I had three Raspberry Pi based Volumio devices setup and working great around the house but now they stopped outputting audio. All 3 consist of different Pi hardware and audio HAT’s so I don’t think I can pin the issue down to any single hardware failing.
All 3 played my Spotify, Airplay, and web radio’s just fine on Volumio 2.x. One day I decided to finally run the updates because I read that v2.x was reaching end-of-life and also I needed the new Spotify plugin. And that’s when all audio output stopped. While I could browse all audio just fine, including Spotify, no audio comes out and the songs never show as playing. (hitting play button does nothing) When I Airplay a song from my phone, everything appears working except no audio is output. Following online advice from these forums, I even flashed one of the devices and set it up from scratch but still encountered the same problems. Worse thing is there are no visible error messages that I can work with with the exception of the device that I re-installed from scratch. That one now displays, “Failed to open ALSA device (volumio); no such device” when I try to play something.
I’ve verified that the correct DAC’s and Amps are selected as I2S hardware (and even switched them on/off just in case).
I’m at a complete loss for words. I don’t know why all 3 failed at once after the update even though they have different hardware. The only common thread is that all 3 are on my wireless network but they worked fine on Volumio 2.x. Plus the fact that I can access and control them all via web or ios App should indicate that they’re all connected fine on the network.
Device 2: Pi Zero W + MiniAmp + Volumio 3.159 (won’t auto-update further)
Device 3: Pi Zero 2 W + Allo Mini Boss DAC + Volumio 3.324 (re-flashed and setup from scratch)
Summary of issue:
all 3 devices are made with different hardware
I’m able to browse music on all 3 devices
no audio is output when I select a song and hit the play button on all 3 devices after I completed update from Volumio v2.x to v3.x
the only visible error comes from the one device that I decided to re-flash, which indicates an ALSA error (but it was working fine before the update to 3.x)
I’ve deselected and reselected the proper I2S hardware on all 3 devices; rebooted several times
Very basic input from me I’m afraid but …. Have you made sure that the volume is not set to zero after an updating… it’s caught me out before. Hoping it’s that simple.
Hello there Old_Duffer, thanks for checking but yes, the volume is correct. When you try to play any music, the header (showing progress of the track) doesn’t even move.
Hope you’re up and running again soon. If you are trying to play via Spotify, the old plugin is now defunct. Uninstall all existing Spotify plugins (Spotify and Spotify Connect). Then restart the Pi. Then install the new plugin (3.0.6). Hopefully that helps. Not sure why your devices 1 and 2 are not updating further - network is ok?
Yes, I removed all old plugins and installed the newest Spotify plugin directly from the Plugin store as instructed. I even did the same on a brand new install. It’s not just Spotify–no other audio sources play anymore. It’s as if all my different audio HAT’s stopped working with Volumio after the update.
Yes, network is OK because I can access the devices via their web interface, browse all Spotify, Radio, libraries.
At this point I may have to follow one of the more common & successful solutions mentioned on Reddit–just move on to alternatives like Moode Audio and give it a try.
Thanks for suggesting that! Here are my logs from Device #3 (Pi Zero 2 W + Allo MiniBoss DAC), which has the clean install of the latest Volumio OS + Spotify Plugin from the plugin store. I thought this might be the most straightforward to start with. I have a feeling it stopped detecting my audio DAC for some reason as I only see the power LED but not LED1 (which shows that the Pi has detected and is using the audio DAC) This wasn’t an issue before updating so I wonder what happened.
aplay -l doesn’t show the device at all. To confirm whether this is a hardware problem, I actually setup Moode Audio on another SD card and it too couldn’t find it. I then opened up the device, wiggled the HAT a bit and then things started working. I then then put everything back into its case, and now it stopped. I have reason to believe the pins are a bit loose so I’m going to write Device 3 off as a hardware issue. that’s one down!
I’d like to ask if we can see why Device 1 no longer plays. For that one, no ALSA error is displayed–it just doesn’t play anything from Web Radio or Spotify for some reason, but I DO hear the bootup chime!. aplay -l shows that it sees the DAC. And here is it’s log. A quick browse shows MPD errors, however. And while it can reach the update servers it won’t update to any newer version, giving me the message that I’m already on the latest version.
that’s one down!