[can't reproduce in build 234] Certain tracks (podcast MP3s) go back and start playing from beginning after pause or attempted timeline position change

Support
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As in subject line - I’m seeing some tracks (so far only podcasts delivered as MP3s) refuse to continue from the chosen position after scrubbing or sometimes even after just a pause; they instead start playing from the beginning again.

If I convert them to FLAC or AIFF or WAV before playing, the problem doesn’t occur.

Here’s the thing: I didn’t have this problem until pretty recently, and the problem’s appearance didn’t correspond with installing a new Roon update; rather, the problem appeared after I upgraded the Linux distribution underneath my installed Roon core from Ububtu 12.04 LTS, through 14.04 LTS, to the current 16.04 LTS.

So… is there an OS-supplied helper program or library Roon is using to jump to particular spots in an MP3, which may for some reason have lost the ability to jump?

I’m hoping someone will just recognize this class of problem and know right away what I should look at; if not, I can do more detailed testing and documentation of it (any correlation with CBR vs VBR? Correlation with one or multiple playback zones in group? Extracting relevant log entries? Whatever else support people suggest…)

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Hi @Jeffrey_Moore ----- Thank you for the report and sharing your feedback with us. Both are appreciated.

Moving forward, would it be possible to send us one of the MP3s in question via a dropbox download link a PM so we can test in house? Let me know.

-Eric

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Will do when I have a free block of time. I’ll also want to check if the problem has for some reason gone away with build 234…

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@Eric - I’ll do my best to get this done over the weekend. My initial report was pretty fuzzy, because I was hoping the circumstances would just ring a bell in someone’s mind, and I’d get a response of the form

“Oh, yeah - there was a troublesome point release of ffmpeg which can’t jump to arbitrary positions in MP3 files with sampling rates below 44.1, but if you either build your own ffmpeg from git or change the Roon config to use XYZ helper instead, you’ll be golden!”

But as that wasn’t the case, I’ll now have to do a proper bug report: reproduce the problem, try to isolate it some (looking at file formats, whether or not it makes a difference if multiple zones are grouped, seeing if there are suggestive log entries). That’ll take a block of time which I’ll have to scrounge up, hence the delay. Thanks for your attention.

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@Eric - I haven’t been able to reproduce this post-build-234. I’ll squawk and try to trap it in a cage of reproduceability if it recurs, but in the meantime, let’s table this one.