naim UnitiServe SSD has lost track of music share

This was a little hard to follow . . but . . .

It appears that you have the music server running on the Synology Nas.  There may be a conflict here -- trying to have music in folders being served by two different servers at the same time. 

What if you turn off the Synology music server -- does that make any difference?  I seem to recall that there are problems doing what you're doing -- having files in a share for the uServe AND being served by the Synology. 

thanks for taking a stab at this Bart. I've been using the same above mentioned NAS for my UnitiServe SSD music store and in another folder on the same NAS I have a Unitiserve music share where I have copied ALAC and AIFF files from my iTunes library. In a third folder on the same NAS I have a folder that has a copy of my iTunes library that Sonos uses. I've had this all up and running without issues until a few weeks ago when the UnitiServe decided it didn't like (not finding changes to share, slow to scan share if it scans at all, share is always in a state of pendingmusicscan etc) its share folder on this NAS. 

Are you thinking that the userve share and store are not supposed to be on the same NAS? 

No; I know of no reason why shares and the store can't be on the same nas; they just can't be the same folder(s). 

One thing you can try is to 'remove' the shares and then add them again.  The fact that the scan of the share(s) takes a really really long time does seem to indicate that something is amiss.  When I add a few new cd's to my share and then manually scan it, it just takes a few minutes to complete.

Understood. Yes my Userve share, Userve store all have their own unique folders on my NAS. I deleted and then re-added the problem Userve share (400GB of HD, ALAC and AIFF music) and no change, the problem remains. I think I'll try a new share with a new name and add one album, manually scan, see if Userve picks this up and keep building from there? 

I have been tinkering with with my UnitiServe SSD NAS music share issue for about a month now. Lots of lost hours troubleshooting this. A bit of history: After working fine for about 4 months it started a few months ago when I noticed that my UnitiServe network share on my NAS was not reflecting a few new albums that I recently added to the share. I then noticed that the UnitiServe would no longer complete a scan of my one share. My Userve store is located on the same NAS and has worked flawlessly. Deactivating and re-activating the share does not help. The Userve will still hang on the share scan never completing the scan. I’ve created a new share, added a bit of music to test. Userve scans new share just fine. I then add a bit more music. Userve completes scan and shows / plays new music. I think that I might be out of the woods when I keep adding new music to the share and then rescanning. I do this add a bit of music and then force a rescan of the share maybe ten or more times. Many many successful scans in a row and after adding new music it only take a 3-4 minutes to scan on average. Just when I think my new share may be working fine after multiple additions of new music to the share and multiple successful scans... I cross some invisible line and the share stops being able to be successfully scanned by the Userve. It just hangs. At first I thought it was the size of the share perhaps a corrupt file or character in the files that has caused the Userve to hang on the scan. So I go back and delete the files that I last added prior to the scan hang. No dice. Once the share hangs it is forever a flawed share unless I delete all the contents of the share and start over from scratch. I can do the same thing all over again. Add share, add new music, force share scan, music scanned and picked up in Userve just fine, I repeat this until at some point the Userve will no longer complete a scan successfully. I’ve tried TWO other NAS drives. Same problem. Phil has remote logged into my Userve / NAS and rebuilt the Userve index...at least I think that’s what he did? No fix. Phil then ran some logging software for 24 hours to record the unsuccessful share scans. I have not heard back yet. I think Phil is waiting for some software guru to look at the logs? .... In the meantime does anybody have any ideas what’s wrong with my Userve? I have literally spent a month adding, removing, deleting, creating new shares and just when after 20 successful music additions with rescans in a day I think I’m in the clear it’s finally working.... nope it hangs on a rescan and I’m back to square one again. Very very frustrating. Naim seems as baffled by this  problem as I am.

There is no reason to spend countless hours with a Naim product problem, get Phil to login remotely and see what he can find out. Most likely he will be able to sort the problem. This is part of the exelent Naim service you pay for, and it really is excelent!

Claus

+1 the last suggestion.

I've not read the posts in detail but I had a similar sounding problem with my US a while back where it would it stopped connecting to a share that had worked fine for weeks.  Phil sorted it for me; in my case some bizarre network problem with the NAS name resolving to an IP address outside my network.  Drop a mail to the support mail address and they should be able to help you.

