Advanced library Synology NAS - flac files

[Alcor]

Hi all,

Yesterday, the WiiM app offered me the option to switch to an advanced library on my Synology NAS. I accepted and after it had completed a rescan of the collection on the NAS all seemed well. This morning however, it appears that quite a number of tracks (in particular flac files) cannot be played anymore and that the album art is missing. I switched back to the legacy library display and then everything works well! I presume something went wrong with the rescanning of the library but I find it difficult to understand that the legacy option still works flawlessly. And of course, I would like the advanced library to work as well, because it looks and feels very intuitive. Thought it would be useful to report this issue and would welcome any solution. All the best.

 

[simbun]

So the tracks appear in "Advanced" mode but can't be played?
It sounds like the pointers (URLs) to the files have changed. Do you know if the Synology Media Server was re-indexed?

Legacy mode will always work because you're browsing the Synology Media Server rather than the snapshot of "Advanced" mode.

 

[dangermouse]

Hi all,

Yesterday, the WiiM app offered me the option to switch to an advanced library on my Synology NAS.

I've had that offer a couple of times and hesitated over accepting it.

I think I'll hold off for a bit longer and see how this thread develops.

 

[Aquaman]

I've had that offer a couple of times and hesitated over accepting it.

I think I'll hold off for a bit longer and see how this thread develops.

There‘s nothing there to wait for.
It works flawlessly. Plus, you can‘t break anything and always switch back to legacy mode.
But you haven‘t answered Simbun‘s question.
Have there been any changes to the library between it working and not working?

 

[dangermouse]

Frankly, I'm puzzled.

How can I answer the question of whether there have been any changes, if I haven't accepted the offer yet?

 

[Aquaman]

Frankly, I'm puzzled.

How can I answer the question of whether there have been any changes, if I haven't accepted the offer yet? View attachment 32306

Well then, do so! It won‘t do any harm. It will update to the current state of your library and you can play your flac files again.

 

[harkpabst]

As announced in the release notes I also was invited to enable the Advanced Mode with my Synology Media Server.

I didn't observe any problems.with missing tracks or missing artwork, but that could be down to the fact that the result was hardly usable: The number of detected albums was 0 instead of an expected couple of hundred.

All my files (>95 % FLAC) are tagged correctly. The tagging of all 16.000 plus files was ultra fast. I wonder if WiiM might just be importing the existing indices, but missing out the album index.

I filed a ticket and will experiment further with different indices on the Synology side.

 

[simbun]

It works flawlessly. Plus, you can‘t break anything and always switch back to legacy mode.

Aren't you seeing issues with the AlbumArtist, Artist and Genre indexes? The WHA only has access to the transformed data (one row per track), so if the AlbumArtist, Artist or Genre tags are multi-value, the indexes presented by WiiM will contain the concatenation e.g. using track 8 from the Lockdown Sessions as an example:
The Artist index would normally consist of:

Chad Smith
Elton John
Miley Cyrus
Robert Trujillo
WATT
Yo‐Yo Ma

But in Advanced mode you'll see:

Miley Cyrus, WATT, Elton John, Yo‐Yo Ma, Robert Trujillo, Chad Smith

The more feature rich the underlying server, the more you'll be missing e.g. track groupings (Classical works), recently added/played, alphabetical groupings, custom indexes (Series/Boxset/Release types/Release date) e.t.c.

As far as I can tell the only advantage to "Advanced" mode is that you get some additional sort options and an alphabetical jumplist, both of which could be developed for Legacy (UPnP) mode.

Well then, do so! It won‘t do any harm. It will update to the current state of your library and you can play your flac files again.

@dangermouse isn't the original poster.

 

[simbun]

All my files (>95 % FLAC) arec agged correctly. The tagging of all 16.000 plus files was ultra fast. I wonder if WiiM might just be importing the existing indices, but missing out the album index.

I filed a ticket and will experiment further with different indices on the Synology side.

Are any indexes presented in advanced mode? If it's just the Album index that's missing, it suggests a different indexing approach than to other servers - unless the metadata (AlbumArtist/Artist/Genre) comes from playlists.

 

[Aquaman]

Aren't you seeing issues with the AlbumArtist, Artist and Genre indexes? The WHA only has access to the transformed data (one row per track), so if the AlbumArtist, Artist or Genre tags are multi-value, the indexes presented by WiiM will contain the concatenation e.g. using track 8 from the Lockdown Sessions as an example:
The Artist index would normally consist of:

Chad Smith
Elton John
Miley Cyrus
Robert Trujillo
WATT
Yo‐Yo Ma

But in Advanced mode you'll see:

Miley Cyrus, WATT, Elton John, Yo‐Yo Ma, Robert Trujillo, Chad Smith

The more feature rich the underlying server, the more you'll be missing e.g. track groupings (Classical works), recently added/played, alphabetical groupings, custom indexes (Series/Boxset/Release types/Release date) e.t.c.

As far as I can tell the only advantage to "Advanced" mode is that you get some additional sort options and an alphabetical jumplist, both of which could be developed for Legacy (UPnP) mode.


@dangermouse isn't the original poster.

I see the problem, but, no, I did not see this. For a simple reason. I NEVER work with multiple entries.
When I began building my library almost 20 years ago I was foreseeing such issues. So I kept my libtrary structrure as simple and straight forward as possible from the start.

