More US help needed

Certainly it's not working as intended.  I suggest contacting Naim support via email so that they can help   No one can diagnose from afar unfortunately. 

Thanks. Have emailed Naim.

Richard Morris posted:

I was surprised to see in the US box a separate sheet advising the correct shutdown and start procedure but now I understand why. The machine locks-up - a lot. By which I mean - becomes unresponsive. I'm having to restart 2-3 times a day using the tiresome procedure on the sheet. Is this usual? I wonder if the lock-ups are connected to loss momentary  of internet connection - mine is not rock solid - but then shouldn't the US reconnect to the network?

I am sure the advice from Bart to ask Naim is the right advice.  But just answering your questions, the reason for the advice on correct shutdown procedure isn't because you need to do that a lot.  My US is on and running without needing a shutdown for months at a time. In fact I'm not sure I ever needed to shut it down to fix a problem. The reason is that it is at its heart an embedded Windows XP computer and if you just turn it off by turning the mains off, just like with a normal Windows computer, you risk getting disc errors and this may stop it starting up eventually. Shutting it down the way that Naim says avoids that problem.

You can connect a VGA display, keyboard and mouse to the US just like with a real computer and that way you can see any error messages and so on. This is more important if it hangs on startup, but Naim may ask you anyway whether you can connect a display at least.

I don't think you say whether you tried to connect to it using the Windows Desk Top Controller programme, which is any help if you have a Mac, but if your PC is Windows then you can download this programme from the Naim website and that allows you to look into and control the US at a more intimate level than with the N-serve app.

The US doesn't hang when it loses an Internet connection and it should reconnect if your connection comes back on. Obviously if the Internet connection goes while it is looking up a CD, it will take longer before it defaults back to its own internal lookup list, which is very limited,  but it should keep working as a server.  I have occasionally had "no CD present" when it couldn't find any data on an unusual CD eg I can think of a disc I bought in Japan. Perhaps if t can't find any data on the disc it will assert that it can't in fact be a CD.  I'm not sure.  But that's why you need Naim's advice anyway.

best

David

About the cd not present. This can happen after the serve has given up on a difficult cd. If you have the desktop client for win or Mac, delete the cd, and after that on the tools tab find recycle bin and delete the album again.

Of course this assumes you have a normal hard disk and not  the ssd version of the Userve. If you have the ssd version and rip to a nas, the problems with losing internet connection would make more sense.

And what do you exactly mean with unresponsive?

Claus

David and Claus, thanks for the replies.

I'm a Mac user and can access the US via Safari at its IP address and the n-Serve app. The US (hard drive, not SSD) does not hang at start up.

I have noticed that a rogue cd can cause the US to stall but I can abort these and proceed as usual. However if I am away from the US and don't abort then this can cause the US to hang (become unresponsive).

In addition, pretty consistently, the machine hangs overnight and I have to restart every morning.

After my original post I restarted the US,  retried the cds causing the 'cd not present' message and they all ripped with no problems.

Richard: CD not present - happens on some CDs, not necessarily 'copy protected' ones. 

Adam

Adam Zielinski posted:

Richard: CD not present - happens on some CDs, not necessarily 'copy protected' ones. 

Adam

Yes, I've noticed that. Neil Young Massey Hall 1971 [HDCD] is one I've found.

I have some 10 CDs which will simply not subject themselves to the US ripping... Gives me an excuse to keep my CDX2 

I had a couple of discs which my HDX wouldn't rip - one was ZZ Top Greatest Hits. In the end, I simply made a copy and ripped that. Seemed to work perfectly.....

Restart each morning is not normal!! Maybe there are some information in the log files I suppose you also can access from the mac version of the desktop client. The obvious thing to do is to get Naim support to login to the userve remotely and see  what they can find

Claus

Richard Morris posted:

David and Claus, thanks for the replies.

I'm a Mac user and can access the US via Safari at its IP address and the n-Serve app. The US (hard drive, not SSD) does not hang at start up.

I have noticed that a rogue cd can cause the US to stall but I can abort these and proceed as usual. However if I am away from the US and don't abort then this can cause the US to hang (become unresponsive).

In addition, pretty consistently, the machine hangs overnight and I have to restart every morning.

After my original post I restarted the US,  retried the cds causing the 'cd not present' message and they all ripped with no problems.

Curiously this afternoon, having said I never have an issue with my US, I put a CD into my US to rip it and opened up n-serve on my iPad. I got a "no servers found" message, which made me think a bit. The CD stayed inside the US. After a bit I restarted the US and it ejected the CD as it was closing down. The problem turned out to be some odd issue with the Netgear GS105 switch that the US and some, but not all, my Naim streaming kit is plugged into. I restarted the switch several times, but it still didn't seem to work properly. I unplugged everything, tried another older switch which was fine and then put back the original GS105 which was also now fine. Everything is back to normal now....

The reason for going through all this is that it strikes me that your US may be losing sight of your home network and not just the Internet.  It might be worth waggling a few wires etc, depending how your network is arranged. (Oh and I have just ordered myself a spare GS105!)

best

David

Thanks. Interesting suggestion, especially as I also lost connection to my Mu-so overnight, for the first time. I'll experiment - although I don't have a switch. Worth getting?

You will find that many, many posts on this forum recommend that you use an unmanaged Ethernet switch, like the Netgear GS105 or several if your equipment is spread around your house, to join your audio network components together and then connect that back to your router. The spare one I just bought was about £20 from the obvious large on-line retailer. These are completely plug and play and, notwithstanding whatever happened this afternoon here, the network is usually much more stable than if you rely on the switch in your ISP-supplied router.

best

David

Thanks - ordered.

I shall be interested to hear whether it solves your problem.

fingers crossed

best

David