Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

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Briain
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Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

Post by Briain » Tue Sep 15, 2009 12:07 am

Hi Folks :)

Super-poussin (THE ReadyNAS add-on expert) has very kindly built us a couple of very really slick versions of 5.0.68 for the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo and NV+ (derived from the Linux sparc build). These new builds symlink the database and cache files to the main part of the drive (thus avoiding NAS failures) and in addition, they make these areas available as a share on the NAS (and thus accessable via a drive mapping in Windows). In addition to all that total excellence, he has also made the /resources/views directory available to access (via the same mapped drive) thus enabling you to edit (or replace) the trees without having to go through all that Linux/SSH stuff; you just drag and drop them, cool or what!!

There are two versions available to download:

1. A build with the standard PV supplied default.view.xml tree
2. A build with a modified version of my music-only (well, there's a basic pictures bit too) tree suited to the community who use Twonky only to drive their sound systems (Linn DS users etc).

Standard PV tree version available here (this one contains the Music Picture and Video tree as is normally supplied with Twonky
Music only version (includes my latest music only tree which has advanced music navigation facilities) available here
Installation instructions for either above versions (you'll sleep before you get to the end; rain forrsets yet again)

Other 5.0 Trees (already on this forum) can be easily plonked into the /views folder (available at //hostname/twonkymedia).

Enjoy folks!

Bri

PS Billions of thanks due to Super-pousin; he doesn't even use Twonky and thus had to buy a new licence just to test his new add-on; after all that graft and personal expense, you really do have to try it now, don't you! :)

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Re: Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

Post by Briain » Wed Sep 23, 2009 3:49 pm

Saved Playlists (how to pick them up):

The above add-on isn't picking up pre-saved playlists (I wonder if it's maybe a minor bug in the Linux verions of Twonky 5.0.68) however I do now have a fix for it; if you use pre-written playlists then perform this additional step to pick them up: Once you have finished all the below installation instructions and everything is working (i.e. it has completely finished it's initial database build; could be up to 2 hours), change the rescan time from 0 to -1, (then restart the server as prompted) and it will pick up al the playlists after it's rescanned (probably about 20 minutes).

You can set it back to zero afterwards and they will all still be there (however you will likely have to do set it to -1 again to pick up any future ones). You can of course also elect to leave it at -1 as long as you understand how to deal with that. It's maybe not the best option as the database grows even bigger with 'watch' files, but I use it like that and rebuild the database every 3 or 4 months to keep things tidy.

The downside of leaving it set to -1 is that it rescans everytime you reboot the NAS - that takes about 15 minutes on my one, but it slows everything down whilst this is happening - so if you turn your NAS off every night, you'll find it better to leave the rescan at zero.

Bri

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Re: Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

Post by stammerman » Thu Oct 08, 2009 4:01 pm

Hi!

Apologies upfront if this is a dumb question but I've loaded this version on to my ReadyNas Duo and it is working fine apart from the fact that Twonky is not seeing any AAC files. These are tracks that I've ripped from CD via iTunes in AAC format - all MP3 tracks are fine.

Is there a codec or another version that I need to load?

By the way, I'm running/rendering this on a NaimUniti and apart from the AAC issue, it works really well!

Cheers,

Martin

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Re: Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

Post by Briain » Thu Oct 08, 2009 5:25 pm

Hi Martin

I'd have expected them to appear, but having never used AAC, I don't know anything about the tagging system they use; can you see (and play) them from the 'folder' view (in my tree, this is called 'Music Folders on Drive' but in the original PV tree it's probably just called 'Folder')? If so, I wonder if it's something to do with the tagging recognition (again, sorry but I know nothing about AAC as I only use FLAC files).

Hopefully we'll also get an AAC person chipping in with some suggestions.

Bri

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Re: Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

Post by stammerman » Thu Oct 08, 2009 5:46 pm

Hi Bri!

Thanks for the pointers but I was wrong - Twonky does see the AAC files but they are missing from my playlists. Any ideas?

Cheers,

Martin

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Re: Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

Post by Briain » Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:21 pm

Hi

Twonky 5 seems to be a bit flaky when it comes to playlists; I wonder if this is yet another issue that you have picked up?

Below is a list of issues I recently sent to PV about Twonky 5.0.68:

Problem 1:
No playlists (m3u files) previously used by Twonky 4 customers are picked up with Twonky 5 (rescan or rebuild).
Answer 1:
The solution I've found is to set rescan to -1 (they're then picked up after the rescan) then set it back to 0 afterwards; this process is required whenever a new playlist is built (unless you leave rescan set to -1).

Problem 2:
Doesn't pick up hand written internet radio M3U files. An example below which worked previously with Twonky 4.17 (unlike the above album playlists, setting rescan to -1 still doesn't help)

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,(320k) Spotify EEE
http://192.168.1.81:8124

This is a shame as a lot of folks seem to have created their own radio station lists and they're now broken.

Problem 3:
UPnP discovery time; seems to be intermittently over-long causing major problems with some control points. This has yet to be verified (could be the ReadyNAS) but the impact is quite severe on certain control points (and at best, really irritating on others).

Problem 4:
Compilations / Sampler path doesn't ignore contributing artists (solution is to use albumartist tag; it's a far better method, however, this should still be fixed for one more 5.0.XX release)

Problem 5:
rpc/help feature no longer works (very irritating to some - like me - and it should be fixed)

Problem 6:
No option to disable image rescaling (doesn't bother me, but will irritate some)

Could problem 7 be 'picking up AAC files from playlists'?

Bri
Last edited by Briain on Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

Post by stammerman » Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:28 pm

Hi!

When I installed 5.0.68 yesterday, none of the iTunes playlists appeared, so I went back to your notes and saw the comment about setting the rescan to -1 together with a Restart and they did appear but all the AAC tracks are no longer referenced in the playlists.

By the way, is there a significant overhead leaving this setting permanently to -1_?

Cheers,

Martin

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Re: Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

Post by Briain » Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:37 pm

No, that's how I run it and it works very well indeed; the only issues to note are:

1. That it performs a content rescan (not a database rebuild, just a rescan) whenever Twonky starts, which is fine if you leave the NAS on all the time (and fine if you hibernate the NAS) but if you power it down and only switch it on when you want to play music, it'll be irritating as the rescan ties everything up for a while (in my case, just over 17,000 FLAC files takes about 20 mins).

2. Upload any new rips to a folder outside the monitored ones on the NAS (i.e. create an 'upload' directory outside Music, Picture and Video) then once it's there, drag and drop it to its final location (this doesn't move the data, just the 'pointer' to where it is). If you don't do it that way, Twonky database starts updating whilst the album is still being uploaded and you get a network error (likely due to the NAS running out of steam). Doing it the way I suggest works really well and the album can be played a few seconds after that second move; it's great!

As long as you are okay with these two issues, rescan at -1 is an excellent way to run it.

Bri

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Re: Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

Post by stammerman » Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:40 pm

OK Great. Thanks again for the info and your fine work!................Cheers................Martin

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Re: Cool new 5.0.68 versions for the ReadyNAS Duo and NV+

Post by Briain » Fri Oct 09, 2009 6:28 pm

PS The watch files do build up in the /db folder. They're of no risk to the NAS, though, as the new location for the database and cache files is now on the 'main part' of the drive (as opposed to the original PV installation, which locates them in the operating system area). I've never checked how 'big' the watch folders actually get, but I tend to rebuild the database every few months anyway (just to keep things tidy). You can see these folders in the new 'twonkymedia' share by mapping a drive to it. Maybe check in a few months to see how they grow (I think they only change when you add a new album).
Bri

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