SlimServer 2004_09_23-1 and AlienBBC 0.9 problems

[Mark Bennett]

Hi Jules.

I have just upgraded to SlimServer 2004_09_23-1 along with
AlienBBC 0.9, and I can't get it to work.

I did have AlienBBC 0.6 working hapily with an earlier
5.3.0 beta release (although I never got AlienBBC 0.9
working at all).

I noticed that you have included an Alienstream binary,
so I moved this to /usr/local/bin (in place of the one I
compiled personally) so that it was on the path.

I also downloaded the Realplayer and LibXine rpms from your
web page to make sure I had the versions you have been
using.

Neither of these made any difference.

The symptoms are:

When I select a stream to play, the display comes up saying
connecting, but no sound ever comes out. The player then
effectively locks up. I can release the player by going
to the web browser and hitting stop for this player, at
which point it then cycles through all the button presses
I've made since it locked.

If I look at the system monitor during this time, I see
several Perl processes starting up with the Slimserver user,
but I never see alienstream.

If I load a stream manually into Alienstream (without Slim)
then it plays quite hapily.

As soon as I try to play a second stream (either the same
stream or a different on) it completely kills SlimServer.

If I turn on d_source debugging, I get:

2004-09-25 16:46:18.5522 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5: Switching to mode play from stop
2004-09-25 16:46:18.5532 openSong on: http://127.0.0.1:5123/RealAudio/http...ticshadows.ram
2004-09-25 16:46:18.5561 Trying to open protocol stream for http://127.0.0.1:5123/RealAudio/http...ticshadows.ram
2004-09-25 16:46:18.5563 Looking for handler for protocol http
2004-09-25 16:46:18.5565 Found handler for protocol http
2004-09-25 16:46:18.5708 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5 New play mode: play
2004-09-25 16:46:18.5740 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5: Current playmode: play

followed by lot's of messages like:

2004-09-25 16:46:18.7524 We need to send 0 seconds of silence...
2004-09-25 16:46:18.7526 sending 0 bytes of silence
2004-09-25 16:46:18.7530 would have blocked, will try again later

Do you have any ideas on what could be causing this, or what I could
do to track down the issue further?

My system is:

Linux RH9
Slimserver 2004_09_23-1
AlienBBC 0.9
Clients - SqueezeBox Classic & SoftSqueeze

I'm desperate to get this working again as soon as possible...

Thanks very much,
Mark

[Jules Taplin]

Hmmm. Ok Mark.

Not quite sure what it's problem is, but let's give this a go. I'm trying to
remember what's different between 0.6 and 0.9, other than lots of goodness


The first thing I'd suggest is the following:

In /usr/local/slimserver, you have a file 'transcoder_proxy.pl'. Take a look
at the first few lines, and confirm that the paths to 'alienstream' and
'lame' are correct. Just about any version of lame will do, but I'd strongly
recommend that you use the version of 'alienstream' that I packaged.

Secondly... if that's not revealing, then quite slimserver, and make sure
that the transcoder proxy isn't still running anywhere. Kill it if it is.

Now... take a new shell, and run 'transcoder_proxy.pl' on it's own. It
should just sit there, and wait for a connection. Restart slimserver, and
navigate to a stream. Try to play it.

What does the shell that's running 'transcoder_proxy.pl' have to say for
itself?


-- Jules

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Bennett" <mark (AT) markandliz (DOT) co.uk>
To: "Slim Devices Discussion" <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 4:49 PM
Subject: [slim] SlimServer 2004_09_23-1 and AlienBBC 0.9 problems


