Frustrated with Duet System

[JohnGeeee]

Hi
I need advice please on what to do. I have a Squeezebox Duet and lately it is frustrating the hell out of me as It will not play what I want and is dead slow at getting to the albums that I want to play etc. I have had it for many years but now it just does not seem to perform the same as it used to.

I have a Zyxel NSA310 that I use as a server and it runs Squeezecenter Package as the Squeezebox media server. I have over 2,500 albums loaded onto it in Artist/Album folders. Most of the tracks I have ripped in MP3 from my CD collection and some tracks are in FLAC format. It is directly connected with an ethernet cable to my Virgin Media broadband wifi router.

The Squeezebox receiver is connected to my Onkyo Midi in the kitchen by the RCA cables. The Squeezebox receiver is using wifi to connect with Squeezecenter on the NAS. I use the Duet controller to play select the music.

Of late the Artist List takes many minutes to load up and when I select an artist it takes many minutes to load up the list of albums if at all. When I select an album to play it takes ages to start playing and when it does the track is stop start repeatedly.

Most of the time I am turning all the components on and off to try and get a better connection. It can take me 15 minutes or more to get anything playing. If I just go to Random Song Mix on the controller instead it starts playing tracks straight away and happily plays a different random track one after the other.

I have tried various Android Apps on my phone and Samsung tablet and get the same kind of response as when using the Duet controller.

If I try and play my albums using my laptop and Windows 10 and just accessing them directly on the NAS I have no problems and all the files play normally.

What can I do to work out which part of the system is the problem? I run the diagnostics on the Duet controller and everything is ok.

I am getting to the point where I just want to throw it in the bin and build a PI system or something

Anyone have similar experience?

[Paul Webster]

Browsing artists and selecting an album is a dialogue between a controller (in your case the Controller part of the Duet).
So it might not be the Receiver part of the Duet that has the problems.

What is your LMS running on?
Are things slow if you use the LMS web UI (or Material skin) to browse/select?

[Paul Webster]

... plus ...

Do you know if the tracks that exhibit problems require LMS to perform transcoding?
If not sure then ... how are they encoded?

[JohnGeeee]

Browsing artists and selecting an album is a dialogue between a controller (in your case the Controller part of the Duet).
So it might not be the Receiver part of the Duet that has the problems.

What is your LMS running on?
Are things slow if you use the LMS web UI (or Material skin) to browse/select?

Thanks Paul for reply.

the LMS is running from the NSA310 NAS. Through the NAS operating screen on my laptop I can open up the LMS in a web browser. I use that to do the track rescan if I ever add any new music. The Artist and Album listings take some seconds to load up but its like 10 seconds rather than minutes on the Duet controller.

"Do you know if the tracks that exhibit problems require LMS to perform transcoding?
If not sure then ... how are they encoded? "

Sorry I have no idea what that means

[kidstypike]

Thanks Paul for reply.

the LMS is running from the NSA310 NAS. Through the NAS operating screen on my laptop I can open up the LMS in a web browser. I use that to do the track rescan if I ever add any new music. The Artist and Album listings take some seconds to load up but its like 10 seconds rather than minutes on the Duet controller.

"Do you know if the tracks that exhibit problems require LMS to perform transcoding?
If not sure then ... how are they encoded? "

Sorry I have no idea what that means

Your LMS version is ancient, not heard it called SqueezeCenter for years.

Do yourself a favour, get a Pi4B and an SSD USB drive, it's instant!

Or you could point LMS on a Pi at the music files on your NAS, slower, but should be way faster than what you're experiencing ATM.

[Roland0]

I have a Zyxel NSA310 that I use as a server and it runs Squeezecenter Package as the Squeezebox media server.

Cursory googling tells me the Zyxel has a "1.2GHz ARM processor accompanied by 256MB RAM"
This is severely under-powered.
So even if there was a current version of LMS available (doubtful), it wouldn't help.

I am getting to the point where I just want to throw it in the bin and build a PI system or something

Sounds like a plan.

[JohnGeeee]

Cursory googling tells me the Zyxel has a "1.2GHz ARM processor accompanied by 256MB RAM"
This is severely under-powered.
So even if there was a current version of LMS available (doubtful), it wouldn't help.


Sounds like a plan.

What bugs me is it never used to be this bad and worked ok. It seems to have got worse since Virgin Media changed me onto their Super Hub 3.0. Seeing as there are 7 or 8 other things accessing this Super Hub is it the weak link in the system? I do seem to have to faff about a lot turning things on in the right order otherwise they do not connect with each other.

This morning I tried disabling the Squeezecenter on the NSA310 and use the latest LMS running through my laptop but that just would not work at all and the receiver just sat there with a constant blue light and the Duet Controller was on red symbol also.

[slartibartfast]

What bugs me is it never used to be this bad and worked ok. It seems to have got worse since Virgin Media changed me onto their Super Hub 3.0. Seeing as there are 7 or 8 other things accessing this Super Hub is it the weak link in the system? I do seem to have to faff about a lot turning things on in the right order otherwise they do not connect with each other.

This morning I tried disabling the Squeezecenter on the NSA310 and use the latest LMS running through my laptop but that just would not work at all and the receiver just sat there with a constant blue light and the Duet Controller was on red symbol also.

I run my Super Hub 3 in modem mode and use a separate router. One benefit is that the WiFi still works when Virgin have a rare issue with broadband so local music is still available. With the Super Hub 3 once internet connection is lost so is WiFi.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[Roland0]

What bugs me is it never used to be this bad and worked ok. It seems to have got worse since Virgin Media changed me onto their Super Hub 3.0. Seeing as there are 7 or 8 other things accessing this Super Hub is it the weak link in the system? I do seem to have to faff about a lot turning things on in the right order otherwise they do not connect with each other.

