Subsonic Forum

I have ripes many CD's from Windows Media Player to wma format, but the music files is not playable from subsonic. I download the license from WMP, and the song play fine from there..
Any solution for this ??

CentOs5.5, subsonic 4.01

Yes you need to define a transcoder setting for converting wma to mp3.

This is usually automatically setup in Settings > Transcoding . You should see a "wma > mp3" already setup.

You additionally need to make sure that the player has this Transcoding enabled.

Settings > Players

Set "wma > mp3" under "Active transcoding"

The transcoding requires the lame and ffmpeg programs to do transcoding. Make sure they are installed.

In addition under linux you need to put ffmpeg and lame into the /var/subsonic/transcode directory.

I just made symbolic links in that directory like so (assuming lame and ffmpeg exists at /usr/bin/lame and /usr/bin/ffmpeg respectively).

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ln -s /usr/bin/lame /var/subsonic/transcode/lame
ln -s /usr/bin/ffmpeg /var/subsonic/transcode/ffmpeg


Hope this helps.

Sorry, that was not the solution for this problem. I have already done all this setups, but it's still denied to play wma files riped from Windows Media player..
Anybody else who have this problem ?? Thnks

As yet I have not been able to transcode/play a single wma file. I have been able to play some files though a client setup with win-amp for example but that is a really annoying.

My solution is to use XCFA (I'm using Ubuntu) to convert to reliable mp3 and then Tag & Rename (on VirtualBox install of xp)
Bit of a hassle but wma just gives me trouble in other situations like players and the car stereo anyway.
Once the job is done its done and it all works but its not a real transcoding or licensing answer sorry.

Have you tried to see if ffmpeg can convert your wma files manually? If it can't then there's your problem.

To check if your build of ffmpeg supports wma run
ffmpeg -formats or
ffmpeg -codecs

and see if a wma decoder is present. If it isn't you may need to build ffmpeg from source.

Also what do you mean by "downloading the licence WMP"?

ffmpeg is present and installed on my Centos 5
I seems that it's only wma files that doesn't play is the one above 128 kbps.
(like It's realy strange..

Make sure you have the latest build of ffmpeg.

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ffmpeg -version

I'm using FFmpeg SVN-r23619. Also just because you have ffmpeg doesn't mean you explicitly support all the codecs my build supports.

When the maintainers of CentOS build ffmpeg they can enable/disable various options e.g. disable proprietary codecs if they don't fit the OS's licence.

You need to explicitly check that a WMA decoder is present

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ffmpeg -codecs

This is the result of the "ffmpeg -version"

FFmpeg version 0.5.2, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
configuration: --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib64 --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --mandir=/usr/share/man --incdir=/usr/include --disable-avisynth --extra-cflags=-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m64 -mtune=generic -fPIC --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-libdirac --enable-libfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-libfaadbin --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libtheora --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --enable-shared --enable-swscale --enable-vdpau --enable-version3 --enable-x11grab
libavutil 49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
libavcodec 52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1
libavformat 52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
libavdevice 52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
libavfilter 0. 4. 0 / 0. 4. 0
libswscale 0. 7. 1 / 0. 7. 1
libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
built on Jun 13 2010 23:44:18, gcc: 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-48)
FFmpeg 0.5.2
libavutil 49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
libavcodec 52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1
libavformat 52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
libavdevice 52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
libavfilter 0. 4. 0 / 0. 4. 0
libswscale 0. 7. 1 / 0. 7. 1
libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0

When "ffmpeg -codecs"
ffmpeg: missing argument for option '-codecs'

You're using an old build of ffmpeg so the -codecs option doesn't work.

You can use

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ffmpeg -formats | less

Make sure that in your /var/subsonic/transcode directory that you have symbolic links to /usr/bin/ffmpeg & /usr/bin/lame & not copies because if your package manager upgrades ffmpeg or lame then copies will NOT BE UPGRADED!

I suggest you try manual transcoding to see where the failure is. Try running the following on the command line where your_file.wma is the wma file you wish to convert.

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/var/subsonic/transcode/ffmpeg -i 'your_file.wma' -f wav - | lame -b 128 - > your_file_asmp3.mp3

See what happens... can you get it to fail with wma files with a bitrate > 128k?

You're using a 0.5 version of ffmpeg which is old. You could build a newer version though I can't guarantee it will help but it might.

Thanks delcypher for your help here..

I'm not home right now, but will investigate and see if i can built a new from scratch. Maybe there is a newer ffmpeg already built package out there for the CentOS 5.5

It's a bit complicated this transcode codecs for linux..
Not my stongest side..

The funny thing is if i downgrade to Subsonic to 3.9, i'm able to play mpc and at least 128 kbps wma songs..

Ohh so you're having the MPC playing problem too? There's a post about that here.http://forum.subsonic.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2939

Please try manually executing the transcoders as I previously suggested before you go to the trouble of compiling a new version of ffmpeg. This will let us see if your transcoders are causing the problem or if it's subsonic.

Are you playing your media via the web player in the web interface. Have you tried using google chrome/ chromium instead of firefox?

Ok, here is what i did last night.
I compiled a the new ffmpeg-0.6 and installed. (ffmpeg-0.6-php) should i also compile this one ?
After that, i was able to play the wma files 128 kbps, but not the one above. Same goes for the mpc, still not playing.
Have also tried the google chrome insted of Firefox and WIE.. Same problem. Yes i play the media via web interface.
I'm not able to manually executing the transcoders since i'm not at the server at this time. I belive it's the Subsonic 4.01 who's making the problem,
or the web player......

Thnks.

Well done on compiling ffmpeg. You shouldn't need ffmpeg-php as Subsonic doesn't use php.

So you said you can transcode
WMA >128k

but not...
MPC
The above...(what's that?)

Other people seem to have problems using the web player with MPC files that are transcoded so you're not alone. I've posted a temporary fix (see URL in my previous post) but this seems to break a few other things.

You can try an external player with a playlist rather than the web player. Create an external player in Settings > Players. Then in the web interface choose to use the external player and add the tracks you want. When you click "play" subsonic will let you download a playlist.

You can then open this playlist with quite a media player. I've tested VLC and that works ok.

I'll file a bug report when I get the time.

Yes i can transcode and play 128k, but not 160k and up.. (above 128k)
I't download the wma files 160kbps ++, but doesen't play..

Ok, i will try that fix you refer to..

Thnks again.

Last night i tested with Firefox 3.6 the 3 latest version with the JWPlayer, included the newest JWPlayer 5.2, with subsonic 4.01 and default transcode settings.
None of the versions was able to transcode / play wma files greater than 128 kpbs. Same goes for the mpc files..

After i tested the same, but with Google Chrome 5, the mpc transcode/plays, and the wma 128kp transcode plays, but not the 160k and up....

Playing my wma files, greater than 128k in a external player "vlc" did not work either..
My conclution is that Firefox is not 100% compatable with subsonic 4.01,
I therefor belive there is some bugs in subsonic 4.01....