Announce: Denon AVP Control Plugin

[mctr]

It might be possible to configure the plugin settings in such a way that it does what you want. If not, I can look at rigging something in the code for the next release, which is due to be published soon. When you speak of zones flickering on and off when volume adjusting Zone 3, I'm assuming that you have set up both plugins to control Zone 3 and they are each sending competing volume commands to the Denon, one via Telnet and the other via whatever protocol Airplay uses. Other than that, are you able to power off the AVR via the Denon plugin? It might be interesting to see a debug log of what is going on. In the meantime, if you configure the LMS audio "Volume Control" setting for the associated player to "Volume controls adjust outputs" instead of "Fixed at 100%", the plugin will not send volume or muting commands to the AVR at all, which is what you want. You would also want to leave the Quick Select / Input Source blank, assuming that is all set up with the Airplay bridge. With that configuration, the only commands sent to the AVR by the plugin should be Power On and Off. The extra Power On command shouldn't cause any problems. Give it a try and see how it goes.

I've tried this and I think it crashed my LMS

QS/Input left blank and Volume set to controls outputs (did not change this from before)

5k lines attached

[SamY]

I've tried this and I think it crashed my LMS

QS/Input left blank and Volume set to controls outputs (did not change this from before)

5k lines attached

The debug log shows that you are right about crashing (actually looping) your LMS. Unfortunately, the origin of the problem is before the start of the log file. I would like you to try the scenario again using the attached version of plugin.pm, which should provide additional info and (hopefully) prevent the loop condition. As in past testing, you must rename the attached plugin.pm.txt to plugin.pm, replace the version in the plugin directory and restart LMS. I would also like you to remove the existing server.log file before beginning the test. Whatever the results, please post the entire log file if possible. Thanks.

[mctr]

The debug log shows that you are right about crashing (actually looping) your LMS. Unfortunately, the origin of the problem is before the start of the log file. I would like you to try the scenario again using the attached version of plugin.pm, which should provide additional info and (hopefully) prevent the loop condition. As in past testing, you must rename the attached plugin.pm.txt to plugin.pm, replace the version in the plugin directory and restart LMS. I would also like you to remove the existing server.log file before beginning the test. Whatever the results, please post the entire log file if possible. Thanks.

Here's my run, seemed fine as far as off and on but the playback was wonky. Don't know if that had to do with the plugin or the AP bridge plugin - had an issue with that this afternoon not recognizing my players and had to sort that out too.

https://pastebin.com/cYSsbhBT

[SamY]

Here's my run, seemed fine as far as off and on but the playback was wonky. Don't know if that had to do with the plugin or the AP bridge plugin - had an issue with that this afternoon not recognizing my players and had to sort that out too.

https://pastebin.com/cYSsbhBT

Everything looks fine from the Denon plugin's point of view. The power on and off commands were handled normally, as you noted, and it is ignoring all of the volume control callback notifications, as it should when running with the player set to variable volume output. There are, however, an unusually large number of playlist control notifications such as "play", "open", "jump", "newsong", "stop", "index", etc., all coming in a seemingly continuous stream --- much more activity than I would expect from an ordinary listening session. I don't know if you were generating the activity manually via the client app or if they were coming from the AP bridge plugin. While none of these callback notifications cause any action to be taken by the plugin, they do cause some network and cpu overhead that could affect performance and possibly result in "wonky" playback. Maybe you could elaborate on what you observed in that respect. The good news is that the looping error condition is no longer an issue and the plugin is behaving as expected overall. I suspect that the wonky playback might result from conflicting commands being generated by the two plugins. For example, when the Denon plugin sees an LMS "play" command while it is in the process of powering on the AVR, it generates a "pause" command until the AVR is powered on completely, at which time it sends a "play" command. This is done in order to make sure that the playback doesn't start until the AVR is ready, thus avoiding cutting off the beginning of the song. The AP bridge plugin probably also issues its own player commands, with both plugins assuming that they are in charge.

Let me know if you want to pursue this any further but I'm not sure it's worth the effort and the overhead incurred by the Denon plugin just to get the AVR to turn off automatically after AP playback. You could always set the AVR's auto standby timeout to the minimum value (10 minutes?) to ensure that it does get turned off eventually.

