RaspberryPi/NAS/Minimserver/Naim app...

Singlespeed posted:

Hi folks

Last weekend I decided to change up my RPi with a raspbian lite O/S to try using it as a UPnP server for my music system. To note, I currently have the following setup:

Synology NAS with Minimserver installed >> Switch >> N272. This is a little flaky with UPnP discovery on both my Ipad & Android fone at times with the Minim share disappearing & reappearing on occasion.

Decided to see if the RPI would give me a 'better' connection & setup as follows:

Flashed Raspbian Lite OS on SDcard & booted RPi. Setup SSH & changed to Static IP address. Installed Minimserver & then gave up trying to point minimserver to my NAS using a network path (???) & mapped the NAS as a mount on the RPi....

Using minimwatch from my laptop & it was not finding the RPi minimserver (I had, by this time stopped the minimserver service on the NAS ;-)) rebooted everything & minimwatch finally discovered the RPi minimserver & then it greyed out intermittently!?

Android app would not discover the RPi minim unless I used compatibility mode & Ipad app was flaky with discovery but also found it reliably in compatibility mode too.

Setup is as follows:

Router, NAS, RPi & N272 all connected to same switch.

So FINALLY my question is - have I got something missing or is my setup not optimized or setup wrong? As it stands the RPi setup is nowhere near as reliable as the existing NAS setup. I know a few of you are using something similar & report how well it works for you so any help would be appreciated :-)

Hopefully this may also help others who may be thinking of setting up something similar...

thanks!

I do not know. The fact that your current setup (Synology NAS with Minimserver installed >> Switch >> N272) is "a little flaky" suggests that there might be something wrong with your network? What do you see in your RPi MinimServer logs? 

I have been running two to four RPis in my LAN, one wired to the router and the others wirelessly connected, for more than three years. I have never had any discovery problem or greyed out MinimServer icons. But I have never used static IP addresses or network mounts: all my RPis serve files which are stored on local USB drives.

Perhaps you should first make sure that a simple, minimal configuration (MinimServer running 24/7 on a wired RPi and serving data stored in a local drive) works reliably before you attempt more sophisticated setups?

Are you wedded to Minimserver, as your UPnP server?

Have been running Asset on a RPi, with Lean OS of my own (Jessie/Stretch based), no problems in the last 6 years or so, feeding a ND5XS/XP5XS and now a NDS/555DR.

Also Asset is now available for Synology devices.

Simon.

nbpf posted:

Perhaps you should first make sure that a simple, minimal configuration (MinimServer running 24/7 on a wired RPi and serving data stored in a local drive) works reliably before you attempt more sophisticated setups?

Thanks - I will try a local storage option on the RPi to see if that makes a difference, do you know if it's possible to put a networked address into minims content directory field? Status page on port 9790 displays no problem too.

Logs are the same as when it runs directly from the NAS, a few incorrect FLAC headers in certain files but nothing to suggest the package isn't running correctly....

simes_pep posted:

Are you wedded to Minimserver, as your UPnP server?

Have been running Asset on a RPi, with Lean OS of my own (Jessie/Stretch based), no problems in the last 6 years or so, feeding a ND5XS/XP5XS and now a NDS/555DR.

Also Asset is now available for Synology devices.

Simon.

 

Thanks Simon, I was just sticking to what I'm used to so maybe a fresh perspective is in order? Will have a look at Asset.....

cheers.

Singlespeed posted:

nbpf posted:

Perhaps you should first make sure that a simple, minimal configuration (MinimServer running 24/7 on a wired RPi and serving data stored in a local drive) works reliably before you attempt more sophisticated setups?

Thanks - I will try a local storage option on the RPi to see if that makes a difference, do you know if it's possible to put a networked address into minims content directory field? Status page on port 9790 displays no problem too.

Logs are the same as when it runs directly from the NAS, a few incorrect FLAC headers in certain files but nothing to suggest the package isn't running correctly....

No.. as that is an OS function.. you simple need to mount the NAS share into the /etc/fstab file

so for my NAS CIFS share I insert Into /etc/fstab

//192.168.1.20/music /home/pi/nas cifs guest,_netdev,sec=ntlm 0 0

this mounts my NAS share  at 192.168.1.20/music  to my directory /home/pi/nas so my Pi can see all my media at boot time .. So in the content directory field on Minimserver  I simply insert /home/pi/nas and it can then see and scan all my media. I mount the share as guest so I can’t wipe anything with any mishaps... guests on my NAS have no write access.