> Hi Jules.
>
> I have just upgraded to SlimServer 2004_09_23-1 along with
> AlienBBC 0.9, and I can't get it to work.
>
> I did have AlienBBC 0.6 working hapily with an earlier
> 5.3.0 beta release (although I never got AlienBBC 0.9
> working at all).
>
> I noticed that you have included an Alienstream binary,
> so I moved this to /usr/local/bin (in place of the one I
> compiled personally) so that it was on the path.
>
> I also downloaded the Realplayer and LibXine rpms from your
> web page to make sure I had the versions you have been
> using.
>
> Neither of these made any difference.
>
> The symptoms are:
>
> When I select a stream to play, the display comes up saying
> connecting, but no sound ever comes out. The player then
> effectively locks up. I can release the player by going
> to the web browser and hitting stop for this player, at
> which point it then cycles through all the button presses
> I've made since it locked.
>
> If I look at the system monitor during this time, I see
> several Perl processes starting up with the Slimserver user,
> but I never see alienstream.
>
> If I load a stream manually into Alienstream (without Slim)
> then it plays quite hapily.
>
> As soon as I try to play a second stream (either the same
> stream or a different on) it completely kills SlimServer.
>
> If I turn on d_source debugging, I get:
>
> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5522 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5: Switching to mode play from
> stop
> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5532 openSong on:
> http://127.0.0.1:5123/RealAudio/http...ticshadows.ram
> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5561 Trying to open protocol stream for
> http://127.0.0.1:5123/RealAudio/http...ticshadows.ram
> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5563 Looking for handler for protocol http
> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5565 Found handler for protocol http
> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5708 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5 New play mode: play
> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5740 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5: Current playmode: play
>
> followed by lot's of messages like:
>
> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.7524 We need to send 0 seconds of silence...
> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.7526 sending 0 bytes of silence
> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.7530 would have blocked, will try again later
>
> Do you have any ideas on what could be causing this, or what I could
> do to track down the issue further?
>
> My system is:
>
> Linux RH9
> Slimserver 2004_09_23-1
> AlienBBC 0.9
> Clients - SqueezeBox Classic & SoftSqueeze
>
> I'm desperate to get this working again as soon as possible...
>
> Thanks very much,
> Mark
>
>

[Mark Bennett]

Hi Jules,

that got it.

The paths to both Alienstream and Lame were "wrong". For some
reason on my system I'd put Alienstream in /usr/local/bin,
and Lame is in /usr/bin.

Once I fixed these paths in transcoder_proxy.pl it all came
back to life.

For some reason if I leave it pointing to
/usr/local/slimserver/alienstream I get the same problem, even
though it's the same binary and has execute permissions.

Anyway, it's working so I guess this is good news _ I will
just have to remember to modify it whne new versions are
introduced. Were previous AlienBBC versions just relying
on finding the executables in the path?

Thanks for the quick response, and as always, an excellent
plugin.

Cheers,
Mark.

