Allo Sparky USBridge

[irb]

1 hour ago, ALLOsupport said:

on volumio you can configure networ drive under MyMusic,

share the Music folder on windows PC ,

add network drive settings->My Music with PC user name and credentials

https://github.com/sparkysbc/sparky_linux_images/blob/master/volumio_nas.pdf

 

 

Thanks for your reply. I'm afraid I can't get that to work. I've tried all sorts of entries but nothing has worked. I've read various bits of advice to previous questions, but nothing seems to work- I tried for a day before I posted. I'm afraid my grasp of networking just isn't good enough.

 

My old setup was Logitech Music Server on the PC, a microrendu as player, controlled by Squeeze Control on my Window laptop. I had that working fine. I've got the USBridge connected up to the network as well as a USB HDD, and can get the HDD to work, as well as internet radio. I'm using the volumio web ui for control. However I can't get it to find the networked PC with the files. From what I've read, volumio maybe just isn't really designed for this? Anyway, do I take it that I'm stuck with volumio? If I want a USBridge with dietpi do I need to buy one with it pre-installed?

[irb]

Thanks to Allo for excellent pm support.

[Koomy]

On 10/31/2018 at 3:36 AM, Anan said:

Yes.. Get industrial switch.. The ones with external power supply huge difference. Run the switch with a good lps or isolated module. Upgrade and shield the clock if u like. Do some voodoo damping whatever u call it on the Casing will help some. 

 

Nas wise.. Use Hardisk with server grade like wdc red and such.. Better damping.. And better sound. Use better dc connector and cables those are more critical. Isolate them properly from the stand 

 

Cable of course will improve.. But... I would put the money elsewhere. Just use a good shielded cat 6 stp or unshielded . But with plastic heads to isolate ground. As long as the power from switch is clean.. Not fatal to require hi end cable so much. I had loan audioquest.. And decided not to get it. 

 

Hope that helps 

Thanks Anan.

[Koomy]

I'm booting Volumio from EMMC card.
I want to try playback from a micro SD card (via the SD slot on the Sparky).
Nothing shows up in the Music Library when the SD card is inserted.
(USB stick/HDD work fine)
Do I need to enable something to get access to the SD card?
TIA

[KlauZZ]

Hi all,

 

I am using the Usbridge in the aluminum case with dietpi. Now I am looking for a way to switch on/off the usbridge (including shutdown).

 

At audiophonics.fr I found this solution for the Raspberry Pi:

 

https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/raspberry-pi-and-other-sbc-accessories/audiophonics-pi-spc-v2-power-management-module-for-raspberry-pi-p-10912.html

 

Together with a button like this it is pretty easy to switch on/off:

 

https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/push-button/aluminium-push-button-and-pre-welded-connector-with-blue-light-circle-2no2nc-o-19mm-black-p-11061.html

 

For switching off the power board has to be connected to gpios 4,17,22. Together with a tiny scripts the board is able to trigger the Usbridge to shutdown.

 

Does anybody know if this can be used with the Sparky as well?

 

As far as I know the sparky is „connected“ to the case with some cooling pads. To I have to replace those pads after opening the case?

 

Thanks

 

Michael

[Bigga]

Hi everyone,

 

France calling...

I just bought a USBridge which I received today, and I managed to configure wifi with wifi dongle from Allo.

But I have a problem with the USB local storage: I mounted my USB SSD (Which has got his own power supply, no power from the Sparky), it is said to be "Ready for use and visible on the network", but I can't find it anywhere in LMS to play music from it.

It seems to be related to a problem of user data transfer not working.

I don't understand why and what can I do to resolve that.

If Allo or anyone here could help, I'd appreciate !

I'm a newbie to all of this, and I'm no Geek, so please speak slowly...

[jtwrace]

Anyone having 6.19 update issues?  I can't get mine to update from the GUI or from Terminal.  

[jtwrace]

29 minutes ago, jtwrace said:

Anyone having 6.19 update issues?  I can't get mine to update from the GUI or from Terminal.  

After about 6 tries it finally updated.  

[designmule]

Does anyone know how to disable the onboard audio for the sparky? I have a USB DAC connected via the USB Bridge and would like to not load the drivers for the Sparky's onboard audio. I am running dietpi but not the Allo web gui.

 

I have tried creating an alsa-blacklist.conf file with both atm7059link and atm7059_link blacklisted but neither disabled the onboard audio.

 

Any help is appreciated.

