LMS on Pi

[Dave2002]

Thanks Dave - good to know it did not cause you too many audio issues.

I forgot to mention the interface. I used a Squeezebox device with an ethernet connection - both wireless and via powerline links, and sometimes a direct cable. If you need any other connection, such as usb, some interfaces and ingenuity might be needed. I have also used optical links, though these can impose limitations. Again, for my purposes i didn't hear any major problems, but people who have "golden ears" or spend too much time worrying about equipment specs may not like those.

Switching optical links can be easy, with rather chunky optical switches. There are electronic optical switches which cost more.

[johnb]

I would like to go wired, but I might need such a long cable as for this to be unpractical so I will check (I do have some long cables) so wifi will be needed (I think I've already found the correct dongle)

Powerline options are definitely worth checking out, even if they are not ideal IMO.

My server (like your NAS) is wired but until last week my player (then Touch, now Allo Digione Signature) was connected by WiFi and I never had any problems streaming up to 24/96. BUT it very much depends on the WiFi signal strength.

[cmr_for3]

I have won the ebay listing. Now the fun(?!) begins....

[johnb]

Forgive me if I am "trying to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs" but -

I would get a new SD card for your Pi. Just to eliminate possible issues with the old card.

Then I would initially set it up using a temporary wired connection, just to get it going. Then set up the WiFi once everything is running fine.

Running the suggested "Advanced IP Scanner" on your PC will be helpful to determine the IP address of Pi and your NAS.

Ideally, I would set the NAS to have a static IP address. (There will probably be an option in the NAS setup.)

Install piCorePlayer using the instructions on: https://www.picoreplayer.org/main_howto.shtml

Then install LMS, using the instructions. In the instructions it suggests setting Squeezelite to NOT automatically start. This might be intended for people just using the Pi as a LMS server. However you will need Squeezelite running because you will be using your Pi as both player and LMS server.

[cmr_for3]

Thanks for the tips John. The NAS has a static IP, but I shall keep all the others in mind. I will update this thread with progress.

[cmr_for3]

Hi all,

Finally had some time to work on this. Got everything installed ok (LMS and Pi core player) My major difficulty has been pointing LMS to my NAS drive. I can't get this to work and google is of limited help. Any advice welcome.

[johnb]

Can you use your browser on your PC to access LMS on the Pi? The URL to enter in your browser is <IP of Pi>:9000, e.g. 192.168.1.102:9000 in my case.

If so, click on "settings" (bottom right), then

on the "Basic Settings" tab that comes up, what do you see when you click on the "Browse" alongside the first entry in the "Media Folders" section?

Are the folder permissions and share settings correct on the NAS? LMS needs read access so the easiest thing to do is to set them so everyone has read access to all the folders that comprise your music library (including the root folder of your music library).

If have difficulty pointing to the music folder on your NAS, one option is to enter the UNC address of the root folder of your music library, e.g. \\servername\sharename, or an example from my system: \\MICROSVR\music-hd\music

If you are unsure of the UNC address and if you can access the root folder of your music library from a Windows PC you can find the UNC address by:

Open Windows Explorer
Click on "Network" in the left hand panel
In "Network" navigate to the folder in the right hand panel
Hold down "Shift" and Right Click on the folder
Select "Copy as Path"
Past into the LMS Media Folders
Remove the double quotes surrounding the path

Do the same for your Playlsts folder

If you haven't set up a Playlists folder - then do so. It should be a different folder to that used as the Media Folder. (If you use the same folder there is a risk of scanner problems.)

After that - press "Rescan", alongside Rescan Media Library.

[cmr_for3]

Can you use your browser on your PC to access LMS on the Pi? The URL to enter in your browser is <IP of Pi>:9000, e.g. 192.168.1.102:9000 in my case.

If so, click on "settings" (bottom right), then

on the "Basic Settings" tab that comes up, what do you see when you click on the "Browse" alongside the first entry in the "Media Folders" section?

