Music plays a few seconds then stops since

[S-Starvey]

Hi there.

Since 2.4.0, MA starts the song, then it stops as the player becomes unavailable after a few seconds. Still the same thing with 2.4.1 & 2.4.2.

ERROR (MainThread) [music_assistant.webserver] Error handling message: player_queues/play_media: Player dab******-2155-be00--** is not available

Everything was fine with 2.3.6. And since I can't disable autoupdate for MA, I have to rollback every other day.

• I use MA with HA on a proxmox VM.
• The music in on a NAS and mounted directly on HA. I tried using the IP/folder as a provider, same story: hangs after a few seconds.
• The wifi speakers are provided by HA (entities). Switching direct to cast doesn't change a thing.
• My network is not congested, far from it.
• I can stream to the speakers without a hiccup from other platforms (IE Plex).

Any idea anyone?

Cheers.

[OzGav]

What player provider are you using? What exact hardware are you using?

[S-Starvey]

@OzGav
The logs for 2.5.0b7.
It plays slightly longer, but still stops after a few seconds.

music-assistant.log

Oh! And thanks for your time.

[OzGav]

You have repeated loss of connection to a player. It looks like you are trying to stream to a cast group. So it looks like either there is a problem with a player or there is something interfering with MDNS broadcasts as there are connection failures when trying to initiate the stream. I will ask @marcelveldt to have a look.

[S-Starvey]

@OzGav

Thanks.

Actually, no, I don't cast to a group. I can, with the exact same result :-D
But I have no use for it 99% of the time.
I have 3 players, all 3 are the same model (JBL Authentics 200).
I would fault the speakers without a second tought if a friend of mine didn't have the exact same setting and no problem whatsoever; even when his wifi is close to saturation (and with 3 kids, it's often is), some QoS seems to kick in somehow.
Anyway.
What could be interfering with MDNS broadcasts? The Proxmox firewalls are configured for MDNS broadcast (unless I'm seriously thick, which is always a possiblity :-) )
What baffles me is that it works with 2.3.6.

Anyhow. Thanks again for your time.

[marcelveldt]

If I'm not mistaken those JBL speakers are a bit flaky and require to have the sound encoded as MP3. Check the player settings and select MP3 (or AAC) as output codec

[S-Starvey]

@marcelveldt
Yes they are and yes they do. That part, I figured out a long time ago. Fantastic players nontheless.

But remember when I said I might be thick?
That's because I am.

I've been using MA with both HA et Chromecast providers.
It seems like when playing on one (let's say a speaker from HA), MA tries to play at the same time on Chromecast. In short, they interfere with each other. Which is kinda logical since they are the same speaker.

So if I deactivate one on 2.4.2. and guess what? It works fine...
Thick, I told you :-D

I'll keep on testing just to be sure, but so far it's been playing a playlist without a hitch, and I kinda feel I've been wasting your and @OzGav 's time :-/

Long story short, don't have 2 player providers at the same time.

Thanks again to both of you. I'll keep you posted and I will close the discussion (as solved) with a short summary if everything keeps on going well.

[S-Starvey]

So, as a summary:

• After updating Music Assistant from 2.3.6 to 2.4.x, the music stopped playing after a couple of seconds.
• It turns out that Music Assistant had connection failures during the streaming and/or simply lost the wifi speaker.

The solution was actually embarrassingly simple. I was running Music Assistant with two player providers: one was Home Assistant MediaPlayers, the other one being Chromecast.
With both providers pointing to exactly the same devices, this simply created a conflict.
Since Chromecast is the native solution, I deleted Home Assistant MediaPlayers; that solve the issue.

As a specific addition to my case, I am running Home Assistant in Proxmox, and Music Assistant streams the music to three JBL Authentics 200 wifi speakers.
In the Players tab under Parameters, I configured each player to use MP3 output codec. As @marcelveldt noted those "speakers are a bit flaky". Using FLAC will do just fine until it doesn't for some reason and it just stops (tested a while back). MP3 is more stable for this product.

Anyway, this was a stupid problem labelled "my bad", but if someone happens to make the same mistake, maybe this will help.
Once again, many thanks to @OzGav & @marcelveldt for their time and their help.

[mptpro]

@svenoo83

". I also had to deactivate "use music Assistant Cast App."

Where is this setting? I am having a similar problem and this may help. Thanks.

[OzGav]

You can always search the docs https://www.music-assistant.io/player-support/google-cast/?h=assistant+cast+app#settings

[mptpro]

You can always search the docs https://www.music-assistant.io/player-support/google-cast/?h=assistant+cast+app#settings

I looked there already I don't see that setting where the Docs say it should be.

Google Cast provider also has a unique setting in the Advanced section. Use Music Assistant Cast App is on by default and enables the use of a special MA Cast Receiver app to play media on cast devices.

[OzGav]

You didn’t quote the most important part

In addition to the Individual Player Settings

It is a setting per player

[mptpro]

You didn’t quote the most important part

In addition to the Individual Player Settings

It is a setting per player

Thank you very much - I found it there. Unfortunately it didn't solve my problem. I don't think it's the same exact issue of this thread so I start a new one. Thanks again.