Tidal keeps pausing

Yes, I am afraid this is a symptom of current Tidal performance issues they have from time to time on some of their servers in at least the UK. The problem can be exacerbated with the sort of Internet connection you use. This was well and truly explored through beta, and the Naim code was modified to make robust enough to minimise the effect, but it can't be avoided completely.

Typically, assuming your access speed is fast enough, say greater than 4 Mbps, then such issues should be temporary, at 3Mbps I would say your are borderline for Tidal unless you are streaming at   off peak times, and the fact it happened with Spotify as well for you tends to suggest

your broadband speed just isn't really up to audio streaming I am afraid..

Simon

So sounds like I need to contact my broadband provider.

i have fttc which gives 33-25 Mbps through the day, but is pants at night.

Thanks 

Mandeep

Here in Northern Italy with an optic fiber internet connection no issues with Tidal streaming. A question to Simon: do you know if the Tidal servers for UK are the same as the ones that feed Italy ?

Hi, that I don't know, I some how doubt it, but don't know for sure. I have only confirmed that in the UK different Internet provider aggregated IP addresses are used to access the internal Tidal enterprise network and servers (and the provider appears to be BT), and I have done this by sniffing the network activity from the Naim streamer..

It might well be the servers are common for a region or continent, but each licenced operating country may have its own internet accesses and local/national  provider aggregated addresses. The only exception would perhaps be the authentication and spooling management server and that might be globally common, or common for a continent. That is how I would design such an solution.

Simon

Simon, if you could be bothered to do that, then you have WAY too much technical curiosity!

(Somehow the words 'pot' and 'kettle' have just sprung to mind)

That may also have to do with dodgy peering from TIDAL/WIMP/Aspiro's Amazon Web Services instances to BT (or whatever ISP your local primary peer is).

In theory, it should be no worse than Spotify (which also uses AWS, specifically CloudFront for content-delivery and S3 for storage), but there are plenty of political considerations at play as well.

Oh, lucky guy, I also live nearby Milano but I have really a lot of interruptions with Tidal, often is barely usable. Evening is usually the worst time, with Alice 7Mbps 

Huge - I have to confess I did it to help Naim as part of the beta process  - but yes I sometimes have to trawl though traces for work, and so no big deal for me ... my home network is setup to be able to quickly span my Naim streamer port to my PC Wireshark monitor in my office/den and so quite easy to enable.

But yes it does satisfy the inner geek in me.. you can see when the Tidal server / PA access is being strained in real time, as the TCP behaviour changes - and you even start to see lost data and timeouts on the TCP windowing mechanism - then it can clear and be fine again. When optimal Tidal acts just like a local UPnP streamer - ie the data is transferred and flls the Naim buffer, Naim then sends a zero window size message to Tidal to hold fire until Naim is ready to receive again and the window flowing commences again. You get a nice sequence of consecutive burst data filling the Naim - I think subjectively this corresponds to best audio quality. When Tidal or the network path struggles, you see the Naim increasingly aggressively trying to get data back from Tidal so as to fill its buffer. However if this fails or there is unrecoverable data loss - perhaps through congestion or server issues - the Naim buffer empties and you get a pause - and if the connection is cleared down the track abandons and you move to the next or playout can just stop.

I had similar issues. Contacted tidal, and they advised me to change my DNS servers to google DNS. DNS1 8.8.8.8 and DNS 8.8.4.4

I did this on my NDX via settings (spanner on remote), network settings.  Changed DHCP to No, then just edited the DNS settings from my ISP defaults to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. 

Voila, I have not had one drop out since.

Take this advice as it is, try this and I'd suggest it may work for you. If not put your DHCP settings back to Yes and you have lost nothing. 

Happy listening.

In Europe, you'll be getting your TIDAL stream from Dublin (eu-west-1) or Frankfurt (eu-central-1), which is where the AWS servers reside. There are additional edge locations as well (Amsterdam, London, Madrid, Marseille, Milan, Paris, Stockholm, and Warsaw).

David, in the UK there are numerous provider aggregated addresses mapping to different servers on Tidlal's enterprise backbone (hosted cloud). Each track spools from a different IP address and typically a different server. Therefore each track media stream is spooled from a different address server using a unique reference that has been authenticated that lasts for a specific period of time. In the UK these are BT provider aggregated Internet addresses on the BT AS.

The DNS addresses will help possibly in reducing gaps between tracks that are spooled from different servers.. Clearly it has nothing to do with pauses with the TCP flows during a FLAC sample data transfer, I am afraid that is to do with Tidal loading capacity issues interacting with a users broadband connection... which has painfully and laboriously evidenced by Naim and a few willing volunteers... And Tidal tech operations have been advised and logs transferred etc..

Simon

This evening in 1 and 1/2 hour listening sessions no interruptions for me ! I have a 100Mbit connection (tested several times with speedtest.net and download speed is usually between 70 and 85 Mbit) but as far as I have understood from other fellow forum members the interruptions are "Tidal dipendent"

A new item tonight. I used playlist for the first time one of the albums I added wouldn't reliably play all the tracks. Several times it stayed with the spinning waiting wheel. If I manually clicked the track it started playing.

