Softsqueeze 3.9 beta for testing

[bpa]

Softsqueeze 3.9b1 is a beta of a maintenance release for Softsqueeze - please test and provide feedback. As Softsqueeze is no longer actively maintained by SD staff I have fixed some bugs particularly those which affected playing when used with SqueezeCenter 7.3 and higher. If beta proves to be OK - it will be moved to sourceforge.

Main bugs fixed
* Non-MP3 streams not being played or require play/pause/play to start.
* Two files/streams playing simultaneously at start.
* Some Podcasts (e.g. BBC) not playing
* Sounds & Effects loop.

If beta is OK then I think these bug reports (some are dups) that could marked as closed : 10838, 10758, 8515, 8138, 7725, 7711, 7297 and possibly 3187

No new features have been implemented nor has anything been done explicitly to improve synchronisation.

To install

For 7.4 I have packaged Softsqueeze 3.9b1 as a Plugin so that it can be installed under WebUI Settings/Plugins after enabling 3rd party plugins. When installed as a plugin it will appear as a new "Community Softsqueeze" menu item under Extras. Otherwise it behaves the same as the standard Softsqueeze menu.


Do not run two Softsqueeze simultaneously (possibly only if different versions) - it is not pretty and upsets SC badly. You may need to restart SC afterwards to get stability.



This post has been updated to reflect latest packaging of Softsqueeze.

[atlslim]

Downloaded via Extension Downloader - opened via extra menu "community" link

WMA stream handling much improved on my Ubuntu server (7.3 trunk); Thanks!

Noticed this comment on the Extension Downloader page:

Community Softsqueeze (v3.9b1) - Failed to install (file checksum does not match)

??

[Club1820]

Softsqueeze
Main bugs fixed
* Non-MP3 streams not being played or require play/pause/play to start.
* Two files/streams playing simultaneously at start.
* Some Podcasts (e.g. BBC) not playing
* Sounds & Effects loop.

I downloaded and installed via extension downloader and am listening using softsqueeze as I type this. I previously have not experienced any of the above mentioned bugs. So maybe I was lucky. I will report back any issues with this new release.

...nor has anything been done explicitly to improve synchronisation.

I HAVE to ask! So if this new release works out the bugs, is synchronization something you may tackle at some point? I only ask because I use Softsqueeze a lot. And would always sync. it with my other hardware players. Previous to 7.3, it worked flawlessly. Always sync'd perfectly. Now, I dont even bother syncing because its just down right bad and not even worth it.

Ok, well just a thought.

Thanks for taking on the development of Softsqueeze!
Good Luck.

[eschurig]

bpa

Assuming this is the same softsqueeze update you posted on the thread: "AlienBBC 7.3 Linux no longer transcoding WMA (other work though", then I can give some positive feedback. Our last communication left off with the menus being a little slow when listening to a stream requiring transcoding. I played with this a bit more and determined that menus on my SB3 are also slow when a transcoded stream is being sent to squeezeplay or softsqueeze. Thus, I think this is probably slowness in my server as a result of the transcoding. My system is a 400MHz Pentium II with 256M memory.

I've had very good results connecting to wma streamed radio stations since installing your fixed softsqueeze. I don't think I've had an instance yet where it wouldn't connect and play. I've used softsqueeze quite often since receiving your fix and have had no problems.

Please let me know if this new version your posting is the same as the one you posted previously as:

SoftSqueezeFix.zip is now both signed and modded - please test again.
http://homepage.eircom.net/~altondsl...SqueezeFix.zip

If your new one contains additional fixes I would be happy to try it as well.

[eschurig]

I have another observation regarding mplayer for transcoding internet radio wma streams. While listening to a wma stream with softsqueeze, I noticed there were three mplayer processes running with the following process parent child relationships represented by the arrows pointing to the parent processes (process number in parenthesis):

mplayer.sh(25807) <-- mplayer(25810) <-- mplayer(25811)

After stopping the stream, the third process mplayer (25811) was still present. I tried the same experiment with squeezeplay and the same thing occurred except it took a little while for the 1st two mplayer processes to go away. I noticed after doing the experiment for the observations in my previous post that there were seven mplayer processes left running.

It seems like all the mplayer processes should be stopped when the stream requiring them is no longer being played. Seems like there might be a bug somewhere

[eschurig]

I have another observation regarding mplayer for transcoding internet radio wma streams. while listening to a wma stream with softsqueeze, I noticed there were three mplayer processes running with the following process parent child relationships represented by the arrows pointing to the parent processes (process number in parenthesis):

mplayer.sh(25807) <-- mplayer(25810) <-- mplayer(25811)

After stopping the stream, the third process mplayer (25811) was still present. I tried the same experiment with squeezeplay and the same thing occurred except it took a little while for the 1st two mplayer processes to go away. I noticed after doing the experiment for the observations in my previous post that there were seven mplayer processes left running.

