Unitiserve Problems Again - sigh!

Posted by: Timbo on 28 November 2013

I will be dropping off my Unitiserve SSD to my dealers today. After a lot of small but irritating issues the unit has finally given up. Yesterday I was ripping some Cds and the database kept reporting that it was an unknown CD, which it has done several times. But usually I abort the process clean the CD which I think helps and then re-insert and everything is OK. By the way the internet connection was good and I was listening to radio paradise at the time.

 

This time it just did not recognize any and so I decided to reboot the unit. Usual procedure, touch light on front it starts to flash then after about a minute it shuts off, then I turn power off at the back, wait ten minutes or so then turn back on.

 

This time the unit started up with the front light flashing and hasn't stopped since. I can shut down the unit in the usual way but on startup it will not stop flashing so i can only assume it is a return to dealer situation. Anyone else had the continuous flashing light syndrome?

 

By the way this is the latest in a long line of issues:

Date and time reading 1753:01:01 on network shares

Up time starting to count backwards at roughly the 24 day mark

Dropping connections to network shares and stores for no reason

Taking 2-3 hours to scan music store of 1200 albums

 

I appreciate some aspects may be due to my network and not all the unitiserve's fault, but it's back to my squeezebox touch for the duration which I must say has been pretty much bullet proof.

 

Happy Days :-)

 

Tim

 

Posted on: 28 November 2013 by Jan-Erik Nordoen
Originally Posted by Timbo:

Anyone else had the continuous flashing light syndrome?. 

Yes, following power outages ; it means the U/S is stuck in bootup mode. Have you had any power cuts recently ?

Hope it gets sorted quickly,

 

Jan

Posted on: 28 November 2013 by ChrisH

I did have the similar flashing light syndrome also Timbo.

I did manage to clear it, but something was clearly not right as it reoccurred a couple of times.

So I got in touch with my dealer and Naim Support, and curiously my problem was fixed by an exchange for the power supply lead.

I have seen other mentions of this on the forum too.

Hopefully your issue will be something similarly straightforward.

Posted on: 28 November 2013 by Timbo

Thanks guys, it's hard being without it. No power outages for years, I think we are lucky around here. Other parts of the City of Edmonton seem to have regular power outages.

 

Tim

Posted on: 28 November 2013 by hungryhalibut

What a drag. I hope it gets fixed or exchanged quickly.

Posted on: 28 November 2013 by KRM

I have had two power supplies die on me. The design has been changed now and I have had no problems with the third one. It might be worth asking your dealer to swap the PS before he sends the whole thing back.

 

Keith

Posted on: 29 November 2013 by maze

Gave up on my userve a while back, traded it for a streamer and bought a nas, now the streamer sometimes can't see the nas so have to switch streamer of and on. Getting rather fed up with the whole streamer/nas/userve thing to be honest. May go back to cd. It's nice when it works but annoying when it doesn't.

Computers and hi fi don't really go together.

Posted on: 29 November 2013 by Timbo

I tend to agree, however I am contemplating demoing an ND5XS whilst my unitiserve is away and this might be a solution but for two items:

 

1. All the stuff I have ripped using the unitiserve I will assume the ND5 will see it;

2. What should I use to get a bit perfect rip as good as the unitiserve (I have a Mac)?.

 

I understand that Naim have more control over the functionality of the streamers than the servers, don't quite know what this means but I assume it's a positive.

 

Tim

Posted on: 29 November 2013 by Jasonf
Originally Posted by Timbo:

I tend to agree, however I am contemplating demoing an ND5XS whilst my unitiserve is away and this might be a solution but for two items:

 

1. All the stuff I have ripped using the unitiserve I will assume the ND5 will see it;

2. What should I use to get a bit perfect rip as good as the unitiserve (I have a Mac)?.

 

I understand that Naim have more control over the functionality of the streamers than the servers, don't quite know what this means but I assume it's a positive.

 

Tim

Tim,

 

Fear not, there maybe some problems with the U-Serve's psu, some have been unfortunate, some have not.

 

With regard to the ND5, I have one connected with my U-Serve, they will be talking and streaming within 30 seconds and there will be NO problems with the UPnP delivery and file discovery. The problems tend to be when introducing a NAS into the equation according to reports on the Forum.

 

Not sure why you would want to rip on another solution if you have a U-Serve which already gives you the best rips? I would just wait until your U-Serve is returned, keep things simple.

 

As far as your last sentence is concerned, I also don't understand that, they are designed and optimised to work in partnership (sound wise, this is the Naim optimised solution using ethernet) and I have not read on the contrary. My experience is faultless in this regard.

 

Jason.

Posted on: 29 November 2013 by hafler3o
Originally Posted by Timbo:

 

2. What should I use to get a bit perfect rip as good as the unitiserve (I have a Mac)?.

 

 

Tim

dBpoweramp is better than a stand-alone ripper (like UServe) as it uses a shared database of track data that can report and fix read errors (the errors that are "already on the page" so no amount of re-reading will fix). The Userve can only do multiple re-reads of the disc in the slot.

Posted on: 29 November 2013 by Timbo

Thanks for the replies.

 

As for the functionality bit the idea was to part with the US and get a streamer. What i thought was that Naim from a software development point of view had more control over what a streamer could do rather than a server. Please bear in mind I could be talking absolute twaddle as I don't quite understand how it all works.

 

As for DBPoweramp I will investigate as i though it was a Windows only solution.

 

Tim

Posted on: 29 November 2013 by totemphile

It's XLD for your Mac!

 

Although Spoon is apparently working on bringing dbP onto OSX

 

"Let us think about dBpoweramp for a moment, and at the same time think about the Apple Mac, dBpoweramp is coming to OS X, development starts very soon, beta should be Q1 2014 and full release Q3 2014."

 

Source: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

 

Posted on: 29 November 2013 by Manu

Timbo,

 

I send a new power supply to your dealer right now. We can start here.

Posted on: 29 November 2013 by Timbo

Thanks Manu for the thought and prompt action:

 

Bryan has another unitiserve in stock and we tried that power supply, but it didn't make any difference.  I think there are some severe problems with the unit as it has been doing some very odd things. I believe Rick is or will be sending the unit back to you asap.

 

Thanks again

 

Tim

Posted on: 29 November 2013 by Timbo

Hi Wat:

 

Don't really want to go that route. I do have a Mac mini server but don't want that on my shelf with all the other stuff as well.

 

I'm currently using an ND5XS which i picked up this afternoon. It will play internet radio but will not see any of the files that were ripped to the NAS with the unitiserve. Reading the instructions it sounds like the ND5 requires UPNP to be activated on the NAS which being a QNAP has its own beta version and Twonky.

 

To me this all looks very complicated and very over the top. Additionally I downloaded NStream and have found it so far very slow and not as user friendly as Nserve.

 

On a positive note maybe things will pick up over the weekend and I'll find out a bit more about the system.

 

Tim