TOPIC:

Hi,

I am using the SHD device. There is a plugin for Volumio to run squeezelite. The version is v1.8.7-999. It is compiled with libwiringPi. The dac is supposed to be connected via I2S. I managed to compile the library and get the plugin to run.

Now The Question:

squeezelite -l gives me several devices:


null - Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default:CARD=sndsun8ii2sdac - snd-sun8i-i2s-dac, - Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=sndsun8ii2sdac - snd-sun8i-i2s-dac, - Default Audio Device
dmix:CARD=sndsun8ii2sdac,DEV=0 - snd-sun8i-i2s-dac, - Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=sndsun8ii2sdac,DEV=0 - snd-sun8i-i2s-dac, - Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=sndsun8ii2sdac,DEV=0 - snd-sun8i-i2s-dac, - Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=sndsun8ii2sdac,DEV=0 - snd-sun8i-i2s-dac, - Hardware device with all software conversions
default:CARD=Codec - H3 Audio Codec, - Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=Codec - H3 Audio Codec, - Default Audio Device
dmix:CARD=Codec,DEV=0 - H3 Audio Codec, - Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=Codec,DEV=0 - H3 Audio Codec, - Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=Codec,DEV=0 - H3 Audio Codec, - Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=Codec,DEV=0 - H3 Audio Codec, - Hardware device with all software conversions

If I take the sndsun8ii2sdac I only get noise which turns on and of if I start palying or stop.
I I take the H3 Audio Codec I get nothing.

It is the same, when I use the latest squeezelite from sourceforge.

Any idea why this is so?

The Volumio player works fine, but I have a complete Squeezebox environment so I prefer to use squeezelite.
Any help would be appreciated.

Greets Christian

@Christian

Sorry for missing this post.. mmh, unfortunately it sounds like you're going a bit lower level that we'd be able to provide support here (i.e. custom compiling your own code). That would be outside our tech support structure I'm afraid...

Maybe best to use the existing setting of the VOLUMIO settings of our distribution that works as a reference.. one with some mpd experience would be able to figure this out.

DevTeam

Why not use the plugin that is available from the SHD Volumio settings?

Hi,

because it simply doesn't work. it doesn't start unless you compile the library. Then it only produces white noise, no matter wich device I use.
@devteam. I already opened a thread in the volumio forum, but for some time, there is no real response from the developers of volumio. I run a squeezboxsetup throughout my flat, so I don't want to switch to mpd. Its supposed to be a problem of the i2s driver. Maybe you guys could ask the developer to fix this issue.

Greets
Christian

Hi,

I just installed the beta release 1.023. No change, only white noise as output. Could you guys from minidsp put some pressure on a fix. Michelangelo from volumio doesn't answer. It's not a problem of mpd but a problem of the I2S driver in volumio. MPD has nothing to do with squeezelite. Squeezelite is just a client for the LMS Mediaserver and uses the digital devices of the shd.
Greets
Christian

Hi you Guys,

I got it to work after rereading the manpage of squeezelite over and over again.

The important switch is the alsa parameter tab in the plugin ( -a on the commandline) you have to set it to:

80:4:24:0

then all pcm stuff plays.
If you add extra parameters in the following way, it even plays dsd with resampling:

-r 44100-196000 -R vE:::24

Finally it works

Greets
Christian

Great. Thanks for sharing

For those following along at home here are subtitles for the slower students (me!)

1. The squeezelite plugin does not work. You can check this by
/opt/squeezelite -l
/opt/squeezelite: error while loading shared libraries: libwiringPi.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

2. Install wiringPi (instructions from wiringpi.com/download-and-install/)

cd /tmp
wget lion.drogon.net/wiringpi-2.50-1.deb
sudo dpkg -i wiringpi-2.50-1.deb

3. Find an editor. No emacs, or vi. nano!

sudo nano -w /data/plugins/music_service/squeezelite/squeezelite.service
Change the -a option to be

ExecStart=/opt/squeezelite -n Volumio -o default -a 80:4:24:0

Then
systemctl daemon-reload
service squeezelite stop
service squeezelite start
service squeezelite status

4. Now http://minidsp-shd/plugin/music_service-squeezelite works and most importantly, Volumio shows up in the LMS dropdown menu of players!

And it seems to work!!!

If this means that I can get rid of one box (Logitech Touch), I will be delighted.