Matt

[Cprogrammer]

10 hours ago, designmule said:

Does anyone know how to disable the onboard audio for the sparky? I have a USB DAC connected via the USB Bridge and would like to not load the drivers for the Sparky's onboard audio. I am running dietpi but not the Allo web gui.

 

I have tried creating an alsa-blacklist.conf file with both atm7059link and atm7059_link blacklisted but neither disabled the onboard audio.

atm7959link and atm7059_link are alsa device names and not loadable modules. I believe the module is atc260x and it has not been compiled as a module. It is built-in the kernel. I maybe wrong and maybe Allo could clear the air on this. Is there any particular reason why you want to disable the onboard audio?

[designmule]

1 hour ago, Cprogrammer said:

atm7959link and atm7059_link are alsa device names and not loadable modules. I believe the module is atc260x and it has not been compiled as a module. It is built-in the kernel. I maybe wrong and maybe Allo could clear the air on this. Is there any particular reason why you want to disable the onboard audio?

 

Thanks for your response. My reasons are twofold, because I am not using the built in audio, I'd prefer free up the resources. Also, I am trying to chase down an error setting thread priorities per the JRiver instructions (link below). On a couple of my Pis it works just fine but not on the Sparky. On the Pis the onboard audio is blacklisted so I'm wondering if that has something to do with it.

 

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,115513.0.html

[Cprogrammer]

1 hour ago, designmule said:

 

Thanks for your response. My reasons are twofold, because I am not using the built in audio, I'd prefer free up the resources. Also, I am trying to chase down an error setting thread priorities per the JRiver instructions (link below). On a couple of my Pis it works just fine but not on the Sparky. On the Pis the onboard audio is blacklisted so I'm wondering if that has something to do with it.

 

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,115513.0.html

 

I took a glance at the link. You can always use chrt command to start JRiver mediacenter with realtime priority. This is what I have done for mpd. MPD is started by systemctl. The Unit file for staring mpd is /lib/systemd/system/mpd.service

 

I replaced the line

 

ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/mpd --no-daemon /etc/mpd.conf

with

ExecStart=/usr/bin/chrt 99 /usr/local/bin/mpd --no-daemon /etc/mpd.conf

 

Unfortunately I don't have any experience with JRiver mediacenter. But it too must be getting started up somewhere in some script. You just need to use chrt command to start the mediacenter binary with realtime priority (99).

Also remember that any change you do will get overwritten by next update which replaces the startup file for mediacenter.

 

[designmule]

1 hour ago, Cprogrammer said:

 

I took a glance at the link. You can always use chrt command to start JRiver mediacenter with realtime priority. This is what I have done for mpd. MPD is started by systemctl. The Unit file for staring mpd is /lib/systemd/system/mpd.service

 

I replaced the line

 

ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/mpd --no-daemon /etc/mpd.conf

with

ExecStart=/usr/bin/chrt 99 /usr/local/bin/mpd --no-daemon /etc/mpd.conf

 

Unfortunately I don't have any experience with JRiver mediacenter. But it too must be getting started up somewhere in some script. You just need to use chrt command to start the mediacenter binary with realtime priority (99).

Also remember that any change you do will get overwritten by next update which replaces the startup file for mediacenter.

 

I appreciate the advice. Thanks!

[Cprogrammer]

13 minutes ago, designmule said:

I appreciate the advice. Thanks!

 

Ok. I just found out what you need to do. jriver mediacenter starts exactly like mpd service. Here is from the link you provided

 

You need to modify the line

ExecStart=/usr/bin/mediacenter24/MediaServer

to

ExecStart=/usr/bin/chrt 99 /usr/bin/mediacenter24/MediaServer

 

After making the change you need to run the command

# systemctl daemon-reload

# systemctl restart jriver.service

 

Now if you play some music and run top on a terminal, you should see MediaServer running with RealTime priority. Let me know if you need more clarification.

NOTE: chrt is part of util-linix package. If not present, install it by executing

# apt-get install util-linux

 

This is the file  /etc/systemd/system/jriver.service

 

[Unit]
     Description=JRiver
     After=display-manager.service

  [Service]
     Type=simple
     Environment=DISPLAY=:0
     User=pi
     ExecStart=/usr/bin/mediacenter24 /MediaServer
     Restart=always
     RestartSec=10
     KillSignal=SIGHUP
     TimeoutStopSec=45
     LimitRTPRIO=100

  [Install]
     WantedBy=graphical.target

[designmule]

8 hours ago, Cprogrammer said:

 

Ok. I just found out what you need to do. jriver mediacenter starts exactly like mpd service. Here is from the link you provided

 

You need to modify the line

ExecStart=/usr/bin/mediacenter24/MediaServer

to

ExecStart=/usr/bin/chrt 99 /usr/bin/mediacenter24/MediaServer

 

After making the change you need to run the command

# systemctl daemon-reload

# systemctl restart jriver.service

 

Now if you play some music and run top on a terminal, you should see MediaServer running with RealTime priority. Let me know if you need more clarification.

