Asset UPnP Soon Available on Synology NAS

Thanks for the news, Adrian. I'm currently running Asset on my Zoneripper NAS and Minim on the Synology back-up NAS. I haven't tried or bothered with the Beta package or the RaspberryPi version, which was a work around to get Asset to play with Synology, so its good to know a fully supported version will be coming out in the near future. 

Fully supported means that Synology approve it and include in their DSM Package Centre & include it in the updates as they get released,  that has not always been the case in the past.   Full Synology agreement remains to be seen, but my fingers are crossed   Apart from that the beta works very well. 

Mike-B posted:

Fully supported means that Synology approve it and include in their DSM Package Centre & include it in the updates as they get released,  that has not always been the case in the past.   Full Synology agreement remains to be seen, but my fingers are crossed   Apart from that the beta works very well. 

Thanks, Mike. 

The .spk file for Asset supports ARM CPU's as well as Intel. 

Even better, AC16161. I wrongly assumed they'd just be packaging the existing Linux x64 release but looking further down in the Asset beta thread one of the devs confirms the package will support Intel 32 and 64 bit and ARM v6 and v7. That should give pretty wide coverage from low end to high end units. Great news for Synology owners wanting to run Asset.

Adrian_P posted:

Even better, AC16161. I wrongly assumed they'd just be packaging the existing Linux x64 release but looking further down in the Asset beta thread one of the devs confirms the package will support Intel 32 and 64 bit and ARM v6 and v7. That should give pretty wide coverage from low end to high end units. Great news for Synology owners wanting to run Asset.

Indeed, I helped the developer get to the bottom of why an early beta would not run on a DS214+, it now runs just fine without having to do a back-end install of the Pi version. Lots of Synology units should now be covered. The install file packages all the supported binaries and picks the right one according to detected CPU, so no need to choose which version to download. 

Question for anyone who's well established in this.     I've just joined the Asset for Synology beta trail,  am I right to assume the only way we will know when its moved to a later revision beta is to keep an eye on the Illustrate forum.  

Mike, with the Asset betas I've tried in the past there is no automatic notification so I think you'll need to keep an eye on the Asset beta forum. Mr. Spoon might pop up here with an announcement but I wouldn't rely on it, he is no doubt a very busy guy.

Why would you want to use Asset over the supplied Synology Media Server?  What does it do better?  Why would I need it?

StoogeMoe posted:

Why would you want to use Asset over the supplied Synology Media Server?  What does it do better?  Why would I need it?

Both Asset and Minimserver have vastly superior library navigation features/customisation compared to Synology's Media Server. Asset vs Minimserver is another discussion, they both have specific advantages, eg Asset has a recently-added and jukebox playlist feature and can run multiple instances. Minimserver is very nice in other ways and last year Minimstreamer added support for the BBC Prom FLAC stream, which Asset did not support. 

You can easily demo them both without charge. 

Its very slow to load artwork and can't transcode gapless Flac to Wav (which apparently sounds better). That's just 2 reasons that have stopped me using it.

Asset allows you to have separate libraries with different browse views which is very handy if, for instance, you want to keep your classical and non classical libraries separate.

A beta 7 version of Asset R6.2 was announced today -- see:

https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/s...t-R6-2-for-Mac-Linux

Changes in beta 7

• Fixed incorrect values in updateID field returned to UPnP browser
• Fixed incorrect behaviors when Asset gets restarted in mid-browsing-session
• Fixed blank browsing output sent to all clients after a client sends a malformed search query
• Search speed optimisations

Thanks Adrian,  I had already found it & was going to post the news but you beat me to it.     

Any idea what happens when the trial period expires ??   I guess its either nothing or we will need to delete & reinstall.  

As a paid user of Asset for QNAP would we get Asset for Synology for free? Or pay twice?  It's not that much of course and a great product.

I imagine that you would need to purchase a separate version for the Synology assuming that the qpkg version would only work with qnap servers. I know that I had to purchase separate versions for my windows PC and QNAP server.

Mike-B posted:

Any idea what happens when the trial period expires ??   I guess its either nothing or we will need to delete & reinstall.  