I also reserve the 192.168.1.20 IP address on my dhcp server for my NAS... I could have fiddled around with DNS and host names, but I kept it simple.

Singlespeed posted:

nbpf posted:

Perhaps you should first make sure that a simple, minimal configuration (MinimServer running 24/7 on a wired RPi and serving data stored in a local drive) works reliably before you attempt more sophisticated setups?

Thanks - I will try a local storage option on the RPi to see if that makes a difference, do you know if it's possible to put a networked address into minims content directory field? Status page on port 9790 displays no problem too.

...

Section "Reading audio files" from the MinimServer user guide says, among others:

The contentDir property can be set to a single content directory or multiple content directories. You might need to use multiple content directories if your music collection is partly on a local disk and partly on a network disk, or if you want to structure your collection in a way that allows you to selectively include or exclude some files from the browse tree

Thus, there should be no problem in indexing network disks and mixing up local and network disks. But, as I wrote, I have only used local disks in my system.

My suggestion to first try with local disks was meant to be a means for detecting whether the issues that you have reported are more likely due to network problems or to MinimServer configuration problems.

If the MinimServer logs do not indicate problems in accessing network files, I would as a first step reboot the router and the device that runs the Android app.

Oh I forgot to say, when you edit the /etc/fstab file with your NAS mount for MinimServer / Asset etc on your Pi, you need to do a superuser.. good luck let us know how you get... network shares are quite straightforward in Linux.. and have more flexibility on where to put them in your file structure than more user friendly OS.

Or you could use a nfs mount in /etc/fstab

e.g. 192.168.0.3:/media /home/pi/nas nfs ro,_netdev 0 0

Where 192.168.0.3:/media is the NAS volume directory and /home/pi/nas is the mount point on the RPi. The ro is Read-only access.
I did find nfs to have better performance than cifs

Simon.

Indeed, it depends what is set up on your NAS.. on my Netgear I have set all my mounts as Samba/CIFS and I think I am right in remembering it was offered as default. I found that worked well for Windows and OSX.. but if I set up as NFS as well or instead  I could have used that instead...

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

No.. as that is an OS function.. you simple need to mount the NAS share into the /etc/fstab file

so for my NAS CIFS share I insert Into /etc/fstab

//192.168.1.20/music /home/pi/nas cifs guest,_netdev,sec=ntlm 0 0

this mounts my NAS share  at 192.168.1.20/music  to my directory /home/pi/nas so my Pi can see all my media at boot time .. So in the content directory field on Minimserver  I simply insert /home/pi/nas and it can then see and scan all my media. I mount the share as guest so I can’t wipe anything with any mishaps... guests on my NAS have no write access.

I also reserve the 192.168.1.20 IP address on my dhcp server for my NAS... I could have fiddled around with DNS and host names, but I kept it simple.

Yes thanks Simon, that's how I have it set up ;-) NAS, RPi & N272 all have static IP addy's....

nbpf posted:

Section "Reading audio files" from the MinimServer user guide says, among others:

The contentDir property can be set to a single content directory or multiple content directories. You might need to use multiple content directories if your music collection is partly on a local disk and partly on a network disk, or if you want to structure your collection in a way that allows you to selectively include or exclude some files from the browse tree

Thus, there should be no problem in indexing network disks and mixing up local and network disks. But, as I wrote, I have only used local disks in my system.

My suggestion to first try with local disks was meant to be a means for detecting whether the issues that you have reported are more likely due to network problems or to MinimServer configuration problems.

If the MinimServer logs do not indicate problems in accessing network files, I would as a first step reboot the router and the device that runs the Android app.

Yes thanks, everything was rebooted after setup & it didn't really make any difference. I reverted back to the Minim on the NAS last night & it worked fine from there with minimwatch connecting instantly. Will try a USB drive when I get time, although I can't see how that might improve the minimwatch connection issue....?

Singlespeed posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

No.. as that is an OS function.. you simple need to mount the NAS share into the /etc/fstab file

so for my NAS CIFS share I insert Into /etc/fstab

//192.168.1.20/music /home/pi/nas cifs guest,_netdev,sec=ntlm 0 0

this mounts my NAS share  at 192.168.1.20/music  to my directory /home/pi/nas so my Pi can see all my media at boot time .. So in the content directory field on Minimserver  I simply insert /home/pi/nas and it can then see and scan all my media. I mount the share as guest so I can’t wipe anything with any mishaps... guests on my NAS have no write access.

