Stutter/skips in Android client

[frankspin]

I'll try to provide as much information as I can to help you guys figure this out

ISP: Comcast 15Mbps/5Mbps
OS: Win 7 Enterprise x32
Spec: Core2Duo 3Ghz, 4GB Ram
Subsonic Server: 4.2

HTC Eris running CELB 2.2 - looped the first song and had stutter during the first song
HTC Eris running xtrSense - no loop of the first song and stutter during the first song
HTC Eris running FroShedYo - no loop and no stutter during first song

Moto Droid 1 - looped the first song and stutter of the first song is 50/50

[deftdrummer]

Also if everyone could make sure to indicate if they are on WiFi or ethernet so we can help diagnose this further. I think the poster above me is on to something because I have consistently tested and it only happens on the phone.

No stuttering what so ever from the web server or Sub Air. The one saving grace at least is that its not random and only happens at the beginning of the song. And with a 95% likelihood.

[Exrace]

Sounds like the phone might be caching the file in someway. Does the same stream work ok on other devices?

[Subsonic_User]

So first post. Mainly Wanted to give my thoughts and what I did that seems to have fixed the issue. I have the Droid X running Android 2.2 with Subsonic and Fios (25/15). Basically the skipping wasn't caused by a connection issue because it would even skip on wifi.

Someone in the previous posts mentioned it seemed to be an issue with Droids and another mentioned the fact that the rom they used had stagefright enabled and did not encounter the issue.

It came to mind that I remembered seeing Stagefright is disabled on Motorola phones (at least the Droid X if not all of their phones running 2.2). This could also be true for other phone manufactures so it may be worth checking. So I enabled stagefright and the issue seems to have gone away. Testing on 3g and I've played quite a few songs (none that have been cached previously to the phone) and everything seems good to go.

To enable or check if stagefright is enabled you need root. There is a build.prop file in /system/build.prop

I set the following 4 lines to true and restarted the phone:

media.stagefright.enable-player=true
media.stagefright.enable-meta=true
media.stagefright.enable-scan=true
media.stagefright.enable-http=true

My guess is that Motorola wanted to avoid bad press or something because some players such as Pandora (I believe they have been updated) had issues early on with Stagefright and skipping/looping.

*I take no responsibility if anyone messes up anything. Try at your own risk although if you know your way around it's pretty hard to mess up. I also don't know what implications this might have for other players although my guess is that they would be fine.

Well hopefully that helps and Sindre if your reading this keep up the great work.

[hyatari]

Yeah stagefright eliminates skipping on the 1st track but causes other issues at the same time I ended up finding. All u actually have to enable is the stagefright player to get it to work. Problem is on 3g mainly when u get thru first track it always buffers next track even tho u have 2mb or more downloaded for that track already. So unless the 2nd track gets fully downloaded before 1st track finishes u will get a fairly lengthy delay sometimes which shouldn't be needed as the 1st track can play fine with only 600kbs downloaded before track starts and plays thru. This is with a flac file transcoded to mp3 btw.

And another side effect of enabling "all" stagefright settings and not just player is youtube videos are choppy. But even with just the sf player enabled u should see that when u record video @ highest quality that u won't get a picture and just audio.

Anyhow this is with a droid 2 running fission rom but I've tried every stock/rom combo I can think of and there is always some issue with subsonic on this phone.

Right when froyo came out on my original droid subsonic worked great for awhile.

[Subsonic_User]

Yeah stagefright eliminates skipping on the 1st track but causes other issues at the same time I ended up finding. All u actually have to enable is the stagefright player to get it to work. Problem is on 3g mainly when u get thru first track it always buffers next track even tho u have 2mb or more downloaded for that track already. So unless the 2nd track gets fully downloaded before 1st track finishes u will get a fairly lengthy delay sometimes which shouldn't be needed as the 1st track can play fine with only 600kbs downloaded before track starts and plays thru. This is with a flac file transcoded to mp3 btw.

And another side effect of enabling "all" stagefright settings and not just player is youtube videos are choppy. But even with just the sf player enabled u should see that when u record video @ highest quality that u won't get a picture and just audio.

Anyhow this is with a droid 2 running fission rom but I've tried every stock/rom combo I can think of and there is always some issue with subsonic on this phone.

Right when froyo came out on my original droid subsonic worked great for awhile.

Well I don't normally use the camcorder but your post made me try and this does break the camcorder. It just say's it can't play the video. I watched a few youtube videos though and they work fine but I reverted anyway. I'll deal with a 3 or so skips the first song although it was nice not having them it's better to have a fully functional phone in my mind.