Are the folder permissions and share settings correct on the NAS? LMS needs read access so the easiest thing to do is to set them so everyone has read access to all the folders that comprise your music library (including the root folder of your music library).

If have difficulty pointing to the music folder on your NAS, one option is to enter the UNC address of the root folder of your music library, e.g. \\servername\sharename, or an example from my system: \\MICROSVR\music-hd\music

If you are unsure of the UNC address and if you can access the root folder of your music library from a Windows PC you can find the UNC address by:

Open Windows Explorer
Click on "Network" in the left hand panel
In "Network" navigate to the folder in the right hand panel
Hold down "Shift" and Right Click on the folder
Select "Copy as Path"
Past into the LMS Media Folders
Remove the double quotes surrounding the path

Do the same for your Playlsts folder

If you haven't set up a Playlists folder - then do so. It should be a different folder to that used as the Media Folder. (If you use the same folder there is a risk of scanner problems.)

After that - press "Rescan", alongside Rescan Media Library.

Hi John

Below is what I see in the LMS server settings side of things.

https://imgur.com/a/znW3V7J If I try and type my personal cloud address and click rescan it overtypes it.

I think the Public folder comes from me trying to set up the share at the pCP level - nothing there now though as I removed it. https://imgur.com/a/YPYkth1

[johnb]

Edit:
Important before going any further:

Did you "Install and Enable additional FileSystems"
Did you "Setup Network Disk Mount"
- both in on the piCorePlayer LMS settings (you need to click on the "Advanced" tab at the bottom to access these settings).

If so the name given to your NAS music folder should appear under "mnt".

I'm not sure how your system is set up or what steps you have taken (not to mention that I haven't installed LMS on my piCorePlayer - so there is an air of the blind leading the blind).

What happens if you drill down on the three entries you have under "mnt"? Anything useful there?

If you are unsure of how to "Setup Network Disk Mount" the following is cribbed from https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...l=1#post890776

MOUNT POINT:
Call this whatever you like, you will see in under..

( When mounted go to the LMS web gui Settings page>Basic Settings>Media Folders>Browse and the share name should be under "mnt".......)

IP ADDRESS:
of the NAS obviously

SHARE NAME:
My music file on the nas is is called Squeezebox

SHARE TYPE:
CIFS or NFS depending

USERNAME AND PASSWORD:
are for the NAS obviously

tick the enable box and tick
SET NET MOUNT.

[johnb]

*** previous post changed ***

[cmr_for3]

Edit:
Important before going any further:

Did you "Install and Enable additional FileSystems"
Did you "Setup Network Disk Mount"
- both in on the piCorePlayer LMS settings (you need to click on the "Advanced" tab at the bottom to access these settings).

If so the name given to your NAS music folder should appear under "mnt".

I'm not sure how your system is set up or what steps you have taken (not to mention that I haven't installed LMS on my piCorePlayer - so there is an air of the blind leading the blind).

What happens if you drill down on the three entries you have under "mnt"? Anything useful there?

If you are unsure of how to "Setup Network Disk Mount" the following is cribbed from https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...l=1#post890776

Hi John

thanks for the thread.

sooo I had added the required file systems to Pi Core Player but setting up a share now always seems to fail on it's name (I can't seem to find a name that it will let me use) I know I need an NFS share. I have updated LMS successfully to 9.3 via Pi Core Player. I can add the path in manually on the logitech side but am them told my playlist folder (inside my NAS share) is invalid,

Where does your playlist folder sit?

[johnb]

sooo I had added the required file systems to Pi Core Player but setting up a share now always seems to fail on it's name (I can't seem to find a name that it will let me use) I know I need an NFS share.

The share is set up on your NAS and the share name is whatever you chose when you set up that share on the NAS.

The share name you use shouldn't already exist and shouldn't include spaces.

The simplest thing is to set up the root folder of your music library on your NAS as shared and give it a recognisable name, e.g. if your music files are all in subfolders of, say, whatever-the-path-is/music_library then make that folder shared.

