On Volumio 4.xxx I am seeing cases where the UPNP browser (SSDP discovery) becomes unreliable when the Spotify plugin is enabled. From first inspection, this looks like a generic zeroconf (Avahi/mDNS) conflict, possibly related to the way the plugin publishes its _spotify-connect._tcp service.
Has this been noticed already? If not, it would be useful to confirm whether the plugin’s zeroconf registration interferes with other discovery protocols, and if so, work out a way for zeroconf to coexist cleanly.
While I haven’t experienced this directly, it’s very probable. go-librespot uses a standalone implementation of mDNS for portability. The implementation is probably flawed for advanced use cases.
Perhaps, go-librespot should use avahi/bonjour if available on the system.
Multi-homed networking is not helping here either - I think we need to have a discussion across devs channels as we are at real risk of service priority clash here.
please see my community post at Spotify, to everyone who would like to, upvote to quantify the global demand for Volumio Spotify Connect lossless, your support is needed:
I’d assume there’ll definitely be pressure to the handful of 3rd party licensees by their customers, like SMSL and hopefully, Volumio-Premium itself to petition Spotify. I do not see Spotify graciously updating anything on its own for Volumio-CE or any other streaming software out of goodwill to any community.
Be completely transparent, what are the requirements for Volumio Spotify Connect plugin to support lossless. Doing nothing seems counter productive… And fear if Spotify developers are going to be influenced by a community post which gets attention, I don’t get it what is that of a view? Maybe that Volumio is a hardware vendor and supports an open source software package, like a conflict of interest? Please fill in the gaps for my understanding on the challenges here. Much appreciated.
This is a community-maintained plugin, not an official Volumio Connect implementation.
The current main volunteer developer has already mentioned a few posts back that Spotify Lossless has not yet rolled out in his country, so he cannot begin implementation or testing until it becomes available.
As always, anyone interested is welcome to contribute directly to the plugin repository once upstream support (in go-librespot) for lossless becomes available.
the developer has already mentioned what is needed: access for him to spotify lossless as it isn’t available in his country yet. see New 2023 Spotify Plugin - #495 by devgianlu
That is what your post at the Spotify support site can cause, that Spotify stops looking the other way to the access the open source community has to Spotify and locks the door.
*I’ve had a quick look and it seems like they do not serve decryption keys for FLAC with the same protocol they did for the other formats. This means that FLAC may never go open source, since they have been notoriously taking down implementations of the new DRM.
I might have missed something, but this is all kind of expected.*
I think that if I pay for a service it shouldn’t matter how I access that service. If I wanted to write my own and access the API via authorized mechanisms (or open source libraries), then more power to me. I wouldn’t expect it to necessarily remain supported, that would be on me. But it certainly shouldn’t be blocked…just because.
Time for me to revisit reviewing alternative streaming services, Spotify was always my favourite, I even got 2 month 50% discount after complaining lossless wasn’t available although marketed as rolled out in my region.
I’m with you on that one. However, after working in this industry for years, I’ve learned that there are many caveats needed to keep all stakeholders satisfied. For example, streaming services have extremely strict contracts with rightsholders, mainly the major labels, that require them to take all reasonable measures to protect content from unauthorized access, and this includes the use of DRM. That enforcement is then passed downstream to us, the implementors.
Not many people realize this, myself included, until I started working directly on it. For us at Volumio, it’s essential to respect all industry requirements regarding IP protection and compliance measures, while still keeping our users happy. We have worked very hard to build a relationship of trust with streaming providers, and maintaining that trust is crucial for us.
