So, have you connected successfully to WiFi or not?
The instructions found in your guide don’t seem to be the problem, to me.
Based on your post, I would say not to use AI at all - I don’t know what it’s telling you to do but it feels like with every change you make based on AIs recommendation, you get further and further away from a working plexamp.
As for HDMI output, I would imagine that you would be able to select the audio output device from plexamp’s web interface. Personally, I don’t use HDMI output, so I’m not sure but I imagine HDMI output is already catered to with basic rpi hw. I can test it in a moment.
EDIT: Ok, so I got HDMI to work with plexamp. After fresh installing plexamp on raspberry pi os 64-bit, you need to do this - follow the answer provided by Markus (for me, that’s the second answer). Once you have done this, you will be able to select HDMI from plexamp’s UI (for me, it’s called “bcm2835 HDMI1: bcm2835 HDMI1”).
I have only ever needed to modify a system config file because I use a HAT (not important if you don’t know what this is).
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have touched the configurations and I advise you not to too, especially if you’re like me and generally don’t know what you’re doing (and/or don’t know how to undo it) on linux/debian.
As for a refund, like any purchase, you have a private conversation with whoever you made the purchase from.
I won’t speak for other people but much like your disdain for sarcasm in moments of frustration, I do not appreciate your double/triple/quadruple whining posts. I owe you nothing, but I will try to help you. Please try to be calm, clear, objective and detailed/informative, when possible.
If it’s any consolation, I’ve been stuck on my own project for a while now. I have spent too many nights researching, testing and not sleeping when I should be, trying to figure out how to get it to work the way I want it to. I stop when I’m stuck (or I see the sun is out and people are going to work) but I will try again when I think I have new knowledge/information I need to progress.
On a separate note, does anyone know if HDMI is louder than 3.5mm? Is HDMI as loud as a DAC? Would be nice to not have to use a DAC. Thanks.
None of this addresses the current problem that, without my Library’s loading and only sarcastic jokes, I can’t even try to play a file.
Signing out and signing back in seems to have gotten the library issues sorted, but now nothign will playback. Anything I try to play, it just says “couldn’t start playback”.
Apparently the concept of informative error messages, or error logs, or any useful information isn’t a concept anyone associated with this project is familiar with. Not sure how anyone stands a chance to make anything work with the complete and utter lack of information!
logs are located on the pi at ~/.cache/Plexamp/log
you can post them here
Plexamp.1.log (27.0 KB)
Plexamp.log (28.2 KB)
logs don’t show much activity, and i don’t see any attempt to play anything … are these from before you were able to see your library?
looks like you’re using a pi3 … as already stated in an earlier post and in my linked setup notes, hdmi audio won’t work here until you edit the pi’s /boot/firmware/config.txt file
also note that the pi3 is limited to 16 bit audio from hdmi
That sounds like a great idea, as your aggressively unfriendly nature doesn’t seem like a good match. Visit https://www.plex.tv/contact/?option=billing-issues and we’ll get you a refund, no hard feelings.
I don’t know that I want to give up just yet, but I am seriously considering that option. I’m a bit baffled at how I’m unable to find anything in the way of clear documentation on setup and use of this app other than 3rd party installation guides that aren’t always consistent, and how even when following guides I’ve received nothing but errors, and despite reaching out for help and providing logs, there seems to still be no way to make this work, and the logs, which I captured and sent after several attempts to play files and only receiving a generic unable to play error which is uninformative and unhelpful, seems to have no entry or information about the attempts to play content. Based on my experience, I’m not sure how anyone is actually using this. Are there no support options at all?
You are in the right place, we support via the forums. There are employees and people from our community helping you out in this thread, and I’d just ask that you be polite and respectful.
Ok - current status:
Was expecting to get playback on the analog out before mucking with the HDMI settings, since I was not finding anything resembling a standard starting point. But, took a look over the HDMI settings referenced in the link dotzeno provided. Which were the same settings that AI guided me through before. But this time they worked.
Not sure what was different this time.
But here’s the current status/problems:
- concerned about the 16 bit only, but I am only testing on this Pi, planning on implementing this (or something) on a Pi 5 eventually, which should get me to the 24 bit requirement some of my materials are in.
- My receiver shows it is receiving a 5.1 signal, but is only playing back front channels of 5.1 flac materials. Not even a downmix, just front channels, back completely gone.
I have a large library of 5.1 channel .flac files. My Pi solution must be able to play those back. How can I configure this to properly play them back?
It’s possible that’s all you’ll get over HDMI. Many of us use a USB DAC like this which also offers SPDIF out.