And if you prefer roon,

apt-get update
apt-get install bzip2
curl -O download.roonlabs.com/builds/roonbridge-...ller-linuxarmv7hf.sh
chmod +x roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv7hf.sh
sudo ./roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv7hf.sh

Are you using roon with the SHD? If so does it work well for you? If you install roon, does it remove volumio? If you install roon can you uninstall it and revert back to volumio?

Thanks

mktippett wrote:

And if you prefer roon,

apt-get update
apt-get install bzip2
curl -O download.roonlabs.com/builds/roonbridge-...ller-linuxarmv7hf.sh
chmod +x roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv7hf.sh
sudo ./roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv7hf.sh

I have used Roon with the SHD in two ways. One is via the volumio squeezelite plugin. Actually I think you can run squeezelite without running volumio. I have not noted any problems.

The second way is using RoonBridge. To use RoonBridge, I think that you have to turn off squeezelite service.

service squeezelite stop
service roonbridge start

When using RoonBridge, two devices appear: H3 Audio Codec and sun-snd8i-i2s-dac. sun-snd8i-i2s-dac is the one that seems to work, but ONLY for 16-bit. 24-bit produces loud white noise. This was also noted here
www.minidsp.com/forum/shd-series/14491-s...eries?start=30#38129

volumio, squeezelite, and roonbridge run as services. No (apparent) need to uninstall anything.

Many thanks to Christian for getting the Squeezelite plugin working

I've been investigating the root cause of the problem and found the following.

1. After I changed the permissions on squeezelite.service to 777 the Plugin Settings page in the web interface started working



2. There's a bug in the install script for the plugin. The value for "Close Soundcard After X Seconds" is not being applied using the "-C" switch

Original as installed
ExecStart=/opt/squeezelite -n Volumio -o default 2 -a 80:4::

Corrected per Christian's findings
ExecStart=/opt/squeezelite -n Volumio -o default -a 80:4:24:0

Corrected including "Close Soundcard"
ExecStart=/opt/squeezelite -n Volumio -o default -C 2 -a 80:4:24:0

You can see this bug on line 26 github.com/Saiyato/volumio-squeezelite-p...ob/master/install.sh

Note: If you don't have the -C switch set you cannot play music from Volumio without first disabling this plugin as Squeezelite has locked the alsa output device. Volumio will say "failed to open alsa device device or resource busy".

3. The install script sets the file owner and group permissions to "volumio" in a few places however on the SHD Volumio is owned by a different user (which miniDSP have requested not be shared).

That's the reason the Plugin Settings page doesn't work.


So what's all that mean?

It would be quite easy to clone this plugin and create one named Squeezelite for miniDSP SHD with the following changes:

1. Install wiringpi-2.50-1.deb
2. Fix the missing "-C" switch
3. Set the default value for "-a" to 80:4:24:0
4. Change all the "chown" commands to the different user for this hardware

Then anyone could install it, it would play music straight away and the Settings page would work.

miniDSP wouldn't have the supply the ssh credentials for this use case. It was the only reason I requested them.

However, that could not be done without putting the different username miniDSP have asked us not to share into the public domain...

Thanks a lot to everyone who contributed to getting squeezelite to work! I have just done this on my loaner SHD and it seems that the permission issues mentioned have been fixed. At least I didn't notice any. The -C 2 switch was set properly after changing the ALSA parameters field to 80:4:24:0 and hitting save in the web interface. SSH still needed to download and install the wiringpi deb package but I wouldn't want to do without SSH anyway.

Cheers, Dieter

Great community works guys! We're happy to see that you're able to get the plugin working...
An upcoming Volumio build is coming up... We fixed some driver issues for the audio outputs so hopefully we can make this process even simpler to the Squeezebox community.

Stay tuned!

I thought I update this topic... With the latest Volumio (1.038) it appeared at first that the squeezelite plugin did not function anymore/again. I have the Logitech Media Server plugin installed in Volumio (SSD disc connected by USB to the SHD) and working (my old touch approved it), but squeezelite did not show up as a music system. When I looked through the squeezebox server setup page for the LMS plugins, I noticed the 'local player' plugin (by Triode). activating that did the trick, now I can use the SHD as a squeezebox and server in one the only thing I noticed is that now music will refuse to play from the Volumio interface, I guess squeezelite takes the output device exclusively. But I prefer the SB interface over Volumio anyway, so not an issue for me.

Another way is to use the UPNP route: using a LMS plugin called 'UPnP/DLNA Bridge' by Philippe. This allows any UPnP/DLNA device in the network to act as squeezebox (like my Oppo 105). This might require some tweaking, so I'll test that some day I have the living room to myself