v0.7 stops after a few minutes

[pupvogel]

Hi,

my Mixcloud-Plugin v0.7 stops playback after several minutes, unfortunately without logging anything even in Debug-mode.

I have found other, old threads where this was mentioned and the solution was to reinstall the plugin, but unfortunately that doesn't help.

I installed a screen capture tool to find out where exactly the playback stops - it is NOT always at the same time for a given track, it seems to happen quite randomly.
Most tracks I tested stop after 5 to 15 minutes, but I found this track here always stopped after 2-3min, so maybe it's a good one to start looking for the problem... 8-p
mixcloud://johndigweed/transitions-with-john-digweed-and-denney/

Most tracks I tested are about 1h long, this one is 2h, but it's just a wild guess that this has anything to do with the problem...

I'm running the (currently) latest build of LMS8.3.0 on Win10

Oh and the displayed bitrate and format indicators change when playback stops, for instance a track that shows "320 kbps/70kbps, mp3/mp4 (mixcloud)" during playback would show "64k, mp4" and stop right then.

[richardhenwood]

hi @pupvogel,

I had a similar, but different (tracks stopped at ~20mins, predictably). I engaged in a thread here:
https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?88286-Mixcloud-plugin&p=1015711&highlight=#post1015711
which resulted in a working setup for me.

[pupvogel]

Hi @richardhenwood,
in that post you say you installed ffmpeg into the LMS docker image and then it worked...
Phew, can you help me translate how this could help me in a standard windows install of LMS ?
Would LMS even know if I install ffmpeg on the machine..?

[richardhenwood]

Hi @pupvogel

I don't have much experience with windows - sorry! I might expect that if ffmpeg was installed on the windows machine, LMS my test obvious places - or maybe just the path? - and do the right thing. This page talks about installing ffmpeg and path on windows: https://www.wikihow.com/Install-FFmpeg-on-Windows

[pupvogel]

Hi, unfortunately installing ffmepg didn't help.
I made sure it's available everywhere through the environment variable, but sadly problem remains the same.

[chieftobitobsn]

I have the sam eproblem on two different installations. Its installed on a raspi 3 with debian on it. Squeezebox Server is 8.2 and Mixcloud Plugin is 0.7.

Soundcloud Plugin is running without problems, but mixcloud is so much better.

does somebody know whats the problem?

[kwarklabs]

There isn't any code in the plugin that could cause a stream to stop once playing. If this is still a problem then raise an issue against the server repository. Suggest closing this issue.

[pupvogel]

Well, it's definitely still a problem that I only have in the Mixloud-plugin, I just re-tested the "Digweed Denney"-example I mentioned above. Track will stop after about 2min35.

Current version is latest LMS 8.3.0 on Windows 11.

Just turned all debug-logging on that seems to matter, but I just don't get anything useful there.

[kwarklabs]

You could try playing the mix without using the MixCloud plugin.

1. Download the mix using dlmixcloud.com.
2. Add the downloaded file to your music library and rescan.
3. Find the mix in you library and play it.

The stream you quoted is MP4 so there is a good chance that something needs configuring elsewhere in your server to enable MP4 playback for your client. See Advanced -> File Types in the server settings.

You may also find that PR #25 helps once merged as it has a fix for streams which disconnect (HTTP code 206).

[pupvogel]

I downloaded the track from dlmixcloud (nice page btw) - the downloaded file plays perfectly on my players without stopping.
Your HTTP code 206-fix sounds quite promising, though !? Is there a way for me to try it out ?

[kwarklabs]

@danielvijge merged our recent pull request for the SoundCloud plugin quite promptly so probably easiest just to wait for this pull request to be merged and released.

But if you really can't wait then backup the Plugin.pm, ProtocolHandler.pm and strings.txt files in your Mixcloud plugin folder (/var/lib/squeezeboxserver/cache/InstalledPlugins/Plugins/MixCloud) and replace them with the files from PR #25 then restart your Squeezebox server.

[richardhenwood]

@pupvogel did you update the file type within LMS to specify using ffmpeg?

[pupvogel]

@richardhenwood No I didn't, don't really know how exactly.
I just installed ffmpeg and made it available through environment path.

[pupvogel]

@kwarklabs I installed the 3 files into my server, unfortunately the changes in there don't fix this problem.
The mentioned "example-track" will still stop somewhere between 2min30 and 3min00.

[richardhenwood]

@pupvogel it is probably best to wait for the update from kwarklabs - or pull the latest version as they suggest. Also, the thread on forums.slimdevices.com is probably worth following too...

[kwarklabs]

@pupvogel suggest doing the following:

1. Enable debug logging for the following sources:
   (plugin.mixcloud) - Mixcloud
   (formats.audio) - File Metadata & Audio Parsing Information
   (formats.metadata) - Remote stream metadata information
   (player.streaming) - All Player Streaming Logging
   (player.source) - Player Source Audio & Conversion Logging
   (player.streaming.direct) - Player Direct Streaming Logging
   (player.streaming.remote) - Player Remote Streaming Logging
   (network.asynchttp) - Asynchronous Remote HTTP Request Information

2. Stop the Squeezebox server and delete the server.log.

3. Start Squeezebox server and play the problem stream until it stops.

4. Post the server.log file here.

5. Post your convert.conf and custom-convert.conf files here (should be in Squeezebox server base folder on Windows).