It seems like all the mplayer processes should be stopped when the stream requiring them is no longer being played. Seems like there might be a bug somewhere

[bpa]

Community Softsqueeze (v3.9b1) - Failed to install (file checksum does not match)

That message is shown when the install fails. When that happens ED will not install. It is odd that you have a menu and SoftSqueeze works. To make sure you should check the Softsqueeze version (i.e. 3.9b1) on the Splash screen and also in SoftSqueeze preferences.

I HAVE to ask! So if this new release works out the bugs, is synchronization something you may tackle at some point? I only ask because I use Softsqueeze a lot. And would always sync. it with my other hardware players. Previous to 7.3, it worked flawlessly. Always synced perfectly. Now, I don't even bother syncing because its just down right bad and not even worth it.

I made the comment because someone was going to ask. I very very rarely use Softsqueeze - I initially did a bug fix to get at another SC bug. The 3.8 bug fix was a band-aid and didn't properly fix the situation so I spent some more time and some of the other bug fixes happened e.g. loop fix was due to a typo, podcast fix was fixed by a library update).

I tested sync on my systems and Softsqueeze was always in sync - it is hard to find bugs they cannot be reproduced easily. I personally do not think with the current Softsqueeze implementation that sync can be made reliable on all platforms because of the variety of OS, hardware, drivers, JVM and Java libraries. Furthermore, when doing the fixes I noticed oddities in audio (e.g. play after pause - audio has a small gap) but the behaviour changed as I tested various fixes. The code has a lot of threads with locking involved which can cause variable delays and I think some areas of the current implementation may need to be rewritten. This would take more time on an application and feature which has little interest for me and even then there is no guarantee it will work on all platforms.

Assuming this is the same softsqueeze update you posted on the thread: "AlienBBC 7.3 Linux no longer transcoding WMA (other work though",

It is not the same update.
The version I posted in that referenced thread and current 3.8 available on Softsqueeze are the same. SoftSqueeze 3.9b1 has a lot more fixes and uses updated libraries. The fix for 3.8 was a rough fix and it broke Softsqueeze in some other playback scenarios. Also users will still noticing problems with play/pause.

Softsqueeze 3.9b1 is different to 3.8 so please test.

It seems like all the mplayer processes should be stopped when the stream requiring them is no longer being played. Seems like there might be a bug somewhere

This is an mplayer/AlienBBC bug - nothing to do SoftSqueeze or SqueezeCenter. Some MPlayer versions do not shutdown properly on some Linux systems. It could be an old bug which went away and has come back on some systems (e.g. it happens on my Suse 10.1 but not on my Ubuntu 8.10) . Mplayer.sh used to kill the process when this bug happened but it no longer seems ot be effective. It would be best to start a new thread and provide details such as MPlayer version.

When mplayer is run - it creates a thread to assist buffering input. To decode a mplayer stream a shell process running mplayer.sh is started. This then create Mplayer which in turn starts a thread to read data from the file/tcp socket which can look like a process. When socket to SC is closed on termination - the thread dies and the shell process dies but the mplayer which is sending output to SC seems to be blocked and so doesn't die.

[bpa]

Note on syncing.

Previous to 7.3, it worked flawlessly. Always synced perfectly. Now, I don't even bother syncing because its just down right bad and not even worth it.

Syncing works fine on my system but it is different for different audio sources.

I found that MP3 syncs from the start. Wheras streams that need transcoding to FLAC such as WMA or AAC+ has different behaviour depending on how fast the transcoder takes to statt. AAC+ using faad syncs after about 5 secs but streams using mplayer such as WMA on Linux or RealAudio can take about 1-2 mins before it settles down.

For the record - please give as much details as possible such as what you are synching (e.g. file/stream, bit rate, format, tanscoded format), what players are being used and a log of playing a bad example with player.sync set to DEBUG before playing starts. With some additional info - it is possible there is a bug in Softsqueeze code or perhaps some other developer may have some insight.

[eschurig]

I have downloaded softsqueeze v3.9b1. So far so good. All stations I've tried so far work great. I tried several wma and mp3 stations and all looks good. I'm still having the mplayer process problem but will start a thread under linux to address that issue.

Thanks again for fixing softsqueeze. I use it often.

[Mike Meyer]

It's been quite a while since the Pause worked right for me. I have had to hit it 3 times to actually have it pause. But this seems to be fixed now.

Thanks bpa!