Bug report: Tidal Connect Hi-Res on the Wiim Pro

[audiophilistine]

I recently bought a Wiim Pro and a Tidal subscription with the goal of streaming hi-res music using Tidal Connect.
What I am finding is that while Tidal Connect works most of the time, it sometimes struggles and this seems to be worse as the sampling rates increase.
24/96 is bad, 24/192 is worse but everything else is more or less reliable.

The problem is usually difficult to reliably reproduce but one album (below) is consistently hopeless.
Using Tidal Connect on the Wiim Pro I can't play more than ~30 seconds from this album, yet when I play it on my Android tablet speakers (still 24/192) it works fine.

The problem album:

Judith Jáuregui - Homeland

Listen to Homeland on TIDAL

tidal.com

Judith Jáuregui, Homeland, 2024

It works fine in the app but fails every time over Tidal Connect to the Wiim Pro.

Things I have tried without success for a week now:
- switched to ethernet from Wifi on the Wiim Pro
- reboot the Wiim Pro
- switch preferred DNS server off/on
- clear the Tidal app cache
- log out/back in to Tidal app
- uninstall Tidal app from other devices
- uninstall/reinstall Tidal app
- reboot the tablet

I am connecting from Canada without a VPN.
Local network issues have been eliminated (because it works fine in the app).

Wiim Pro firmware 4.8.717049
Tidal app version 2.153.0.1298.71 (from the Play store)
Tablet: Google Pixel Tablet
OS: GrapheneOS
Android 15 build 2025052800

I know there are a bunch of other posts about similar issues but I wanted to document this particular reproducible bug here.
Unfortunately I have not yet found any way to get any kind of error message or logs related to this bug.

Other problems I have with Tidal Connect which are more difficult to reliably reproduce:
- Tidal Connect will not work (fail without error message) until I reboot the Wiim Pro
- after switching to Tidal Connect playback will fail with a spinning widget on the app until I skip a track
- volume shown in the Tidal app is at one level but the music starts playing on the Wiim Pro at whatever volume it was last at, so making a tiny change to the volume in the Tidal app makes a huge sudden jump from the level on the Wiim Pro to the new level on the Tidal app

 

[audiophilistine]

I have been whitelisted and upgraded to 4.8.719055.

Running through my playlist of broken tracks now:

debug-bad

Playlist - debug-bad - 12 items

tidal.com

Track 1 played fine but I did hear a blip in the second half.
Not terrible but I hope it doesn't happen again.

Track 2 also has a glitch.
It sounds like it jumped back half a second and continued to play.
And again, this time more of a jump.
Now it's jumping back about 2 minutes on an apparent loop.
Skipping this track for my sanity.

Track 3 no problems.

On to the Steely Dan...

 

[audiophilistine]

Track 4 My Old School
One little hiccup.
Ohh it skipped back a couple of minutes near the end.
Infinite loop territory.
This could be really dangerous at a party..."Dude has this track been playing for 3 hours?"

Track 5 Show Biz Kids
One little hiccup, I think I know what's coming.
Yup, infinite loop.

Track 6 Your Gold Teeth
Hiccup and loop, skipping.

Track 7 The Boston Rag
This album is so well engineered.
Hiccup at about 3:00
Jumped back to about 1:35 from about 4:50.
Going to let this one loop once to confirm that behaviour.
It jumped back to 2:00, so maybe the loop moves.

Skipping ahead to the Strauss

 

[audiophilistine]

The rest of the tracks behaved the same, until I got to the last one.

The last track showed a length of 4:59 and it played all the way to the end, but this was not the actual end of the track.
The music just abrubtly stops.
I can't say for sure that this is the same problem as on the other tracks.

So it would seem that although a couple of tracks played better than before, the rest did this little hiccup and then later in the track they skip back a couple of minutes and the pattern repeats.
This is not what I would call an improvement.

I still don't know how playback works with tracks that aren't on my debug-bad playlist.

This playlist is of tracks from the same albums as the broken list but which worked for me (with the previous firmware):

debug-good

Playlist - debug-good - 5 items

tidal.com

I'm not going to listen to those now, I'm going to watch some TV.

 

[Frans]

The rest of the tracks behaved the same, until I got to the last one.

The last track showed a length of 4:59 and it played all the way to the end, but this was not the actual end of the track.
The music just abrubtly stops.
I can't say for sure that this is the same problem as on the other tracks.

