Naim App and Flac(k)

Not sure I'd agree that the app is "pants" or "crap". For me it allows me to change settings on my Nova, select the input and, depending on the input, select what I want to listen to (radio station/album/track/whatever), shows me track listings, biographies, recommendations, etc.  and it does it day in day out with, so far, no highcups or errors. It's never not found the Nova, it's always found my Asset uPnP server and seen everything Asset is serving which, on selction, plays out through the Nova.  Basic usage perhaps, but solid therefore not what I'd call pants.

I appreciate that people do have issues with it and probably hate it as a result, which I fully understand, but it it were pants/crap it wouldn't do anything well for anyone, whereas, as I say, it's been rock solid for me and done all I've asked of it. I can't be the only one can I ?

Totally agree with Tallguy. In the context of computing and apps, the Naim app has let me down very rarely in 3 years of pretty heavy usage. I can think of no other app or computer programme that has been as reliable and consistent. Whether my experience is attributable to a well set up system, or purely down to good luck and Lady Fortune, who can tell? 

What is important is to have a balanced picture. Those who feel let down by the app and its reliability/functionality/bells & whistles are normally swift to share their dissatisfaction. Content customers rarely feel moved to contradict. Result, a biased picture. I have a suspicion, no more, based upon my membership of this forum, that 90% of users are satisfied with the Naim App.

The app works, does what it's supposed to do.

For everything else I use an espresso machine, a vacum cleaner, a car, other pieces of equipment that were designed for those tasks. I don't expect the Naim app to do all that for me...

Adam Zielinski posted:

The app works, does what it's supposed to do.

That's been my experience too, with daily use for the last three years.

I am one of the app users who have had (and reported) issues with the app. Well, to be precise: with using the app to control my ND5XS streaming from USB on the front, i-radio and NAS.  

In my very limited experience it's the combination of app and music storage/server (usb, nas) that's the key factor if the app is working or not. Some people with a lot more insight in these things will say that the router is a key factor as well. However, in my system the router (and the ND5) have been unchanged while changes of NAS and server software have influenced the function of the app. 

I started streaming only 3 months ago. First, without a NAS drive and streaming only from USB input on front (& i-radio). I had very frequent drops of connection between app and ND5. Could happen even with the app open. Whatever I did on the app, the player didn't respond. Restarting app didn't help. But I found that pressing pause-play on the remote reconnected the app to the ND5, an easy fix as long as I had the remote and could reach the ND5 with it. 

After adding a Seagate Personalcloud NAS (ethernet to the router) loosing the connection between app and ND5 was history. Great!

I soon changed the Seagate to a Netgear ReadyNAS because I wanted 2-bay with WD Red drives (and the Seagate wasn't that quiet either). This gave me a new problem! Connection was still ok, but all music tracks with Danish or German characters (æ,ø,å,ö, ä) were unreadable for the app. The app just showed a blank line in the track listing for these songs. Clicking the empty line gave an error message. However, when choosing the whole album, all songs were played, also the ones not shown. And on the ND5 all letters were shown perfectly. And all folder names were shown correctly on both app and ND5 display, it was on track level the problem was. Never had any issues like this on the Seagate. Oh yes, changing language settings on the Readynas didn't help at all. 

Next, I installed Minimserver on the Netgear. This solved the letter problem, which I the thought to be related to the combo of Netgear (ReadyDLNA) and Naim app (even if NAS and ND5 worked fine together). So finally everything was fine again, at least so I thought.

Because soon I realised that all WAV music files with track no. 1-9 were not shown in Minimserver. Not even as blanks. There was no problem with MP3 files though. Switching back to playing via ReadyDLNA all the tracks were shown again, that is unless the ones with æ,ø,å etc. in the track names. 
At first I didn't realise why some tracks were visible with Minimserver, but after some checking I noticed the pattern above, 
So, while neither Seagate nor ReadyDLNA having this problem, the Minimserver could not see any track number info on the ripped tracks with numbers 1-9. The solution turned out to be a simple auto track numbering in Foobar tag-editor, after this all files are visible and selectable in Minimserver.

Since there hasn't been any other in the network, the differences must have been related to the combination of the NAS / NAS server software and the Naim control app. As far as I can tell at least. What I find most strange is how the ND5 and the app reacted differently to the special letters in the track names. 

With my present setup I have no problems with the app. Connection with ND5 is rock solid and it shows and plays all tracks. Feels fast in browsing the library as well. But it doesn't work perfectly in all circumstances. Of course you can always blame the UPnP/DLNA server and not the app. To this it must be said that at no point did I have any problems whatsoever streaming the music to WMP on my pc (but then again, in this case it probably wasn't the DLNA server on the NAS but the PC itself that handled the streaming ??). 

My point:  choosing the right NAS / server software seems to be a key issue, combined with a ripping proces that tags the track numbers correctly as far as the chosen server software is concerned (if you want to avoid the tag editing).
The Naim app IMHO works fine in the right combinations, and I would guess this to be the case in most situations. 

