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Topic: Foobar issues with NAS (Read 4217 times) previous topic - next topic
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Foobar issues with NAS

Hello all,

Long time user and lover of Foobar2000, but brand new to these forums. I've got a bunch of components and made my own theme using ColumnsUI that is pretty basic but I am proud nonetheless.

Anyway, I recently got a NAS that I planned to use for storing all of my music. I configured the NAS to support UPnP/DLNA, forwarded the ports, gave it a static IP, and made a public folder. Then I put all of my music in that public folder (no password needed) and connected to it on my laptop. It showed up on my computer a network drive named "Z:". I configured Foobar to use this as the database for my music files. Everything loaded in and everything "works."

The problem is, I cannot listen all the way through a song. A song will play, and everything will be fine and dandy, but then partway through the track pauses and Foobar spits out an error saying that there has been a "decoding failure". The exact words vary depending on the file type (flac, aac, mp3), but basically it is a "decoding error" or "the file might be corrupted". The files are not corrupted because the tracks don't cut out at the exact same spot. For example, one song might make it to 0:45 before the audio stopping. Then I'll play the same song and it will play right on through 0:45 until it drops out at 1:32.

What can I do to remedy this issue? I can't make it through one song.

Thanks for any help,
Nate

P.S. I don't think I should download Foobar UPnP because I don't want to use Foobar as a host, but just be able to access the files without it crapping out on me.
P.P.S. I am on an N-gigabit router, so throughput should be sufficient for basic music streaming.

Foobar issues with NAS

Reply #1 –
I'd check if there are firmware updates available for the device. It sounds awfully lot like the data that is read gets corrupted at random. Perhaps the device has some built-in diagnostic tools to verify it works properly. You could check against random data corruption with for example H2testw. Though the access pattern foobar2000 uses is quite different from any test. It only reads a little at once and there are pauses between reads.

Foobar issues with NAS

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Case on
I'd check if there are firmware updates available for the device. It sounds awfully lot like the data that is read gets corrupted at random. Perhaps the device has some built-in diagnostic tools to verify it works properly. You could check against random data corruption with for example H2testw. Though the access pattern foobar2000 uses is quite different from any test. It only reads a little at once and there are pauses between reads.

Thanks for the test. Turns out, it passed. Granted, I did not test the whole drive (3 TB), but I wrote 1 gigabyte and verified it a couple of time with zero errors. I'm consistently getting over 500 kbytes/second which is 4000 kbps. Much more than the ~900 kbps FLAC music files I have.

The NAS I am using is a WD MyCloud and it is on the latest firmware.

Is there any way that I can increase the buffer length of Foobar or the cache size? Could this help?

Foobar issues with NAS

Reply #3 –
Uh oh! Just got an error! How can I fix this?

Error reading file 'Z:\1.h2w', offset 0x19100000.
(An unexpected network error occurred. Code 59)
Warning: Only 1024 of 2812152 MByte tested.
Reading speed: 919 KByte/s
H2testw v1.4

Foobar issues with NAS

Reply #4 –
Looks like something is causing the network to drop. 

If you are on wireless try using wired.  Wired is much faster and more reliable.

If you have any third party firewall or "security" software, uninstall them.  Don't just disable them, that is not enough.

Foobar issues with NAS

Reply #5 –
Quote from: washu on
Looks like something is causing the network to drop. 

If you are on wireless try using wired.  Wired is much faster and more reliable.

If you have any third party firewall or "security" software, uninstall them.  Don't just disable them, that is not enough.

Still get the error. I'm not surprised. I had disabled the firewall both for the NAS and for Foobar.

And a wired connection is not an option for me. I am using a laptop that does not have an Ethernet port.

Foobar issues with NAS

Reply #6 –
Have you tried updating your wifi drivers on your laptop or a firmware upgrade on the NAS or router?
Who are you and how did you get in here ?
I'm a locksmith, I'm a locksmith.

Foobar issues with NAS

Reply #7 –
Yeah, my guess would be that neither NAS nor foobar2000 are at fault. Your WiFi connection seems weak (low throughput) and unstable. Maybe you're getting problems when your wife or your neighbor turns on the microwave or somebody uses a cordless phone.

So I'd suggest you fix your network. Get an additional AP which you hook up to your router via Ethernet, go Powerline (can be combined with another AP), or use a repeater (a repeater is frequently the worst option unless the repeater as well as your main WiFi are dual band).

EDIT -- You might want to do some more testing of your WiFi connection before shelling out money. Smallnetbuilder.com has some tutorials/how-tos which may be of help. BTW, I strongly disagree with what you said in #3. The comparison you make is not accurate. First of all, there's protocol overhead. Second, you might be sharing the WiFi at times. Third, and most importantly, you need substantial safety margins against drops in signal strength. At times, your neighbor may be using the same Wifi channel(s), or there might be interferences from other devices such as cordless phones.

Foobar issues with NAS

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Pwn3r4Life on
And a wired connection is not an option for me. I am using a laptop that does not have an Ethernet port.

If that is the case then you are likely out of luck.  You could try a different channel, but unless you are in the middle of nowhere that may not help much.  If your equipment supports it try using the 5 GHz band.  It is less crowded, but has less range so you may need to move your router and laptop closer and/or eliminate physical barriers.  Finally you could always get a USB wired Ethernet adapter. 

Just for some perspective, your 4000kbps in in post #3 is less than half of what the slowest Ethernet speed could do 35 years ago.  It sounds like enough, but it is really slow for a local network and shows how bad wireless often is in reality.

Foobar issues with NAS

Reply #9 –
"Preferences -> Advanced -> Playback -> Full file buffering up to (kB): 102400" is what I use to cope with those type of errors. It will buffer the whole file to RAM (so at my setting, using up to 100MB of RAM), so even if the network connection drops while playing it back, the playback will be unaffected. Depending on your network speed, this might introduce pauses between tracks.

Foobar issues with NAS

Reply #10 –
Quote from: audiophool on
go Powerline

Your post is full of good advice, but not this.  Powerline networking is rarely better than wireless and often has exactly the same problems with poor speeds & dropouts.  Sure if you are somehow stuck with old B or G wireless a new powerline setup could be faster, but at comparable claimed speeds one is really no faster or more reliable than the other outside of edge cases.  It pretty much combines the downsides of both wireless (slow, unreliable) with wired (physical cables) and throws in a bunch of it's own (interference, not widespread, can be proprietary).

There have been a few posts here on HA describing pretty much the same problem that Pwn3r4Life is having but with powerline networking instead of wirless.