RadioParadise plugin Flac, works only for a while.

danielfelix · July 3, 2019, 9:28pm

I think there will be no problems with this method.
The gap between start and refresh of metadata is a minor detail.
We must pray that Bill does not make changes.
It would release the final version.

marco79cgn · July 4, 2019, 6:29am

What are your Playback settings for „Audio Buffer Size“ and „Buffer Before Play“?

danielfelix · July 4, 2019, 3:43pm

DEfault value.

marco79cgn · July 4, 2019, 8:07pm

And Default means 8MB / 10%?
I‘m not sure.

danielfelix · July 5, 2019, 12:19am

Yes, those are my values. A few days ago I burned a new version, those are the default values.

EddieA · July 6, 2019, 6:38pm

Just throwing this out there, in case any one else hits it.

I had to reboot Volumio after installed the latest version to get it to work correctly. After install, but before the reboot, playing the flac stream acted like it was an mp3. It had the static RP poster, no album art, no track name, and the time counter just pulsed the outer ring, without any time showing.

Cheers.

marco79cgn · July 8, 2019, 8:52am

OK, I created a merge request for version 1.1.0 which is using the static flac streams. Hopefully the problems with stream interruptions is now solved for all users.

github.com/volumio/volumio-plugins/pull/340

The update should be available soon via the internal GUI update mechanism.

danielfelix · July 8, 2019, 9:07pm

Hello Marco, I understand that you have not modified anything regarding the beta version. Right?

marco79cgn · July 8, 2019, 9:13pm

That‘s right.

jcyr · August 11, 2019, 7:31pm

Raspberry Pi 3b+, volumio 2.599, RP plugin 1.10

Is continuously spewing the following to /var/log/volumio.log!!!

2019-08-11T19:25:10.815Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-155503 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false
2019-08-11T19:25:10.817Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-155504 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false
2019-08-11T19:25:11.066Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-155752 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false
2019-08-11T19:25:11.066Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-155753 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false
2019-08-11T19:25:11.067Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-155754 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false
2019-08-11T19:25:11.317Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-156004 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false
2019-08-11T19:25:11.317Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-156004 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false
2019-08-11T19:25:11.318Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-156005 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false
2019-08-11T19:25:11.568Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-156255 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false
2019-08-11T19:25:11.568Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-156255 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false
2019-08-11T19:25:11.569Z - info: ERROR increasePlaybackTimer remainingTime:-156256 negative - askedForPrefetch:true - simulateStopStartDone:false

danielfelix · August 18, 2019, 11:15pm

Hi Marco, are stuttering and cuts taking place in RP Flac, did you notice? Maybe it’s a regional problem.
I am testing the different icy-4 servers to icy-8 to see if there are any more stable ones.
We may need the option to choose the server…
regard

jcyr · August 20, 2019, 5:35pm

marco79cgn:

As I already mentioned in the plugin thread, it’s running for hours here without a problem (Pi Zero W with HiFi Berry DAC and the latest Volumio 2.522).

The RP API and the plugin basically work like this:
You get one flac file which contains up to 7 or 8 songs, so the result of the api is one flac url and the additional metadata for all the songs inside this one flac file (=name of each song, artist, length, etc.). Here’s an example:
https://audio-3.radioparadise.com/blocks/chan/0/4/1798613-1798619.flac?src=alexa
As you can already see looking at the url, this one flac file contains seven songs (1798613-1798619). Actually in this exact case there are six songs and a spoken part at the end with id 1798619. You can play this whole flac file manually e.g. using VLC or even on your Pi. Be aware that it won’t work without the “?src=alexa” url parameter at the end though.

So all that my plugin does is extracting the metadata, start playing the flac file (=first song) and then it’s setting a simple timer with the length of the first song in order to switch the song metadata when the second song starts - still inside this same one flac file. Then there will be a new timer with the length of the second song and so on… While a timer is running, the plugin does nothing but sleeping. Now as soon as the last song of the first flac file starts, the plugin asks the RP API for the next flac file (incl. its metadata). Then it will start from the beginning and so on.

What this means:
In the meantime the plugin is doing nothing but sleeping until the next song starts. After each sleep it’s refreshing the song metadata in the ui with the already pre-cached songs but Volumio/MPD just keeps playing this same flac file (!). Think of this as two independent processes: on the one hand volumio that just plays one file all the time and while this is happening a completely independent task updates the metadata in the ui during this playback. There is absolutely no communication with Radio Paradise except of course for this flac stream that is currently running. So if your playback stops in the middle of a song then the only possible reasons are either:

the connection to the stream is somehow lost/broken

a bug in volumio/mpd

Be aware that Volumio/MPD just streams the flac file, it is not downloaded completely beforehand so a stable internet connection is needed during the whole listening process. If the connection breaks, the stream will stop after a certain cache limit is reached (probably some seconds of playback).

If you look inside the log files of volumio (ssh and then “sudo journalctl -f”) you can see how many songs there are inside one api event. You can see an output like this one:
[RadioParadise] received new event with id 1798613 containing 6 songs.
and then
[RadioParadise] set to consume mode, adding url: https://audio-3.radioparadise.com/blocks/chan/0/4/1798613-1798619.flac?src=alexa
For Volumio/MPD it looks like this is one single file/song/playlist item even though there are 6 songs inside!

I just submitted a pull request for a bugfix update but this update won’t fix the situation you described if the stream is interrupted in the middle of a song. Because I don’t have this problem and can’t reproduce it.

It actually streams with the latest versions, but floods the logs with error messages. 2 or 3 per second!!!

marco79cgn · August 22, 2019, 1:17pm

Well, must be related to recent changes in Volumio 2.599. It didn’t happen before (I was still on 2.555 until today) and I didn’t change anything.

I’ll ask Michelangelo.

danielfelix · May 11, 2020, 11:23pm

I have again problems with RadioParadise reception through the plugin. It has cuts at all times, it is impossible to listen like this.
Do they also have this problem or is it something regional?

bas · December 11, 2021, 8:51pm

Never experiences any problems with the beloved Radio Paradise plugin on FLAC quality, but after upgrading to Volumio v3.165 the bug was there. Every 5-30 minutes playback stopped.
But seems to disappear now, after updating to v3.173 which addressed Bluetooth playback I saw briefly before hitting the button.

danielfelix · December 12, 2021, 2:58am

Here the same problem. Last Volumio 3 version.