Sorry for such a long posting 

Claus

Possible correction: the problems with Danish or German characters (æ,ø,å,ö, ä) with Readynas running ReadyDLNA might also have been related to album titles. 

Intent was a thread discussing Naim resilience (to fix and listen) and positive handling of all issues (compared to other companies), not another app issues thread.

If you start by saying that the app is ‘pants’ and ‘crap’, what sort of discussion do you expect?

I have generally been very impressed by the way the Naim Audio n-stream application works. It has been quite a smooth transition between each of the screens. I wasn't so keen on the introduction of 'rooms' which seemed to coincide with the introduction of Muso, but once the 'room' had been selected, the same smooth operation remained. It seems odd to me to call a product a room, but hey ho, I can live with that.

However, I have had problems with version 5.8.2 which I downloaded last week on my iPad. Whilst it works, it has an annoying habit of switching back to the home page between every selection. Sometimes it even goes back to the servers page. Hence, when I select the UPnP input it will flip to the servers page, where I select NS01. It then goes back to the home page. Then I select UPnP and it then offers the page showing artist, album, genre etc. Then after selecting artist, it goes to a blank screen with the spinning timer symbol. Then after several seconds it lists artists. I can then select an artist, again the spinning time symbol etc. Then it sometimes flips back to the home screen.

Does anyone else experience this?

I am not saying this is definitely a fault with the app; after all many issues reported here often turn out to be down to the network. I also suspect it may be owing to the age of my iPad. However, it has only been since loading version 5.8.2 that I've experienced this clunky performance. Nothing else has been changed. I can live with it, but I did prefer the smooth performance I enjoyed with the earlier releases. 

 the Minimserver could not see any track number info on the ripped tracks with numbers 1-9. The solution turned out to be a simple auto track numbering in Foobar tag-editor, after this all files are visible and selectable in Minimserver.

This sounds as a bug in Foobar. But if you contact the minimserver developer and send him such a problematic file, he maybe can change the minimserver behaviour to make it more robust against such probably somehow corrupted meta data.

The character problem certainly is an utf-8 issue. Either the files are tagged with the wrong character encoding (utf-8 vs isolatin, etc.) or the upnp-server from the readynas does read them in the wrong encoding. (The best was if writing and reading both use utf8.)

Regarding the naim app: It works for me quite good and robust. (Both ios and android.) There are some functionalities I'd wish they would be implemented in the naim streamer and the app (like openhome support and real UPnP-search), but this is another topic.

HI Clive B,   I'm on a later beta version than 5.8.2 & there is an issue with DMA that might be related to yours.  Naim are on it so expect it will get fixed for the next App Store release.  

Mike-B posted:

HI Clive B,   I'm on a later beta version than 5.8.2 & there is an issue with DMA that might be related to yours.  Naim are on it so expect it will get fixed for the next App Store release.  

DMA = direct memory access?

Thanks, Mike. I shall await the fix...

To go back to Obsydian's original (restated) point "Intent was a thread discussing Naim resilience (to fix and listen) and positive handling of all issues (compared to other companies), not another app issues thread." (Sorry, I don't know how to quote in the forum - can't see an option)

I'd guess that Naim have no option but to fix and handle issues as the app is vital to the new Uniti range - without it you can't access UPNP for example which rather limits the usefulness of the Atom/Star/Nova if all you've got is the remote and front panel. I'm not sure whether the older Uniti and Classic devices are as dependant.

I too wondered about the word "room", but can see the point.

After saying I have no problems with the app I do seem to have an "issue" (won't call it a fault as it seems rather minor) after all in that the app, when connecting to Asset, can't handle "The" correctly in artist names  - Asset is set to use 'smart' use of 'The' (eg, 'The Roling Stones' should appear under R, not T) whereas, for me anyway, all artists starting The' appear under "T" in the app. Seems to work ok in other apps so I don't think it's an issue with Asset.

Gert: I installed Foobar to fix the problem, so the problem certainly wasn't due to Foobar. I have had very fine help and advice from Minimserver (Simon and others) during the setup and fixing the track issue. 

Since the character problem only happened with ReadyDLNA (not with Readynas running Minimserver, not with Seagate and also not with a WD Nasdrive) it sounds like the problem isn't the original coding. This is further supported by the fact that the ND5XS was showing all characters correct in the display at the same time as the app ignored the tracks with these characters. 

Anyway, everything is fine now, and I enjoy streaming and the function of the Naim app.
I still have quite a few albums that need track number fixing, but it's really quick and easy with Foobar, and at the same time I can set the correct year on the albums as well. 

Claus

Clive B posted:

DMA = direct memory access?    Thanks, Mike. I shall await the fix...

DMA  (Digital Media Adapter)  is a device & software that connects & retrieves digital media files (music etc) from your NAS or other networked media server & plays back over DLNA/UPnP-enabled devices.