or the original and obsolete AirPlay protocol. It will be up to moOde users to determine which works with the particular third-party app they chose to use. The app devs—in this case AirMusic and shairport-sync—can fight it out amongst themselves.

Regards,
Kent


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