Public Alpha Test: Audio Without Compromise - Volumio on Bookworm Begins

Volumio Development Volumio Beta Testing
, , , ,
646

Hey @Gelo5, @rkorell, @balbuze,

Great to see it all coming together - solid teamwork across the board.

Thanks everyone for helping out:

  • @Gelo5 for pushing forward with real-world testing,
  • @rkorell for the clear and helpful unpacking guidance,
  • @balbuze for spotting the hotspot clue instantly.

This kind of collaboration is exactly what makes the Volumio community thrive.
Enjoy your new Bookworm installs - and keeping a few RPi4 units on Buster is a smart balance for testing.

Looking forward to more shared discoveries.

Kind Regards,

647

Hey @rkorell,

Thanks again for confirming the successful reflash to v4.005 using Raspberry Pi Imager - and for validating that the backup/restore workflow handled your rotary encoder setup seamlessly. Thatā€™s a major win for anyone relying on detailed GPIO configurations.

Youā€™ve correctly observed that Bluetooth remote pairing is no longer functional in 4.005, despite working up to 4.004. This aligns with our internal changes where Bluetooth stack initialization was temporarily disabled as part of the delivery infrastructure cleanup.

Iā€™ll need to find my ā€œthinking headā€ - I have an inkling as to why pairing for Bluetooth remotes has stopped, and will dig deeper into the service order and agent behavior. Although, clear audio takes priority.

Also noted:

  • GUI and terminal-based reboots are both working, but if youā€™re able to capture logs for the slow reboot via terminal (3ā€“4 minutes), it would help us investigate potential delays in service shutdowns.

Thanks again for your excellent field reports - weā€™ll keep pushing forward and loop back with updates once weā€™ve validated the Bluetooth fix.

Kind Regards,

1 Like
648

Hey @njaustin123,

Great to hear the display rotation now works out of the box with 4.004 - thatā€™s encouraging progress. The slight left alignment on touch is noted; if it persists, we can look into applying a calibration matrix via xinput or libinput.

Assuming no escalations come up, this is now at the top of my list for the weekend. Iā€™ll validate your findings on fresh hardware and follow up with any touch alignment tweaks needed for full polish.

Appreciate the update and your continued testing.

Kind Regards,

1 Like
649

Hey @JohnR,

Fantastic to hear youā€™ve had a breakthrough with 4.005 - and thanks again for the logs. Itā€™s great to see that the system is now detecting Wi-Fi and working correctly even without Ethernet connected.

Clarifying Hotspot vs. Wi-Fi Behavior

Based on ongoing threads and internal architecture, itā€™s important to understand the Wi-Fi mode capabilities of your adapter and how Volumio responds to them. There are generally three types of capabilities:

1. AP + STA (Simultaneous Hotspot and Wi-Fi Client)

  • These adapters can host a hotspot (Access Point) while also connecting to another Wi-Fi network (Station).
  • Rare. Most hardware and drivers do not support this reliably under Linux.

2. AP or STA (Mutually Exclusive Modes)

  • Most USB Wi-Fi adapters fall into this category.
  • Can either act as a hotspot or connect to an existing Wi-Fi, but not both at once.
  • Volumio uses this mode by default. If it sees known Wi-Fi credentials and detects the interface is available, it skips hotspot setup and connects as a client.

3. STA Only (No Hotspot Capability)

  • Some adapters cannot act as Access Points at all (no AP support in driver or firmware).
  • These will never trigger hotspot mode, and rely entirely on Ethernet or a prior network configuration to get going.

What Youā€™re Seeing in 4.005

From the logs:

  • Wi-Fi is found and initialized when Ethernet is attached.
  • On next boot, with no Ethernet, Volumio successfully connects to the saved Wi-Fi.
  • Hotspot doesnā€™t start, because the device successfully enters STA mode.

This suggests your adapter is likely STA-only or AP/STA exclusive, and it behaves correctly once credentials are set. The previous hotspot failures are likely tied to incomplete or slow initialization, which weā€™re now mitigating better.

