LMS on MacOS 10.15 "Catalina"?

[Evan_E]

I've searched the forum for terms like "iTunes", "MacOS", and "Catalina", but can't seem to find anything about this - as of the forthcoming release of MacOS 10.15 "Catalina", Apple's going to be dispensing with iTunes, replacing it with a "Music" app modeled after the one in iOS.

Has anyone been trying this out in the beta of Catalina? Does it mess with the way LMS has been interacting with iTunes for years (scanning files organized by iTunes, and reading iTunes playlists)? I've been using iTunes as a way to rip and organize my library of music for a decade or so, then using LMS to serve it to various Squeezebox devices around the house, and if that's all going to break with OS 10.15 I may have to think long and hard about having a separate iTunes & LMS server. Or I might finally bite the bullet and switch to a Sonos system, but that's major chunk of change, esp. given the number of Squeezeboxen I have.

Thanks in advance for anyone who can share their experiences.

[mherger]

> Has anyone been trying this out in the beta of Catalina? Does it mess
> with the way LMS has been interacting with iTunes for years (scanning

Yes. iTunes import is dead. macOS no longer provides the XML file we've
been parsing for years. From the discussions I've read this is gone for
good, and was supposed to be deprecated for years.

--

Michael

[Paul Webster]

Just seen an article that says that manual export of playlists to XML will be possible ... but there is SDK access to the info which works with iTunes and will work with "Music".

https://djtechtools.com/2019/09/15/w...0-15-catalina/

[mherger]

> Just seen an article that says that manual export of playlists to XML
> will be possible ... but there is SDK access to the info which works
> with iTunes and will work with "Music".

Pull requests will be very welcome :-)
--

Michael

[Paul Webster]

Looks like the SDK is MacOS only and requires code signing.
https://developer.apple.com/document...?language=objc

[Paul Webster]

Maybe the way to do it would be for someone (with a Mac) to produce an application that creates an XML file that looks like the one that iTunes currently creates.
Assuming that quite a few applications (not just LMS) are still using the iTunes XML file mechanism then I could imagine that someone will build such a thing (i.e. not necessarily someone with LMS).

An example of a demo app that uses the framework
https://github.com/zadr/iTunesLibraryExample

[sgmlaw]

Not to hijack the thread, but what is the projected compatibility of MPlayer with LMS under Catalina?

MPlayer has been a nice bridge app to allow seamless LMS playback of WMA files.

Up to now, I have only found the earlier 32-bit versions of MPlayer to work with LMS on my OSX systems.

Newer MPlayer OSX Extended (64-bit) versions don't seem to work with LMS 7.9.x, at least not for me.

And Catalina will only run 64-bit apps.

[dborod]

Can anyone confirm if SqueezePlay still works on Catalina? Activity Monitor reports that it's a 64-bit app, but that no guarantee.

[sgmlaw]

Can anyone confirm if SqueezePlay still works on Catalina? Activity Monitor reports that it's a 64-bit app, but that no guarantee.

I can confirm that SqueezePlay version 1034 or higher should work with Catalina.

If you have a fully updated version of Mojave, you will get a preemptive warning prompt if the application is going to have a problem with Catalina.

I think the latest Mac version of SqueezePlay is r1188. Ralph Irving, the current developer, may have further information.

Versions can be found here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/lms...s/squeezeplay/

[sgmlaw]

Having just upgraded to Catalina today, I can absolutely confirm that SqueezePlay runs under it.

HOWEVER, if it is not already on these lists, perl must be added to the list of "Full Disc Access" applications in Security & Privacy settings under System Preferences in Catalina.

Otherwise, LMS cannot access your local Media Library folders.

Once added, perl will also be automatically added to the list of apps allowed to access files and folders under the "Files and Folders" listing in that same Security & Privacy pane.

I have been unable to add perl only to the File and Folder access pane, so it must be given Full Disc Access at this time. This appears to be a current limitation of Catalina.