Phil has remote logged into my Userve / NAS and rebuilt the Userve index...at least I think that’s what he did? No fix. Phil logged in a second time and ran some logging software for 24 hours to record the unsuccessful share scans. I have not heard back yet. I think Phil is waiting for some software guru to look at the logs? This was about a week ago.... In the meantime does anybody have any ideas what’s wrong with my Userve? I have literally spent a month adding, removing, deleting, creating new shares and just when after 20 successful music additions with rescans in a day I think I’m in the clear it’s finally working.... nope it hangs on a rescan and I’m back to square one again. Very very frustrating. Naim seems as baffled by this  problem as I am.

You may experience a problem with some special dns services, e.g. openDns, and there is another english variant I cannot remember the name of. Normally the dns service your internet provider use will work ok. I had exactly this problem a share could work for a day and then scanning stopped.

Phil spent half a day doing all sorts of things on my ns01 and nothing worked. The problem disappeared when I changed from the OpenDns dns servers to the dns servers used by my internet provider. Phil believes this is a sort of black magic but for a at least 2 users on this forum it has caused a problem.

Again I would either Wait until Phil gets back or see what happens  when  the 1.7 firmware is released.

Claus

I found the old post about this problem, and I must admit that I do not know if 1.7 will solve the problem. When I identified the problem I changed the dns server used by my router back to be provided from my isp.

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...50#18039306379537150

And a wikipedia article with a good explanation of why these services are used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefruit

Claus

Thanks for the info Claus! I will look into this. My Sonos system has no issues on the very same network and reading the very same NAS the Unitiserve uses. I wish naim did a better job with software. 

Audio fool, how frustrating..I wonder if you are getting some wierd  timeout.. Out of interest what file system is your NAS.. It it fat32? How big is the partition. How did you format it?

When you cross this invisible line and it stops completing the scan... Delete the the new files, and then defragment the NAS file system partition.. Does it start working again?

Simon

Not trying to confuse the matter, but I thought most nas models use other ffile systems than fat32 or ntfs. I understand this post to mean that you cannot use fat32 on the internal disk on ds212.

http://www.synology.com/support/faq_show.php?lang=us&q_id=432

OK this sounds similar to a problem I experience on my HDX now and then.

I have a very similar setup to you Audio Fool albeit mine is with the HDX.  Setup is Naim HDX with integral hard disc to which music cds are ripped. Music share on QNAP Turbo Nas 419P+ plus Music share backup on Synology DS411Slim. All units are attached via Ethernet wired via 3 Netgear GS108PE switches. BT infinity modem is Fritzbox 7390 which is also attached to the Netgear.

A 10 zone Sonos system accesses the music share on the QNAP and distributes the music to those rooms with Sonos and like you it never seems to lose track of the music share on the NAS.

Occasionally, the HDX will loose track of the music on the share even though when you look at the system status it will say it is online. It will only have the ripped CDs displayed  and the Nserve app will only display the music CD collection. If I then go into Nstream and look at the share via my NDX the music shows up on the share. Rescanningthe music share from the HDX  in my case however seems to work.

I don't think this problem is anything to do with disc sizes - typically with a NAS you just let it get on with it's work and don't have to worry about  native file format of the drives or defragmentation. They are'nt relevant.

I think this is more likely to be a DNS issue. In most home setups, DNS is handled for the local addresses on the home network by your broadband router most typically using DHCP. (I use DHCP but ensure that the addresses handed out by the router are consistent by fixing them to the MAC addresses) This way I  can ensure that my NDX,HDX,QNAP,DS411 etc etc always get the same DHCP addresses.  DHCP addresses are normally handed out by the router on a lease time and then renewed when that lease time expires  - my suspicion for the cause of this problem is that either the HDX or the router or the NAS is not handling this mechanism correctly and therefore loses contact. Given that your Sonos system like mine does not suffer this problem, this would tend to point the problem at the TCP/IP implementation in the HDX/Unitiserve or Router. Given that you use a different router than I do - it tends to point to the problem being in the Naim device (HDX or Unitiserve)