NOTE: chrt is part of util-linix package. If not present, install it by executing

# apt-get install util-linux

 

This is the file  /etc/systemd/system/jriver.service

 

[Unit]
     Description=JRiver
     After=display-manager.service

  [Service]
     Type=simple
     Environment=DISPLAY=:0
     User=pi
     ExecStart=/usr/bin/mediacenter24 /MediaServer
     Restart=always
     RestartSec=10
     KillSignal=SIGHUP
     TimeoutStopSec=45
     LimitRTPRIO=100

  [Install]
     WantedBy=graphical.target

I appreciate the help but no dice. At least via the command the JRiver folks suggest will verify thread priorities are working, I get no suggestion that they are. 

 

ps -T -eo pid,tid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,comm | grep mediacenter24

 

I'll keep investigating. I'd like to try your modification to one of my Raspberry Pis (which handle thread priorities correctly according to the JRiver tutorial) to establish if it is a Sparky thing, a dietpi thing or maybe a typo thing.

 

I appreciate the suggestions.

Matt

[Cprogrammer]

6 minutes ago, designmule said:

I appreciate the help but no dice. At least via the command the JRiver folks suggest will verify thread priorities are working, I get no suggestion that they are. 

 

ps -T -eo pid,tid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,comm | grep mediacenter24

 

I'll keep investigating. I'd like to try your modification to one of my Raspberry Pis (which handle thread priorities correctly according to the JRiver tutorial) to establish if it is a Sparky thing, a dietpi thing or maybe a typo thing.

Yes. That is the right command. The program /usr/bin/top also shows the status as 'rt' if a process is running with realtime priority.

 

I am surprised that it is not working for you. chrt command changes the priority of any command or process. Maybe it is one of the realtime setting in dietp-config. I have set it to "Hardware". I will boot up my sparky later and let you know where this setting is done.

 

Meanwhile you can also try this.

1) Find the PID of your running mediacenter24 process

    ps -ef | grep mediacenter24

 

2) Change the priority of the above process to realtime (assuming the pid is 200)

    chrt -p 99 200

 

3) Play some music, run the program /usr/bin/top to see the priority or run the command

    ps -T -eo pid,tid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,comm | grep mediacenter24

 

[designmule]

28 minutes ago, Cprogrammer said:

Yes. That is the right command. The program /usr/bin/top also shows the status as 'rt' if a process is running with realtime priority.

 

I am surprised that it is not working for you. chrt command changes the priority of any command or process. Maybe it is one of the realtime setting in dietp-config. I have set it to "Hardware". I will boot up my sparky later and let you know where this setting is done.

 

Meanwhile you can also try this.

1) Find the PID of your running mediacenter24 process

    ps -ef | grep mediacenter24

 

2) Change the priority of the above process to realtime (assuming the pid is 200)

    chrt -p 99 200

 

3) Play some music, run the program /usr/bin/top to see the priority or run the command

    ps -T -eo pid,tid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,comm | grep mediacenter24

 

ps -ef | grep mediacenter24

 

returns:

 

root      2408     1  0 23:12 tty1     00:00:00 sh -c sleep 5; /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      2545  2408  7 23:12 tty1     00:00:26 /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      3753  3561  0 23:18 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto mediacenter24

 

I'm not sure which of these is the pid and if I had to guess there are multiple pids. Sorry, I'm a bit "over my skis" here. I appreciate the help.

[Cprogrammer]

2 hours ago, designmule said:

ps -ef | grep mediacenter24

 

returns:

 

root      2408     1  0 23:12 tty1     00:00:00 sh -c sleep 5; /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      2545  2408  7 23:12 tty1     00:00:26 /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      3753  3561  0 23:18 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto mediacenter24

 

I'm not sure which of these is the pid and if I had to guess there are multiple pids. Sorry, I'm a bit "over my skis" here. I appreciate the help.

 

The pid of the process at this point of time is 2545.

So 

chrt -p 99 2545 will set RT priorty for your process. But in case you have restarted mediacenter, the pid would have changed. So you might have to do it again to find the pid.

 

But to confirm you can set RT priority on your box, do ps -ef |grep mediacenter24, Then do chrt -p 99 pid as detailed in earlier post

After that you should be able to set the RT priority.

