Enjoying streaming but...

is it really that difficult to turn the UniQute off and back on again to get it to work?

It's computer audio, when all else fails restart, it's not like it's a 10 minute reboot. I can't understand why when you are happy with everything sound wise why you would change unless you had to restart every other day (and then I'd suspect malfunction and it should be to your dealer you should be going but to repair rather than replace.)

SJB

That happens to me occasionally. Just kill the app by pressing the iPad button twice and then flicking the app out of the top of the screen. Restart the app and it will work again. No need to turn off the Qute.

If it happened once a week, I'd live with it. But in the past few days, it's happened twice or more a day... So this is why it's got me a little frustrated. But, you're right, If it keeps happening I might just send it back to my dealer.

No need to double press the the home button Nigel - with the app open swipe 4 fingers up the screen. Also try 5 spread fingers and swiping them to the centre. Further gestures are available!! Make sure 'multi gestures' is on in Settings>General. 

Regards

Neil

That's neat! You still need to kill the app though, after swiping to multitasking. I was hoping the swiping did the killing - 'swipe to kill', like a gnat.

Hi Dom Tom,

I feel your pain. That seems to be my "streaming problem of the week" this week. N-Stream just won't play certain tracks or albums. I get the message "Skipped Track" - "Can't play". They've played before and they still through the computer.

Last week it was something else, and the week before blah blah blah. I've given up spending my sunday mornings trying to get over the "streaming problem of the week" and just play the tracks I can - or listen to the radio.

I could go on and on and on - but I won't as it's Sunday morning and I want to listen to some music.

Most of the problems seem to sort themselves out with time - and a few re-boots - I hope yours sorts itself out too. Sorry I can't be more help.

Regards,

Matthew

Matthew, DomTom,

If you are getting errors such as can't play (assuming its a supported Naim file type) or other 'funnies' then this is down to the upnp server. At best it has got it indexes mixed up in the database, at worse it has invalidly defined the media files..

For streaming to work you need a quality upnp server... It's the most essential component in terms of the streaming expierience.

Unitiseve or Asset are what I would recommend. Reading these forums so many people's expieriences of streaming are blighted with inferior upnp servers, some of the worst offenders are bundled on NASes. 

Simon

I would agree with that. I had quite a few challenges in setting streaming up, but with help from the forum it's now very solid and I don't suffer from the problems that others appear to. Touch wood!

With UnitiServe, SuperUniti, and a dedicated Airport Express plugged into a switch, which in turn connects to the router, it's all lightning fast. The backup NAS connects to the router separately, and it does its thing every night. All very smile, but effective. Using nServe to organise the music, and nServe to play it, it's all very slick and easy. The Serve was expensive, but it works, which is the main thing.

Am sorry Simon, but could you elaborate , you mean Unitiserve as the storage device and Asset UPNP server software, or simply that each of them are an example of a good option in it's own category.

I share Dom Tom...'s concern, and I encounter this issue from time to time, and certainly when I'm about to show off my digital music saviness on unsuspecting visitors. My setup needs a while, literally some time, to get it all (almost) right. The renderer is Uniti 2 with a 1Tera WD HD connected via USB to the current version Time Capsule as a makeshift setup till I figure the best way ahead Asset resides on my MBPro, but this MBPro is not 'dedicated' to this job, it goes wherever I go, and everytime it comes back to the network dedicated for the hifi there's a finite period it takes to do whatever it is doing (re-indexing all music on the HD?). Finally, is the USB HD setup too slow for the job I am expecting it to do?

I think it was you who posted about using raspberry pi, I've been meaning to pursue that method.

Please share some more recommendations.

Hi Skipper, not quite. The Unitiseve OR Asset make good  and effective upnp servers.

Yes the Unitiserve can use it's own storage, or if you use the SSD version then it uses one or more remotes NASes.. Not dissimilar to Asset upnp in many setups.

So my suggestion, obtain your storage, ie NASes or similar, then arrange for a upnp server on a seperate device unless your NAS is powerful enough to be a general purpose server. Most domestic consumer NASes are not, they are optimised for basic functions and storage purposes.

By doing this will have plenty of resources for the upnp server to run its database and function as a web server and even transcode on the fly... You will see Nstream then become fast and responsive, and allow fast searching through tens of thousands of tracks, and albums as your CD / download collection grows.

You are best not reguarly disconnecting  your storage from the upnp server. The server has to maintain a database of all the tracks and metadata.. Therefore once you reconnect the storage if any of the addressing info the upnp server has for the storage has changed, it will need to rebuild the database... This will be lengthy for a large collection.

So I recommend one or more NAS(s) on your LAN and a little seperate server on your LAN ( if not using Unitiserve) for the upnp server. Leave them in situ and forget about them. Let your upnp server mount the NAS(s) simply over the network.. Once setup like this Asset will also detect when you have new CD in your collection and silently add it into the database automatically.

The point about Apple Airport Express as a wireless access point, is that it is optimised for multicast. Multicast is used in AirPlay and uPnP for discovery and sync purposes. By having network equipment that supports this well, you are allowing your streamingwasps to work quickly and reliably, and issues such as disappearing servers, or faffing around with fixed IP addresses for the ipad and network player and upnp server becomes a thing of the past.

