[SOLVED] Radio Station switching bug

[TheOldPresbyope]

...and, for completeness, what device and OS are the browser running on?

[dad33]

The log looks ok.

What Browser is causing the issue?

Hello Tim,
on my Android 11 phone i use chrome browser which might be a problem.
Than i read about browser problems and switched to firefox.
Which Firefox no problems and is very fast.

[TheOldPresbyope]

@Tim Curtis

I have tried to repro the OP's issue. Short answer: I couldn't as it is stated but ...

Test environment: RPi Zero 2 W running the most recent prerelease of moOde 8. Nexus 3A phone running Android 12 and both Chrome and Firefox browsers.

The Radio Library has 231 station entries.

With either Chrome or Firefox I am able to step through the entire set of stations with the usual exceptions: The BBC Hi-Res stations are geo-fenced and hence not accessible to me; some stations have currently un-resolvable URLs (identifiable with moodeutl -U) which nets me the usual popup warning; some stations may have other issues; but none of this causes moOde to "crash" or "hang" or is browser-specific.

With one big exception: The "but..." above refers to station KMHD Portland with station entry:

Code:

sqlite> select * from cfg_radio where name like "%KMHD%";
93|http://stream1.opb.org/kmhd.mp3|KMHD Portland FM 89.1 -  Jazz|r|local|Jazz|KMHD|English|United States|North America|128|MP3|No||

If I select this station, nothing plays, the previously played station remains displayed, and moOde appears to hang. This is not browser-dependent.

If I bump MPD log level to "verbose" and try to play this station I see in the log

Code:

Mar 12 11:52 : playlist: play 140:"http://stream1.opb.org/kmhd.mp3"
Mar 12 11:52 : curl: icy-metaint=16000
Mar 12 11:52 : decoder_thread: probing plugin mad

And that's all until I try to restart the servers with a moodeutl -r command. This command takes at least 90 seconds to execute after which everything is back to normal. The logging resumes with this line

Code:

Mar 12 11:57 : state_file: Loading state file /var/lib/mpd/state

I haven't had time to examine the KMHD server output but this station may be what the OP ran into.

Regards,
Kent

[TheOldPresbyope]

Late breaking news: Station KMHD just sprang to life but is going through some interesting antics with its stream. Lots of

Code:

Mar 12 13:31 : alsa_output: Decoder is too slow; playing silence to avoid xrun

They must be going through technical difficulties at their end.

ETA - I didn't mean to imply it's listenable with dropouts; rather it is brief spurts of unlistenable sound and long dropouts. It turns out it is still uncontrollable as well

[Tim Curtis]

I've seen that b4 but only rarely. It could be something in libcurl. I also recall a really old MPD issue where the discussion was around exposing an option to configure the timeout used by libcurl.

[dad33]

Oh thank you very much for this deep examination.Some lines i didn't understand couse a im not a programmer.

I tested now a week with firefox. The response is faster than chrome but a have the same problem.

Switching to fast between station moode hangs with no sound. After about 60 sec. moode plays the last working station.

One year ago i had not this problem.

Could it also be a problem with a buffer? When selecting a station which is not online moode switched right away to the last online station. This was one year ago.
Actualy moode hangs on this station which is not reachable.
I have 2 raspberry pi 4B one with a hat dac Allo Boss 2, the other without hat dac.
Both same problem running the newest moode version.

Example station actual not working and after selecting it, moode hangs.

https://s4.radio.co/s70adc6cbb/listen

[TheOldPresbyope]

Oh thank you very much for this deep examination.Some lines i didn't understand couse a im not a programmer.

I tested now a week with firefox. The response is faster than chrome but a have the same problem.

Switching to fast between station moode hangs with no sound. After about 60 sec. moode plays the last working station.

One year ago i had not this problem.

Could it also be a problem with a buffer? When selecting a station which is not online moode switched right away to the last online station. This was one year ago.
Actualy moode hangs on this station which is not reachable.
I have 2 raspberry pi 4B one with a hat dac Allo Boss 2, the other without hat dac.
Both same problem running the newest moode version.

Example station actual not working and after selecting it, moode hangs.

https://s4.radio.co/s70adc6cbb/listen

Sorry,, I have no idea what station that is supposed to be and that URL returns a 403 error code. Either it's wrong or the station has misconfigured its stream server.

---

Assuming we've been describing the same "hang" behavior it has to do with third-party code moOde depends on.

As for Station KMHD which I cited above as an example, I've found a new URL which seems to play fine in moOde. If you're interested, see my other post

Regards,
Kent

[DRONE7]

Oh thank you very much for this deep examination.Some lines i didn't understand couse a im not a programmer.

I tested now a week with firefox. The response is faster than chrome but a have the same problem.

Switching to fast between station moode hangs with no sound. After about 60 sec. moode plays the last working station.

One year ago i had not this problem.

Could it also be a problem with a buffer? When selecting a station which is not online moode switched right away to the last online station. This was one year ago.
Actualy moode hangs on this station which is not reachable.
I have 2 raspberry pi 4B one with a hat dac Allo Boss 2, the other without hat dac.
Both same problem running the newest moode version.

Example station actual not working and after selecting it, moode hangs.

https://s4.radio.co/s70adc6cbb/listen

Sorry,, I have no idea what station that is supposed to be and that URL returns a 403 error code. Either it's wrong or the station has misconfigured its stream server.

---

Assuming we've been describing the same "hang" behavior it has to do with third-party code moOde depends on.

As for Station KMHD which I cited above as an example, I've found a new URL which seems to play fine in moOde. If you're interested, see my other post

Regards,
Kent

It is a Serbian station 'Radio S4' and is present via Radio Browser. AAC format only and I have had no luck deciphering a valid stream.... I can play from Radio browser but Firefox reports the stream weirdly...starts with 'blob'   and the S4 website requires a subscription... go figure.

[TheOldPresbyope]

@dad33
@DRONE7

Ah, S4, thanks. I just pulled a URL for S4 in Serbia (countrycode RS) from radio-browser.info which works on my moOde 8 player here in USA

https://53be5ef2d13aa.streamlock.net/asm...ylist.m3u8

I think I understand the magic here.  The .m3u8 file contains

Code:

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:3
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=43631,CODECS="mp4a.40.2"
chunklist_w175167527.m3u8

This doesn't seem like a stream definition but..wait for it...the HTTP header returned for this file includes the tag

Code:

Content-Type: application/vnd.apple.mpegurl

which the InterWeb ™ tells me is the MIME header for M3U8 iOS media streams.

OK, actually I lied. I don't have a deep understanding of this method of identifying an audio stream, but the combination of the .m3u8 file plus its MIME header seems plausible and it works in moOde/MPD 

Regards,
Kent

[DRONE7]

I spent some time last night, having found the station the O/P referenced, trying to find a stream.
Of course, the one you found I tried using in the browser address bar and it kept trying to download a playlist file.

Generally before recommending a stream I try playing it in Firefox...but that one foiled me.
Didn't twig to actually trying it on the Pi having not got it playing elsewhere.   Lesson learnt. :-)