Note

Your case has helped reinforce how we handle various Wi-Fi modes - thank you for continuing to test. Weā€™ll keep refining the behavior for adapters with limited capabilities, especially during first boot or factory reset conditions.

Kind Regards,

650

Hi @nerd,

Thanks for the clarification regarding the Raspberry pi Imager. Iā€™ve had no issues normally with Rufus but this was the first time and I will definitely keep the Imager in mind for future imaging needs.

Glad to say everything still working great after a couple of reboots though I did find that the current Pandora plugin doesnā€™t work on the alpha as for some reason it doesnā€™t seem to save the credentials.

Will try the image on my Raspberry pi 3B platform with an Innomaker DAC and report back.

Regards,

651

Hi everyone,

Iā€™m joining this thread because Iā€™m testing Volumio on Bookworm as well and have a question about my WIMAXIT M728 touchscreen. I hope someone here can help!

Iā€™m currently testing Volumio on Bookworm with a WIMAXIT M728 7" HDMI touchscreen (1024x600 resolution).

Volumio boots fine ā€” I get audio ā€” but unfortunately, there is no video output on the screen.

In my /boot/userconfig.txt, I have added these settings:

hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt=1024 600 60 3 0 0 0
config_hdmi_boost=7

Iā€™ve also done a full cold boot (power off, unplug all cables, then restart), but still no image on the screen. The screen works fine on other devices, so I believe the hardware is okay.

Has anyone managed to get this screen working with Volumio on Bookworm? Or are there additional settings or troubleshooting steps I should try?

Thanks in advance for any help!

652

Update for the alpha team:
Got it working on my other Volumio box too. Tried the Raspberry Imager but that didnā€™t work and apparently it seems to have just copied the image on to the SD card - definitely must be user error. Balena Etcher worked on the first try and Youtube plugin and Now Playing plugins working on first boot.

System Information
OS info
Version of Volumio: 4.004
Hostname: musicbox
Kernel: 6.12.27-v7+
Governor: performance
Uptime: 0 days, 0 Hrs, 17 Minutes, 0 Seconds
Audio info
Hw audio configured: Innomaker Dac
Mixer type: Hardware
Number of channels: 2
Supported sample rate: 22050 44100 48000 88200 96000 176400 192000 384000
Board info
Manufacturer: Raspberry Pi Foundation
Model: Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Plus Rev 1.3 Raspberry Pi
Version: a020d3
Firmware Version: Available only for RPI

So far so good ā€¦
Regards,

653

Hi!
what is the version of Systeminfo you use?

654

Just wanted to report some good progress on USB dongles. I have been able to get USB 2 low tech dongles working on V4.005. Speed is a poor 72.2 mB/sec so pretty poor.
the ones in the pic all work. I got them going by bringing up the system on the wired network and then configured the wireless adapters.

IMG_20250601_123153
IMG_20250601_1231531920Ɨ2560 117 KB

When these are plugged in to USB 3, my system will go into a reboot loop. However that could be a power issue with my system because Iā€™m driving a 7" display plus a hifiberry dac hat. On the other hand usb 3 works just fine on Volumio 3. More advanced USB 3 dongles also cause my system to go into restart loops. So I think its a power isssue with USB 3. Hope this is helpful regards

655

Hello nerd. I started 4.005 on the Rpi2B today and wireless network did not start (the wipi adapter has a blue led in it so you can tell whatā€™s going on)
I restarted with the ethernet connected and was surprised to see that it had set up a hotspot. I connected to it but couldnā€™t connect to it via the GUI. I went back to the GUI with the new volumio name and selected ā€™ run first configuration wizardā€™ and all is now working. Iā€™ll take a log on the next start up without the ethernet cable connected.
I am having a try with 4.005 on the Rpi1B but still no GUI, I have just noticed on the monitor that the IP address for the GUI is set at the default 127.0.0.1 rather than something like 192.168.1.160 as on the 2B. Iā€™ll do the log on the monitor and send it.
Regards

656

Hello Nerd

Hereā€™s the log file for the Rpi 2B
http://logs.volumio.org/volumio/y67IJK8.html
Regards

657

Hello Nerd
As promised here are the files for 4.005 on the RPi 1B
config.txt (746 Bytes)
dmesg.txt (31.3 KB)
journalctl.txt (111.4 KB)
lsusb.txt (16.8 KB)
Regards

658

Flashed 4.005 to RPi4B
USB DAC Topping D10s, Pi 7" display
Log after flashing to 4.005. No plugins installed.

