Unitiserve issues

stebro posted:

I’ve owned a Unitiserve for about four years and really enjoy it.  Recently, I’ve experienced some issues:

-When I burn a CD, it no longer downloads the cover as it used to.  I can still search for the cover image after the CD is burned and add it but it’s an inconvenience and I wonder why this problem just started happening.   I tried different cover art search engines but it didn’t help. 

-The identity and all the data for a disc I burn is sometimes incorrect. I just burned a disc of Mozart symphonies and it showed up as Beethoven quartets. 

-Sometimes it’s not possible to edit disc titles, composers, artists, tracks, etc.  When I enter the information, it seems OK at first but within 30 seconds or less I get an error message saying it is unable to edit the information. The data I entered disappears and it reverts to what was there before. This happens an some discs but others don’t have the problem.  

Would appreciate and tips from the experts out there to resolve these issues.  Thanks!

 

 

 

how many cds with this problem ?    if 3 or 4 , it sometimes happens. But if much more, it is a real issue.   You can ask David Hendon, Mike, .....or Richard, they will help you.   

The failure to download cover art is happening consistently  with every CD I’ve burned in the last few months—more than 100. 

The other two problems-mis identifying the CD and not allowing me to make edits-happen more sporadically—maybe once in every 10 to 20 CDs. Sometimes it will allow editing if I wait a few hours, although a CD I burned yesterday still returns an error message when I try to edit it.  Do David, Mike and Richard read this board or is there some other way to ask them?

Thanks for your help!

Re: cover lookup
There seem to be some problems recently (over the last 3-4 months with the availability of cover-art data). Althought a UnitiServe can acces quite a number of available databases, that just does not happen from time to time.

Re: CD info
CD info data is only looked up in a very ‘crude’ way so to speak. All the UnitServe does it takes the files it finds on a disk; measures each track’s exactl length (time) and a number of tracks. It then compares that to a number of reference sites. It then then does a best ‘guestimate’  of what the CD might be.
If a CD contains track / producer information codes, it may use those too.

Re: editing
I have also encountered that problem. The most likely reason for that is that the UntiServe is still processing the files. If you have an additional MP3 encoding process, running after a rip, it will sort of ‘block’ the files from being edited, untill the process is finished. If you’ve ripped a number of disks, one after another, that process may take hours.

I don't burn many cds these days but have also noticed the failure to download cover art.

Is your firmware up to date? I suspect not, as I seem to remember that the latest update was to the metadata retrieval services used. You should be on version 1.7b.

Are you trying to edit albums quite soon after ripping them? Try waiting a while, then editing them, as Adam mentioned above, especially if you are saving them as FLAC, which takes a little longer.

I've been on the latest firmware for a couple of years. The album art problem is quite recent.

when cash will be there, i will go for the uniticore. It seems stable now.  I will take ssd samsung and will not have all the noises my unitserve produce, specially on summer....and will not fear to have a serve breakdown or hdd failure.

For art cover, i can’t say, i have not ripped recently cds.

Richard Morris posted:

I've been on the latest firmware for a couple of years. The album art problem is quite recent.

It is quite recent - as I wrote - started several months ago.

As I posted, I am using a Unitiserve which is several years old.  Other than the small issues I mentioned, it’s working well and I have thousands of discs on it.  I know it’s been replaced by a newer model but I find Naim’s model designations very confusing so I’m not sure which one replaces the Unitiserve (?).  Also, one dealer told me that the sound on my US is superior to  the newer model. Any comments?   Finally, I have the US with a build in hard drive but everything is backed up on an external hard drive.  If I ever got a new model with a built in hard drive, would I be able to transfer it pretty seamlessly to that device?  Took me hours and hours to burn all those discs. Thanks for all your help!

The replacement is the Uniti Core. You would be able to transfer you rips from the Unitiserve if you buy one.

The Core should be fine on soun quality now (comared to UnitiSrve). There were some teething problems,  whch seem to have been ironed out.

Librariers are transferable between a UnitiServe and a Core platform.

Backup is essential and can be used to transfer files to a Core if necessary. Just make sure it is up-to-date.

Regarding your album art problem, can you confirm that you are on firmware version 1.7b? You need this update for metadata retrieval. Also, is the Unitiserve's internet connection OK?

