Please read: software players & mysqueezebox.com

[mherger]

A few weeks ago we had two outages on mysqueezebox.com. That was more than we had in a long time before. Most likely just a coincidence. But it lead me to do some analysis of our infrastructure, its weaknesses and how we could improve. And this un-earthed a few issues.

We have supported using software players with LMS from the very early days. SoftSqueeze actually lead to hiring its author as the first SlimDevices employee overseas. Back then we considered it kind of a "try before you buy" for the actual Squeezebox. But with the end of the Squeezebox, the use of software players has become more and more important. They're being used as SB replacements as well as additions to existing installations or even totally new installations.

Unfortunately a bug or two in mysqueezebox.com led all those software players to be registered in our databases. From what I understand (reading the code) we tried to prevent even registration of older Squeezebox models and the good, old SliMP3, because they couldn't connect to mysqueezebox.com anyway. Therefore these software player registrations are unwanted and unnecessary. Add to this the fact that too many users tried to be smart about faking MAC addresses, and using mysqueezebox.com in ways we can no longer accept. In short: registration of software players on mysb.com has become a problem. I'm therefore going to fix those loopholes.

Alas those fixes won't go without some side-effects. Please expect some hiccups as I'm wading through potential solutions for these issues. I'll try my best to apply fair rules (after all I want to be able to run my Squeezeplay, too :-)). If you're running into any kind of issue using mysb.com based services, please let me know. It might be a temporary issue or not.

Thanks for your understanding!

--

Michael

[pippin]

Is the "side effect" that one can no longer use services provided by MySB on software players?

[mherger]

> Is the "side effect" that one can no longer use services provided by
> MySB on software players?

No. I want to be able to do this myself. But eg. players with faked
Squeezebox MAC addresses will no longer work as expected.

--

Michael

[Jeff07971]

> Is the "side effect" that one can no longer use services provided by
> MySB on software players?

No. I want to be able to do this myself. But eg. players with faked
Squeezebox MAC addresses will no longer work as expected.

--

Michael

Hi Michael,

To clarify, It is intended that MySB will be usable on software players but NOT those that use faked 00:04:20:**:**:** MACs ?

Jeff

[kidstypike]

I don't use mySQB.com, but I've just logged into my account and deleted 12 players I didn't even know were registered. They seemed to be Raspberry Pi's with names I don't even use now.

Just sayin'.

[mherger]

> To clarify, It is intended that MySB will be usable on software players
> but not those that use faked 00:04:20:**:**:** MACs ?

Yes, most software players should be able to continue to work as before.
A LMS update might become a requirement, though: today LMS receives the
list of music services on a per-player base. If we no longer let
software players register, this would return empty lists. I'll have to
update LMS to overcome this limitation.

--

Michael

[Jeff07971]

> To clarify, It is intended that MySB will be usable on software players
> but not those that use faked 00:04:20:**:**:** MACs ?

Yes, most software players should be able to continue to work as before.
A LMS update might become a requirement, though: today LMS receives the
list of music services on a per-player base. If we no longer let
software players register, this would return empty lists. I'll have to
update LMS to overcome this limitation.

--

Michael

Thanks Michael

[Jeff07971]

I don't use mySQB.com, but I've just logged into my account and deleted 12 players I didn't even know were registered. They seemed to be Raspberry Pi's with names I don't even use now.

Just sayin'.

Just did the same !

[pippin]

Yes, most software players should be able to continue to work as before.
A LMS update might become a requirement, though: today LMS receives the
list of music services on a per-player base. If we no longer let
software players register, this would return empty lists. I'll have to
update LMS to overcome this limitation.

You mean the server would download the list from the account and then all these services would work with all compatible players connected to that server? That would actually be quite a simplification Some people currently get confused when one service is not configured for one of their players, e.g. because they only added a service later or disabled it for some reason (I think by default MySB now applies all service changes to all players anyway).

[zordaz]

A stupid question perhaps, but what exactly defines a software player and when is it called a normal/hardware player?
I mean: every Squeezebox uses hardware and software for playing, whether it is an original device or whether it is a DIY-player.
For example: is a HifiBerry with piCorePlayer a software player? As far as I can see it is not using a fake MAC-address.