LMS on MacOS 10.15 "Catalina"?

[sgmlaw]

After fiddling with Catalina and LMS for a couple of days, I've finally got it starting, re-starting and running smoothly again. Here are some observations, for those still struggling after the OS upgrade:

Applications will dynamically appear in the Full Disk Access pane as LMS goes through its processes. You need to then unlock the pane as they appear, and then check those applications to elevate their permissions.

In Full Disk Access permissions, two LMS-related applications arise: "sh", and "perl". Once those two applications are given permissions under Full Disk Access, LMS starts and works normally again.

This is in addition to any prior terminal-based permissions commands that may have been required under Mojave. As a preemptive measure, it may be a good idea to re-run the terminal script application if Catalina has reset those permissions.

All plugins in my LMS implementation, with the exception of PlayWMA, are now starting and operating normally. PlayWMA currently relies on a 32-bit version of MPlayer, which is unsupported under Catalina.

Should I encounter any further glitches with Catalina, I'll supplement this thread.

[mherger]

> Applications will dynamically appear in the Full Disk Access pane as LMS
> goes through its processes. You need to then unlock the pane as they
> appear, and then check those applications to elevate their permissions.
>
> In Full Disk Access permissions, two LMS-related applications arise:
> "sh", and "perl". Once those two applications are given permissions
> under Full Disk Access, LMS starts and works normally again.

I'm still puzzled by this... I never was asked to change anything there,
nor do I see sh or perl in those lists!

Did you update to Catalina from an earlier macOS, or is this a new system?

--

Michael

[olduser]

Hi, I have been a long time user of LMS and is holding off upgrading to Catalina because of this thread. So after upgrading to Catalina, LMS won't be able to scan the iTunes files at all? In essence LMS won't work with Catalina at all? Will there be updates that will fix this? Sorry for my ignorance, I'm mostly a user and rarely go in the technicality.

[Paul Webster]

Hi, I have been a long time user of LMS and is holding off upgrading to Catalina because of this thread. So after upgrading to Catalina, LMS won't be able to scan the iTunes files at all? In essence LMS won't work with Catalina at all? Will there be updates that will fix this? Sorry for my ignorance, I'm mostly a user and rarely go in the technicality.

You can manually export the required XML file from iTunes ... so you could do this each time you add music to iTunes.
It looks like that process can be automated (see a script earlier in this thread) ... so you could probably set that to run periodically.

Others in this thread do have LMS working but have had some issues getting it done ... so you might want to hold off a bit longer until things settle down.

[sgmlaw]

I'm still puzzled by this... I never was asked to change anything there,
nor do I see sh or perl in those lists!

Did you update to Catalina from an earlier macOS, or is this a new system?

--

Michael[/QUOTE]

Michael,

No, you do not receive any direct alert or notification prompts to change anything in Catalina as LMS starts. LMS will simply not entirely function. The extent of non-function likely will depend on which permissions are still lacking in the particular system.

In my case, my Media Library disappeared, as LMS could no longer access it on an external volume. That is typically a file permissions issue. This was an upgrade situation, from Mojave to Catalina. Not a clean install, not a new system. So in my implementation, the earlier terminal permissions script had already been run under Mojave. And I do not enable a software firewall in my system.

So I could stream internet radio and access all the clients after the upgrade to Catalina. But in my install, Catalina would not allow LMS to access local data volumes.

So in addition to the earlier terminal script commands under Mojave to elevate some permissions, I also needed to open and change settings in the Full Disc Access pane with Catalina.

With the Full Disc Access pane open in System Preferences, as LMS starts, you will see apps start to appear, as they seek disc access, for which they do not yet have permissions.

You have to manually go into the Full Disc Access pane and check them off as they appear. In my instance, two apps popped up as LMS started: perl and sh. Once both were given Full Disc Access, I recovered full LMS functionality, and access to my Media Library folders on an external volume was then permitted. All is now well again.

The only lingering issue I am having involves two third-party plugins, which I have already identified. One is an obvious 32-bit issue, the other easily resolved with a manual restart of that plugin. Both developers appear to be aware of the issues.

