DS Audio = many problem ... Alternatives?

[Ltek]

I use (or try to) DS Audio when I'm at the gym. The gym has broadband wifi and the connection is always solid and a few megabits DL speed... so no problems there.

Problems...
DS Audio will skip many songs (I suspect these are FLAC but not sure)
DS Audio will start a song and then it will hang (silent for 2-3 seconds) after 20-30 seconds of the song. This seems random, I don't see a pattern since it does not happen with all song.

... anyway to troubleshoot this... any log files, etc?

Also, I'm curious if others are using a 3rd part app - prefer Free, but will consider a low-priced app. If you are using something please let me know how you like it... pluses and minuses.

thx!

[wbertolucci]

I am experiencing the same issue with music streaming either choppy or none at all. I emailed support and I will let you know if they can correct this issue. It almost seems that the DS is caching songs before playing instead of multitasking.

[Ltek]

Glad I'm not the only one.

Are you formally putting in a ticket? If you have not, please do... I'll work on troubleshooting it with you!

[wbertolucci]

I opened a ticket with Synology support. They requested some debug logs. I provided them all the information so now we have to wait until to hear back from one of their Engineers. I will post here any progress.

[Ltek]

More info... The problems happen sometimes, and not other times. I'm wondering if they are related to what other things the NAS is doing... CPU and/or memory util?

Example: at the gym 2 days ago, streaming over Wifi (5mbit+ download connection) and it was fine for the entire hour+ I was there. Other days I get the probems described in the 1st post.

btw... when it skips songs, it shows the titles (they pop-up on the status bar) but no music ever plays - just skips to the next song... the pause and skip issues often happen together.


If others are seeing this, please chime in!

[wbertolucci]

I can tell you that my NAS is barely using CPU or memory while streaming music. Synology response was that if I can stream on the LAN the DS is connected to ( I am able to stream ok within my LAN ) then the problem lies elsewhere and it is not their problem. I believe that is the protocol for most companies but does not indeed do anything to help a client to troubleshoot. I asked for detailed information on which ports are being used on the Audio Station when using the GUI or iOS app, and if the Audio Station is caching prior to playing songs. I have yet to get a response from them. Either way that will help setting up proper firewall rules if that is the problem.

[linus]

I'll have to keep an eye on this thread to see how people get on. I've had my DS212j just over a week and have found DS Audio on my Android phone completely unusable unless I'm sat at home using it over wifi and connecting a local IP address. If I login using my DDNS credentials, even with a good wifi signal at home or elsewhere its just too slow to be usable and the only way to play even a single song is to pause the track for a couple of minutes to let it cache (These are regular quality MP3 files between 192 and 320, and this is with no activity taking place in DSM4.0).

[wbertolucci]

Does anyone know a comfortable bitrate for audio stream?

Linus nad Ltek: Do you have a firewall?

[Ltek]

yes I do... but it is not an issue. everything worked perfectly yesterday... again, it is random.

[Morbeas]

It's your connection, guys. I use DS Audio every day in my car going to and from work with my 4G phone and it is absolutely flawless. And I'm using DDNS.

Edit: My music library is entirely FLAC and most are 24 bit so the files are rather large but DS Audio always plays them smoothly.

[linus]

Thanks Morbeas, I did think as much. Its only every going to work as well as my weakest connection, and I have a particularly low home broadband upload speed which averages about 0.45Mbps. So even with a good 3G/H+ connection on my phone, it can only stream music as fast as my home broadband can provide it through the internet. My broadband speeds are doubling in the next month or so and it'll be interesting to see if that helps

[Ltek]

I'm sure it have nothing to do with the wireless speed as mine is always very fast and I still have problems - I suspect there is a problem with something in the playback itself.

DSA often skips songs completely... and less frequently, but still too often, will have constant 2-3 seconds pauses while in the middle of playback.

I have a mix of FLAC and MP3 with different encodings.

How can we log and troubleshoot this!?

[Ltek]

Update:

I had major problems today with pausing. The issue was with FLAC files that play perfectly on my PC.

Here's the specs...

31145 KB file size
978 Kbps
44.1 KHz
16 bits
2 channel

[Techhead33]

I have to agree with the random issue with Audio Station and DS Audio. I have a DS411+II running on a 50 Mbps down 5 mbps up connection with all of my audio in FLAC. I have 4G service on my android phone and one day the songs stream fine and the next i get stuttering and skipping. I know that with a cable connection the connection can get saturated but i do not know of a good way to figure if this is the case while on my phone and the songs are skipping. Does anyone know of a Ping utility for Android to see what kind of response time you are getting when the skips occur?

[timfy]

I have the pausing issue too.

I use FLAC files with DS Audio and until the most recent update it worked fine. Now whenever I pause a track during playback DS Audio stops and restarts again from the beginning of the song rather than from the point at which I paused. Very annoying!

T