Flak playback issues

[Helgier]

Hi everyone.

For years I'm using moode audio on my rpi 3 1GB.
It is booted from SD card.

Lately though after updating to latest (or rather installing new as SD card crashed) to latest version I'm experiencing huge lag while playing my FLAKs from my nas.
First 10 seconds of a song are fine and then it jitters until you pause and wait for some time.
Plus this quite freezes UI to the point that it's simpler to reboot.

MP3s, airplay, radio is all fine.
Wifi network is fine.

Can anyone direct me to possible solution?
Roll back the version?
Getting pi4 for this seems quite stupid idea as it was fine for years.

Thank you for any suggestion!

[TheOldPresbyope]

Hi everyone.

For years I'm using moode audio on my rpi 3 1GB.
It is booted from SD card.

Lately though after updating to latest (or rather installing new as SD card crashed) to latest version I'm experiencing huge lag while playing my FLAKs from my nas.
First 10 seconds of a song are fine and then it jitters until you pause and wait for some time.
Plus this quite freezes UI to the point that it's simpler to reboot.

MP3s, airplay, radio is all fine.
Wifi network is fine.

Can anyone direct me to possible solution?
Roll back the version?
Getting pi4 for this seems quite stupid idea as it was fine for years.

Thank you for any suggestion!

For sure something is amiss. moOde 9.1.4 is happily playing FLAC tracks from my NAS on my Pi 3B just as it does on the other Pis I have (models 3A+, 3B+, 4B, 5B).

Do you see anything suspicious in the logs or in the journal (each of these can be examined from the command line)?

As an aside, the usual protocol to asking for support is to add your startup log. Here's how Tim would put it

Reboot and then post the contents of the startup log.

The log can be viewed via the SSH command moodeutl -l or downloaded via the Logs section in System Config, or via Menu, System info from any of the Config screens. The startup log will be at the end of System info output.

Regards,
Kent

[Helgier]

Hi everyone.

For years I'm using moode audio on my rpi 3 1GB.
It is booted from SD card.

Lately though after updating to latest (or rather installing new as SD card crashed) to latest version I'm experiencing huge lag while playing my FLAKs from my nas.
First 10 seconds of a song are fine and then it jitters until you pause and wait for some time.
Plus this quite freezes UI to the point that it's simpler to reboot.

MP3s, airplay, radio is all fine.
Wifi network is fine.

Can anyone direct me to possible solution?
Roll back the version?
Getting pi4 for this seems quite stupid idea as it was fine for years.

Thank you for any suggestion!

For sure something is amiss. moOde 9.1.4 is happily playing FLAC tracks from my NAS on my Pi 3B just as it does on the other Pis I have (models 3A+, 3B+, 4B, 5B).

Do you see anything suspicious in the logs or in the journal (each of these can be examined from the command line)?

As an aside, the usual protocol to asking for support is to add your startup log. Here's how Tim would put it

Reboot and then post the contents of the startup log.

The log can be viewed via the SSH command moodeutl -l or downloaded via the Logs section in System Config, or via Menu, System info from any of the Config screens. The startup log will be at the end of System info output.

Regards,
Kent

Here you go (attached file):

I do not see here anything incriminating but it is lagging when I took it plus UI does not react to play/pause. If I click previous/next it goes fine.
And if I press my FLAK during playing radio - it plays for some minutes then jitters. UI shows radiostation being played. UI catches up in few minutes but it shows wrong progression
Also if I click UI a bit it becomes really crazy 

Although before that I had on previous run fairly good play on one song.
What you see here is after reboot.

UI after I refresh page (and waited for it to load) (it was playing for a while and during this screenshot it is lagging). Also here I can play/pause but there is no updates in UI on progress: (see Capture.png)

Generally it is quite unusable.



Also - if I stop playing flak file and switch to radio or MP3 it gets really much better.

[TheOldPresbyope]

I don't see any red flags here either. First time I've run across a single-character username, though!

