hey amarok fans, hoping I can get some help with this problem I've been having.
I've tried to set up a server to stream my amarok output to other computers on the LAN, but after following the amarok daap wiki guide it doesn't seem to be working.
I can get music sharing set up, but it has some kind of buffering problem where it only plays a couple seconds of song, then lag..
I've installed the mt-daapd package, run it in the background, but it tries to use 90% CPU, so I'm pretty sure something is wrong.

any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!

Hi


Can you provide your mt-daapd.conf file so that it can be debugged. Does mt-daapd log anything to syslog ? e.g /var/log/mt-daapd.conf

Also have you tried on of the nightly packages?

Cheers
J

hey James,

here is my mt-daapd.conf file..

Code: Select all

# $Id: mt-daapd.conf,v 1.15 2004/12/29 06:20:26 rpedde Exp $
#
# This is the mt-daapd config file.
#
# If you have problems or questions with the format of this file,
# direct your questions to rpedde@users.sourceforge.net.
#
# You can also check the website at http://mt-daapd.sourceforge.net,
# as there is a growing documentation library there, peer-supported
# forums and possibly more.
#


#
# web_root (required)
#
# Location of the admin web pages.
#
# If you installed from .RPM, .deb, or tarball with --prefix=/usr, then
# this is correct.
#
# If you installed from tarball without --prefix=/usr, then the correct
# path is probably /usr/local/share/mt-daapd/admin-root.
#

web_root   /usr/share/mt-daapd/admin-root

#
# port (required)
#
# What port to listen on.  It is possible to use a different
# port, but this is the default iTunes port
#

port      3689

#
# admin_pw (required)
#
# This is the password to the administrative pages
#

admin_pw   yujinaka

#
# db_dir (required)
#
# This is where mt-daapd stores its database of song information. 
#
# If you installed from .RPM or .deb, then this directory already
# exists.  If not, then YOU MUST CREATE THIS DIRECTORY!
#

db_dir      /var/cache/mt-daapd

#
# mp3_dir (required)
#
# Location of the mp3 files to share.  Note that because the
# files are stored in the database by inode, these must be
# in the same physical filesystem.
#

mp3_dir      /home/hamish/music

#
# servername (required)
#
# This is both the name of the server as advertised
# via rendezvous, and the name of the database
# exported via DAAP.  Also know as "What shows up in iTunes".
#

servername   frequency

#
# runas (required)
#
# This is the user to drop privs to if running as
# root.  If mt-daapd is not started as root, this
# configuration option is ignored.  Notice that this
# must be specified whether the server is running
# as root or not.
#

runas   nobody

#
# playlist (optional)
#
# This is the location of a playlist file.
# This is for Apple-style "Smart Playlists"
# See the mt-daapd.playlist file in the
# contrib directory for syntax and examples
#
# This doesn't control static playlists... these
# are controlled with the "process_m3u" directive
# below.
#

playlist   /etc/mt-daapd.playlist

#
# password (optional)
#
# This is the password required to listen to MP3 files
# i.e. the password that iTunes prompts for
#

#password   mp3

#
# extensions (optional)
#
# These are the file extensions that the daap server will
# try to index and serve.  By default, it only indexes and
# serves .mp3 files.  It can also server .m4a and .m4p files,
# and just about any other files, really.  Unfortunately, while
# it can *attempt* to serve other files (.ogg?), iTunes won't
# play them.  Perhaps this would be useful on Linux with
# Rhythmbox, once it understands daap.  (hurry up!)
#
#

extensions .mp3,.m4a,.m4p,ogg

#
# logfile (optional)
#
# This is the file to log to.  If this is not configured,
# then it will log to the syslog.
#
# Not that the -d <level> switch will control the log verbosity.
# By default, it runs at log level 1.  Log level 9 will churn
# out scads of useless debugging information.  Values in between
# will vary the amount of logging you get.
#

#logfile /var/log/mt-daapd.log

#
# art_filename (optional)
#
# There is experimental support thanks to Hiren Joshi
# (hirenj@mooh.org) for dynamically adding art to the id3v2
# header as it is streamed (!!).  If you were using a music system
# like zina or andromeda, for example, with cover art called
# "_folderOpenImage.jpg", you could use the parameter
# art_file _folderOpenImage.jpg and if the file _folderOpenImage.jpg
# was located in the same folder as the .mp3 file, it would appear
# in iTunes.  Cool, eh?
#

#art_filename _folderOpenImage.jpg

#
# rescan_interval
#
# How often to check the file system to see if any mp3 files
# have been added or removed.
#
# if not specified, the default is 0, which disables background scanning.
#
# If background rescanning is disabled, a scan can still be forced from the
# "status" page of the administrative web interface
#
# Setting a rescan_interval lower than the time it takes to rescan
# won't hurt anything, it will just waste CPU, and make connect times
# to the daap server longer.
#
#

#rescan_interval 300

# always_scan
#
# The default behavior is not not do background rescans of the
# filesystem unless there are clients connected.  The thought is to
# allow the drives to spin down unless they are in use.  This might be
# of more importance in IDE drives that aren't designed to be run
# 24x7.  Forcing a scan through the web interface will always work
# though, even if no users are connected.