 

can you attach the contents of the file /lib/systemd/system/jriver.service or paste the contents here.

 

Also the process listing shows that you have started mediacenter by clicking a desktop icon. That's why it shows the tty as tty1. Which means mediacenter has not been started through jriver service. Maybe the process of starting mediacenter is different on this distribution and not as per the link which you had sent me earlier. In that case you will have to modify the desktop launcher to add the chrt command. But that we can do later after you test it like I have told you above.

 

 

[designmule]

17 hours ago, Cprogrammer said:

 

The pid of the process at this point of time is 2545.

So 

chrt -p 99 2545 will set RT priorty for your process. But in case you have restarted mediacenter, the pid would have changed. So you might have to do it again to find the pid.

 

But to confirm you can set RT priority on your box, do ps -ef |grep mediacenter24, Then do chrt -p 99 pid as detailed in earlier post

After that you should be able to set the RT priority.

 

can you attach the contents of the file /lib/systemd/system/jriver.service or paste the contents here.

 

Also the process listing shows that you have started mediacenter by clicking a desktop icon. That's why it shows the tty as tty1. Which means mediacenter has not been started through jriver service. Maybe the process of starting mediacenter is different on this distribution and not as per the link which you had sent me earlier. In that case you will have to modify the desktop launcher to add the chrt command. But that we can do later after you test it like I have told you above.

 

 

I rebooted the Sparky and again entered ps -ef | grep mediacenter24 and it returned the following values

 

root      2413     1  0 18:33 tty1     00:00:00 sh -c sleep 5; /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      2557  2413 16 18:33 tty1     00:01:20 /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      3957  3764  0 18:41 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto mediacenter24

 

chrt -p 99 2557

 

returns: chrt: failed to set pid 2557's policy: Operation not permitted

 

Your comment about started via double click is interesting because that is not how I start JRiver...I don't double click it anyway. I believed that it started via the jriver.service. However,  ps -ef | grep mediacenter24 entered on one of my Pi's (which run dietpi as well and on which thread priorities are working via the JRiver method) returns:

 

root      1447     1  4 Dec10 ?        00:53:59 /usr/bin/mediacenter24 /MediaServer
root      4016  3865  0 18:42 pts/0    00:00:00 grep mediacenter24

 

No tty1 present. chrt -p 99 1447 does not return an error. It looks like I need to look into how JRiver is being started on the sparky I thought that I had them all setup the same way, that's my goal anyways but apparently I don't.

 

I really appreciate all your help. I think I'm getting close I just need to revisit some of my configuration.

Matt

 

 

 

[Cprogrammer]

5 hours ago, designmule said:

I rebooted the Sparky and again entered ps -ef | grep mediacenter24 and it returned the following values

 

root      2413     1  0 18:33 tty1     00:00:00 sh -c sleep 5; /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      2557  2413 16 18:33 tty1     00:01:20 /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      3957  3764  0 18:41 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto mediacenter24

 

chrt -p 99 2557

 

returns: chrt: failed to set pid 2557's policy: Operation not permitted

 

 

 

Yes. You are very close to solving the issue. I have solved this issue in my own sparky. It is some config in dietpi-config where you set the realtime priority to hardware. I still have to power on my sparky and give you the exact option to set this. Once you do this, chrt will not give this error.

 

Also the way mediacenter is being started on sparky is different than what is happening on raspberry my. On your raspberry pi, it is being started through systemctl without launching any application from the desktop. But that is not a big issue. We can find ways to set RT priority with your current method to, provided chrt command doesn't give an error. I will get back to you as soon as I find time to connect my own unit. At the moment I have disconnected all my equipment because I discovered that there is around 90 volts between by power supply and ground. I am figuring out how to ground the negative of my allo supplied power unit. I will make another post for allo to find out what is happening with their own power supply.

[Cprogrammer]

7 hours ago, Cprogrammer said:

 

Yes. You are very close to solving the issue. I have solved this issue in my own sparky. It is some config in dietpi-config where you set the realtime priority to hardware. I still have to power on my sparky and give you the exact option to set this. Once you do this, chrt will not give this error.

Ok I figured out the realtime thingy. This is what you need to do

 

1. login as root using ssh and in the terminal type

   # dietpi-config

 

2. In the first screen chose option 4 : Advanced Ooptions

 

3. In the second screen You can select the "RTC mode" as hardware

 

4.After that (most probably a reboot), Process should be able to gain RT priority. Most probably you will not at all have to run the chrt command. If mediacenter is internally calling the setpriority() system call, it will succeed.