I'm not familiar with this model. However, it generally seems to be the case that most ISP supplied routers are the cheapest available.
Given that a capable WiFi router is ~EUR20 (used), imho there really is no point in using such a device.

Of late the Artist List takes many minutes to load up and when I select an artist it takes many minutes to load up the list of albums if at all. When I select an album to play it takes ages to start playing and when it does the track is stop start repeatedly.

The first symptom would indicate a performance issue with yous NAS, the second could be either that or an WIFI issue.

This morning I tried disabling the Squeezecenter on the NSA310 and use the latest LMS running through my laptop but that just would not work at all and the receiver just sat there with a constant blue light and the Duet Controller was on red symbol also.

That's a good strategy to pinpoint the issue. Have you manually configured your Duet to use the "new" LMS?

Another thing to try is to monitor your NAS' cpu/memory utilization (preferably while using LMS).

[JohnGeeee]

I have used it for the last couple of nights with no problem at all! After a few weeks of slow listings and interrupted playing I now get flawless playing and instant listings, and I have not done anything?
Really confused now. So I still do not know why I get bad reliability.

I am looking into a rasPi option with PicorePlayer. Is there any benefit to use a DAC like HifiBerry with it to connect to my hifi or am I just using the Pi to run LMS to serve the Duet Receivers and just let the receivers continue doing their job? I do have two receivers and use the Sync playing in the different rooms and want to keep this function.

Thanks for your help.

[Apesbrain]

Is there any benefit to use a DAC like HifiBerry...

The HiFiBerry DAC will play files beyond 24/48 if that is of any interest.

[philippe_44]

Hi
I need advice please on what to do. I have a Squeezebox Duet and lately it is frustrating the hell out of me as It will not play what I want and is dead slow at getting to the albums that I want to play etc. I have had it for many years but now it just does not seem to perform the same as it used to.

I have a Zyxel NSA310 that I use as a server and it runs Squeezecenter Package as the Squeezebox media server. I have over 2,500 albums loaded onto it in Artist/Album folders. Most of the tracks I have ripped in MP3 from my CD collection and some tracks are in FLAC format. It is directly connected with an ethernet cable to my Virgin Media broadband wifi router.

The Squeezebox receiver is connected to my Onkyo Midi in the kitchen by the RCA cables. The Squeezebox receiver is using wifi to connect with Squeezecenter on the NAS. I use the Duet controller to play select the music.

Of late the Artist List takes many minutes to load up and when I select an artist it takes many minutes to load up the list of albums if at all. When I select an album to play it takes ages to start playing and when it does the track is stop start repeatedly.

Most of the time I am turning all the components on and off to try and get a better connection. It can take me 15 minutes or more to get anything playing. If I just go to Random Song Mix on the controller instead it starts playing tracks straight away and happily plays a different random track one after the other.

I have tried various Android Apps on my phone and Samsung tablet and get the same kind of response as when using the Duet controller.

If I try and play my albums using my laptop and Windows 10 and just accessing them directly on the NAS I have no problems and all the files play normally.

What can I do to work out which part of the system is the problem? I run the diagnostics on the Duet controller and everything is ok.

I am getting to the point where I just want to throw it in the bin and build a PI system or something

Anyone have similar experience?

BTW, have you thought about the new CORE32/DAC32/SqueezeAMP?

[B1tbull]

DAC Requirements

. Is there any benefit to use a DAC like HifiBerry with it to connect to my hifi or am I just using the Pi to run LMS to serve the Duet Receivers and just let the receivers continue doing their job? I do have two receivers and use the Sync playing in the different rooms and want to keep this function.

Thanks for your help.

The raspberry Pi audio jack has very poor sound quality.
Duet receivers are equipped with Wolfson DAC's very appreciated in hi-fi equipment for their warm and precise sound.
HifiBerry is only required for surround sound or anything exceeding the standard CD 44.100 hz / 16 bit audio sampling frequency.
If your aim is stereo playback from flac, mp3 or aac files then Duet Receivers are more than adequate and significantly better than raspberry Pi jack audio output.

[JohnGeeee]

Thank you all for the help and suggestions.

I have now gone for a PiCorePlayer/LMS setup on a RasPi 3B+. It has taken a couple of nights of head scratching to set up. The most troublesome part was connecting the PCP/LMS to my Zyxel NAS. I didnt understand what NFS was and how to mount a disk? Then I saw I had to install the NFS Package on the NAS. Once I set up the NFS share and worked out where to put the music files in the right NFS folder on the NAS, I was suddenly up and running. LMS works great. Redirected my Duet Controller and Viola! Works a treat. Nice and fast menus, instant playback through the Duet Receivers. Very Happy

[garym]

Thank you all for the help and suggestions.

I have now gone for a PiCorePlayer/LMS setup on a RasPi 3B+. It has taken a couple of nights of head scratching to set up. The most troublesome part was connecting the PCP/LMS to my Zyxel NAS. I didnt understand what NFS was and how to mount a disk? Then I saw I had to install the NFS Package on the NAS. Once I set up the NFS share and worked out where to put the music files in the right NFS folder on the NAS, I was suddenly up and running. LMS works great. Redirected my Duet Controller and Viola! Works a treat. Nice and fast menus, instant playback through the Duet Receivers. Very Happy

Excellent!