Installed and tested: Touch Display, Now Playing, IR-Remote, Spotify, Bandcamp, YT Music
Current logs http://logs.volumio.org/volumio/uOmYYrx.html

All working perfectly!

659

Hi @nerd ,

just flashed the 4.005 to my AMD64 system (on a USB stick). Startup worked so far. Not sure this is an issue for the alpha. I see (on many versions before as well) a jump back while stepping through the startup assistant. The assistant works fine until the page for the connection to Tidal. When the login to Tidal is done, the assistant jumps back to the first step (language setting) and runs through all the steps again. The settings I made before are in memory so I donā€™t have to type them in again. Anyway itā€™s annoying to be forced running through all the steps of the startup assistant twice.

Hereā€™s a log for that:
http://logs.volumio.org/volumio/uuEGW4y.html

As the partition layout is the breaking new feature here I also add a

volumio@smx:~$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs           379M  8.3M  370M   3% /run
/dev/sdb2       5.2G  1.2G  3.7G  25% /imgpart
/dev/loop0      1.2G  1.2G     0 100% /static
overlay          49G   60M   46G   1% /
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M  8.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
efivarfs        128K   61K   63K  50% /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
tmpfs           1.9G   47M  1.9G   3% /tmp
tmpfs            20M  1.5M   19M   8% /var/log
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /var/spool/cups
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /var/spool/cups/tmp
/dev/sdb1       366M   89M  277M  25% /boot
/dev/sda1       932G  781G  151G  84% /media/T7
tmpfs           379M  4.0K  379M   1% /run/user/1000
volumio@smx:~$

after a fresh flash and first startup.

Iā€™ll test some more later - let me know if thereā€™s something special to have my eye on.

Cheers,
Robert

660

Hey @njaustin123,

Thanks again for your update - Iā€™ve now tested the Waveshare 7-inch DSI screen myself on a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.5 (c03115), and I can confirm.

Display and Touch Work with Latest Stack

The screen uses an ICN6211 bridge, functionally similar to the official Raspberry Pi touchscreen. It requires minimal configuration and does not expose additional features - but behaves predictably once initialized.

As tested, display rotation only takes effect via the kernelā€™s cmdline.txt, and touch input alignment may need tweaking if youā€™re noticing lateral drift (e.g., left-aligned touch zones).

System and Overlay Details

Hardware:

Model: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.5
Bridge: ICN6211
Touch: edt-ft5406 via overlay

Overlay Source:

Official Raspberry Pi overlay:
https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/blob/rpi-6.12.y/arch/arm/boot/dts/overlays/vc4-kms-dsi-7inch-overlay.dts

This overlay includes:

  • DSI output activation

  • edt-ft5406 touchscreen driver

  • Optional parameters:

    • invx, invy, swapxy for touch coordinate correction
    • disable_touch
    • dsi0 for switching to alternate DSI interface

Before vs After Configuration

Before Rotation Fix

/boot/cmdline.txt:

# No video= directive present
splash plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles dwc_otg.fiq_enable=1 ...

/boot/userconfig.txt:

# Empty (no overlays defined)

Result:

  • Display initialized via default DSI detection
  • No rotation
  • Touch input rotated due to legacy lcd_rotate=2 if present earlier

After Applying Correct Configuration

/boot/cmdline.txt:

splash video=DSI-1:800x480@60,rotate=180 plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles ...

The video=DSI-1...rotate=180 directive enables display rotation under KMS (vc4 DRM driver). This is the only reliable way to rotate a DSI-connected display on Bookworm.