What happens if you copy some flac files to the SDCARD or to a USB thumbdrive, update the library, and then play these local files. Do you still experience the issues you reported?

Do you see any anomalies in the moOde or MPD logs when you experience the issues? They are stored in the text files

Code:

/var/log/moode.log
/var/log/mpd/log

Possibly, you're have to bump the logging level of moOde to the debugging level (bottom of the System Config screen) and of MPD to verbose (bottom of the MPD Config screen). Not knowing what is happening, I can't say.

Finally, there's the systemd journal which logs all sorts of system-level messages. The operative command is journalctl but I'll let you look that up.


Regards,
Kent

[Helgier]

I don't see any red flags here either. First time I've run across a single-character username, though!

What happens if you copy some flac files to the SDCARD or to a USB thumbdrive, update the library, and then play these local files. Do you still experience the issues you reported?

Do you see any anomalies in the moOde or MPD logs when you experience the issues? They are stored in the text files

Code:

/var/log/moode.log
/var/log/mpd/log

Possibly, you're have to bump the logging level of moOde to the debugging level (bottom of the System Config screen) and of MPD to verbose (bottom of the MPD Config screen). Not knowing what is happening, I can't say.

Finally, there's the systemd journal which logs all sorts of system-level messages. The operative command is journalctl but I'll let you look that up.


Regards,
Kent

I have lots of those:
Nov 08 22:33 : alsa_output: Decoder is too slow; playing silence to avoid xrun

CPU usage is low - less than 20%

Also this did not help - https://github.com/MusicPlayerDaemon/MPD...-924053645

Now I have this:

audio_output {
type "alsa"
name "ALSA Default"
device "_audioout"
mixer_type "software"
dop "no"
stop_dsd_silence "no"
thesycon_dsd_workaround "no"
buffer_time "200000"
period_time "5084"
}

Tried to add "buffer_before_play "25%"" but MPD says it does not know this param.

[TheOldPresbyope]

Those "Decoder is too slow" messages often mean the decoder isn't being fed data fast enough. Fiddling with the MPD parameters is akin to slapping a band-aid on a wound (aka Elastoplast aka sticking plaster if you're so inclined).

Do you experience them when you play FLAC tracks from local storage?

If not, I'm inclined to think there's an issue with your NAS connectivity.

If, however, they still occur, then I'm puzzled. It makes no sense to me that this system previously worked flawlessly but now is misbehaving with moOde 9.1.4 yet only with FLAC files.


Regards,
Kent

[Helgier]

I don't see any red flags here either. First time I've run across a single-character username, though!

What happens if you copy some flac files to the SDCARD or to a USB thumbdrive, update the library, and then play these local files. Do you still experience the issues you reported?

Do you see any anomalies in the moOde or MPD logs when you experience the issues? They are stored in the text files

Code:

/var/log/moode.log
/var/log/mpd/log

Possibly, you're have to bump the logging level of moOde to the debugging level (bottom of the System Config screen) and of MPD to verbose (bottom of the MPD Config screen). Not knowing what is happening, I can't say.

Finally, there's the systemd journal which logs all sorts of system-level messages. The operative command is journalctl but I'll let you look that up.


Regards,
Kent

I have lots of those:
Nov 08 22:33 : alsa_output: Decoder is too slow; playing silence to avoid xrun

CPU usage is low - less than 20%

Also this did not help - https://github.com/MusicPlayerDaemon/MPD...-924053645

Now I have this:

audio_output {                                                                                                                                                                                                    
type "alsa"                                                                                                                                                                                                        
name "ALSA Default"                                                                                                                                                                                                
device "_audioout"                                                                                                                                                                                                
mixer_type "software"                                                                                                                                                                                              
dop "no"                                                                                                                                                                                                          
stop_dsd_silence "no"                                                                                                                                                                                              
thesycon_dsd_workaround "no"                                                                                                                                                                                      
buffer_time "200000"                                                                                                                                                                                              
period_time "5084"                                                                                                                                                                                                
}

Tried to add "buffer_before_play "25%"" but MPD says it does not know this param.

