1 Topic by webmonkees (edited by webmonkees 2008-01-20 11:29:09)

  • Registered: 2007-11-09
  • Posts: 7

Topic: My Music Files- Expected format ?

Glad to see the music files option is showing up now. That was 50% of what I got the Chumby  for.

I have _plenty_ of 2Gb flash drives so I'm ready to go..(Cruzer micro 2GB)

But..
I'm currently typing this as Chumby just sits here with a progress spinner Scanning for music files.
I initially tried it with a Music subfolder, no .pls (since I currently haven't found a good .pls generator for my Mac. I'm sure they're out there..)

This resulted in a soft reboot.  (or a freeze in mid-search, then reboots)

Okay, try something different.
I moved all the other files to a subfolder, put the music files in the top directory.
This is where I'm at now. It's still scanning, but no reboot at least.

I've searched the forum, the wiki (which needs a Music category btw) and don't know what it's looking for.

I'll be glad to comply, once I know what it expects. Short names? a specific folder?


Still spinning as I hit the submit. Guess I'll have to give up for the moment,but I'll leave it on in hopes it finds the music..


I realize it's beta, of course, but some help would be appreciated.


Edit: Okay, One problem solved!  I removed all the other files on my flash drive. apparently it was searching those directories.
Advice: Limit the searches to certain top directories, and note where we need to put files; i.e. a "Music" folder.

New problem: it plays one song, then reboots. Agg!

webmonkees's Website

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,197

Re: My Music Files- Expected format ?

There's a know bug in the firmware related to this functionality, basically an issue with certain file names.  This isn't fixable in the Control Panel alone.  The fix is complete, but is in QA for a future firmware release.

Duane's Website

3 Reply by webmonkees (edited by webmonkees 2008-01-20 21:04:16)

  • Registered: 2007-11-09
  • Posts: 7

Re: My Music Files- Expected format ?

Duane wrote:

There's a know bug in the firmware related to this functionality, basically an issue with certain file names.  This isn't fixable in the Control Panel alone.  The fix is complete, but is in QA for a future firmware release.

Aha! the magic word there is  future!

The notes on the control panel update mentioned 'requires a firmware update'.. and I'm going um.. what firmware update?


Anyway, what I've found in my experiments: Short names, as the control panel info suggests.. No spaces.

A search of 100 files randomly pulled direct from my iTunes folder led to 67 files, of which 14 were one-word names. I suspect the missing 33 were in
folders with spaces.

Chumby will try to play.. um, something, basically it skips along and only plays the 14. So I reduced it to just those and things went great.

No crashes so far in running those 14 over and over.

Oh, and just for fun, I experimented with removing the usb drive mid-song.
it's currently playing a minute loop of the song that was playing, from the start, otherwise okay. Good buffer.

Just 'eject', and remove/reinsert the usb drive and there they are again..

I'm just quite happy to have something resembling mp3 playing on the thing. No problems playing once it knows what to find.

Ironically, my next approach is to load up my (currently empty)  iPod with files equal to the size of the flash drive, then copy those
folders over to the flash. name problem solved, since the iPod naming scheme converts everything to random 4 character.mp3 file names.
ironic also because I have about 8 gig worth of those flash drives, a higher capacity than the iPod itself.

Hmm. . This might violate some Apple TOS, but it'd be neat to hook the iPod up to USB1, the flash to USB2 and have a utility move the files over via Chumby.
For now, my sneaky ways of accessing the iPod file structure on the main computer will have to do.. wink

Gotta say, the beta.. just wow.  Went from a SSH geek hack to get music to pretty much sensory overload. Got the slimserver going, etc.  No bugs to squoosh yet.

get youtube-level video streaming over my lan to the chumby and I may sell the TV..

webmonkees's Website

  • Registered: 2008-01-29
  • Posts: 24

Re: My Music Files- Expected format ?

I put a single .mp3 file with a very short, simple name on my USB drive. Chumby shows "1 music files found" but will not play it.

If I look at the drive in the Chumby's file browser I see there are some hidden Mac OS files (Spotlight index, etc.). Would that have anything to do with it? Any ideas in general?

Thanks,
Mark

5 Reply by wayn3w (edited by wayn3w 2008-02-16 19:49:21)

  • Registered: 2007-11-09
  • Posts: 340

Re: My Music Files- Expected format ?

In order for me to figure out what was wrong with a playlist I created (for My Streams), I had to start up the sshd daemon and, using the tips in forum, went through the following debugging steps.  I hope it helps.

1) see if btplay would play the file by itself.

    btplay /mnt/usb/.../*.mp3  (supply your own file name -- give the full path to the file).  You can use file name completion to help.
    if this fails, it probably will tell you why
    If this worked, try the next step

2) See if the inetradio.sh script can handle the file

    /etc/init.d/inetradio.sh -x start /mnt/usb/.../*.mp3 (give the full path)
    the -x is to give debugging output.  You may see it dump seemingly random stuff to your screen with no sound, or you may see error messages, like it cannot find the file.

    if this dumps random stuff to your screen , then it probably works, then try:

3) stop_control_panel; start_control_panel

    This will dump trace messages to your screen.  Do the actions you need to play the file / stream.  Look at the output to see if there are any error messages.

CAVEAT:  I would not be surprised if this procedure won't work once the new firmware is in.