A network error occurred. Retrying from Android Client

[kingfister]

I get this error message constantly, both over 3G and WiFi, mostly when searching, but it also happens when I browse a folder with a bunch of albums in it. The web browsers on my PCs are also slow at times when browsing folders. Is there a limit to the amount of songs you can have before performance is affected? Subsonic shows that i have 239GB of music in 43,276 songs. This worked like a champ when i only indexed around 4000 or so tracks and has gotten really bad as of late. There are plenty of resources available on the server when I am browsing from my phone. My server is running Windows 2008 R2. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[GJ51]

Although size matters, I have seen a few that were bigger than yours and did not have any problems. One site I visit is over 500GB and runs fine.

I would try going to the tray icon and openning the settings. Stop/restart the service. Then go to the settings menu in the browser and Click on the "search", then on "Update search index now." to see if that helps.

[kingfister]

Thanks for the reply. I have restarted the service, and the PC for that matter. Updating the search index also does not fix the issue. I also tried installing the latest beta and it has the same issue as well.

[GJ51]

2,085 artists
1,638 albums
24,151 songs
184.32 GB (~ 2,863 hours)

My site isn't quite as large, but isn't too much smaller. You may also be looking at two issues, first the Android client may have it's own glitches, second the server may have some problems.

Have you tried testing each separately?

Try the Android on the demo server to test the phone.

If you'd like me to test the site from outside the network, just send me a PM with guest credentials and I'll be happy to see how it performs from outside.

There can be a lot of things that affect overall performance, lan setup, server errors, router issues ... the challenge is always how to isolate the problem. Once you've got the problem identified, the cure is usually pretty easy to find.

Have you looked on your server's error logs to see if there are any relevant errors?

[kingfister]

The issue appears to be caused by having my music stored on a NAS device. I moved some of the music to my local USB drive and the problem goes away. I did some searching and I see some other threads pointing to issues with NAS devices. If the Subsonic database is stored locally, why would it matter where the actual music files are stored?

[GJ51]

There can be a few issues involved. When using a NAS device you are effectively using the same pipe to send the same information in and out of the server at the same time unless you have dual NIC's assigned to seperate streams.

When the server is using the usb drive it just passes the data from the drive out the NIC.

The other issue can be NAS overheating and slowing down the drive performance. Many of the small external NAS drive enclosures really don't have sufficient cooling for today's high density drives and will slow down during extended data transfers.

Hardware configuration can definitely be a factor.

[sawfoot]

I am also getting the "A network error occurred." issue.

I have about 300gb collection, stored on a usb drive, on a rather old PC.

However, no problems browsing folders via the web interface, so it seems android specific. Nothing shows up on the log.

Generally navigating folders is very slow on android, about 5 seconds for a group of folders, or for loading a single album folder. One large folder which has 80gb inside cannot be viewed - it tries 4 times and gives up. Some folders show a network error message after about 8 seconds, then retrys after 1 or 2 attempts, and then is accessed. This is consistent and happens on wifi or 3g.

This is a shame as of all the other clients i have used (sky tunes, audiogalaxy, homepipe) none has the streaming reliability and performance of subsonic, so its just folder navigation issues stopping me from getting a licence.

[GJ51]

Have you tested your Android device on the demo server?

[sawfoot]

I did just now, and access was extremely quick - half a second or so to load each folder, compared with 5 seconds minimum on my server.

[GJ51]

I have found that many of these issues have more to do with the upload speed capability from the server, rather than a phone issue. The exception seems to be the Droids which may have an inherent OS problem with SS.

Let me know if you'd like help trying to improve your outgoing speed from the server. This can be a problem with CPU horsepower when transcoding, a network issue, or bandwidth upload speed of your ISP. It can also be related to firewall setings.

I can also test your server on my phone if you'd like.

[sawfoot]

In my particular case, it seems like it is an Android client problem. The problem happens on wifi so it isn't an upload /isp ssue, and I have no problem in speed of browsing folders via the web interface. The problem seems in response to the size of the folders - the larger the folder and number of directories, the longer the time it takes to access, e.g. one folder which has 151 folders (and 500 folders in total in sub directory, 40gb) takes about 15 seconds to access, on the 4th attempt after 4 network errors. The really big one (80gb) can't be accessed at all. Small folders are accessed quickly.

I have set up a server on a different pc on my home network and still get the same problem.

[del.the.funk66]

I have the same problem with my Android. Have an EVO 4G but no 4g service. Connected to demo server with no problem. Can see top level folders but cannot access music. Reduced transcoding bitrate to 192 kbps. Randomly started playing U2 song but won't connect again. Keep getting Network Connection error.

[sawfoot]

It seems my problem is the same as described in:

http://forum.subsonic.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4390

So I am hijacking that thread instead.