[mctr]

Everything looks fine from the Denon plugin's point of view. The power on and off commands were handled normally, as you noted, and it is ignoring all of the volume control callback notifications, as it should when running with the player set to variable volume output. There are, however, an unusually large number of playlist control notifications such as "play", "open", "jump", "newsong", "stop", "index", etc., all coming in a seemingly continuous stream --- much more activity than I would expect from an ordinary listening session. I don't know if you were generating the activity manually via the client app or if they were coming from the AP bridge plugin. While none of these callback notifications cause any action to be taken by the plugin, they do cause some network and cpu overhead that could affect performance and possibly result in "wonky" playback. Maybe you could elaborate on what you observed in that respect. The good news is that the looping error condition is no longer an issue and the plugin is behaving as expected overall. I suspect that the wonky playback might result from conflicting commands being generated by the two plugins. For example, when the Denon plugin sees an LMS "play" command while it is in the process of powering on the AVR, it generates a "pause" command until the AVR is powered on completely, at which time it sends a "play" command. This is done in order to make sure that the playback doesn't start until the AVR is ready, thus avoiding cutting off the beginning of the song. The AP bridge plugin probably also issues its own player commands, with both plugins assuming that they are in charge.

Let me know if you want to pursue this any further but I'm not sure it's worth the effort and the overhead incurred by the Denon plugin just to get the AVR to turn off automatically after AP playback. You could always set the AVR's auto standby timeout to the minimum value (10 minutes?) to ensure that it does get turned off eventually.

Yeah, I imagine it is something like that causing the issue as without the AVR plugin I never had any issues with AP bridge playback. I don't think it is worth any further investigation we can just stop here and I will find some other way. I guess I do have a bunch of extra Pis laying around if it ends up annoying me that much. Thanks as always for the insight

[DavidBulluss]

Hi Sam. I have noticed that after about a half hour of play the Denon amp switched off and music play is paused when using Z2. Controlling via MS on android. If Z1 is also on then Z2 shuts off and Z1 remains on. Touching PLAY on the MS interface turns the amp back on and it reverts to my preset volume. I do have a 30 minute AUTO STANDBY set generally but it hasn't caused a shutdown while playing music Z2 prior to the recent plugin revisions. Though I would start with the plugin to find any issues so have attached a log in which the issue occurs twice, if you wouldn't mind looking at it for me to see if it is something the plugin is doing, or not doing!

server.log(33).zip

Cheers, David

[SamY]

Hi Sam. I have noticed that after about a half hour of play the Denon amp switched off and music play is paused when using Z2. Controlling via MS on android. If Z1 is also on then Z2 shuts off and Z1 remains on. Touching PLAY on the MS interface turns the amp back on and it reverts to my preset volume. I do have a 30 minute AUTO STANDBY set generally but it hasn't caused a shutdown while playing music Z2 prior to the recent plugin revisions. Though I would start with the plugin to find any issues so have attached a log in which the issue occurs twice, if you wouldn't mind looking at it for me to see if it is something the plugin is doing, or not doing!

I'll take a look at the log but, in the meantime, could you try changing the Auto Standby value to 1 hour and seeing if that changes when the Zone shuts off? I can't think of anything in the plugin that would cause the behavior.

[DavidBulluss]

I'll take a look at the log but, in the meantime, could you try changing the Auto Standby value to 1 hour and seeing if that changes when the Zone shuts off? I can't think of anything in the plugin that would cause the behavior.

Will reset it now and report the effect.

Cheers, David

[DavidBulluss]

I'll take a look at the log but, in the meantime, could you try changing the Auto Standby value to 1 hour and seeing if that changes when the Zone shuts off? I can't think of anything in the plugin that would cause the behavior.

Set to 60 minutes, still turned off and play halted. Log attached.

server.log(34).zip

Most likely solution will be to turn the amp time-out off in amp settings, but I haven't seen the behaviour previously.

Cheers, David

[SamY]

Set to 60 minutes, still turned off and play halted. Log attached.

Most likely solution will be to turn the amp time-out off in amp settings, but I haven't seen the behaviour previously.

I found the following in a Denon AVR forum post. If it applies to your model, it could explain what you are seeing and the solution would be, as you said, to turn off Auto Standby for Zone 2.

"The Denon manual says that in Main Zone, the Auto Standby fuction will switch the receiver to standby when, during the selected time, no video or audio signal is present. There's also a Zone2, where Auto Standby is not triggered by absence of signal, but by absence of operation (volume control and such)."

