Squeeze Control for Android (support thread)

[wayne@angrygoat]

Interestingly, though, I did a test of Squeeze Control using Squeeze Player and that works ok so there does seem to be a problem with SB Player, the newer sound API and some types of mp3s on my platform.

I'm not sure if there is a way to fix this on your device, short of switching to a different mod of Android.

I would love to fix the problem because, as you know, SB Player allows me to connect directly to mysqueezebox.com (unlike Squeeze Player which will only connect via my home LMS).

Are you sure Squeeze Player doesn't work with mysqueezebox? From the player's perspective there actually isn't much of a difference between connecting to LMS and to MySb. The only difference is that the player has to register itself to MySb. Squeeze Player probably lacks that capability, but what you might be able to do is first connect squeeze player to LMS and then using the web controls or Squeeze Control, tell Squeeze Player to switch it's music source to MySqueezebox.com. This should register Squeeze Player with MySb and you should be able to connect directly afterwards. Of course this won't work if Squeeze Player does not support server switching.

 

[niconum]

Wow, I thought I had read somewhere that a direct mysqueezebox.com connection wasn't supported by Squeeze Player but I tried it this morning with my LMS switched off and it works!

Thanks very much for suggesting that.

As a side note, I happened to be playing the same stream on my Squeezebox Radio and Smartphone this morning so I was looking around for the option to sync them, but after a few seconds it seemed they were in perfect sync on their own!

Just curious: Is the newer API on SB Player supposed to provide better quality audio than the older one I am using with Squeeze Player?

Thanks.

 

[wayne@angrygoat]

Just curious: Is the newer API on SB Player supposed to provide better quality audio than the older one I am using with Squeeze Player?

The use of the newer API is more about future device compatibility. For Squeeze Player to implement all the features of squeezebox on older versions of Android, it had to use what is called "native code" which runs a little closer to the metal, so to speak. The advantage of native code is that it ran a lot faster and I think android exposed more hardware features to the native code API. The disadvantage is that once the app is built, it is locked to the particular CPU architecture it was built for. This has not been much of a problem since almost all android devices used ARM based CPUs, but more devices are appearing that use alternative architectures. To make it work for other CPUs, a version of the app will have to be tested and built for each one. Also, an entire app cannot be built in native code, there has to be some non-native portions, so by not using native it made SB Player a little simpler to manage.

 

[wayne@angrygoat]

Wow, I thought I had read somewhere that a direct mysqueezebox.com connection wasn't supported by Squeeze Player.

You might have read that it does not Officially support a direct connection to mysqueezebox.com. This is likely because Logitech used to discourage app makers from doing that, since this was costing them bandwidth without earning any money from hardware sales. I was told by another developer of a player app that Logitech asked him to remove the ability to connect to mysqueezebox.com.

I haven't gotten any emails from Logitech probably because the market of Squeezebox have shrunken so much by now that the little bit of extra bandwidth from one app is probably negligible and they just don't care anymore.

 

[niconum]

Ok thanks.

I really appreciate all the info you've provided and your being so responsive on this forum.

It's been said before elsewhere, but what a shame the Squeezebox product line took the direction it did...it's such a great architecture. Hopefully people like yourself will continue to keep this stuff alive and well.

Let me know if I can help test anything in the future.

Cheers, Nicholas.

 

[KeithLM]

Is there a way to force it to refresh cover art? It's only picking up maybe 20% of my covers, if that. And it's inconsistent on what it's getting. For most of my albums I have folder.jpg and cover.jpg, so far the ones that show up have both, and many of those that don't show up, they have both also. And most of my albums have cover art in the web browser so I know LMS is finding it.

 

[wayne@angrygoat]

Is there a way to force it to refresh cover art? It's only picking up maybe 20% of my covers, if that. And it's inconsistent on what it's getting. For most of my albums I have folder.jpg and cover.jpg, so far the ones that show up have both, and many of those that don't show up, they have both also. And most of my albums have cover art in the web browser so I know LMS is finding it.

Just reload the page/menu/list. Successfully loaded artwork should already be cached on the device, so the reload should only loaded any artwork that failed the first time.

It sounds like either your server is having trouble handling the load of serving up the artwork or the network connection of your device is flaky. Squeeze Control is a bit harder on the server than the web controls, so it's possible that a lower powered server may have trouble handling the load.

 

[KeithLM]

I have a beefy server and a good network connection on a Nexus 10. It's just really hit or miss on what shows up. Another squeeze app on my tablet shows 99% of the cover art. It may have picked up more of the art, but there's still a lot missing and so far I haven't detected a pattern on what's missing and what's there.