[jeffcavicchi]

Having the same problem - Subsonic works fine on all of my laptops, but when I use it on my Eris running Android 2.1 it skips, even when running on the same wifi connection as my laptops. I had this problem with the original Android Pandora app too, although they eventually fixed the problem. Very strange - I get skipping on the phone even when the track being played has been cached. Seems to happen when the phone is trying to download the next track to be played - if it has finished caching the 3 tracks it is going to store it stops skipping.

Anyone found a real solution to this problem?

[dan1son]

This problem has been around in this app since the first versions on Android that used the caching stuff instead of straight up streaming (streaming had plenty of its own problems mind you). I've looked through the code and have come to the conclusion the "skip" happens whenever the phone is restarting the playback on an ongoing or just finished download. There used to be a note in the TODO file about this as well saying to create a local loopback cache or something (can't find it anymore).

The app appears to work like this on "streaming" files. Downloading starts and is saved to the SD card. When "enough" buffer is reached playback starts on that file. When the built-in android player sees the end of that file (the end when playback started, not the current end), subsonic-android restarts playback at the same place it stopped. This happens until it restarts when the file is finished.

Google made a bunch of media playback changes in android 2.2 which seems to change the playback behavior so that the file length is checked throughout playback. So instead of it thinking the file has ended and restarting playback, it just continues playing as the file builds (thus no skips). HOWEVER, my Samsung Vibrant running 2.2 (not official of course) still has the skip behavior. My T-Mobile G1 running CyanogenMod 2.2 does not.

I'd imagine some manufacturers are picking and choosing what portions of 2.2 they're using. Sindre's Nexus One uses the straight source from AOSP so it has these changes which is why he's finding it difficult to reproduce this problem further.


My 3g connection is fast enough that even at full speed (no transcoding) it only skips about twice on -V0 files before being caught up and not skipping on the next tracks.

It's an annoying issue... and I'm sure it's workable, but it'd require a pretty major code change to fix it and will likely go away in the future with the current implementation since google changed it in the 2.2 branch.

[jeffcavicchi]

Interesting - the problem was much worse with the first few version of the Pandora Android app. If I delay playback on the phone until a few tracks have downloaded, it seems to work fine...

I'd love to see this fixed for earlier versions of Android, since I have a year before I can ditch my lousy Eris - but this is certainly not a deal breaker for me. So far Subsonic has been outstanding, and exactly what I have been looking for...I don;t mind being patient until this problem is resolved one way or the other.

[Mamba]

FYI, first post from a new member with a new Droid (DInc)....
Had a few delayed start/buffer problems at first on 3G but working great presently, even inside at work where the signal often drops to 1X.

ISP: Comcast 15Mbps/5Mbps (12/3 actual)
Server OS: WHS 2003 SP2
Spec: Single 3Ghz, 2GB Ram
Music library (MP3s) lives on the same WHS, connection path is via the UNC share path.
Subsonic Server: 4.3
Verizon HTC Droid Incredible
Android 2.2
Max bit rate setting server/phone: 96Kbps

Using the recommended "lame -S -h --resample 44.1 -b %b %s -" for downsample but dunno if DS is happening. Don't think so, see nothing like that in the agent or service log. Tho' do see the lame.exe process kick-in regularly in the WHS task list, averaging 18% when it's active.
Is there another log to look at?

Overall very pleased with the program and if the performance remains this stable, a definite "buy".

Cheers, M

EDIT: Found the log; for some reason I have Subsonic on both D: (where I told it to install) and on C: drive...hmmm. The log is in the C:\Subsonic path...also found it using the "More" option in the web console.
Yes it's downsampling.

[jeffcavicchi]

Now that I am downsampling to 96kbps when using the phone the android app is working like a champ...and I see downsampling kick in all the time in the log. I have my normal connection set to downsample to 192kbps, which seems to work great when on wifi/ethernet.

[pcs800]

How do I set the server to downsample for iphones and androids but not for browsers? Or is this not what you were saying?

[jeffcavicchi]

There are a couple of different ways. First, you can create different users with different downsample rates. Log in as the user with a downsample rate of 96kbps if you are using a slow connection, and log in as the user with a higher downsample rate when you are using a faster connection. You can also set the downsample rate for individual players under settings - so you can log in as a single user, but have the android/iphone player set to downsample to 96kbps, while the web browser player is set to 192, or wherever you want it. Let me know if this is clear...

[Mamba]

>There are a couple of different ways

Thanks Jeff...had wondered about that too.

M

[jeffcavicchi]

My pleasure!