[DavidBulluss]

I found the following in a Denon AVR forum post. If it applies to your model, it could explain what you are seeing and the solution would be, as you said, to turn off Auto Standby for Zone 2.

"The Denon manual says that in Main Zone, the Auto Standby fuction will switch the receiver to standby when, during the selected time, no video or audio signal is present. There's also a Zone2, where Auto Standby is not triggered by absence of signal, but by absence of operation (volume control and such)."

That is probably it, I had the system on yesterday for much longer than I have for months (due to the weather here finally being worthy of outdoor enjoyment!) and during that time I wandered away from it but left it running, which is unusual behaviour for me, so I wasn't changing tracks or volume as I usually would. Today was I was simulating for log files I left it playing at a low volume without fiddling, again unusual. Thanks for your reply on this, I knew that zone one didn't time out when being used so assumed the same for Z2 - so much for assumptions!

I will of course be mindful of it in future.

Cheers, David

[SamY]

That is probably it, I had the system on yesterday for much longer than I have for months (due to the weather here finally being worthy of outdoor enjoyment!) and during that time I wandered away from it but left it running, which is unusual behaviour for me, so I wasn't changing tracks or volume as I usually would. Today was I was simulating for log files I left it playing at a low volume without fiddling, again unusual. Thanks for your reply on this, I knew that zone one didn't time out when being used so assumed the same for Z2 - so much for assumptions!

I will of course be mindful of it in future.

Cheers, David

No problem, David. Glad you are enjoying the multi-zone functionality. Take care.

EDIT: I just looked at the debug log and it appears that the AVR power off is actually being initiated from the plugin in response to a player "power off" command from LMS approximately 31 minutes after it is turned on. I would check to make sure that there is not a sleep timer set for the SB Touch in the player settings or a plugin (e.g. "PowerSave") that might automatically shut off the player after some interval of time. If the problem keeps happening after you disable the AVR's Auto Standby for Zone 2 and check these other possibilities, let me know. Again though, there is nothing in the plugin itself that would trigger the player shutting off.

[DavidBulluss]

No problem, David. Glad you are enjoying the multi-zone functionality. Take care.

EDIT: I just looked at the debug log and it appears that the AVR power off is actually being initiated from the plugin in response to a player "power off" command from LMS approximately 31 minutes after it is turned on. I would check to make sure that there is not a sleep timer set for the SB Touch in the player settings or a plugin (e.g. "PowerSave") that might automatically shut off the player after some interval of time. If the problem keeps happening after you disable the AVR's Auto Standby for Zone 2 and check these other possibilities, let me know. Again though, there is nothing in the plugin itself that would trigger the player shutting off.

Spot on! It was the PowerSave plugin that was the issue, set to "always" (default?) rather than "on stop" etc. I had installed it to try it out int the last few weeks as it was discussed briefly here, and immediately forgot I had done so, apologies for that.

Yes, am enjoying the multi-zone functionality, great job!

Cheers, David

[SamY]

Version 4.7.2 released

Changes/enhancements:

• Add support for Orange Squeeze and Open Squeeze client apps in the AVR Settings menus. The list of client apps supporting the menus now include: Material Skin, Squeezer, iPeng, Squeeze Ctrl, Squeezelite-X (via Material Skin), Orange Squeeze and Open Squeeze.
• Improve the process of pausing and resuming playback while powering on the AVR so as to reduce the likelihood of missing the first few seconds of playback.
• No longer restart the current track when switching to the AVR player during the process of transferring the queue or syncing with another player.
• Extend the functionality of the AVR Settings menus so they can still be used even after the player has been stopped, as long as the AVR is still powered on, e.g. after switching the AVR to another input.
• Various bug fixes and optimizations.

[oliverbg1]

I'm back with issues..

Hello all,

My config (Denon AVR-2311 with serial connector - pcp with ser2net extension) is down.

