Server Version#: 4.147.1
Player Version#: 4.12.3 on macOS and iOS and headless on the pi
I have a strange issue. I built a headless plexamp client on a raspberry pi zero 2w with an inno maker mini DAC. It was working fine for a while and now I can’t start any playback. The resources on the zero look fine to me, it isn’t consuming a ton of RAM, CPUs are mostly idle. I’ve rebooted several times, including hard reboots. I believe I have the hardware set up correctly, but of course I am not ruling it out.
I took a screen recording of the behavior I’m seeing, but I will also describe it: I load up an album, select it, then select the player as the remote plexamp on the pi and hit play; alternatively I hit play then select the remote player. It tries to start and then just fails wildly and the screen animations start and stop and start and stop.
I’ve read several threads on the forums about plexamp headless but none of the solutions seem to work. I have tried setting the audio device to the DAC, setting Sample Rate matching to “Smart,” adjusting the cache in various ways: only next track, 10 tracks, 25 tracks, changing the cache size to 256MB, 1GB, 4GB, and messing with network speed.
I am at a loss. Does anyone have any other troubleshooting I should try? Is the Pi Zero, despite htop telling me it is powerful enough, simply not powerful enough?
OK, after a brief DM, it looked like there wasn’t anything wrong with the Plexamp side of things so @elan suggested it was on the linux side. I decided that since I’ve only had this a day that I would start fresh and reinstalled Raspberry Pi OS Lite 64 bit and read/re-read the Inno Maker instructions and made sure to double check all of my settings there and then ran @odinb1’s script following the prompts and then double checking all the settings afterwards. I’ve got it playing now so, hopefully this is a solved problem now! I must have typoed or missed a step somewhere along the line.
Many thanks to @elan for the quick reply/help and to @odinb1 for the very helpful script to get this going.
Hi there, I am encountering exactly the same problem. Unfortunately, reinstalling OS lite 64 did not solve the problem. Reinstalled several times on RP3 and RP4. Songs stopp playing after a second, the album cover is reloading again and again. I am desperate. Any help is highly appreciated. Thanks. Volker
issue in original post seems like it was related to the specific audio device … what audio device are you using ? does speaker-test to this device work ?
posting plexamp logs from the headless device often helps
I am using USB-Audio and Hifiberry Digi+. If the player plays, than there is sound. However, the player stopps suddenly and than plays only for a second. I am trying to find the logs in plexamp headless.
The log I have found has only two lines: Starting Plexamp 4.12.3
Settings: Parsing 18993 bytes into JSON for discovery:hubs.
Thank you again for your help!
Sorry for not knowing better: What is the path to ~/.cache/Plexamp/log? In my home folder, there are only the folders plexamp and library (blue writing).
if you’re logged into the pi from another computer (windows etc) … exit out of the ssh session, and then from a command prompt try something like the following to copy the headless log file …
you might want to upload additional log(s) that starts while playback is working, and then later starts to lag … after app or pi restart, first line of log should include “starting Plexamp 4.12.3 …” … this initial log will have more info on the detected audio devices etc
developer should be able to look at the logs and suggest next steps
thanks for posting the logs … i think i can see the behavior that you’re describing (initially ok, possible audio device issues start about 30 minutes later) … did you say earlier that you observe similar behavior on a different pi using usb audio?
Exactly. I first used an PI 3B on my system with USB audio. I wondered if the 3B was to slow so I recently purchased a PI 4B 2 GB with Hifiberry Digi SPDIF Out. Same results. Worked fine in the beginning, later turning wheel forever, reloading of covers, stopping after a second or two. Restarts SOMETIMES bring improvement but not long lasting. I wondered if there is a bug in the plexamp software or in my Plex Server. All other clients (PC, iphones) work flawless, pi is connected via LAN (very stable).