Those "Decoder is too slow" messages often mean the decoder isn't being fed data fast enough. Fiddling with the MPD parameters is akin to slapping a band-aid on a wound (aka Elastoplast aka sticking plaster if you're so inclined).

Do you experience them when you play FLAC tracks from local storage?

If not, I'm inclined to think there's an issue with your NAS connectivity.

If, however, they still occur, then I'm puzzled. It makes no sense to me that this system previously worked flawlessly but now is misbehaving with moOde 9.1.4 yet only with FLAC files.


Regards,
Kent

Findings:

USB plays okay.
So issue is NAS.

Copying from NAS of those files I was testing (1 GB) was with speed of 10 MB (80Mb) per second (I have old laptop for flashing purposes which I use - it has N connection, 433.3 Mbit/s, 80MHz).
One example FLAK is 49MB with length of 6:38, so we 0.12MB/sec - roughly 150KB/sec which is 1200 Kb. Or 1.2 Mb.

On my router RPI has connection of 54.0 Mbit/s, 20MHz so it can transfer loooots of data per second from that FLAK.
So it can transfer potentially 45 times of that one second of FLAK recording.

Maybe there is some buffering issue on a side of MPD?
Because again - it was fine on old version of Moode (was it 3 smth?...)

[Helgier]

Those "Decoder is too slow" messages often mean the decoder isn't being fed data fast enough. Fiddling with the MPD parameters is akin to slapping a band-aid on a wound (aka Elastoplast aka sticking plaster if you're so inclined).

Do you experience them when you play FLAC tracks from local storage?

If not, I'm inclined to think there's an issue with your NAS connectivity.

If, however, they still occur, then I'm puzzled. It makes no sense to me that this system previously worked flawlessly but now is misbehaving with moOde 9.1.4 yet only with FLAC files.


Regards,
Kent

Is there setting in mpd I can use to increase precaching size or smth?

Thanks!

[TheOldPresbyope]

@Helgier 

I don't suggest you hand edit the mpd.conf file.

Have you looked under Resource allocation in moOde's WebUI MPD config screen? The first option is Audio buffer (MB) which defaults to 4 MB but can be increased to as much as 64 MB.*

I'll repeat what I said before. I have had no problem with FLAC files in moOde 9.1.4 (and prior) with any Pi I have on hand. My files are served from SMB shares on NAS connected by Ethernet to my router/access point and from there by WiFi to the Pi.

Candidly, I think this is a band-aid solution but I don't know what to suggest next. Maybe try a temporary Ethernet connection to your router/access point to rule out WiFi issues (interference from other WiFi devices or Bluetooth devices, for example, or poor signal quality**). If you have an external USB/WiFi adapter handy you could try using it instead of the Pi's onboard transceiver.

Regards,
Kent

* This will apply to all file types, not just FLAC

** Note that terminal commands such as ifconfig and iwconfig can give some insight to the quality of the network interface connections.

[Helgier]

@Helgier 

I don't suggest you hand edit the mpd.conf file.

Have you looked under Resource allocation in moOde's WebUI MPD config screen? The first option is Audio buffer (MB) which defaults to 4 MB but can be increased to as much as 64 MB.*

I'll repeat what I said before. I have had no problem with FLAC files in moOde 9.1.4 (and prior) with any Pi I have on hand. My files are served from SMB shares on NAS connected by Ethernet to my router/access point and from there by WiFi to the Pi.

Candidly, I think this is a band-aid solution but I don't know what to suggest next. Maybe try a temporary Ethernet connection to your router/access point to rule out WiFi issues (interference from other WiFi devices or Bluetooth devices, for example, or poor signal quality**). If you have an external USB/WiFi adapter handy you could try using it instead of the Pi's onboard transceiver.

Regards,
Kent

* This will apply to all file types, not just FLAC

** Note that terminal commands such as ifconfig and iwconfig can give some insight to the quality of the network interface connections.

I suppose I put enough...