Jules Taplin wrote:
> Hmmm. Ok Mark.
>
> Not quite sure what it's problem is, but let's give this a go. I'm
> trying to remember what's different between 0.6 and 0.9, other than lots
> of goodness
>
> The first thing I'd suggest is the following:
>
> In /usr/local/slimserver, you have a file 'transcoder_proxy.pl'. Take a
> look at the first few lines, and confirm that the paths to 'alienstream'
> and 'lame' are correct. Just about any version of lame will do, but I'd
> strongly recommend that you use the version of 'alienstream' that I
> packaged.
>
> Secondly... if that's not revealing, then quite slimserver, and make
> sure that the transcoder proxy isn't still running anywhere. Kill it if
> it is.
>
> Now... take a new shell, and run 'transcoder_proxy.pl' on it's own. It
> should just sit there, and wait for a connection. Restart slimserver,
> and navigate to a stream. Try to play it.
>
> What does the shell that's running 'transcoder_proxy.pl' have to say for
> itself?
>
>
> -- Jules
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Bennett" <mark (AT) markandliz (DOT) co.uk>
> To: "Slim Devices Discussion" <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
> Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 4:49 PM
> Subject: [slim] SlimServer 2004_09_23-1 and AlienBBC 0.9 problems
>
>
>> Hi Jules.
>>
>> I have just upgraded to SlimServer 2004_09_23-1 along with
>> AlienBBC 0.9, and I can't get it to work.
>>
>> I did have AlienBBC 0.6 working hapily with an earlier
>> 5.3.0 beta release (although I never got AlienBBC 0.9
>> working at all).
>>
>> I noticed that you have included an Alienstream binary,
>> so I moved this to /usr/local/bin (in place of the one I
>> compiled personally) so that it was on the path.
>>
>> I also downloaded the Realplayer and LibXine rpms from your
>> web page to make sure I had the versions you have been
>> using.
>>
>> Neither of these made any difference.
>>
>> The symptoms are:
>>
>> When I select a stream to play, the display comes up saying
>> connecting, but no sound ever comes out. The player then
>> effectively locks up. I can release the player by going
>> to the web browser and hitting stop for this player, at
>> which point it then cycles through all the button presses
>> I've made since it locked.
>>
>> If I look at the system monitor during this time, I see
>> several Perl processes starting up with the Slimserver user,
>> but I never see alienstream.
>>
>> If I load a stream manually into Alienstream (without Slim)
>> then it plays quite hapily.
>>
>> As soon as I try to play a second stream (either the same
>> stream or a different on) it completely kills SlimServer.
>>
>> If I turn on d_source debugging, I get:
>>
>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5522 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5: Switching to mode play
>> from stop
>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5532 openSong on:
>> http://127.0.0.1:5123/RealAudio/http...ticshadows.ram
>>
>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5561 Trying to open protocol stream for
>> http://127.0.0.1:5123/RealAudio/http...ticshadows.ram
>>
>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5563 Looking for handler for protocol http
>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5565 Found handler for protocol http
>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5708 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5 New play mode: play
>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5740 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5: Current playmode: play
>>
>> followed by lot's of messages like:
>>
>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.7524 We need to send 0 seconds of silence...
>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.7526 sending 0 bytes of silence
>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.7530 would have blocked, will try again later
>>
>> Do you have any ideas on what could be causing this, or what I could
>> do to track down the issue further?
>>
>> My system is:
>>
>> Linux RH9
>> Slimserver 2004_09_23-1
>> AlienBBC 0.9
>> Clients - SqueezeBox Classic & SoftSqueeze
>>
>> I'm desperate to get this working again as soon as possible...
>>
>> Thanks very much,
>> Mark
>>
>>

[Jules Taplin]

Hi Mark.

Actually... it's most likely that version 0.6 didn't rely on lame at all. At
the moment, it's rather annoying, but slimserver doesn't approve on non
44KHz raw PCM streams.

This meant that some streams didn't work right, and as a result, we added
lame in to resample it. It's not an ideal solution - transcoding from RA ->
PCM -> mp3 and then having the squeezeboxes transcode back to PCM is ugly,
and generates more CPU usage than necessary, although it does have the
coincidental side effect that the proxy has much less data to export to the
main slimserver than a 44KHz PCM stream would involve.

We're probably going to move how this works, so it's possible future
versions will have rather better handling of the helper applications.

Anyway - glad you got it working!

-- Jules

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Bennett" <mark (AT) markandliz (DOT) co.uk>
To: "Slim Devices Discussion" <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 6:37 PM
Subject: [slim] SlimServer 2004_09_23-1 and AlienBBC 0.9 problems