Recently I've do updates (on the denon plugin side, on the lms server side, and on the pcp side), and now I'm not able to have the plugin working.
Here are the logs :

 Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (341) *** DenonAvpControl: Quick Select: 1
[22-12-11 19:19:32.3994] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (342) *** DenonAvpControl: Zone: 0
[22-12-11 19:19:32.3995] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (343) *** DenonAvpControl: Speakers: 0
[22-12-11 19:19:32.3997] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (344) *** DenonAvpControl: Audio Menu Enabled: 0
[22-12-11 19:19:32.3998] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (345) *** DenonAvpControl: Multi-zone Enabled: 0
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4000] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (346) *** DenonAvpControl: AVR Type: 0
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4001] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (347) *** DenonAvpControl: IP Address: HTTP://192.168.1.100:22222
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4003] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (348) *** DenonAvpControl: MAC Address: b8:27:eb:a4:af:0b
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4005] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (349) *** DenonAvpControl: Client ID: b8:27:eb:a4:af:0b
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4006] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (354) *** DenonAvpControl: Player output level is: Fixed
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4008] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (355) *** DenonAvpControl: Player model is: SqueezeLite
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4010] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (368) *** DenonAvpControl: Turning Pcp00-AMPLI off to sync with plugin
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4021] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (385) *** DenonAvpControl: added Client ID to clientid array
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4022] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (386) *** DenonAvpControl: Client ID table is: b8:27:eb:a4:af:0b 
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4024] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::newPlayerCheck (445) Number of registered plugin players = 1
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4031] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2174) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() p0: playlist
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4033] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2175) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() p1: addtracks
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4034] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2176) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() p2: 
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4037] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2190) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() Player: Pcp00-AMPLI
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4042] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2174) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() p0: power
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4044] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2175) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() p1: 
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4045] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2176) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() p2: 0
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4047] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2190) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() Player: Pcp00-AMPLI
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4048] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2198) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() Self-initiated command - bypassing 
[22-12-11 19:19:32.4051] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::prefSetCallback (2128) *** DenonAvpControl: prefSetCallback() Player Pcp00-AMPLI is powered off
[22-12-11 19:19:32.9149] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::getAvpModelInfo (2838) *** DenonAvpControl: getting AVR model string for device: HTTP://192.168.1.100:22222
[22-12-11 19:19:32.9152] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::SendNetAvpGetModelInfo (734) Calling writemsg for model info query
[22-12-11 19:19:32.9183] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::writemsg (778) Sent AVR command request: SYMO
[22-12-11 19:19:32.9242] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::_read (947) read routine called
[22-12-11 19:19:33.0494] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::_read (953) Error: read routine returned 0 bytes
[22-12-11 19:19:33.0496] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::_error (789) error routine called
[22-12-11 19:19:33.0497] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::_error (796) error connecting to AVR: error=End of file, request=SYMO
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3832] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2174) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() p0: power
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3834] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2175) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() p1: 
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3837] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2176) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() p2: 1
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3839] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2190) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() Player: Pcp00-AMPLI
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3842] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2226) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() Power: 1 
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3844] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::calculateAvrVolume (2383) *** DenonAvpControl: Max AVR volume: -10 
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3846] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::calculateAvrVolume (2385) *** DenonAvpControl: Client volume: 25 
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3849] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::calculateAvrVolume (2386) *** DenonAvpControl: Raw subVol: 350 
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3851] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::calculateAvrVolume (2401) *** DenonAvpControl: Calc Vol: 35 
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3853] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2262) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() Power On for AVP/AVR model: inprogress
[22-12-11 19:21:41.3856] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::commandCallback (2263) *** DenonAvpControl: commandCallback() Player output level is: Fixed 
[22-12-11 19:21:42.3969] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::Plugin::handleSendPowerOn (2484) *** DenonAvpControl: handling Send Power ON 
[22-12-11 19:21:42.3972] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::SendNetAvpOn (558) Calling writemsg for On command
[22-12-11 19:21:42.3983] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::writemsg (778) Sent AVR command request: ZMON
[22-12-11 19:21:42.4043] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::_read (947) read routine called
[22-12-11 19:21:42.5295] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::_read (953) Error: read routine returned 0 bytes
[22-12-11 19:21:42.5297] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::_error (789) error routine called
[22-12-11 19:21:42.5299] Plugins::DenonAvpControl::DenonAvpComms::_error (796) error connecting to AVR: error=End of file, request=ZMON

I'll try everything like to get back to old plugin version '4.4.1', get back to old server version (not easy because I use nightly builds), get back to pcp 8.1 (but for this , dependencies are not the same...).

I'm crying of this because this plugin is so great and I don't understand what is the problem.

Does anyone have an idea ?

Many thanks.

Olivier