Again, this file access issue is not novel, only the scope of it has changed. I had encountered it before under Mojave with third-party backup solutions accessing OS-level folders. Now under Catalina, disk access permissions have become more aggressively applied across all volumes. So the prior experience under Mojave informed me where to check first.

I hope that clarifies things for those experiencing disappearing libraries under Catalina.

[Dylan Mc]

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.

...

Thanks in advance for anyone who can share their experiences.

I just (perhaps foolishly) upgraded my LMS server to Catalina. Indeed iTunes import isn't working well. My library size even thwarts the manual "Export Library" to XML workaround. (Apple Music lets me try, but produces no XML file at all - I have filed a bug.) As a last resort, so I can listen to some music while I figure out databases etc., I tried pointing LMS's "Music Folder" to my Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music folder, and lo-and-behold, it worked great.

The other thing Catalina does is deprecate all 32 bit executables. This interferes with LMS's ability to on-the-fly convert file formats. These converters (on my system) are in /Library/PreferencePanes/Squeezebox.prefPane/Contents/server/Bin/darwin. I used homebrew to install 64-bit versions of most of them - faad, mac, sox, flac, all have easy replacements, and I removed the 32-bit versions from the prefPane, and replaced them with symlinks to the homebrew executables in /usr/local/bin.

There is one missing one, though: "sls", which is proprietary by Fraunhofer. Strings on that binary says this:

MPEG-4 SLS / HD-AAC Decoder (c) 2006-2009 Fraunhofer IIS Erlangen (build: %s)
All Rights Reserved.
This build is for use with Squeezebox Server only.
This software and/or program is protected by copyright law and
international treaties.
Any reproduction or distribution of this software and/or program, or
any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties,
and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under law.

According to Settings>>Advanced>>File types, SLS is used for MPEG-4 SLS/HD-AAC files. Not sure if I have any of those, or how I'd check.

Anyway, I'm happily listening to my library again, with only a little inconvenience.

[mherger]

> listen to some music while I figure out databases etc., I tried pointing
> LMS's "Music Folder" to my Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music folder, and
> lo-and-behold, it worked great.

Yes, I wanted to point this out: you don't need LMS to scan iTunes
library just for the music files. It's more if you want to use its
playlists that you'll be missing the automatic integration right now.
You should still be able to point LMS at the actual music files and scan
that folder instead.

> The other thing Catalina does is deprecate all 32 bit executables. This
> interferes with LMS's ability to on-the-fly convert file formats. These
> converters (on my system) are in
> /Library/PreferencePanes/Squeezebox.prefPane/Contents/server/Bin/darwin.

There's a darwin-x86_64 folder, too. This should provide most 64 bit
binaries.

> According to Settings>>Advanced>>File types, SLS is used for MPEG-4
> SLS/HD-AAC files. Not sure if I have any of those, or how I'd check.

Heh... I was wondering, too. Had to google what it even was. But most
likely you won't need it.

--

Michael

[olduser]

You can manually export the required XML file from iTunes ... so you could do this each time you add music to iTunes.
It looks like that process can be automated (see a script earlier in this thread) ... so you could probably set that to run periodically.

Others in this thread do have LMS working but have had some issues getting it done ... so you might want to hold off a bit longer until things settle down.

Thanks Paul. I guess the process in Manually exporting the XML file from iTunes isn't that hard. Hopefully there will be an LMS update that address the rest of the issues.

I guess this will be the best Thread to follow on the progress?

[Paul Webster]

Regarding exporting ... see update from Dylan Mc a couple of posts earlier saying that Manual Export did not work for him.

[Dylan Mc]

Regarding exporting ... see update from Dylan Mc a couple of posts earlier saying that Manual Export did not work for him.

Exporting ~10,000 things works great. My library has over 40,000 songs, and trying to export that caused Music to immediately return (after choosing the file name), but without exporting anything. I sense a limit of 32,768 - maybe a signed 16-bit number somewhere?