(feature request) Add folders for Artists

[whinette]

Hello,

Would it be possible, in the Artists browsing, to add new folders for the kinds of artists?
Similar to "All Artists", but with:

• Album Artist
• Composer
• ... and so on, depending the the tags present on the media server.

If I take my LMS setup, that would be a folder for each of those:

Thanks in advance.

[GioF71]

Hello again. Newer versions of the plugin feature Album artists, but they are kind of slow because there isn't a subsonic endpoint for that. So I just search for artists and show those which are Album artists. The list can't be sorted of course (otherwise it would become incredibly slow with the size of the library, and we would also risk timeouts even more.
What lms does is not necessarily made available through the subsonic api. Both Navidrome and LMS can of course do more because they have access to their respective databases.

[GioF71]

Hello again. Newer versions of the plugin feature Album artists, but they are kind of slow because there isn't a subsonic endpoint for that. So I just search for artists and show those which are Album artists. The list can't be sorted of course (otherwise it would become incredibly slow with the size of the library, and we would also risk timeouts even more.
What lms does is not necessarily made available through the subsonic api. Both Navidrome and LMS can of course do more because they have access to their respective databases.

Edit: I am even considering removing the views "by artist" for the aforementioned reasons. They are extremely inefficient right now through the subsonic api. Apps like Symfonium can do a better job at that but they have a "sync" phase. My plugin and other apps like "supersonic" are online only instead.
After all, no steaming service like spotify or tidal will ever provide you with lists of all their artists. In their case those lists would simply be virtually endless so of limited value to the user.

[whinette]

I think the "current" (with my out of date version as we found out) version with the disclaimer is good, and it would be great to let it as it is today
I do use Symfonium but casting to my upnp receiving is really unreliable, I'm exploring other options at the moment.

[GioF71]

I think the "current" (with my out of date version as we found out) version with the disclaimer is good, and it would be great to let it as it is today I do use Symfonium but casting to my upnp receiving is really unreliable, I'm exploring other options at the moment.

Symfonium plays quite well for me... even if I have to say it's not my daily driver. What doesn't work well for you?

[whinette]

Symfonium plays quite well for me... even if I have to say it's not my daily driver. What doesn't work well for you?

I had some trouble with one receiver, after a while tracks skipped with no reason, or didn't played in its entirety.
On another receiver, impossible to cast without proxy through the application.

I have a minimserver + bubbleupnp as a backup (which worked rock solid for about 10 to 12 years already).

But today I did some more tests. I've reworked from the ground up my network plan, and instead of lms only reachable through an external address, I have one internal + 1 external.
And I was able to stream to the first receiver for about 3h without issues! Yay.

The second one (a yamaha WXC-50) still refuses any input. Even with bubbleupnp with upmpdcli as server, it refuses to play (I can only browse). It works if I have bubbleupnpserver transcoding @ replaygain, but direct play is a no go, even though the same files are played fine when they're served by minimserver.

I really don't understand what's going on with that.

[GioF71]

Hello, yes upnp is hit and miss and those devices might miss some feature, it might maybe not work with https on older devices, for example.
With subsonic, maybe it cannot execute "POST" commands and it might work with "GET". Unfortunately I did not include an option to run py-sonic in that way, but it might be an interesting thing to do and wouldn't hurt because I would leave the default to POST. See here.

BubbleUPnP Server might help but only if you can play to the "new" renderers it creates, which are "OpenHome" on top of regular "UPNP-av" receivers. But this scenario does not help Symfonium as it "only" (but I believe rightfully so) plays to standard UPnP-av receivers.

About the WXC-50 not playing, does it refuse to play flac files only, or mp3 as well?
Unfortunately I don't have one to test myself.

Browsing is no surprise to be working, as browsing happens on the control point, not by the renderer.

[whinette]

Hum it is a good point, I run with https (not self signed), one more thing to try!

Maybe for the GET. It hasn't any documentation so who knowns. If I compile from source next week end I'll do the change and check if it helps. :)

flac and mp3, I tried both to be sure.
I also browsed from the webui of the receiver, but it doesn't prove it can plays...

I will investigate a bit more with it but if I don't succeed I will simply resell it, it works well otherwise. :)

[GioF71]

Hum it is a good point, I run with https (not self signed), one more thing to try!

yes this might help if the sw in the yamaha is not compiled with https support.
One more thing to try is to enable proxy on upmpdcli, using plgproxymethod set to proxy.

Maybe for the GET. It hasn't any documentation so who knowns. If I compile from source next week end I'll do the change and check if it helps. :)

I'm not even sure, but anyway it would require code changes, which I will implement. Can't provide an ETA of this though.

flac and mp3, I tried both to be sure. I also browsed from the webui of the receiver, but it doesn't prove it can plays...

I will investigate a bit more with it but if I don't succeed I will simply resell it, it works well otherwise. :)

Does it show images for albums? If you're using https and images are not shown, then https might be an issue. Worth trying as you said before.

[whinette]

Interesting.
Enabling proxy on upmpdcli solves some:

• direct play with bubble upnp is working
• play from receiver web-ui is working
• nothing change when controlling with Symfonium

I've also disabled https without success.
From above results I don't think much more can be done on upmpdcli / upmpdcli-subsonic. 😊

[GioF71]

Hello, I'm sorry not everything is solved. About the "GET" mode, I believe the change would be irrelevant, because:

• GET is already used by the renderer when streaming, it just receives the URL and by default it will use GET.
• All the other api calls that are triggered by the browsing are done by the media server toward the subsonic server, and the renderer is not involved in those.

[GioF71]

Interesting. Enabling proxy on upmpdcli solves some:

• direct play with bubble upnp is working
• play from receiver web-ui is working
• nothing change when controlling with Symfonium

I've also disabled https without success. From above results I don't think much more can be done on upmpdcli / upmpdcli-subsonic. 😊

Just to be sure I understand, what is still not working exactly?

[GioF71]

About the WXC-50, have you tried to watch lms logs when streaming, looking for errors?
You might want to temporarily set in lms.conf

log-min-severity = "debug";

instead of the default (I believe)

log-min-severity = "info";

for some verbosity.

And also:

1. did you try navidrome instead of lms?
2. did you try the uprcl plugin (which serves local files through upmpdcli)?

I understand all of this involves some work. But it might help find issues, potentially for other users as well.

Cheers

[GioF71]

Issue transferred to upmpdcli-plugins repository

[whinette]

Just to be sure I understand, what is still not working exactly?

Direct play without proxying through the controller (like what does airplay1)

About the WXC-50, have you tried to watch lms logs when streaming, looking for errors? You might want to temporarily set in lms.conf

log-min-severity = "debug";

instead of the default (I believe)

log-min-severity = "info";

for some verbosity.

Yeah that's the first thing I tried. :)
I don't have /stream in the logs, whereby with other renderer I do.
Except that, nothing relevant sadly. :/

And also:

1. did you try navidrome instead of lms?
2. did you try the uprcl plugin (which serves local files through upmpdcli)?

I haven't! I will try it out too. :)

I understand all of this involves some work. But it might help find issues, potentially for other users as well.

Cheers

Thanks for all the ideas. I will report once I'm through.