/boot/userconfig.txt:

[all]
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-dsi-7inch

/boot/volumioconfig.txt:

# 'display_auto_detect=1' has been commented out

Result:

  • Display output correctly rotated 180Ā°
  • Touchscreen works via edt-ft5406
  • Minor touch offset leftwards, consistent with othersā€™ reports

Next Steps

If youā€™re seeing consistent left-aligned touch input:

  • We can apply an input transformation matrix using xinput or via libinput rules

  • Alternatively, try enabling invx, invy, or swapxy as overlay parameters:

    dtoverlay=vc4-kms-dsi-7inch,invx,invy

    Then reboot and test alignment

Note: /boot/cmdline.txt and /boot/volumioconfig.txt are overwritten on every OTA update - any manual changes must be re-applied after each update.

Kind Regards,

1 Like
661

Hey @HeadGeek,

Thanks for the update. Youā€™re right - the first step should always be to unzip the downloaded .zip and flash the extracted .img file directly. Tools like Raspberry Pi Imager may try to handle .zip files automatically, but behavior can be inconsistent, especially with custom builds like Volumio ALPHA.

Balena Etcher tends to be more reliable for raw .img flashing since it doesnā€™t try to interpret the archive contents - it writes byte-for-byte. Thatā€™s likely why it worked for you the first time.

Glad to hear both the Youtube and Now Playing plugins are working straight away, and your Innomaker DAC was correctly detected with hardware mixer.

Kind Regards,

662

Hey @JohnR,

Thanks for your continued testing and detailed reports.

We are aware that wireless onboarding, including hotspot behavior and Wi-Fi initialization, still presents challenges, especially with certain USB adapters and legacy hardware. The Volumio Core Team has acknowledged these issues and plans to address them as we transition from Alpha to Beta.

While we cannot provide a specific ETA, rest assured that improvements to the wireless onboarding process are on the roadmap. Your feedback and testing are invaluable in helping us identify and resolve these issues.

Kind Regards,

663

Hey @SimonE,

Thanks for confirming.

Flashed 4.005 to RPi 4B with 7" display and Topping D10s USB DAC - no plugins at first boot.

After installing and testing Touch Display, Now Playing, IR-Remote, Spotify, Bandcamp, and YouTube Music, everything is working perfectly.

Excellent baseline result.

Kind Regards,

664

Hey @Robert.Hecht,

Thanks for flashing 4.005 on your AMD64 system and for providing the log and partition details.

Startup Assistant Loop

The behavior youā€™re seeing - where the assistant jumps back to the beginning after completing TIDAL login - is known, though sporadic. Itā€™s been observed in earlier versions as well and is currently under review.

Youā€™re right: previously entered values are retained, so itā€™s not a data loss issue, but the forced second loop is definitely not expected behavior and should be cleaned up before we move to public beta. Iā€™ve flagged this for further inspection with your log reference.

Partition Layout

Your df -h confirms the new 5.2G /imgpart layout is applied correctly on your system. Thatā€™s exactly what we want to validate at this stage - thanks for including it.

Testing Focus: ACPI

At this point in the AMD64 track, ACPI functions are the key area weā€™d like you to watch:

  • Volume up/down
  • Mute toggle
  • Brightness control (if applicable)
  • Playback control (media keys)
  • Suspend/resume behavior (if supported by your device)

Let us know what works, what doesnā€™t, and if you notice any regressions compared to pre-0.069 builds.

Appreciate your help pushing this forward - keep the feedback coming.

Kind Regards,

665

Dear Volumionauts,

Announcement:

It is official: after careful internal assessment, we believe we are Beta ready.

This marks a major milestone in our development journey. The Alpha phase has been a tremendous success, thanks to the communityā€™s invaluable feedback, detailed testing, and relentless commitment to excellence. We still have a few loose ends to tie up, but our Alpha journey is about to end, and we are confident the system is mature enough to move forward.

As we transition into Beta, a new thread will be opened to welcome broader community participation and more intensive internal QA. This Alpha thread will be closed and preserved as a historical archive of the work that brought us here.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to making this moment possible. The next chapter begins very soon.

Kind Regards,

10 Likes