Internet connection is OK. I just checked and it’s 1.7a sp1. I’ve never done a firmware update on my US.  Considering that it’s working well other than the minor problems I mentioned (and I can still get the album art by doing an edit and internet search after burning a disc), I’m a little reluctant to play with it. I’ve seen posts by people who ended up with big problems after trying to update the firmware (and some by people who had no trouble at all).  Not being technically inclined,  I’m tempted to leave well enough alone.  Does 1.7b make any difference with sound quality?  Besides cover art, what else does it do?

1.7b did update the metadata retrieval function by adding MusicBrainz to the online lookup, and I strongly suspect that you need this for it to work properly. Details here:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...-update-version-1-7b

As Chris says, you need to update to 1.7b The reason is that the AMG lookup that was used on 1.7a no longer works because the service was withdrawn by the metadata provider.

To do 1.7b you need to burn a CD with the update disc image. If you haven't got a PC capable of doing that, call Phil Harris at Naim Support and if you ask nicely he will send you a CD with the image on. Then updating the US is straightforward and we can talk you through that on the forum here. So let us know when you have the update CD.

best

David 

stebro posted:

I’ve seen posts by people who ended up with big problems after trying to update the firmware (and some by people who had no trouble at all).  Not being technically inclined,  I’m tempted to leave well enough alone.  Does 1.7b make any difference with sound quality? 

People have reported problems with streamer firmware updates recently, is that what you are referring to? This is a pretty straightforward update to do once you have the CD, so I wouldn’t worry about it. There is no sound quality change. 

Yes it's just as Chris says.

You definitely should do the update and if you have a local Naim dealer you could ask them to do it for you (while you wait - it takes about 5 minutes).

best

David

Thanks for the advice!  I wrote to Phil Harris to ask for an update disc. He referred it to Eric Adler since I’m in the US and Eric wrote to say he would send the disc. 

I have another unrelated question.  About three years ago I was having some problems with my US (which ultimately resolved themselves). Someone on this forum suggested that the problems may have started because I was burning a CD  at the same time I was playing something stored on the US.  Ever since I have avoided doing this, although it would be more convenient.  Is this a real issue and should I continue to avoid multitasking in this way?

stebro posted:

I have another unrelated question.  About three years ago I was having some problems with my US (which ultimately resolved themselves). Someone on this forum suggested that the problems may have started because I was burning a CD  at the same time I was playing something stored on the US.  Ever since I have avoided doing this, although it would be more convenient.  Is this a real issue and should I continue to avoid multitasking in this way?

The official line is that you can play music while ripping a CD (I think you mean ripping rather than burning?!) although for some reason, I generally don't.

I've got 1.7b and have still noticed a deterioration in the album art look up over the last few months. It's not a major issue as you can always do a web edit but it is definitely is not as good as it used to be.

stebro posted:

Thanks for the advice!  I wrote to Phil Harris to ask for an update disc. He referred it to Eric Adler since I’m in the US and Eric wrote to say he would send the disc. 

I have another unrelated question.  About three years ago I was having some problems with my US (which ultimately resolved themselves). Someone on this forum suggested that the problems may have started because I was burning a CD  at the same time I was playing something stored on the US.  Ever since I have avoided doing this, although it would be more convenient.  Is this a real issue and should I continue to avoid multitasking in this way?

Generally I tend to avoid ripping and playing back from the server at the same time. The poor old things gets a bit overworked...

Camlan posted:

I've got 1.7b and have still noticed a deterioration in the album art look up over the last few months. It's not a major issue as you can always do a web edit but it is definitely is not as good as it used to be.

This is because the excellent AMG lookup used by Unitiserve has been discontinued. 1.7b added MusicBrainz as a lookup but it isn't quite as good as AMG in my experience, although I'm not using my Unitiserve now so my experience of it is getting old. The other angle may be that a couple of music labels stopped making their album artwork available to metadata services. I think Sony was one but I don't recall the other now. Fortunately it's easy to add the artwork with one of the Naim apps.

best

David

Richard Morris posted:

I've been on the latest firmware for a couple of years. The album art problem is quite recent.

May I ask which version of the UnitiServe do you have - HDD or SSD

I’m the original poster and I have the HDD. 

stebro posted:

I’m the original poster and I have the HDD. 

I don't know why Chanyee asked this because I don't think it makes any difference. 1.7b gives you MusicBrainz. It's not as good as AMG used to be but it's all there is for US right now. And some record companies have got difficult about artwork recently.

If after you have 1.7b you have problems with editing or whatever, do come back and we will certainly try to help.

best

David