Mike, I suspect we'll eventually just see the GA R6.2 release announced on the beta thread and then available for download from the main Asset download page with the Synology package listed with all the others.

There's no guarantee that Asset will appear as a media server app in the Synology Package Center, at least initially -- I imagine that will be down to some kind of license arrangement between Illustrate and Synology. I would therefore expect to use the download and manual install procedure following release. Might be worth asking in the beta forum if that is the case.

I think it depends on CPU type that you have a licence for. For example, the generic Linux-x64 version of Asset I purchased for a back-end installation on my Syno DS416 has a file that I've been able to migrate which triggers Registered status for the beta release of the Syno packaged version. If you head over to the thread on the dbpoweramp forum there is a post with some details on the relevant directory location.

Adrian_P posted:

Mike, I suspect we'll eventually just see the GA R6.2 release announced on the beta thread and then available for download from the main Asset download page with the Synology package listed with all the others.

There's no guarantee that Asset will appear as a media server app in the Synology Package Center, at least initially -- I imagine that will be down to some kind of license arrangement between Illustrate and Synology. I would therefore expect to use the download and manual install procedure following release. Might be worth asking in the beta forum if that is the case.

My question was only regarding the beta trial period,  its limited to 30 days & was just wondering what happens on day 31.

Re your other comments,  I'm not expecting Synology to include Asset in there Package Center.  OK if they do,  but I have no problems purchasing it as a standard Illustrate product.   My only concern in that area is that Synology & Illustrate have a working agreement & when Synology introduce DSM changes that Asset is not affected or if not Illustrate have a new revision available at the time of the DSM change.  

When you install Asset for the first time it runs for 30 days in full "premium" mode with access to all functionality. After the 30 days expires it reverts to operating in the reduced evaluation mode. So, it will keep running but you won't have access to Premium functions. You can replace the beta with the GA when it's available and continue running it in evaluation mode after your 30 days expires.

Had a problem last evening.

App would not 'discover' Asset.
Synology refused to awake from hibernation from app. I started Synology via laptop, the app still did not open Asset.
Reset the app & no change, deleted & reinstalled the app & still no change.
Rebooted NDX, restarted Asset, still no change.

Reinstalled Synology UPnP 'Media Server', that worked OK.

Meanwhile I've uninstalled Asset UPnP ...........  & posted the above on Illustrate forum

Is this with the production or beta app, Mike?

I've had some problems with the latest Android beta where it did not detect any media servers running on my Synology (and I am running Minim and Asset side-by-side) but it did find servers on my PC. So it might be a beta issue.

Another thing to try is using another control point rather than the Naim app -- try using Asset Control on your PC, or BubbleUPnP if you have an Android device. If this can see your Asset server then the problem likely lies with the Naim app.

Hi Adrian,  I'm using the iOS beta app,  its the release candidate for the new public app getting pushed out this week.   The app & a long series of beta's have been rock solid for any/all discovery for my system for a long while,  so I don't believe its the app.   The app opened as normal & could see the NDX & browse iRadio & stream from internet,    it would just not open the UPnP icon & showed a message about searching for server.      A soon as I set the Synology UPnP to run,   it found that,  but not Asset,  so to me its Asset.  And insistently it was Beta-7.   I tried restarting it but that didn't change anything.   I've since deleted it completely & waiting some advise from Illustrate.  Added problem is I'm overseas as from this coming weekend.  

Are you sure Asset is actually running on the NAS? Can you connect to the web UI from a browser? Using another control point would also confirm this.

Good luck getting guidance on the Asset forum, traffic there seems very light.

Adrian_P posted:

Are you sure Asset is actually running on the NAS? Can you connect to the web UI from a browser? Using another control point would also confirm this.

Good luck getting guidance on the Asset forum, traffic there seems very light.

It was running on the NAS,  it was faultless for 25 days including yesterday early evening,  then it suddenly refused to open up last night.   Yes I could connect to it via GUI alright,  I used that when I tried restarting it & also looking at the config screens.    

I don't have another control point to try,  I used to have a Linn & a www.freebee during the time when we first started with the Naim beta apps,  came in useful for just this event, but I junked them a long while back when the iOS app was through its issues.  I was not expecting to need it again for Asset.