Make sure you have sample rate matching enabled (and possibly set to strict) in the Plexamp headless web interface.
Ok - I’m impressed. Setting sampling rate to strict has my quad and 5.1 flacs playing in surround via HDMI out. I had seen conflicting information suggesting this wouldn’t be possible with plexamp - this is impressive. Thanks so much for the help in the right direction. I really appreciate it.
Now on to the next logistical nightmares to tackle to get this in my car…
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Glad it’s working for you!
I got this working only in this specific instance, but this isn’t adequate for my purposes. I’ve had the following problems:
- When moving to implement this on a Pi5, the modifications that worked to make this work on a Pi3 HDMI no longer work on the Pi5
- When adding a HiFiBerry DAC8x to the Pi5, I can get OS test outputs to work with the DAC8x no problem. Plexamp, however, will not output to my OS’s configurations. I can output directly to the DAC8x from plexamp and that works if I recall correctly, but I have specific needs to playback in 4.0 mode. This is completely customizeable and doable in the OS, I have spent hours customizing the sound configs in the OS to get it to properly downmix 5.1 to 4.0 and output tests perfectly in 4.0 - but any option in plexamp to use this ignores my configurations and acts as if the world revolves around a 44.1kHz 2channel configuration, and just discards any channels beyond the front pair. This is woefully inadequate.
- Searching high and low for documentation finds zero reference to 5.1 playback. It’s possible - but not documented at all? Not sure how devs expect end users to figure any of this out without any documentation
- This results in AI queries wasting hours of time with guesswork and configurations that plexamp just ignores. I don’t know what the devs had in mind when their settings ignore my settings completely.
- There seems to be zero support - no one here seems to have a clue about this. If I’m delving into new unexplored territory, ok - but how can I get in touch with someone that knows how any of this works and work with them to sort it out? I’ll be happy to document a working solution, maybe even post a video to youtube at the end of this. But I need help from someone that knows how any of this works, and I’m running into dead end after dead end here.
Please advise how I can get some real support here. Thanks.
The only “real support” is available here in these forums, and you’re getting it.
There aren’t a lot of people trying to do exactly what you’re doing, hence the lack of knowledge sharing. We’re reading and happy to provide input where we can, but your very specific needs aren’t common ones.
But there are people that developed this that understands the inner workings - which is critical knowledge to get it working with hardware meant to do certain things. How are end users to use this to it’s full potential if they cannot get the developer knowledge, or collaboration? I appreciate those that are willing to play around - but I’ve also spent hours doing that and have gone around in circles, and am concerned that is all that can be expected at this point. I’ve reached a point where making this work as it should requires consulting with someone with a deep understanding of how it’s designed.
I am that people.
I wrote all the code which interfaces with the underlying BASS. And I don’t have the slightest idea of how to get it to work in 4.0 on Linux via HDMI on the Pi5.
So the people you really want to be nice to is the larger community here, the Linux experts, and people who play with Pis 5 more than I even have, people who hook their audio up via HDMI.
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I’m not dealing with HDMI anymore. And that might not even be relevant.
I can configure the DAC8X to output the way I want to through configuring things in linux, through configuring the asound.conf file. With that configured, I can run sound tests in the linux command line, and it outputs to channels on the DAC8X as I want it to. Linux is working fine.
It’s plexamp that doesn’t.
If I select “default” for the playback option, it will only send out front channels of any multichannel audio.
It seems the only option I have found that works in plexamp is selecting to playback to the HiFiBerry DAC8x directly - but then it uses it as it defaults, which is in a 5.1/7.1 configuration, it bypasses my asound.conf configurations that I specifically setup in linux to work as I want the device to work.
So I need to understand what is going on when selecting “default” as the playback device. Or how to get plexamp to output 5.1 audio properly, so that the settings in asound.conf are used, and it outputs as I’ve configured.
Alternately, I’ve also pursued setting up PulseAudio on the Pi in linux, and that shows up as a playback device in plexamp - but when selecting it, again, it only sends the front channels of multi-channel files.
As the person that wrote the code, can you offer some insight as to what plexamp is doing when I select default or pulse audio server, why it’s only sending front channels and discarding all others, and what can be done to get all channels from plexamp to be sent out, so that my asound.conf configuration will work as it works in the OS itself?
Not especially; it’s telling the BASS library to use different devices, and that library handles all the details. With sample rate matching it will request the same number of channels/sample rate as the media (hence the name).
If you played a multi-channel bit of audio via Plexamp, with sample rate matching enabled, and then posted Plexamp logs, we could see confirm what it’s requesting of the hardware/BASS.
