Vortexbox Blues

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andrew Ivimey
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#136 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by andrew Ivimey »

I'm Sulking - yep.

In the other thread all about Raspberry Pi on Audio Talk I quickly empathise with Paul and Philip trying to read the thread. What on earth!!???

I have an inkling of what I am trying to do with my Pi but having chased Nick and Simon's suggestiosn, okay but I know too little I greatly expect (and I recognise 'Samba' having looked and looked at picoreplayer configuring software). so I'm no farther forward really and don't feel like pursuing this any farther right n.

I'd settle for the Pi and a large connected hard drive with files just replacing what my Vortexbox did. This then is an 'NAS' ??? I believe. But this isn't going to happen tonight.

In a fit of pique, having collected nephew from the station I thought, 'let's boot from the usb, eh, why not?' Easy to do and I did. But even with a snazzy SSD drive it takes about two minutes - what's the point of that? And now of course going back to microsd boot it takes longer because the Pi still looks for the SSD that is no longer connected to the Pi. What a bugger. I am very surprised. Fitting an SSD to this old laptop has improved its speed enormously.
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andrew Ivimey
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#137 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by andrew Ivimey »

I used the Utilities programme to make a boot up correction. Back to the micro sd cad boot then.
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#138 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by simon »

I'm struggling to follow what you've done really Andrew but a couple of things:

A NAS is network attached storage. Generally a standalone box that sits on your network containing a hard drive(s) and some more stuff that means it's self contained and can provide files to any of your computers that request them, whether phone tablet or laptop etc. I don't know what a vortexbox is in detail (mini computer that sits on the network and can provide files but with audio capability?) so may be in sucking eggs territory regarding the NAS description...

PCP loads quickly for me, seconds rather than minutes. It's a cut down Linux distro as far as I know so there's no overhead for unneeded software. If it's taking a couple of minutes to boot it sounds like it might be struggling to connect to something and eventually timing out perhaps??? Just a guess.
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andrew Ivimey
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#139 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by andrew Ivimey »

Oh dear no. But the vortexbox although it can also rip cds is a massive hard drive . And it has been wonderful till recently.

I havent touched PCP today, just been reading up how to configure.

It was changing the boot drive to USB (SSD) that was less than successful.
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#140 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by Nick »

I just went back to the beginning of this thread to find out what was wrong with the vortex box. It looks like the problem is it doesn't find track info and album art. I am not sure that the changes you are making will do that any more than the vortexbox isn't.
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andrew Ivimey
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#141 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by andrew Ivimey »

Right at the beginning was a long time ago.

I started a few days ago by saying Vortexbox was conking out; fan trouble, overheating (and bound to die soon)

So as an alternative and thinking 'it can't be that difficult' I bought a Pi. Ha!
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#142 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by The Stratmangler »

Going back to post 1 and the issue was one of Vortexbox not pulling in metadata when ripping CDs, which was due in part to freedb no longer being available, and also one of Vortexbox software not searching for other metadata repositories.
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#143 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by andrew Ivimey »

Yes Chris that was the problem quite a long time ago.

Now I need my router to recognise a Pi with my music library so the Squeezebox Touch an recognise it and access the music library.
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#144 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by simon »

What's running LMS at the moment? Not your players, but where's the "server"?
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#145 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by Nick »

andrew Ivimey wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 6:57 am Yes Chris that was the problem quite a long time ago.

Now I need my router to recognise a Pi with my music library so the Squeezebox Touch an recognise it and access the music library.
I think you are overthinking what the router does in this situation.
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andrew Ivimey
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#146 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by andrew Ivimey »

Seriously please I'm stopping this now. Thanks all for suggestions. I will just schlep on and if I get lucky I will tell you.

I solved the ripping problem ages ago.

Perhaps I don't express myself well but if I can't see the Pi on the Network then this is the same, functionally, to me as the router not recognising it. Presumably picoreplayer can configure the Pi so it is recognised and then I install LMS, Samba being the way to recognise an attached hard drive and then Bob will by my uncle but just let me get on with it.
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#147 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by ed »

Andrew

A couple of points. If it hints at sucking eggs I apologise.
network.jpg
network.jpg (49.87 KiB) Viewed 8309 times
I pointed out how it’s possible to run a pi in a music streaming environment, based on my post #29. This is how I do it, but I do realise there are other ways of using pi for music streaming.

The pi3 in the example network runs picoreplayer which supports LMS(media server) and squeezelite(media player)

The NSA325 in the network is a NAS unit which stores files and allows access to the files from any device connected to the network.

The LMS(running on the pi) allows any Logitech type streaming player(touch,squeezebox, squeezelite etc) that is connected to the network to play files that are known to the LMS. In my case LMS looks at my music library on the NAS unit. The music library can be on any device connected to the network but the LMS must know where it is.

So, in my case, my pi is the LMS server AND the squeezelite player. Any variation is possible as long as there is a server(LMS), a player, and a store of files on the same network. The pi is very versatile and in my case performs 2 out of the 3 operations. I can of course have many players dotted around the network and all controlled by the LMS.
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#148 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by simon »

Good description ed
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andrew Ivimey
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#149 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by andrew Ivimey »

Yep, looks good but ... just to check out if I really was losing the plot blah bah, I dug out an old desktop P.C., plugged it into the router, loaded LMS, added an external hard drive with loads of music files on it and went straight to the LMS panel that controls the music library. I switched on the Squeezebox downstairs, changed the music folder to this P.C. which the SB Touch instantly recognised and I was playing music all ticketty Boo. The phone App Squeezer also controls the whole kit and it is easy to swap back to the Touch's USB disk and back again.

This is what I will achieve with the Pi ... one day.
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#150 Re: Vortexbox Blues

Post by Nick »

That should be simple, just go back to the original Linux you had installed for the Pi, install LMS, plug the drive into the Pi, and you should have what you want.

But then again, you could do that with PiCore, its entirely up to you.

The solution IMHO is not to keep flitting to another solution when you hit a problem, leave it as it was and fix the problem.
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