 

[wayne@angrygoat]

I have a beefy server and a good network connection on a Nexus 10. It's just really hit or miss on what shows up. Another squeeze app on my tablet shows 99% of the cover art. It may have picked up more of the art, but there's still a lot missing and so far I haven't detected a pattern on what's missing and what's there.

Have you tried restarting the server and doing a full rescan? Try asking some questions of the squeezebox forums too.

My guess is that the image loading is timing out. The other squeezebox app you use may have a longer timeout than Squeeze Control.

 

[KeithLM]

Have you tried restarting the server and doing a full rescan? Try asking some questions of the squeezebox forums too.

My guess is that the image loading is timing out. The other squeezebox app you use may have a longer timeout than Squeeze Control.

I did do a complete rescan after I updated some of my cover art. I need to do a more thorough analysis of the missing ones. Some of my cover art is quite large, but I think some of the missing ones are on the small side. But perhaps they are coming in batches so the bigger ones are screwing things up.

Oh well, it is what it is. Overall your app is the nicest I've seen, especially on tablets, it makes a much better use of larger screens than other apps so I'll be sticking with it no matter what.

 

[bwaldron]

I have found one small issue that I have been meaning to report for a while. I have Michael Herger's Music and Artist Information plugin installed in LMS, and I use it a lot. When I select the "Artist Information" item (from a Now Playing track or when browsing my library) via Squeeze Control, things work fine (Biography, Artist details...etc.) with one exception: if I select Pictures, nothing is displayed by the app. This does work properly with Orange Squeeze or when using the LMS web interface...and I'd really like it to work with Squeeze Control as well.

 

[wayne@angrygoat]

I have found one small issue that I have been meaning to report for a while. I have Michael Herger's Music and Artist Information plugin installed in LMS, and I use it a lot. When I select the "Artist Information" item (from a Now Playing track or when browsing my library) via Squeeze Control, things work fine (Biography, Artist details...etc.) with one exception: if I select Pictures, nothing is displayed by the app. This does work properly with Orange Squeeze or when using the LMS web interface...and I'd really like it to work with Squeeze Control as well.

I just tried it and it works fine, but it can take a while for the plugin to get the pictures. Also the plugin seem to have stopped working and I had to update the plugin to get it working again.

 

[bwaldron]

I'm using the latest version of the plugin (0.8.1), though I've seen this with every version. I'm willing to wait a reasonable time for results -- but after reading your message I tried again, and nothing has happened for 10 minutes (blank screen, save for the "busy" spinner and the "by Music Folder" text). Results are returned within a few seconds with Orange Squeeze.

 

[wayne@angrygoat]

I'm using the latest version of the plugin (0.8.1), though I've seen this with every version. I'm willing to wait a reasonable time for results -- but after reading your message I tried again, and nothing has happened for 10 minutes (blank screen, save for the "busy" spinner and the "by Music Folder" text). Results are returned within a few seconds with Orange Squeeze.

Which version of LMS are you using? Does your device have a connection to the Internet or just to your local network?

 

[wayne@angrygoat]

I'm using the latest version of the plugin (0.8.1), though I've seen this with every version. I'm willing to wait a reasonable time for results -- but after reading your message I tried again, and nothing has happened for 10 minutes (blank screen, save for the "busy" spinner and the "by Music Folder" text). Results are returned within a few seconds with Orange Squeeze.

I'm guessing that you must be using 7.8. The current official release is 7.7.3. I've traditionally only supported the official releases, since the other releases have always been betas. Since 7.8 is the stable branch of the (new) community supported version, I'll take a look at it.

From a quick glance, 7.8 added an image proxy feature which the Artist Info plugin seems to use. That plugin have always pulled its pictures directly from the net, so I never processed the url's of the images to see if I need to add the server address to them. I'll put in a fix in the next update.

 

[bwaldron]

Yes, I'm using 7.8 (actually I've been trying the latest 7.9.0 nightly the past few days). When your previous question asked about connection to the internet, that made the "mysqueezebox image proxy" lightbulb go off in my head -- as I do in fact have the 7.8/7.9 setting Advanced>Performance>Artwork resizing set to "Use Logitech Media Server to resize artwork". When your latest message arrived, I was in the process of seeing of changing that back to the mysqueezebox.com default to see if it fixes the problem (it doesn't).

I certainly can't blame you for only supporting the official release, but of course all LMS development in the future will be unofficial and supporting the "quasi-official" 7.8.0 (where Michael is removing dependency on mysqueezebox.com in preparation for its demise at some unspecified future point) would be nice.