Simon

EDIT.. The RaspberryPi can be quite effective.. But you need to know what you are doing.. I wouldn't recommend to the uninitiated. Further Asset  is not available for it! At the end of the day this is about enjoying music, so devices/software optimised for the job in hand without having to think about it too much are probably the way to go.  I use my pi to serve lossy downloads where I want to keep those files quite seperate from my master upnp server database. Nstream allows you to switch upnp servers, so ican switch between the Pi and Asset.

Thanks for the wise words Simon, really appreciate that.

Can you Simon, or anyone here point me to a thread that has discussed the basic choices when it comes to the Server end of the streaming system? My only caveat is that this should be a recent or current discussion, talking about the latest options that this part of 2013 has to offer.

>The RaspberryPi can be quite effective.. But you need to know what you are doing..

>I wouldn't recommend to the uninitiated. Further Asset  is not available for it! 

It is beta test right now...

One thing I noticed that helped cure the "Can't Play" "Skipped Track" problem I had was to make sure that the NAS drive settings had the Energy Saver/HardDisk Sleep mode disabled.

Mr Spoon.. Thanks for the heads up!!!! I'll wonder over to your site to download the beta.. This really is interesting news ! Great stuff.

Simon

Thank you for all the advice, guys. Funny, since I posted this last night, the Qute has been working fine. Sods law I guess.

I'm no stranger to network streaming. Before the Qute, I use to have a Logitech Transporter network streamer for 3 years and used it with a very simple Buffalo NAS, I never had any problems.

The synology NAS might not be the best server out there but it is very good. With planty of functions and powerful features. It copes with 24/96 files without any problems. So I doubt it's a server problem. It's never failed to wake up when I select UPNP on the Qute's remote or via the nStream app. Browsing my 700-album music library is also very fast. 

I did notice however, that the problem started when I tried to listen to radio paradise on iRadio. It would not connect, so I decided to use UPNP instead, to listen to my own music.

Could it be that the problems with iRadio, that a lot of people have been experiencing lately, have a strange effect on the uniti streamer?

I have the same problem with my NDS.  I have a RipNas but also a Synology 211j as backup.  I noticed that the problem only happens after I try to switch to internet radio and it fails to connect to a station.  If I switch back to UPnP and try to play an album, nothing happens.  The only solution for me was to switch off the NDS and the switch it on again.

TN, yes this appears to be a bug with the latest firmware.. I do expierience this as well (on the NDX). The previous firmware did this occasionally but not all the time as with this current firmware. You also need to be careful when switching inputs.. If you switch to web radio, you do need to let it connect or there is a high chance it will crash and be unable to stream music , requiring a power cycle to clear.

I hope this has been fixed with the forthcomh firmware patch.

Simon

In my case, I'm still running 3.16.00 on the NDS.  I havent updated to the latest version yet.  But this has been happening ever since I got the NDS.

Funny but now that I read these last few posts, I have a possible explanation for needing to power cycle my NDS a couple of days ago because nServe didn't want to reliably play files from my uServe.  I did go thru some steps where iRadio couldn't connect to stations.

I have same problem with one track - first track on Dire Straits, Brother in Arms!  I have qnap nas a with Twonky serving up the nd5xs.  this is the first and only problem can't solve!  Except, I have a beta copy of asset for Mac and connected through that, and that file plays fine - so it is a problem with Twonky and that one track!  It is off an xrcd rip, but the rest of cd is fine - I rip to aiff by the way!  I just live without that track for now, as my Mac is a Mac Pro in another room, so asset would have to be talking wirelessly to qnap that is wire, via a switch to nd5xs In the other room...  Working on getting another PC or Mac Mini setup on that switch!

I have regular "can't play" problem as well until Naim support asked me to turn off the hibernation mode in my Synology. Yes, you are still able to browse your catalog and access your NAS but when it comes to playing, it won't. Prior to this, my workaround has been to turn off and on the streamer again. 

You may ask why would it work then. My guess is when the streamer starts up, it has a routine to wake up the NAS but when it comes to playback, this routine is not there.

Having said that, undoing the hibernation has solve almost 95% of the problem but not completely. Occasionally, I still encounter the inability to play via nstream but usually it is solved by redoing the browsing routine all over again from the root level.

The problem with upnp streamers is the workings rely a lot on the server (ie NAS) so it is in fact very tedious to really troubleshoot all problems. 

I am another one having succumbed (in the last couple of days) to ordering a unitiserve - although the twonky on the NAS generally works fine, it decided the other day to go bonkers.  So for example pick one album by an artist to play but when it opens up a completely different album by the same artist is (in some cases two other albums are) displayed to play... Had been thinking of getting US for a while and flogging my CDS2 released a few quid towards it

A New Year's Present to myself... and I must still look into getting a bit of wire into the walls (despite my wife's views on the subject, made plain by the look on her face when I suggested the idea...)

Hi Madrid, I have and have had Asset on separate micro servers from the NAS's and have yet to experience any issue streaming hidef up to 192/24.  

All I can say if you are running out of media then your NAS most likely does not have the throughput. A 192/24 stream requires just under 10Mbps throughput from your disc drive(s) on your NAS, which these days is not too demanding.

Simon

Excellent, a good decision.