# always_scan 0

#
# process_m3u
#
# By default m3u processing is turned off, since most m3u files
# sitting around in peoples mp3 directories have bad paths, and
# I hear about it.  :)
#
# If you are sure your m3u files have good paths (i.e. unixly pathed,
# with relative paths relative to the directory the m3u is in), then
# you can turn on m3u processing by setting this directive to 1.
#
# I'm not sure "unixly" is a word, but you get the idea.
#

# process_m3u 0

#
# scan_type
#
#
# This sets how aggressively mp3 files should be scanned to determine
# file length.  There are three values:
#
# 0 (Normal)
#   Just scan the first mp3 frame to try and calculate size.  This will
#   be accurate for most files, but VBR files without an Xing tag will
#   probably have wildly inaccurate file times.  This is the default.
#
# 1 (Aggressive)
#   This checks the bitrates of 10 frames in the middle of the song. 
#   This will still be inaccurate for VBR files without an Xing tag,
#   but they probably won't be quite as inaccurate as 0.  This takes
#   more time, obviously, although the time hit will only happen the
#   first time you scan a particular file.
#
# 2 (Painfully aggressive)
#   This walks through the entire song, counting the number of frames.
#   This should result in accurate song times, but will take the most
#   time.  Again, this will only have to be incurred the first time
#   the file is indexed.
#

# scan_type  0

#
# compress
#
# Whether to use gzip content-encoding when transferring playlists etc.
# This was contributed as a patch by Ciamac Moallemi just prior to the 0.2.1
# release, and as such, hasn't gotten as much testing as other features.
#
# This feature should substantially speed up transfers of large databases
# and playlists.
#
# It will eventually default to 1, but currently it defaults to 0.
#

# compress 0






do you mean the mt-daapd nightlies? I can't run amarok 2.0, not using the KDE4 environment..

thanks!

bump

this would be great to have working, especially since it's supposed to..

What are you using as the client? iTunes? If so what version? I heard mt-daap didn't work with iTunes > v6.1

Phil

okay, I might be going about this entirely the wrong way.

what I want to do is stream my amarok's audio to another instance of amarok on another computer on the network.

I thought I needed mt-daapd for it.

if I don't, then what -do- I need? I feel like the documentation isn't terribly instructive, it kinda expects you to already know what you're doing.

any advice would be great, otherwise I have no idea..

Do you need to 'stream'? I guess your using two Linux machines right? Can't you share the music across the machines? i.e. rmount one drive onto the next machine and point the second machine to the directory where the music files are?

If the 'host' machine (where the music files are is windows based, but I guess it's not if your using Amarok on it ) then maybe you can use SAMBA and share the files that way.

Phil

I thought it was possible to broadcast an audio stream with amarok, that's why I was messing around with mt-daapd and stuff.

just sharing the files works fine, but it kinda misses the point. it'd be great to be able to send what I'm playing to another computer, so we could get unified sound coming from various parts of the house.

if amarok isn't capable of doing that it's my mistake, but the documentation seems to claim it is..

In Amarok, go to settings, configure amarok.
select the media devices icon on the left hand side.
In the control window select Add Device button.
In the dialog box select shared music from the pull down menu.
Provide a name for the share - Machine A
Select OK.
Back in the control window select the tool button next to the remove button.
In the dialog box that opens select the broadcast my music selection box and click on OK.
Close the configure Amarok window by selecting apply then OK.

go to the second machine. open amarok and select devices.
under the connect / disconnect buttons on the context window select the pull down menu and choose shared music.
above this pulldown menu there should be a button Add Computer - select this.
In the dialog box, add the name or network address of Machine A

See if this works - I don't have two machines so can't try it myself, but it would be good to know if it does. Interestingly, the dialog boxes mentions sharing music via banshee or firefly. I've not tried these either (again I only have one box so no need). One other avenue may be to try something like amaroKWeb - a web interface to Amarok that allows you to play music from your amarok based machine via an explorer. This is available on sourceforge.net but I haven't tried that either.....

Good luck.
Let me know how you get on.

Phil

hey,

tried doing everything as instructed, but when I tried to connect to the first computer from the second it tells me it can't connect.

any ideas?

if this worked it'd be great..

Wish I could help more but I don't have two machines toplay with.

Couple of questions though -
I guess there are no port restrictions on your firewall thatmight be stopping the connection?
Another idea, can you open an Xdisplay from Machine A to Machine B, kick off Amarok from the X-login and have it work that way?

Phil

OK,
I've had a play with this today on a single machine - not ideal but it works....
I set up Amarok as per the music sharing example outlined earlier.
I installed the mt-daapd package and configured according to the conf file earlier (substituting my directories etc.)
I started the mt-daapd deamon and allowed some time for it to build the collection database.

In amarok I opened the devices browser, selected shared music, and add computer. In the dialog box I added the ip address of my machine. Hey presto.... There are all my music files under the ip address of my machine. To prove it finally I dragged one to the play list and am listening to it now!

Cool - who needs two machines anyway?? 

Phil

There does seem to be one problem, the id tags don't seem to work. 

sharing music files isn't really what I had in mind.

what I want to do, and what I thought I could do but it seems I can't actually do, is stream music I'm playing to another computer over the network.

sharing music files I can do over samba, that's nothing spectacular.

is it possible to share essentially what I'm sending to my sound card over the network with amarok? or with any application?

I would like to know..

Well I've got good news for you. What you should look at is the PulseAudio sound server:  http://www.pulseaudio.org/

PulseAudio allows to route the stream over the network, and xinelib has a special output plugin for it. Make sure to use the latest versions of Pulse and xinelib.