Slimproto based players (aka squeezebox)

[marcelveldt]

Documentation https://music-assistant.io/player-support/slimproto/

[Sirs0ri]

Because I've been messing around with getting a SqueezeLite player to run on Windows (for Music Assistant playback on that Windows PC), I wanted to document what worked for me in the end:

I am using the basic command line interface squeezelite (builds for Windows are here) to run a receiver on my PC with the arguments -o 7 -M SqueezeLite -s 192.168.123.456.

Download the binary from above and run it in a command line, no installation etc necessary. You'll need the correct IP for your Music Assistant instance, and you'll probably have to choose another output (-o argument) - use the -l argument to get a list of all audio devices, then use the number of the right one. A list of all arguments is available through -?, there's a lot of options to tweak the playback that I didn't look into.

This should be auto-discovered by Music Assistant and can be controlled through the Music Assistant web player. AFAIK there's no way to use local media keys to control the playback, but we automate that through home assistant anyways, right? :'D

What didn't work for me was the app "Squeezelite-X" from the Microsoft store. It tries using some advanced features of the telnet interface, that aren't supported by Music Assistant, it never establishes a proper connection. There's some more info on Discord incase anyone wants to read up on it.

There's a native Music Assistant app in the making (see here) but that's still pretty unstable right now, and I didn't spend a lot of time with it - it worked, until it didn't. It might be a lot more stable soon.

[ostracizado]

Not sure if this was already talked about, but... just started using a Muse Luxe (squeezelite), without using slimproto.

It's working great, using MA. But I'm wondering about the media_player entity - there's none.
Somehow I thought that MA would create such entity so that HA could also interact with that device.

Can someone clarify that for me, please?

[OzGav]

Should have been created. Look for an entity with a _2 on the end of it (assuming there is already a HA entity of the same name)

[ostracizado]

023-10-26 23:31:25.914 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.providers.slimproto] Socket client connected: ('127.0.0.1', 48222)
2023-10-26 23:31:25.916 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.providers.slimproto] Player squeezeplay: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX connected
2023-10-26 23:31:25.917 INFO (MainThread) [music_assistant.players] Player registered: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX/squeezelite

I even did a new installation with squeezelite, as I was using an old firmware. And gave it a simple name's device.
After some restarts and reboots, still no new entity in the media_players.

[OzGav]

Please confirm you have the latest version of the MA integration installed from HACS and it is showing on the HA integrations page.

[ostracizado]

Ugh.... Mea culpa.
Just noticed that I was still using the addon BETA 2, without the custom integration.

Solved.

[peterleerental]

All our slimproto speakers have suddenly disappeared. I've reinstalled MASS and enabled Slimproto as a provider, but none of the speakers show up. Only a Chromecast dongle in the TV appears. The speakers are powered by a Raspberry Pi using Max2Play and Squeezelite and a HiFiBerry audio hat. I do not have Logitech Media Server or the Slimproto integration installed. We haven't fiddled with anything in the last few days so has there been a breaking update or something?

[OzGav]

No there hasn’t been a change with MA that would affect this to my knowledge and you are the only one reporting this. Sounds like a networking problem.

[peterleerental]

Thanks. It turned out to be that Squeezebox Server had been inadvertently turned on in the Max2Play settings on one of the players. All resolved.

[grigi]

I have a piCorePlayer setup, and added a rotary encoder so I can manually up/down volume and do things. I followed their example using sbpd and it seems to issue LMS commands to the LMS server, but nothing is happening.
Does Latest Beta MA (2.0.0b78) support these functions?

I'm getting this in the logs on the piCorePlayer:

1703359579.1898 6 discovery.c,238: Found server D200A8C0. A new address
1703359579.2905 6 discovery.c,349: discovery packet: port: 8096, name: Music Assistant, uuid: 3854c5f25d4348f6896c8c6feb9c882e
1703359579.2907 6 discovery.c,130: Squeezebox control port found: 8096
1703359579.2908 6 discovery.c,149: Server address found: 192.168.0.210
1703359618.3465 6 GPIO.c,107: Short PRESS: 138
1703359618.3466 6 control.c,134: Button CB set for button #:0, gpio pin 27
1703359618.3882 6 control.c,275: Button pressed: Pin: 27, Press Type:Short
1703359618.3883 6 servercomm.c,74: Send Command:0, Fragment:["pause"]
1703359628.6112 6 control.c,461: Encoder on GPIO 23, 24 - value: -72, detents: -36, change: 2
1703359628.6114 6 servercomm.c,74: Send Command:0, Fragment:["mixer","volume","+2"]

Which indicates it's talking to MA, but the commands are not doing anything that I can see?

[grigi]

I have resolved it, the example provided by piCorePlayer https://docs.picoreplayer.org/projects/control-jivelite-by-rotary-encoders-and-buttons/ is over-complicated.

All I needed to do was to use the default commands.
Basically just:

sbpd b,27,PLAY,2,0,NEXT,500 e,23,24,VOLU,2

Without -f as the overrided example commands don't work.

If anyone is interested I can post a working example script here.

[OzGav]

Please do. Might help people in the future.

