Swapped in Allo Boss 1.4 and now MoOde 3.8 hangs

[rongon]

I just yesterday received my new Allo Boss DAC v1.4. This morning before work, I swapped it in place of my Boss DAC v1.2, into my roughly one year old Raspberry Pi3 running MoOde 3.8.4. I rebooted the RPi3, hit play, got sound. It sounded good, I was happy. But then when I touched the stop button, nothing happened. The Pi is not responding to input, but my playlist keeps on playing. 


I'm away from home until this evening, and I didn't have time to do any troubleshooting. I was thinking I should clear all logs, manually re-select the Allo Boss DAC entry in the audio output device list, have MPD do a full re-scan. 

- Is the v1.4 Boss DAC supposed to be a drop-in replacement for the v1.2 in MoOde 3.8? Is there anything I need to adjust? 

- If adjustments need to be made, any suggestions what those should be? 

- Wipe the SDcard and reinstall MoOde 3.8 from scratch? 

- Or do I need to move up to MoOde 4 to get the Pi working right with the Boss v1.4? 

thanks
--

[Tim Curtis]

If Allo didi not announce that a new driver was needed for v1.4 Boss then I'm sure its just a new hardware revision and thus no changes needed in any Player software.

I would just re-seat it on the Pi and reboot.

-Tim

[rongon]

If Allo didi not announce that a new driver was needed for v1.4 Boss then I'm sure its just a new hardware revision and thus no changes needed in any Player software.

I would just re-seat it on the Pi and reboot.

-Tim

First, I swapped the Boss 1.2 back onto the Pi and booted 'er up. It played, pause control worked, all seemed well. So I shut 'er down, and... 

Swapped the Boss 1.4 back onto the Pi. Rebooted, hit play. Music plays. But when I went to pause playback from the Playback tab, no response. The music plays but the UI won't respond. Same as before. 

I'm using the power supply that came with my RPi3 from Canakit, the single supply powering the Pi, the Allo Boss DAC, and a 256GB USB stick. The psu is rated 5V at 2.5A. Do you think that might be inadequate?

[Tim Curtis]

Very odd.

I use cheap power supplies on my test systems and they are always under-volting but never any problems.

-Tim

[rongon]

Another clue, maybe...

As soon as I hit Play, the MoOde AP disappears from the list of SSH 'devices' in my Android tablet's wireless network settings. I think that means the Allo Boss v1.4 DAC is knocking out the RPi3's built in WiFi adapter. That's why the UI becomes unresponsive; it's not receiving anything from the Android because MoOde is running headless with its WiFi knocked out.

The only more powerful 5V supply I have is another wall wart rated for 3A instead of 2.5A. I don't know if that extra 500mA of capacity should make a difference, but using it didn't change the behavior I'm seeing.

I hope there's nothing wrong with this Boss DAC I just got. I've posted to Allo's support forum over on Computer Audiophile about this.

Now that I have two DC adapters working, perhaps I can try powering the DAC separately from the Pi. I'll read up on how to configure the jumpers on the board, etc. [Edit: Their USB C adapter doesn't fit the 2.1mm barrel plug on my second power supply, so until I get a 2.1mm to USB C adapter that fits my supply, I can't test the separate power supply hypothesis.]

We'll see what happens...

[TheOldPresbyope]

Another clue, maybe...

As soon as I hit Play, the MoOde AP disappears from the list of SSH 'devices' in my Android tablet's wireless network settings. I think that means the Allo Boss v1.4 DAC is knocking out the RPi3's built in WiFi adapter. That's why the UI becomes unresponsive; it's not receiving anything from the Android because MoOde is running headless with its WiFi knocked out.

The only more powerful 5V supply I have is another wall wart rated for 3A instead of 2.5A. I don't know if that extra 500mA of capacity should make a difference, but using it didn't change the behavior I'm seeing.

I hope there's nothing wrong with this Boss DAC I just got. I've posted to Allo's support forum over on Computer Audiophile about this.

Now that I have two DC adapters working, perhaps I can try powering the DAC separately from the Pi. I'll read up on how to configure the jumpers on the board, etc.

We'll see what happens...

@rongon

Can you plug into wired Ethernet to test your hypothesis about the WiFi adapter?

Regards,
Kent

[rongon]

OK, I just finished using the Pi connected through Ethernet with the new Boss DAC 1.2 (rev 1.4 on the pcb). It works fine that way.
So yes, it's confirmed. Playing audio through the new Boss DAC 1.2 knocks out the RPi3's onboard WiFi, and I lose access to the MoOde AP.

Now what do I do?

No response yet from Allo.

[Tim Curtis]

Get a Pi-3B+ and try using 5GHz WiFi.

[rongon]

Thanks Tim. I was thinking that the newer Pi-3B+ has a different WiFi adapter built in, which might play nicer with the new Boss DAC 1.2 (rev 1.4).
I'm working on getting a 2.1mm F to 2.5mm M adapter so I can power the Boss DAC 1.2 separately from the Pi. It's possible the problem stems from powering both the DAC and the Pi from the same SMPS.

Why 5GHz? I don't see the connection there.

Does MoOde 3.84 work OK on a Pi-3B+? Was that ever tested? Or will it be necessary to install MoOde 4.x?

[Tim Curtis]

Hi,

- 384 uses an old version of Raspbian that does not work on the new 3B+.

- 5Ghz will avoid the RF interference in the 2.5 GHz WiFi band thats produced by the oscillators (clock crystals) on some boards. The issue was originally discovered on the Hifiberry DAC+Pro years ago but apparently recent boards (dual or single clock) may also have similar issue. These types of problems are due to absence of EMC testing by manufacturer.
https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/1588

 I use an Anker LiON battery to feed 5V to Pi and 5V to a Piano 2.1 DAC. The battery is continuously charged from mains. Works really well. :-)

-Tim