> Hi Jules,
>
> that got it.
>
> The paths to both Alienstream and Lame were "wrong". For some
> reason on my system I'd put Alienstream in /usr/local/bin,
> and Lame is in /usr/bin.
>
> Once I fixed these paths in transcoder_proxy.pl it all came
> back to life.
>
> For some reason if I leave it pointing to
> /usr/local/slimserver/alienstream I get the same problem, even though it's
> the same binary and has execute permissions.
>
> Anyway, it's working so I guess this is good news _ I will
> just have to remember to modify it whne new versions are
> introduced. Were previous AlienBBC versions just relying
> on finding the executables in the path?
>
> Thanks for the quick response, and as always, an excellent
> plugin.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark.
>
> Jules Taplin wrote:
>> Hmmm. Ok Mark.
>>
>> Not quite sure what it's problem is, but let's give this a go. I'm trying
>> to remember what's different between 0.6 and 0.9, other than lots of
>> goodness
>>
>> The first thing I'd suggest is the following:
>>
>> In /usr/local/slimserver, you have a file 'transcoder_proxy.pl'. Take a
>> look at the first few lines, and confirm that the paths to 'alienstream'
>> and 'lame' are correct. Just about any version of lame will do, but I'd
>> strongly recommend that you use the version of 'alienstream' that I
>> packaged.
>>
>> Secondly... if that's not revealing, then quite slimserver, and make sure
>> that the transcoder proxy isn't still running anywhere. Kill it if it is.
>>
>> Now... take a new shell, and run 'transcoder_proxy.pl' on it's own. It
>> should just sit there, and wait for a connection. Restart slimserver, and
>> navigate to a stream. Try to play it.
>>
>> What does the shell that's running 'transcoder_proxy.pl' have to say for
>> itself?
>>
>>
>> -- Jules
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Bennett" <mark (AT) markandliz (DOT) co.uk>
>> To: "Slim Devices Discussion" <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
>> Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 4:49 PM
>> Subject: [slim] SlimServer 2004_09_23-1 and AlienBBC 0.9 problems
>>
>>
>>> Hi Jules.
>>>
>>> I have just upgraded to SlimServer 2004_09_23-1 along with
>>> AlienBBC 0.9, and I can't get it to work.
>>>
>>> I did have AlienBBC 0.6 working hapily with an earlier
>>> 5.3.0 beta release (although I never got AlienBBC 0.9
>>> working at all).
>>>
>>> I noticed that you have included an Alienstream binary,
>>> so I moved this to /usr/local/bin (in place of the one I
>>> compiled personally) so that it was on the path.
>>>
>>> I also downloaded the Realplayer and LibXine rpms from your
>>> web page to make sure I had the versions you have been
>>> using.
>>>
>>> Neither of these made any difference.
>>>
>>> The symptoms are:
>>>
>>> When I select a stream to play, the display comes up saying
>>> connecting, but no sound ever comes out. The player then
>>> effectively locks up. I can release the player by going
>>> to the web browser and hitting stop for this player, at
>>> which point it then cycles through all the button presses
>>> I've made since it locked.
>>>
>>> If I look at the system monitor during this time, I see
>>> several Perl processes starting up with the Slimserver user,
>>> but I never see alienstream.
>>>
>>> If I load a stream manually into Alienstream (without Slim)
>>> then it plays quite hapily.
>>>
>>> As soon as I try to play a second stream (either the same
>>> stream or a different on) it completely kills SlimServer.
>>>
>>> If I turn on d_source debugging, I get:
>>>
>>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5522 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5: Switching to mode play from
>>> stop
>>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5532 openSong on:
>>> http://127.0.0.1:5123/RealAudio/http...ticshadows.ram
>>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5561 Trying to open protocol stream for
>>> http://127.0.0.1:5123/RealAudio/http...ticshadows.ram
>>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5563 Looking for handler for protocol http
>>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5565 Found handler for protocol http
>>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5708 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5 New play mode: play
>>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.5740 97:d4:97:1c:18:d5: Current playmode: play
>>>
>>> followed by lot's of messages like:
>>>
>>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.7524 We need to send 0 seconds of silence...
>>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.7526 sending 0 bytes of silence
>>> 2004-09-25 16:46:18.7530 would have blocked, will try again later
>>>
>>> Do you have any ideas on what could be causing this, or what I could
>>> do to track down the issue further?
>>>
>>> My system is:
>>>
>>> Linux RH9
>>> Slimserver 2004_09_23-1
>>> AlienBBC 0.9
>>> Clients - SqueezeBox Classic & SoftSqueeze
>>>
>>> I'm desperate to get this working again as soon as possible...
>>>
>>> Thanks very much,
>>> Mark
>>>
>>>