So it would seem that although a couple of tracks played better than before, the rest did this little hiccup and then later in the track they skip back a couple of minutes and the pattern repeats.
This is not what I would call an improvement.

I still don't know how playback works with tracks that aren't on my debug-bad playlist.

This playlist is of tracks from the same albums as the broken list but which worked for me (with the previous firmware):

debug-good

Playlist - debug-good - 5 items

tidal.com

I'm not going to listen to those now, I'm going to watch some TV.

After I got the software upgrade I listen to your playlist without any problems

 

[anonyless]

I have been whitelisted and upgraded to 4.8.719055.

Running through my playlist of broken tracks now:

debug-bad

Playlist - debug-bad - 12 items

tidal.com

Track 1 played fine but I did hear a blip in the second half.
Not terrible but I hope it doesn't happen again.

Track 2 also has a glitch.
It sounds like it jumped back half a second and continued to play.
And again, this time more of a jump.
Now it's jumping back about 2 minutes on an apparent loop.
Skipping this track for my sanity.

Track 3 no problems.

On to the Steely Dan...

seems like you're experiencing the same issues I have after the new firmware upgrade. WiiM support advised me to open a new feedback ticket as soon as it happens again so they could investigate , so i'm playing your debug-bad playlist as i write this..

 

[anonyless]

no glitches with the debug-bad playlist - but i used Tidal connect this time.
reverted to the "fail proof" 455MB track https://tidal.com/browse/track/350710726 played through the WiiM app directly ,
and exact same issue as i experienced before - 1 minute or so backward skips while playing, creating an infinite playing track. created a new feedback ticket so WiiM could investigate

personal note EDIT: i'm only doing these tests to assist solving this issue. probably canceling my Tidal subscription by the end of the month, as I believe streaming services are bad for none mainstream artists. I try to stream mostly from my own Navidrome server , and buy digital music off Bandcamp

 

[audiophilistine]

no glitches with the debug-bad playlist - but i used Tidal connect this time.
reverted to the "fail proof" 455MB track https://tidal.com/browse/track/350710726 played through the WiiM app directly ,
and exact same issue as i experienced before - 1 minute or so backward skips while playing, creating an infinite playing track. created a new feedback ticket so WiiM could investigate

Yes I neglected to mention in my latest playlist tests above that I was using Tidal in the Wiim Home app.
I have been listening again using Tidal Connect and everything is working the tracks are playing all the way through.
(I prefer using Tidal in the Wiim app for various other minor bugs with Tidal Connect like the volume control.)
The behaviour was the same in both interfaces for me using the previous firmware but now it is completely different.

 

[anonyless]

WiiM support wrote me back that they contacted the Tidal team who made changes to their servers which should solve this issue.
i'm playing now the 14 minutes Homeland track (4371 kbps 24bit/192 khz) in the WiiM app , first time I listen to it without skips backwards / popping sounds etc . good stuff WiiM team!

 

[puosua197]

Yes I neglected to mention in my latest playlist tests above that I was using Tidal in the Wiim Home app.
I have been listening again using Tidal Connect and everything is working the tracks are playing all the way through.
(I prefer using Tidal in the Wiim app for various other minor bugs with Tidal Connect like the volume control.)
The behaviour was the same in both interfaces for me using the previous firmware but now it is completely different.

I also encountered the same problem, Tidal Connect paused every few tracks, as well as WiiM's built-in Tidal App cannot finish playing track.

After reporting the problem to WiiM support through WHA and exchanging messages several times, customer service staff informed me that Tidal had already taken corresponding measures. After testing, both issues have now been resolved.

 

[audiophilistine]

WiiM support wrote me back that they contacted the Tidal team who made changes to their servers which should solve this issue.
i'm playing now the 14 minutes Homeland track (4371 kbps 24bit/192 khz) in the WiiM app , first time I listen to it without skips backwards / popping sounds etc . good stuff WiiM team!

I also see much better results this morning in the Wiim Home app.
Although I have experienced one sudden failure I was not able to reproduce the issue on a repeat listen.

@puosua197 Are you running the 4.8.719055 firmware?

 

[puosua197]

@puosua197 Are you running the 4.8.719055 firmware?

Yes.

 

[RyanWithWiiM]

Hi all! We've heard from TIDAL that they've fixed the issue on their end, and playback should be back up. If you're still having any trouble, let us know, and make sure you put in feedback through the app so our team can check it out.