Thanks as always.

 

[wayne@angrygoat]

Yes, I'm using 7.8 (actually I've been trying the latest 7.9.0 nightly the past few days). When your previous question asked about connection to the internet, that made the "mysqueezebox image proxy" lightbulb go off in my head -- as I do in fact have the 7.8/7.9 setting Advanced>Performance>Artwork resizing set to "Use Logitech Media Server to resize artwork". When your latest message arrived, I was in the process of seeing of changing that back to the mysqueezebox.com default to see if it fixes the problem (it doesn't).

I certainly can't blame you for only supporting the official release, but of course all LMS development in the future will be unofficial and supporting the "quasi-official" 7.8.0 (where Michael is removing dependency on mysqueezebox.com in preparation for its demise at some unspecified future point) would be nice.

Thanks as always.

So far have you experienced any other compatibility problems between Squeeze Control and 7.8?

I've looked at the problem with the image proxy and it's a simple fix. I already process non-external relative url paths for images in other parts of the app, I just didn't think I needed to do it for the image viewer (local cover artwork is identified with just an id, which you then have to build a url around it).

Just for your info:
As far as I can remember (there's been a lot of changes), Squeeze Control for Android has never deliberately used the MySqueezebox.com image resizing proxy. The app resizes all non local LMS images internally, unless the url given to the app already points the MySqueezebox.com proxy. The older version on webOS devices did use the proxy since those devices didn't have an image resizing API, but the android devices I was targeting had no such restrictions and was more than powerful enough to do so.

 

[bwaldron]

So far have you experienced any other compatibility problems between Squeeze Control and 7.8?

No, none at all -- and I have been using 7.8 for quite some time (since March 2013).

I've looked at the problem with the image proxy and it's a simple fix. I already process non-external relative url paths for images in other parts of the app, I just didn't think I needed to do it for the image viewer (local cover artwork is identified with just an id, which you then have to build a url around it).

Makes sense. It only makes a difference with this plugin menu item as far as I can see.

Just for your info:
As far as I can remember (there's been a lot of changes), Squeeze Control for Android has never deliberately used the MySqueezebox.com image resizing proxy. The app resizes all non local LMS images internally, unless the url given to the app already points the MySqueezebox.com proxy. The older version on webOS devices did use the proxy since those devices didn't have an image resizing API, but the android devices I was targeting had no such restrictions and was more than powerful enough to do so.

That makes sense as well. Thanks for the info (and the apps!).

 

[bwaldron]

Thanks for the LMS 7.8 support in the latest update; pictures via the Music & Artist Information plugin are working fine now. Squeeze Control has definitely taken over from Orange Squeeze as my Squeezebox controller of choice.

I do have one request: would you consider adding to the Now Playing (or Current Playlist) screen some indication of the playlist position of the current track and the playlist size (e.g., "1 of 12")? I miss having that available when I'm using Squeeze Control.

I also have one question. When I use the tablet version, I keep it locked in portrait mode (Menu panel at top left, Playlist panel at top right, Now Playing panel at bottom) -- it's the most useful view for me on my 10" tablet. In this mode, however, I cannot see a way to display the song info details (there is no dropdown menu for Now Playing as there is on the phone version, and I can't see any other means to access the information). Am I missing something obvious? (Wouldn't be the first time!)

 

[wayne@angrygoat]

I do have one request: would you consider adding to the Now Playing (or Current Playlist) screen some indication of the playlist position of the current track and the playlist size (e.g., "1 of 12")? I miss having that available when I'm using Squeeze Control.

I think the most relevant place would be the Current Playlist. I can put something on the tablet layout, probably right next to the Current Playlist title; eg. Current Playlist (23/500). However I don't think I can fit it on the phone layout.

I also have one question. When I use the tablet version, I keep it locked in portrait mode (Menu panel at top left, Playlist panel at top right, Now Playing panel at bottom) -- it's the most useful view for me on my 10" tablet. In this mode, however, I cannot see a way to display the song info details (there is no dropdown menu for Now Playing as there is on the phone version, and I can't see any other means to access the information). Am I missing something obvious? (Wouldn't be the first time!)

There's no drop down for the now playing in tablet mode. I always figured that since Current Playlist is right next to Now Playing, you could just access the info there. I can see how it would be useful when you have Now Playing fullscreen in tablet portrait. Instead of the drop down, I'm thinking of a button in the top right of the track info area to open a popup menu.