Connection Issues

[Shozzer]

Morning All

I am looking for some pointers please to help diagnose an issue I am experiencing with my set up.

Logitech Media Server Version: 8.2.0 - 1627922070 @ Tue Aug 3 11:43:18 CEST 2021
Hostname: pCP
Server IP Address: 192.168.X.XXX
Server HTTP Port Number: 9000
Operating system: piCore - EN - utf8
Platform Architecture: aarch64-linux
Perl Version: 5.32.1 - aarch64-linux-thread-multi
Audio::Scan: 1.05
IO::Socket::SSL: 2.071
Database Version: DBD::SQLite 1.58 (sqlite 3.22.0)
Total Players Recognized: 15

[ INFO ] piCorePlayer version: 8.2.0
#piCorePlayer version
PCPVERS="piCorePlayer 8.2.0"
WWW_BUILD: 00017

[ INFO ] piCore version: 13.2
13.2

The system is controlled either by Material Skin or directly from the Radios (usually using the pre-sets for saved radio stations). The majority of devices are connected by wi-fi but some devices have a wired connection.

I have a dedicated Pi4 with 8GB Ram connected by ethernet cable directly to my router. At periodic intervals - once, twice, sometimes three times per day, connection with LMS fails. This shows in two ways, either Material will report that it cannot find a server or if Material is already loaded then selecting menu options (e.g. My Music) doesn't work. The default LMS skin will not work either in such cases.

The Pi is on a fixed IP address and despite not being able to play music I am always able to connect to the pCP MainPage via web browser. Restarting LMS clears the problem.

Has anyone else had this issue previously and been able to fix it? Failing that, what logging options should be enabled to try and catch the issue?

Thanks.

[Paul Webster]

You say that restarting cures the problem.
Is that using the "Restart LMS" button in pCP or the "Start LMS" button?
If the restart one then next time try with the start because "Restart LMS" does a stop followed by a start.
If "Start LMS" works then it means that LMS was not running (in theory pCP should have shown that it was not running at the top of the screen but you might not have refreshed it).

If LMS stopped all by itself ... then in reality it crashed.

So in that case you might have something in the LMS log. Try to take a look at the log file before you start LMS running again.
You can see it in the pCP diagnostics area.
Main page/Diagnostics/Logs/"server/server"

[Shozzer]

Thanks Paul

Looking again I see that I have actually been using the Reboot PiCorePlayer button on the main page rather than the start/stop/restart buttons on the LMS page. Next time I will try the Start LMS button and see what happens.

You say that restarting cures the problem.
Is that using the "Restart LMS" button in pCP or the "Start LMS" button?
If the restart one then next time try with the start because "Restart LMS" does a stop followed by a start.
If "Start LMS" works then it means that LMS was not running (in theory pCP should have shown that it was not running at the top of the screen but you might not have refreshed it).

If LMS stopped all by itself ... then in reality it crashed.

So in that case you might have something in the LMS log. Try to take a look at the log file before you start LMS running again.
You can see it in the pCP diagnostics area.
Main page/Diagnostics/Logs/"server/server"

[mherger]

> Has anyone else had this issue previously and been able to fix it?
> Failing that, what logging options should be enabled to try and catch
> the issue?

Did you check the server.log as is already?

[Shozzer]

TBH, no. I will do this next time as Paul suggested. I will also save the log settings to survive a restart, just in case.

> Has anyone else had this issue previously and been able to fix it?
> Failing that, what logging options should be enabled to try and catch
> the issue?

Did you check the server.log as is already?

[Shozzer]

Daft question, but how do you make the option to ‘Save logging settings for use at next application restart’ survive a reboot of PiCore?

[kidstypike]

Daft question, but how do you make the option to ‘Save logging settings for use at next application restart’ survive a reboot of PiCore?

That setting is LMS > Settings > Advanced > Logging. Then go to the LMS Information tab, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on one of the server log items.

[Paul Webster]

I expect you would have to move the LMS configuration to a storage system outside of the pCP file system (e.g. a different partition on the SD card) or make pCP perform a backup (for example by using the "Backup" function on main page in pCP web interface, or making a change elsewhere in pCP that initiates a backup, or running "pcp bu" from ssh session)

[Shozzer]

Thanks for your reply. I was aware of the setting - it just doesn't seem to survive a reboot.

That setting is LMS > Settings > Advanced > Logging. Then go to the LMS Information tab, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on one of the server log items.

[Shozzer]

Would this mean that following a reboot I would then have to restore from the backup to be able to view the log file?

I expect you would have to move the LMS configuration to a storage system outside of the pCP file system (e.g. a different partition on the SD card) or make pCP perform a backup (for example by using the "Backup" function on main page in pCP web interface, or making a change elsewhere in pCP that initiates a backup, or running "pcp bu" from ssh session)