 

[simbun]

I see the problem, but, no, I did not see this. For a simple reason. I NEVER work with multiple entries.
When I began building my library almost 20 years ago I was foreseeing such issues. So I kept my libtrary structrure as simple and straight forward as possible from the start.

Sorry, you had mentioned that before. Whilst the problem might not be new for you it will be for the vast majority.

Out of interest, what servers/players do you use that don't support multi-value tags?

As long as I had an AlbumArtist index I don't think I'd miss Artist, but I'd definitely miss Genre.

 

[Alcor]

So the tracks appear in "Advanced" mode but can't be played?
It sounds like the pointers (URLs) to the files have changed. Do you know if the Synology Media Server was re-indexed?

Legacy mode will always work because you're browsing the Synology Media Server rather than the snapshot of "Advanced" mode.

Hi Simbun, that is correct: the tracks appear in advanced mode, but can't be played. They also do no seem to contain the album art. My Synology Media Server was not re-indexed. The WiiM home app did however initiate a scan of my library when I switched to advanced mode. It is a relief that the legacy mode still works! Yet, I do not understand what is going wrong here.

 

[Aquaman]

Sorry, you had mentioned that before. Whilst the problem might not be new for you it will be for the vast majority.

Out of interest, what servers/players do you use that don't support multi-value tags?

TBH I don‘t know. Probably non - nowadays. Maybe my car‘s stereo.
Back then I remember the endless discussions (and I believe they are still ongoing) on this topic. The frustration and necessary rewotk on the tags this caused to so many people made me avoid this topic altogether.

 

[harkpabst]

Are any indexes presented in advanced mode? If it's just the Album index that's missing, it suggests a different indexing approach than to other servers - unless the metadata (AlbumArtist/Artist/Genre) comes from playlists.

Everything except Album seems.to be present, explicitly including Genre. I didn't check them in more detail, because I'm not going to use it this way.

No playlists.

Possibly the WiiM Home App could not find a matching index, because I only have configured AlbumArtist/Album and Album (including jumplist) so far. I will try adding a single stage pure Album index and deleting the other two.

 

[simbun]

Hi Simbun, that is correct: the tracks appear in advanced mode, but can't be played. They also do no seem to contain the album art. My Synology Media Server was not re-indexed. The WiiM home app did however initiate a scan of my library when I switched to advanced mode. It is a relief that the legacy mode still works! Yet, I do not understand what is going wrong here.

Unfortunately the processing and data related to "Advanced" mode is all contained in app, so there's no way to tell what's going on.

What might give some insight is if you are able to capture the URL of a track that doesn't play in advanced mode, and the equivalent track playing in legacy mode. Assuming that whole albums are impacted, start an album playing then run the following code (replacing the IP address with the IP of your WiiM):

Run on Linux

curl -s \
     -X POST http://192.168.*.*:49152/upnp/control/rendertransport1 \
     -H 'Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"' \
     -H 'SOAPAction: "urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:AVTransport:1#GetMediaInfo"' \
     -d '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Envelope s:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <s:Body>
    <u:GetMediaInfo xmlns:u="urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:AVTransport:1">
      <InstanceID>0</InstanceID>
    </u:GetMediaInfo>
  </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>'

Run this on Windows in powershell

$Action='<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Envelope s:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <s:Body>
    <u:GetMediaInfo xmlns:u="urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:AVTransport:1">
      <InstanceID>0</InstanceID>
    </u:GetMediaInfo>
  </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>'

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "http://192.168.*.*:49152/upnp/control/rendertransport1" `
                  -Method:Post `
                  -ContentType:'text/xml; charset=utf-8' `
                  -Headers @{ "SOAPACTION"= '"urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:AVTransport:1#GetMediaInfo"' } `
                  -body $Action `
                  -Outfile temp1.txt

You're looking for the URL contained in the CurrentURI tag:

<s:Envelope
    xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" s:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
    <s:Body>
        <u:GetMediaInfoResponse
            xmlns:u="urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:AVTransport:1">
            <NrTracks>2</NrTracks>
            <MediaDuration>00:04:30</MediaDuration>
            <CurrentURI>http://192.168.*.*:9790/minimserver/*/flac/Bowie,*20David/1984*20-*20Aladdin*20Sane/01.01.flac</CurrentURI>
            <NextURI></NextURI>
            <NextURIMetaData></NextURIMetaData>
            <TrackSource>UPnPServer</TrackSource>
            <PlayMedium>SONGLIST-NETWORK</PlayMedium>
            <RecordMedium>NOT_IMPLEMENTED</RecordMedium>
            <WriteStatus>NOT_IMPLEMENTED</WriteStatus>
        </u:GetMediaInfoResponse>
    </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

MinimServer uses filesystem paths in URLs to ensure they're static across rescans/rebuilds, but not all servers do.

 

[simbun]

Possibly the WiiM Home App could not find a matching index, because I only have configured AlbumArtist/Album and Album (including jumplist) so far. I will try adding a single stage pure Album index and deleting the other two.

I think you're probably right.
There are a few posts in the forum that suggest Synology Media Server doesn't support UPnP search (normal method of pulling metadata for advanced mode) so WiiM are likely using a workaround, it seems one that relies on the default album index.