Changing DNS setting made no difference as Simon explained.

isp informed of my poor connection at night, let's see what happens.

shame to not to be able to use 90 days free streaming.

mandeep

Simon

Just as a matter of interest have you investigated how Qobuz works - is it pretty similar to Tidal in this regard?

Goon, no I haven't, I have recently let my Qobuz subscription lapse whilst I have been using Tidal.

Simon

Quick update.

Tidal added to my Sonos works without pausing over wifi, as does streaming direct on my ipad.

So why does it only pause with ndx over a wired connection?

mandeep

I have had an excellent 3 hour session on Tidal this afternoon via my NDX wired connection (fibre broadband) and have had absolutely no pausing issues whatsoever....nor have I had any on the many shorter sessions I have had since installing the 4.4 update last Wednesday.

I have just upgraded my ND5XS firmware, installed the new version of the Naim app on my iPad and started my 90 day trial (or at least I hope that I am not being charged).

Unfortunately, although the Tidal interface is fairly good, the product is unusable for me since I get horrendous buffering problems after anything between 3 and 20 seconds depending upon the track selected.

I initially put this down to the fact that my broadband speed (approx. 3.6 Mb) is simply not up to streaming audio at this resolution. However, it occurred to me that I can also access Tidal via my Linn Klimax streamer on my main system, although I had never taken advantage of the Linn 30 day trial.

I logged into Tidal on my Linn Kazoo app ( arguably the interface here is even slicker), and lo and behold I am able to stream the very same albums that gave me the buffering problem via my ND5XS. I have now been listening to a couple of Savoy Brown albums on Tidal via the Linn Klimax without a single buffering issue.

Any ideas why I should suffer the problems on my Naim streamer but not on my Linn streamer? It's annoying, because I have to say that the sound quality on my Linn streamer is indeed significantly better than that of Spotify Premium. It's actually pretty good, although I haven't yet compared sound quality directly with a stream of the same albums from my NAS.    

My Naim streamer is attached to a different (but identical) TP-Link switch to that of my Linn streamer, but I have never experienced any buffering problems on the Naim streamer using either Spotify Premium or files (both standard and hi-res) from my own NAS.

Any views about why the buffering issues affect only my Naim streamer?

I can't comment, but I get from time to time Tidal buffering issue on my iPad and Sonos (in hifi mode) as well as my NDX.

i might be worth considering that the way Naim implement Tidal playlists, there is a two stage buffer. The initial buffer at the start of a playlist or album, and then a steady state buffer. In the initial start buffer stage whilst several seconds of audio are being spooled into memory, the streamer is more likely to stutter if there are throughput issues. If there has been a pause or stutter, then the initial buffer is used again, until several seconds are loaded in memory. Clearly if the throughput is not quick enough over your broadband, then the streamer may remain using the initial buffer, but be more sensitive to performance hits and stutters. I believe Naim chose a balance between responsiveness and buffer size.

Simon

Thanks agsin Simon, that probably explain why our Naim streamers are suffering when out internet connection is poor. I wonder if any improvement could be brought about with new firmware just for us poorly connected listeners?

Mandeep

Thanks for the reply, Simon.

This is very strange!

I have been enjoying Tidal immensely on my Klimax streamer in my main system for the past few hours without so much as a hiccup. Contrary to my expectations, the sound quality has been better than that of my Spotify Premium service to th eextent that I will have to seriously think about the possibility of cancelling my Spotify subscription and paying the extra for an ongoing Tidal subscription. However, I would need to be able to access Tidal successfully on both my streamers, and the buffering problems I had experienced earlier on my ND5XS would be a show stopper.

I decided to give my Naim Tidal service another go, and amazingly this time it has worked perfectly, without a hint so far of the horrendous buffering problems I experienced earlier.

Very strange, but encouraging.  

Hello, here te same thing : buffer does not fill for what ever reason. ND5XS keeps pauzing.

following the advise of Nede, I changed the DHCP setting from " yes"  to "no" and tried to change the DNS settings. This last step failed and I had to undo my first step from the DHCP settings. Naim app restarted and after this Tidal is working fine without any pauzing sofar!!

I do not know the technical consequences of my actions other than it works fine now. Whether this is an lasting solution or not, I do not know.

Any suggestion / ideas on my action?

Peter

Well for now my problems have been solved.

Rang my isp, but just got fobbed off with some explanation. Then a few days ago both our laptops would not connect to the Internet, but iPads would..

On one laptop I changed the network adapted IPv4 dns from whatever it was to ' get from isp', or something similar.., immediItely both laptops worked and I noticed my evening broadband connection speed was way up . 

It has stayed that way, so streaming a plenty now.��

According to posts by Tidal Strategic Partnership Manager they use Akamai to deliver content via its global CDN and AWS for most of the rest. Using Akamai's CDN should guarantee that most people are never too far away from the most efficient server.