I also reserve the 192.168.1.20 IP address on my dhcp server for my NAS... I could have fiddled around with DNS and host names, but I kept it simple.

Yes thanks Simon, that's how I have it set up ;-) NAS, RPi & N272 all have static IP addy's....

... and are you still experiencing discovery problems or have you managed to achieve reliable communication between the control point, the RPi, the renderer and the NAS?

simes_pep posted:

Or you could use a nfs mount in /etc/fstab

e.g. 192.168.0.3:/media /home/pi/nas nfs ro,_netdev 0 0

Where 192.168.0.3:/media is the NAS volume directory and /home/pi/nas is the mount point on the RPi. The ro is Read-only access.
I did find nfs to have better performance than cifs

Simon.

more or less as I have setup Simon:

/home/pi/MyNAS nfs defaults 0 0

thanks

nbpf posted:

... and are you still experiencing discovery problems or have you managed to achieve reliable communication between the control point, the RPi, the renderer and the NAS?

No, as stated have reverted back to taking the RPi out of the mix. Reliable from minim on the NAS with the Naim app discovering the minim share OK... Seems to be something wrong from the RPi side??

Singlespeed posted:

nbpf posted:

... and are you still experiencing discovery problems or have you managed to achieve reliable communication between the control point, the RPi, the renderer and the NAS?

No, as stated have reverted back to taking the RPi out of the mix. Reliable from minim on the NAS with the Naim app discovering the minim share OK... Seems to be something wrong from the RPi side??

Is the RPi wired or is it wirelessly connected? Which OS are you running on the RPi? Have you tried pinging the RPi and the NAS? Can you reliably remote login onto the RPi? Have you checked on your router the state of the two devices? What you are reporting is a bit strange, in my experience the RPi are very reliable devices and I have never experienced discovery  problems in my LAN in spite of the fact that all my devices (up to one RPi) are connected wirelessly.

Have you looked at Moode Audio on the RPi?

Suzy Wong posted:

Have you looked at Moode Audio on the RPi?

No but will have a look thanks Suzy.

nbpf posted:

Is the RPi wired or is it wirelessly connected? WIRED

Which OS are you running on the RPi? Latest Debian Raspbian release (DL'd last week)

Have you tried pinging the RPi and the NAS? Yes - 100% success

Can you reliably remote login onto the RPi? Via Putty SSH no issues

Have you checked on your router the state of the two devices? In so far as Pinging & trace route tests they are both attached to the same switch so not much else to check? Logs show nothing of note either

What you are reporting is a bit strange, in my experience the RPi are very reliable devices and I have never experienced discovery  problems in my LAN in spite of the fact that all my devices (up to one RPi) are connected wirelessly. I've also had this same RPi running as an OSMC media server for a year & it's been bomber in that role! Running the same static IP & streaming from the same NAS - no issues....

The other thought I had was, have I DL'd the correct version of Minimserver?:

I used the HF version but would not using the 64-bit version have any bearing on my connection issues??

What would uPnPdcli give me over minimserver??

Thanks for your patience :-)

Singlespeed posted:

nbpf posted:

Is the RPi wired or is it wirelessly connected? WIRED

Which OS are you running on the RPi? Latest Debian Raspbian release (DL'd last week)

Have you tried pinging the RPi and the NAS? Yes - 100% success

Can you reliably remote login onto the RPi? Via Putty SSH no issues

Have you checked on your router the state of the two devices? In so far as Pinging & trace route tests they are both attached to the same switch so not much else to check? Logs show nothing of note either

What you are reporting is a bit strange, in my experience the RPi are very reliable devices and I have never experienced discovery  problems in my LAN in spite of the fact that all my devices (up to one RPi) are connected wirelessly. I've also had this same RPi running as an OSMC media server for a year & it's been bomber in that role! Running the same static IP & streaming from the same NAS - no issues....

The other thought I had was, have I DL'd the correct version of Minimserver?:

Linux ARM soft float:
Linux ARM hard float:
Linux ARM 64-bit:

I used the HF version but would not using the 64-bit version have any bearing on my connection issues??

What would uPnPdcli give me over minimserver??

Thanks for your patience :-)

I am using

  MinimServer-0.8.5.2-linux-armhf.tar.gz

on

  Linux rpi6 4.14.79-v7+ #1159 SMP Sun Nov 4 17:50:20 GMT 2018 armv7l GNU/Linux

I do not know whether the connection issues can have anything to do with the MinimServer version that you are using.