[grigi]

To add a rotaty encoder with push button to a piCorePlayer that will play/pause, adjust volume & skip song (on long hold), wire it as: https://docs.picoreplayer.org/projects/control-jivelite-by-rotary-encoders-and-buttons/#preparation

I used GPIOs 23,24 & 27 as per DigiAMP+ documentation: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0176/3274/files/20201209_IQaudIO_v32.pdf?v=1608196535 (page 21-23)

Install the pcp-sbpd.tcz & pigpio.tcz extensions.
Create a script in /home/tc called sbpd-script.sh on your piCorePlayer device with the following content:

#!/bin/sh

# start pigpiod daemon
pigpiod -t 0 -f -l -s 10

# wait for pigpiod to initialize - indicated by 'pigs t' exit code of zero

count=10 # approx time limit in seconds
while ! pigs t >/dev/null 2>&1 ; do
        if [ $((count--)) -le 0 ]; then
                printf "\npigpiod failed to initialize within time limit\n"
                exit 1 
        fi
#       printf "\nWaiting for pigpiod to initialize\n"
        sleep 1
done
printf "\npigpiod is running\n"

# load uinput module - required to be able to send keystrokes
# then set the permission to group writable, so you don't need to run sbpd with root permissions
sudo modprobe uinput
sudo chmod g+w /dev/uinput

# These GPIO pins are wired as specified in the DigiAMP+ documentation.

# button SW1
SW1=27                                                  # GPIO pin number
SH1=PLAY                                                # command for SHORT press
LO1=NEXT                                                # command for LONG press
LMS1=500                                                # milliseconds for long press

# rotary
ROT1=23
ROT2=24
MODE=2 # Detent mode - Assumes 1 dial click is x steps. 1=Step Mode (default)

# Please don't override commands using -f as Music Assistant supports a subset of the commands.
sbpd b,$SW1,$SH1,2,0,$LO1,$LMS1 e,$ROT1,$ROT2,VOLU,$MODE

Ensure it is executable by running sudo chmod +x /home/tc/sbpd-script.sh

Add the script to the user command (Bottom of Tweaks page, e.g. User command #1) and click Save.

Reboot, and it should work as expected.

[frelev]

I must be missing something trivial, I have LMS running as an HASS addon, players appears fine in HASS.
I assume I should have Slimproto off since I already run LMS? But how do I get the players to appear in MASS? (they do not)

[OzGav]

You cannot have LMS running at the same time for a start

[frelev]

That I understand, so question is maybe more MASS related than slimproto. How do I get my slim-devices to show up in MASS if I run LMS for other purposes.

[OzGav]

You cannot. You will be having port conflicts as MA is emulating LMS. This may change in the future.

[Dave-Casey]

Squeezebox looping last few seconds of song

I'm using a couple of slimdevices squeezebox v3 and have found that towards the end of song playback, they get stuck repeating the last 3-5 seconds of the song, never advancing to the next track until I manual advance. Has anyone encountered this?

[OzGav]

Have you got QUEUE FLOW MODE turned on in the player settings?

[rfporter]

I'm using MA server v2.3.0b29
I've settled on using squeezebox players because it seems to be the preferred protocol (MA client uses it).

I have noticed with SB Player (android) clients songs sometimes get stuck in a 4-5 second loop at the start of the playback. I need to manually change songs to get playback to resume. This has happened with flac and mp3 format.

I have also noticed that grouping of squeezebox players doesn't work. It just gets stuck in the 3-4 second loop.

I have also noticed that when I try to stop playback on a SB Player, either by pausing or turning off (via MA) playback resumes on its own after a few seconds. The most reliable method to stop playback is to empty the playlist before turning off the player (via MA).

Anyone else experiencing these issues?

[rfporter]

An update: squeezebox players work when grouped under a universal group player. Of course playback is not in sync though.

When I make a standard group of 2 squeezebox players playback doesn't even start and the player status remains idle.

Here is the debug log:
2024-10-10 12:57:47.175 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.players] Handling command cmd_sync for player squeezeplay: 1c:1b:0d:7f:68:d6
2024-10-10 12:57:47.238 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.slimproto] Start serving multi-client flow audio stream for player Ryan Phone to squeezeplay: 1c:1b:0d:7f:68:d6
2024-10-10 12:57:47.761 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.slimproto] Start serving multi-client flow audio stream for player Ryan Phone to Ryan Phone
2024-10-10 12:57:47.785 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.server.providers.slimproto.multi_client_stream] Starting multi-client stream with 2/2 clients
2024-10-10 12:57:47.786 INFO (MainThread) [music_assistant.streams] Start Queue Flow stream for Queue Group1 - crossfade: False
2024-10-10 12:57:47.787 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.streams] Start Streaming queue track: jellyfin--SyLU7tNK://track/19c4f8c6cbb852a327e50e154aeeac1c (Track1) for queue Group1
2024-10-10 12:57:47.787 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.audio.media_stream] start media stream for: jellyfin--SyLU7tNK://track/19c4f8c6cbb852a327e50e154aeeac1c
2024-10-10 12:57:58.869 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.musicbrainz] get_data was delayed for 29.707 secs due to throttling
2024-10-10 12:58:09.846 DEBUG (MainThread) [aiohttp.server] Ignored premature client disconnection.
2024-10-10 12:58:19.057 ERROR (MainThread) [ffmpeg.90] Stream error:

[rfporter]

Another update: I have switched over to snapcast. Grouping works well. Sync is very good. Works on Windows with Snap.Net and works on android / fireTV with snapcast app.