If you have already tried to setup the music library as shared - what was the name you tried to give it

One thing to note is that the Share Name entered in the piCorePlayer LMS setup must be exact, including any capilization: e.g. in Linux "MyMusic" is different to "mymusic"

I can add the path in manually on the logitech side but am them told my playlist folder (inside my NAS share) is invalid,

Where does your playlist folder sit?

The playlist folder has to pre-exist on your NAS, so you will need to create it on your NAS before pointing to it when setting up LMS. The important thing if that the playlist folder shouldn't be same as the media folder because it can confuse the LMS file scanner. Many people seem to use a folder outside the music library but some use a separate folder within the music library. I have used both methods in the past (but then I don't use playlists very much).

LMS will need read/write permissions for the playlist folder.

For example: a playlist folder within the music library: whatever-path\music_library\music_playlists
a playlist folder outside the music library: whatever-path\music_playlists

[cmr_for3]

The share is set up on your NAS and the share name is whatever you chose when you set up that share on the NAS.

The share name you use shouldn't already exist and shouldn't include spaces.

The simplest thing is to set up the root folder of your music library on your NAS as shared and give it a recognisable name, e.g. if your music files are all in subfolders of, say, whatever-the-path-is/music_library then make that folder shared.

If you have already tried to setup the music library as shared - what was the name you tried to give it

One thing to note is that the Share Name entered in the piCorePlayer LMS setup must be exact, including any capilization: e.g. in Linux "MyMusic" is different to "mymusic"



The playlist folder has to pre-exist on your NAS, so you will need to create it on your NAS before pointing to it when setting up LMS. The important thing if that the playlist folder shouldn't be same as the media folder because it can confuse the LMS file scanner. Many people seem to use a folder outside the music library but some use a separate folder within the music library. I have used both methods in the past (but then I don't use playlists very much).

LMS will need read/write permissions for the playlist folder.

For example: a playlist folder within the music library: whatever-path\music_library\music_playlists
a playlist folder outside the music library: whatever-path\music_playlists

Thanks John

I'm still stuck on naming the Share https://i.imgur.com/W27hcNf.png

Am I being dense about this? I seem to be going round in circles - got a feeling I am misunderstanding something critical.

[johnb]

Yes, it is a bit confusing even though there is a "help"

You are using:

Mount Point: /mnt/Music
You can chose any name here. It will be the name of a directory which piCorePlayer will create on your Pi and that is where your NAS Share will be "mounted". I would use a different name to the NAS Share name, just to avoid confusion: say "NAS_Music".

Share Name: Music
Just checking: on your NAS, have you set the root folder of your music library as shared and is "Music" the exact Share name you gave it?
Can you see this "Music" share if you open Windows Explorer and click on "Network"?

Share Type NFS
You said that you know you need to use NFS for your NAS

Options
Enter the following into the box: vers=3

Then click on "Set NET Mount"

[cmr_for3]

Yes, it is a bit confusing even though there is a "help"

You are using:

Mount Point: /mnt/Music
You can chose any name here. It will be the name of a directory which piCorePlayer will create on your Pi and that is where your NAS Share will be "mounted". I would use a different name to the NAS Share name, just to avoid confusion: say "NAS_Music".

Share Name: Music
Just checking: on your NAS, have you set the root folder of your music library as shared and is "Music" the exact Share name you gave it?
Can you see this "Music" share if you open Windows Explorer and click on "Network"?

Share Type NFS
You said that you know you need to use NFS for your NAS

Options
Enter the following into the box: vers=3

Then click on "Set NET Mount"

hare Name: Music
Just checking: on your NAS, have you set the root folder of your music library as shared and is "Music" the exact Share name you gave it?
Can you see this "Music" share if you open Windows Explorer and click on "Network"?

So the above may be the critical point. I used to have my music in two locations on my NAS. In prep for LMS I moved into one folder called "Music" on the root of my NAS. However it is not a Network Share in it's own right, merely a folder inside the Share "Public" (which is not really public but is the non password protected Share created by the NAS at setup)

Should I set that folder up as a Share?

Thanks again for all your help.