New owner - not good so far :-/

[AndrueC]

I hope this is just installation teething troubles but so far I'm not very pleased with my SqueezeBox3.

Firstly it is very, very, horribly slow to navigate around the menus.

Secondly when it finally gets to the point where it claims it is play music it does nothing. No movement on the 'VUMeter' on screen, no sound coming out.

I'm about to try the software emulator to check that my Slimserver is running and I'll report back on how that works. Update:I couldn't work out how to get it to play from another machine.

The other music devices I have tried (MP101, Roku, Transgear) all found my Twonky server and played music immediately.

Edit:Speed seems better now - could it be because my server was indexing (it's a laptop running in powersaving mode which does make it sluggish).

I can control the Squeezebox from the machine running the server. It's currently tuned to Radio 1 so the box seems to be working. I just can't get the BLEEPED box to play any music from my server.

Soooo:It sounds nice. But at present is fundamentally useless. I'm perservering but first impressions are not good. Sorry to sound negative!

Further edit:It /can/ play from a server on my desktop machine. I have no idea why it is happier with that machine.

[azinck3]

What format is your music in? What version of slimserver are you running?

[AndrueC]

What format is your music in? What version of slimserver are you running?

It's WMA but I found the answer. I had to stop the TwonkyMedia service. Either TwonkyMedia is preventing Slimserver from streaming or perhaps TwonkyMedia locks all the files?

Whatever - I think we have two more items for the FAQ:
1.Q.My Squeezebox is very sluggish?
A.If you have only just installed it and have a large music collection wait a few minutes until ????

2.Q.My squeezebox can see the Slimserver but can't play anything?
A.If the squeezebox can be controlled from the slimserver but appears to just stall when you select 'play' and you have TwonkyMedia server running, switch off the TwonkyMedia server.

On the plus side it seems that my Yamaha can handle the digital output from the Squeezebox which is nice. I thought it probably would but I've had devices in the past that couldn't.

[azinck3]

It's WMA but I found the answer. I had to stop the TwonkyMedia service. Either TwonkyMedia is preventing Slimserver from streaming or perhaps TwonkyMedia locks all the files?

Whatever - I think we have two more items for the FAQ:
1.Q.My Squeezebox is very sluggish?
A.If you have only just installed it and have a large music collection wait a few minutes until ????

2.Q.My squeezebox can see the Slimserver but can't play anything?
A.If the squeezebox can be controlled from the slimserver but appears to just stall when you select 'play' and you have TwonkyMedia server running, switch off the TwonkyMedia server.

On the plus side it seems that my Yamaha can handle the digital output from the Squeezebox which is nice. I thought it probably would but I've had devices in the past that couldn't.

I'm glad you got it worked out. I agree that those two things seem useful for the FAQ.

It might be helpful for you to post what version of the server you're using. Depending on the cause, the twonky bug might be fixable (or, indeed, it might already be fixed in a different version of the server).

Pure speculation: I wonder if any of the new code dealing with Rhapsody support (also a uPnP service) is causing the twonky issue.

[AndrueC]

Slimserver version
6.3.1 - 8468 - Windows XP - EN - cp1252

I noticed another 'funny'. I went into player settings and selected fixed digital volume. It didn't have any obvious effect except that it stopped the player responding to the remote. In the end I had to press 'pause' on the server web page. When I did that it seemed like the floodgates had been opened and the SB3 responded to various remote commands I'd tried to send it.

At the time I was playing a new WMA Lossless track I'd ripped (I'm currently comparing WMA 192k VBR against lossless).

[azinck3]

At the time I was playing a new WMA Lossless track I'd ripped (I'm currently comparing WMA 192k VBR against lossless).

If you're going to go to a lossless format you might want to consider FLAC. It's natively supported by the SB3 which gives 2 tangible benefits:

1. No transcoding need be done on the server. This will result in slightly less cpu usage.

2. FFW and REW only works in native formats.

[audiofi]

I had the same problem with Twonky and Slim both running, the solution I found was to start twonky after slimserver with a batch script which waits 30 seconds then loads twonky, it has worked perfectly since.

[bpa]

I think both Twonky and Slimserver want to use port 9000. Perhaps you should change the default of one of them.

[jeffluckett]

The responsiveness of the SB3 is dependant upon the speed of the server.

As you flip through menus, scroll through your library, etc... the SB has to talk to the server to get that information to display.

So ... if your server box is busy crunching on something (such as a library scan, or some other process unrelated to Slim...) then you will see slow response on the Squeeze box. Remember, that the SqueezeBox is the "dumb" end of the system.

Another cause can be network performance. Are you wired or wireless? Are you saturating your network with something?

If wireless, do you have a good signal at your SB location? Are you using a B or G wireless access point?

If wired ... are you sure your ethernet cable is in good shape?

[AndrueC]

The responsiveness of the SB3 is dependant upon the speed of the server.

As you flip through menus, scroll through your library, etc... the SB has to talk to the server to get that information to display.

So ... if your server box is busy crunching on something (such as a library scan, or some other process unrelated to Slim...) then you will see slow response on the Squeeze box. Remember, that the SqueezeBox is the "dumb" end of the system.

Another cause can be network performance. Are you wired or wireless? Are you saturating your network with something?

If wireless, do you have a good signal at your SB location? Are you using a B or G wireless access point?

If wired ... are you sure your ethernet cable is in good shape?

It's probably the server. That was the cheapest laptop I could find and it runs in maximum powersave which cripples the disk. I can live with the SB3 performance tbh. It's better now that there's no indexing going on.