MinimServer is a UPnP server and upmpdcli is a UPnP renderer. One would typically run MinimServer in a server and upmpdcli in a streamer or network player. But nothing prevents you from running both on the same RPi. This gives you an integrated server + renderer solution. Of course, you can run MinimServer on your NAS and upmpdcli on the RPi if you want the renderer to run under minimal load.

So called ‘discovery’ problems if they are occurring on the RPi will be nothing really to do with pinging it’s unicast address or ability to log in... but could be driver, app or even connected switchport related in as far as for what ever reason the RPi is not properly responding to the SSDP messages that are either broadcast or multicast to it (depending on maturity and capability of home network).

You can try pinging your SSDP multicast group address 239.255.255.250 and see if the RPi responds with its unicast IP addresss  (as well as the other discoverable devices)  ... best ping from a host already in the group. This can be quite a good test for network related ‘discovery’ issues as opposed to application related.

I have no such issue running MinimServer as well BubbleUPnP Server on a RPi2 connected with Cisco Catalyst switches.. however I do run an IGMP Querier on my home network to ensure all my multicast groups are optimised and appropriately active... that way for example functionality for discovery in the Naim app across my various media servers, and Naim devices  is instant and reliable. Also helps Airplay and network printing discovery be instant as well.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

 

You can try pinging your SSDP multicast group address 239.255.255.250 and see if the RPi responds with its unicast IP addresss  (as well as the other discoverable devices)  ... best ping from a host already in the group. This can be quite a good test for network related ‘discovery’ issues as opposed to application related.

Hi Simon, tried the above & the only device on the network that responded was the N272

Pinging 239.255.255.250 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.7: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.7: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.7: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.7: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

I can enable IGMP snooping on the router but seem to remember that minimserver nfo suggests disabling if users are having trouble connecting....?

Singlespeed posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

 

You can try pinging your SSDP multicast group address 239.255.255.250 and see if the RPi responds with its unicast IP addresss  (as well as the other discoverable devices)  ... best ping from a host already in the group. This can be quite a good test for network related ‘discovery’ issues as opposed to application related.

Hi Simon, tried the above & the only device on the network that responded was the N272

Pinging 239.255.255.250 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.7: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.7: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.7: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.7: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

I can enable IGMP snooping on the router but seem to remember that minimserver nfo suggests disabling if users are having trouble connecting....?

And I only get replies from a Chromecast Audio! Another avenue: you have mentioned flaky UPnP discovery on your iPad and on your Android phones. Are you using the same control app on iPad and Android phone? Have you tried BubbleUPnP on the Android phone? I almost only use BubbleUPnp to control my UPnP servers and renderers.

Hi Singkespeed, well if you are pinging the discovery group address from the same device you are running MinimServer on.. then it shows that your home network is working.. and not looking like a network issue there...

So I would try an alternate media server for now on a different platform such as a PC or Mac, at least for now.

only when you have it all working correctly should you try and re-enacted IGMP snooping for best performance.

The other thing you can do is download the Analyzer tool ‘Net Analyzer’ for your iPad... run it and let it scan your home network... your media server should show up... with a little blue ‘U’ against it for UPnP services..you should then click in on your iPad to look at the UPnP services, and you should see your media server listedif itsfunctioning correctly.

Hey folks

So I decided to give Asset a go to see if that would be any more reliable than Minimserver but same discovery issues! The Android app not seeing the Asset Server at all & Ipad app taking minutes before it finally popped up & then disappeared again! Looking through a box I found another Cat5e cable & decided to swap out the existing RPi NIC cable to the switch - no change... Then unplugged from switch & went direct to router instead & boom! Asset & Minimserver both instantly popped up in Naim app! 

So, looks like for some reason the discovery issue is to do with the switch? It's a 5 port metal TP-Link unit that hasn't missed a beat since it was installed years ago.... strange as I thought unmanaged switches were all but transparent as far as data throughput is concerned? Have been pondering on a Cisco unit, as discussed on these forums, so maybe it's time to take a leap...?

Anybody have any ideas on this issue & how I might go about testing it?

@SiS - will go get that ‘Net Analyzer’ you sugggested & see what it comes up with too  thanks

Thanks for all your helpful comments thus far & I hope you are all having a wonderful, musical Christmas break!

cheers!