First of many thanks to all you good people for offering ideas on my Userve network share issues. As I read back over this it occurs to me that I mislabeled the nature of my problem. This topic should have been titled ‘UnitiServe network share scan stalls’ or hangs. As I’ve mentioned previously I have reserved the IP address for both the Userve and the NAS. I’ve never had issues with shares getting lost or not showing up. It’s the successful scan of a share (perhaps once it reaches a certain size?) that seems to be a problem? I currently have solved my problem (until it breaks again) by taking what used to be my one larger but not really that big (400GB) share and breaking it up into three smaller shares. All the same music and files mind you, just parceled out in three different folders on the NAS. I came to this state when on one of my new shares I added  a few folders at a time and then forced the Userve to refresh the share, added more music, refreshed the share (a typical share scan would take 3-5 minutes) over and over again until the Userve would no longer successfully scan the share. Once the new share would no longer get completely scanned by the Userve it I went back to the new now problem share and deleted the most recent handful of folders (albums of music) until I could get the Userve to successfully scan the share. Note that once the Userve stalls scanning a share it would not successfully rescan the share (even after I took off the last few file additions to the share) until I power cycled the Userve. Once a share scan stalls there is no other way to get it back to working again until I remove some of the music and the power cycle the Userve. So that’s where I currently stand. Again it’s worth noting I’ve never had any items on the network drop or disappear. The network is rock solid from what I can tell. The Userve, NAS, n-Serve on iPad or iPhone, NAC-N 172 XS have all been present and accounted for all the time. My problem has been with the Userve and it’s flakey on again off again scanning of the network shares THREE different NAS drives that I have used to trouble shoot this. Also the Userve music store for naim rips has been problem free. The music store lives on the very same NAS as my problem music shares. Different folder of course, but on the same Synology DS212j NAS. Also on this same NAS I have a 700GB Sonos share. Not single hiccup or problem from the Sonos and this NAS. I’ve be racking my brain on this for some time... and it sure seems to point to the Userve having music share scan issues. We all know naim does just fine with hardware. My guess is it's the poor naim software on the Userve. 

Audio fool, it does sound disc system related, and indeed not to do with the underlying network. Glad you got it sorted sorted by breaking up into smaller partitions. Still interested to know what file system you use. As stated elsewhere FAT32 can go above 40Gbytes, but you can run into interoperability issues the larger it gets.

Scillyisles.. Do you mean DNS  issues.Most home networks don't use DNS within it...  It's mostly the Internet and enterprise networks.. And it maps a FQN (fully qualified Name often containing a domain name like naimaudio.com, a private network can set up .local domain names which don't extend to the internet) within a URN to an ip address, or a set of addresses in a database, its not specificly  to do with fixed ip addresses, DHCP etc. 

Simon

I suspect that he means DHCP, not DNS.

Simon, the file system used in my Synology NAS is EXT4. My Synology NAS has one single volume with folders for Userve music store, Userve music shares, and a folder for a Sonos share.

A hat tip to Phil Harris of naim for patently helping me with my Userve SSD music share scan issue. Thanks to Phil's help it now appears the problem was a single album that was causing the Userve to  hang on a music share scan. As soon as the suspect album is removed from the share the Userve is able to scan the share with no issues. The problem album is in ALAC format and plays just fine in iTunes and streams from my NAS to Sonos just fine. But for some reason the Userve can't digest it.

Thanks again Phil for your help and patience! 

Cheers,

Mark  aka Audiofool

I'm having a similar issue. Looks like some housekeeping is required. I'll also split into smaller shares, this seems logical and more manageable. Put some of my more collected artists into their own shares.

The system messages about errors during scan can be pretty useful.  Unfortunately if something won't scan at all, there is nothing to generate a message. If individual tracks are a problem they'll likely generate a message and you can go in and fix the tag.

Phil's the best isn't he?

PS How did he/you determine which album (folder) was the offending one?

Originally Posted by Bart:

 For most issues that are likely to occur then the general logging can give quite useful diagnostic data...

 Awwwww shucks!

There's additional debug that we can enable remotely if appropriate however we don't leave full debug running all the time as it can slow the unit down as the debug logs can be huuuuuuge.

Cheers

Phil

If you are having issues then please contact either me (phil.harris@naimnet.com) or Steve Hopkins (steven.hopkins@naimaudio.com) and we'll get you sorted out...

Phil