 

[designmule]

Well, I made the change to dietpi-config, restarted and results are the same. I checked my pi (on which thread priorities is working) and RTC mode is set to Emulated. Is hardware always the better option? Should I change it on my pi?

 

I'll have to look through the startup method for JRiver. That seems to be a point of differentiation between the sparky and the pi. The sparky was my first exposure to dietpi and the install is about a year old. The pi was switched from raspbian to dietpi a few weeks ago. I might have made some mistakes setting up the sparky.

 

I also wonder if it has something to do with the DAC being connected via the USB Bridge. Are you running a USB DAC connected to the USB Bridge?

 

I really do appreciate all of your help.

Matt

[Cprogrammer]

1 hour ago, designmule said:

Well, I made the change to dietpi-config, restarted and results are the same. I checked my pi (on which thread priorities is working) and RTC mode is set to Emulated. Is hardware always the better option? Should I change it on my pi?

 

Don't change it on your pi. If it ain't broken, don't touch it

 

1 hour ago, designmule said:

I'll have to look through the startup method for JRiver. That seems to be a point of differentiation between the sparky and the pi. The sparky was my first exposure to dietpi and the install is about a year old. The pi was switched from raspbian to dietpi a few weeks ago. I might have made some mistakes setting up the sparky.

 

I also wonder if it has something to do with the DAC being connected via the USB Bridge. Are you running a USB DAC connected to the USB Bridge?

 

My hardware is sparky+kali+pano2.1. But that shouldn't matter because the hardware running the OS is the same - Sparky. My dietpi version is  v6.19.7 | Sparky SBC (armv7l).

 

I missed out one sentence in your earlier post where you mentioned  chrt -p 99 1447 did not return error. This means your hardware supports RT priority. But unfortunately you set the RT priority of the parent process and not the child process / the actual mediacenter process.

 

Now this is the process listing you gave in your earlier post

root      2413     1  0 18:33 tty1     00:00:00 sh -c sleep 5; /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      2557  2413 16 18:33 tty1     00:01:20 /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      3957  3764  0 18:41 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto mediacenter24

 

From the above, the PPID of mediacenter24 is 2413 and the PPID of 2413 is a shell script which invoked mediacenter after sleeping for 5 seconds. This indicates that jriver is being started in one of the rc scripts. Can you run the following command as root

 

find / -type f -exec grep -l mediacenter24 {} \;

 

IF we can find where mediacenter24 is being called, you can insert the chrt command to set the priority.

 

 

[designmule]

43 minutes ago, Cprogrammer said:

 

Don't change it on your pi. If it ain't broken, don't touch it

 

 

My hardware is sparky+kali+pano2.1. But that shouldn't matter because the hardware running the OS is the same - Sparky. My dietpi version is  v6.19.7 | Sparky SBC (armv7l).

 

I missed out one sentence in your earlier post where you mentioned  chrt -p 99 1447 did not return error. This means your hardware supports RT priority. But unfortunately you set the RT priority of the parent process and not the child process / the actual mediacenter process.

 

Now this is the process listing you gave in your earlier post

root      2413     1  0 18:33 tty1     00:00:00 sh -c sleep 5; /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      2557  2413 16 18:33 tty1     00:01:20 /usr/bin/mediacenter24
root      3957  3764  0 18:41 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto mediacenter24

 

From the above, the PPID of mediacenter24 is 2413 and the PPID of 2413 is a shell script which invoked mediacenter after sleeping for 5 seconds. This indicates that jriver is being started in one of the rc scripts. Can you run the following command as root

 

find / -type f -exec grep -l mediacenter24 {} \;

 

IF we can find where mediacenter24 is being called, you can insert the chrt command to set the priority.

 

 

The chrt -p 99 1447 was run on a pi which is handling thread priorities as intended.

 

find / -type f -exec grep -l mediacenter24 {} \; returns "find: command not found"

 

I also tried find ./-type f -exec grep -l 'mediacenter24' {} \;

based on some tutorials and the results were the same.

 

[Cprogrammer]

3 minutes ago, designmule said:

The chrt -p 99 1447 was run on a pi which is handling thread priorities as intended.

 

OK. Sorry for creating confusion.

 

3 minutes ago, designmule said:

find / -type f -exec grep -l mediacenter24 {} \; returns "find: command not found"

 

You don't have find installed. Just run the following in sequence

 

apt-get update

apt-get install findutils

 

find / -type f -exec grep -l mediacenter24 {} \;