Raspberry Pi basics

[garym]

Yes, I know, my LMS cache is on the same USB SSD as my music files.

Lets keep it simple though, it's frustrating for noobs and people trying to help, this should be so easy to setup.

understand. Ron needs to get a normal drive mounted, setup and working before worrying about moving cache, etc.

[RonM]

I agree, and I would start by using a different drive, even a thumb drive. There should be no concern regarding power with a stick. Ron, I went back and read your original post, and it seems to indicate that pCP sees your drive, maybe even mounts it (or thinks it does), mounts a phantom as a "bonus" but can't access it. You say it stops when you try to select the LMS music folders, and/or scan.

One thing you could try is to "move lms data" to the presumed mounted drive, and see if that succeeds. You can always move it back. If that also fails it might tell you the drive is not behaving as the rpi wants it to. If it succeeds maybe you can go to the next step and setup samba, then see if you can access your music folders that way. I know that this seems goofy, but I always try eliminate possibilities to zero in on the problem.

You mentioned that it consumes less than 0.6a. I looked on the web and that is true, but it uses 1A in spin up. Still should be ok with total usb supplied power on pi's 1.2A (I think). But, maybe your rpi power supply is inferior or defective? A thumb drive might help identify if this is the case.

Jim

Re the power issue with the drive, the system sees it fine through spinup, and then sees the folders on it. The problem occurs when I try to select the folders it provides me as options for music/playlist source.

R.

[RonM]

At this point, my next move would be to start over. Rewrite the SD card with PiCorePlayer and resetup.

Yes, I will do that. And I'll use a self-powered drive as the source.

I have so many old drives hanging around that I repurpose for various things. Not so many self-powered, as I've taken to using USB self-powered devices that accept raw internal drives by simply plugging the drive in and turning on. The ones I use accept either 2.5 or 3.5 inch drives. One of them is actually the source for my music library (using a 3.5" 2tb drive plugged in), but i am preferring to leave the current active setup alone, and set up the Pi in parallel.

R.

[RonM]

Okay, it all seems to work! Thanks all for your help.

I had some roadbumps on the way, as is apparent above, plus some others. My initial USB HDD (the HP Pocket Media Drive) appears to be faulty in some way, although it apparently works fine when attached to my primary computer.

I ended up using the dock that my main music collection uses, but used a different 1 tb drive that used to live there. This meant that once I got it properly installed I had to let it beaver away to do a full scan. Decided I might as well to allow me to use it for a while before reverting to my previous arrangement.

At one point things got weird and I couldn't connect to the Pi through the router. Turned out I'd somehow dislodged the ethernet connection from the Pi (I think that particular cable has lost the catch that locks it in place). Then my external internet went down for a few minutes for some unknown reason, at the point the Pi was trying to get Samba.

I was using the online documentation from pCp, and decided I didn't want to name the music location "lmsfiles" which the documentation uses, and used "music" instead. But forgot, and when I tried to use Samba to view the files it wouldn't work because I was following the documentation which used lmsfiles. Anyway, figured it out.

I'd have preferred to have access to the folder via Samba without using a password and username, since no one else is going to be accessing. Is that an option? I couldn't see how. This is of some import because I use dbPoweramp to rip CDs when I get them (not as often as in the past, but still do), and have it writing directly to the LMS music location, as well as to another backup location and MP3 versions of the files to a third location, all separate drives. I'm not sure I can do that with the LMS file location being password protected.

And is the username "tc" hard coded in some way? It was defaulted in and I couldn't change.

An advantage of downloading the pCp package again is that I got a newer version, and when I got LMS it was 8.1.1.

I should note that the step-by-step documentation does instruct the user to move the cache to the USB drive, doesn't even suggest it's an option. Just do it. What's the advantage over using the SD card?

I had disconnected the Transporter from the wired ethernet (haven't set up wifi), in order to have a router port to plug in the Pi. There are four players in the network now, two Booms, a Touch and a Radio. The latter two automatically connected to the Pi, but the Booms did not. When I look at the players (using SqueezeControl on my Android) the Booms are still showing as using my FitPC3, while the Touch and Radio both show PiCoreLMS. I assume I have to set the older Booms to the new server manually.

And I note that the Radio now thinks that it is 8:37 on Dec 31 of some year, so presumably there is a date setting within the pCp that I need to set. But it's odd that the radio or pCp doesn't get it from the internet directly.

Anyway, all went well and was straightforward, except for the various stumbles that mostly had little to do with the pCp itself. I'll use it as my player for now, while I do an upgrade to Win10 on my FitPC; if that works out I'll decide which to use as my server. Happy keeping the pCp around as backup, but maybe I'll end up using it.

Again, thanks for all the help.

R.

[RonM]

So, just to keep it clear and separate from the mammoth post above, how do I get the Pi4 and pCp to report the correct date to my players? Through the interface, without using Linux?

R.

[Paul Webster]

Is the current date very old (1970s) or close but probably wrong timezone?

If timezone then go to Tweaks in the pCP interface and see the extended help there.

[RonM]

Not timezone, time is not even-hours out, and it has a day (Wednesday) and date in December, neither of which would be timezone. Can't see the year on the radio.

edit -- I'm now at the pCP, and can't see a way to see the time. I note that there is a default for timeserver. I've rebooted and the Radio is still showing a wrong date/time.

R.

[Viragored]

I should note that the step-by-step documentation does instruct the user to move the cache to the USB drive, doesn't even suggest it's an option. Just do it. What's the advantage over using the SD card?

R.

When I first set up piCorePlayer I too followed the instructions to put the LMS files on the external hard drive. I understand that reduces the risk of data corruption during adverse events such as power cuts or blips. A downside is that the RPi will access the external hard drive while using LMS, even to do tasks that don't involve the user data on the hard drive.
I have since moved the LMS data back to the SD card, and the hard drive now only spins up when LMS is accessing my own music. Michael Herger reports (sorry, can't find a direct link to his post) that he has run an RPi set up like that for several years continuously with no problems.
The latest versions of pCP allow the user to set up multiple partitions on the SD card, making it possible to keep the LMS data separate from the operating system. That should minimise the risk of LMS data corruption during adverse events. But I've not been brave enough to attempt that yet.
And congratulations for getting your system up and running - I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy mine.

[RonM]

Another single topic post.

Is it possible to set Samba access to the music files so that a username and password is not required, allowing dbpoweramp to write to the music drive when ripping? And what's with the apparently defaulted in "tc" as a username?

R.

[ChrisNY]

Not timezone, time is not even-hours out, and it has a day (Wednesday) and date in December, neither of which would be timezone. Can't see the year on the radio.

edit -- I'm now at the pCP, and can't see a way to see the time. I note that there is a default for timeserver. I've rebooted and the Radio is still showing a wrong date/time.

R.

I think it may be a timing thing as to when the time is set (via Internet) vs. when your network connection is active. I had a similar issue and I was able to get the time to update by running the script found here:
/usr/bin/getTime.sh (run as sudo)

I know you said you wanted to do it through the interface, so perhaps this isn't a viable solution for you. However maybe it will be of use to others in the future or someone may know how to replicate this through the interface.

Not a long-term solution, but it worked for me as it was maddening that it was showing the wrong time (as I am sure you can relate to).


-Chris