HQPlayer Embedded Discussion

Peter_Hemmi · November 26, 2023, 11:16pm

Greetings @jussi_laako and NAA experts. Need your help getting RME ADI-2 Pro FS BE input to HQP working.

After some fiddling (there isn’t a setup guide as far as I know) following forum posts, I managed to get it working except for sample rate switching. Please see attached settings screenshot, and my observations below and let me know what I’m doing wrong.

I never managed to get it working connected direct to the Mac via Core Audio. In any case, I understand that NAA is needed for auto rate switching, so I focused on that.
with NAA, selecting ADI-2 Pro [SPDIF] causes HQP to hang w beach ball. I have to rename settings.xml to get it back up again.
selecting the serial numbered ADI-2 deviceID and setting channel offset to 4 works fine, but only with fixed sample rate. The ADI-2 is set to multichannel to enable digital input to USB output.
using audio:default/0/2 as I suggested on a forum post doesn’t work. Message similar to “requested rate 0 not found using 192 instead”

NAA is running on an NAA OS mini pc that works perfectly for output (usually drives my Holo May at 1.5M). The image is from September 2021, will update it to latest as soon as I can. Don’t know if this is an issue.

Besides this problem, I would also like to know if a single NAA OS host can manage two devices for input and output (on separate USB ports)? Or is it one NAA host per USB device?

Thanks for your help!

dabassgoesboomboom · November 27, 2023, 1:26pm

You definitely can use the NAA for input and output - just not at the same time . I think Jussi said he is working on this in future.

To get your NAA input working you need to add your RME’s serial number to NAA input.

You will need to do some command line stuff with your NAA , only once though

Below is my code, but you have to change your RME number

Step 1 :

nano /etc/networkaudiod/networkaudiod.xml

Step 2:

    <input channels="2" device="hw:CARD=DAC51050442,DEV=0" format="auto" name="ADI-2-B digi coax" pack_sdm="1" period_time="100" samplerate="0" sync_element="AES Rate" sync_hctl="1"/>
    <input channels="2" device="hw:CARD=DAC51050442,DEV=0" format="auto" name="ADI-2-B optical" pack_sdm="1" period_time="100" samplerate="0" sync_element="SPDIF Rate" sync_hctl="1"/>

Peter_Hemmi · November 27, 2023, 8:37pm

Thank you @dabassgoesboomboom!

Few basic questions please. Should I use ssh to access the NAA host and make these edits? Is there documentation for the networkaudiod config file? Just to make sure I get it right.

Notice in my screenshot the device shows up in HQP as “ADI-2 Pro (53010403)”. Is this the string I should use where you have DAC51050442? Or is it DAC53010403, just replacing the serial number? Are you also using an ADI-2 Pro or an ADI-2 DAC? Hence this question.

Finally, is there a reason you have sync element AES on the digi coax input?

Many thanks!

dabassgoesboomboom · November 27, 2023, 8:54pm

Yes this is correct

I am using ADI-2 DAC for toslink and digital coax sources (I don’t use analogue sources so don’t need Pro ADC version)

So you might have slightly different

You might have to add input channel_offset=“4” to the line

Easiest is to hookup a keyboard and mouse to your NAA, you would not have to do this often at all, maybe even once a year

You can ssh using my steps from my notes below

login as root
Create a user id with password useradd xxx passwd xxx and follow messages
Now you can ssh using the new user id

ifconfig for IP address

ssh xxx@IP_address

For root sudo commands, use “su” to switch user to root

dabassgoesboomboom · November 27, 2023, 8:55pm

this is what works best for me

I don’t have another explanation unfortunately

Jussi knows more than me about this

Peter_Hemmi · November 27, 2023, 9:50pm

Thank you, will try this.

I just read somewhere Jussi wrote that changes to NAA OS are not persistent. Are you using HQP OS, or editing the networkaudiod file to enable “rate 0” automatic switching also works w NAA OS?

dabassgoesboomboom · November 27, 2023, 10:24pm

Ah yes you are right.

HQP OS and then disable the hqplayerd part with

systemctl stop hqplayerd
systemctl disable hqplayerd

Then just NAA part will be active and steps are same as above

jussi_laako · November 28, 2023, 12:53pm

Only on the “ramfs” image. For the regular image, and always on the RPi4 image the changes can persist just fine. So no need to use HQPlayer OS image for this.

If you use the NAA OS (or HQPlayer OS) image. All the needed lines are preconfigured in networkaudiod.xml, you just need to edit the device id and uncomment the lines. So remove the preciding “<! --” sequence and the trailing “-- >” sequence (I had to insert spaces to these here, otherwise it confuses the forum software).

Stefan_Jorma · November 28, 2023, 1:30pm

So, back in the sadle after major submerged time period and anxious to get most things finally working. Happy with my Linux Ubuntu LTS 22.04 Desktop and HQPlayer Embedded (4). The thing remaining is to save up for the update to generation 5 (hopefully start of next year) and how to get my NAS working with HQPe. Today I finally managed to mount the music folder from my NAS in the Linux file manager, but I simply cannot understand how to get HQPe to scan the music folder. I do not know if it sufficient just to mount the folder image in the file manager (?) or if there is an intermediate step to perfom? HQPe does not start to load the library in any case. I guess there is someone who know what need to be done to unlock the load library from HQPe. As there is no mount network tab in this particular HQPe compared to the HQPe/OS image, I simply assume that if the Linux Ubuntu OS can read the content in the NAS music folder, so should the HQPe, when asked to scan the path (smb://NAS/music)?

jussi_laako · November 28, 2023, 2:43pm

You need to mount the remote filesystem first on Linux directory hierarchy. This requires that you place the correct line in /etc/fstab and then tell HQPlayer to scan the mount point location.

“smb://NAS/music” doesn’t point to any valid local path, so it won’t work.

For example, in my case, I have music mounted on “/music” path.

Govnah · November 28, 2023, 3:08pm

Here is my fstab entry that I use for HQPe:

//192.168.60.2/Media/Music /media/music cifs vers=3.0,credentials=/root/.SMBcredentials 192.168.60.11

You will need to create a mount point and create a SMB creds file to access the share on your NAS. Hope this helps…

Stefan_Jorma · November 28, 2023, 3:31pm

@jussi_laako @Govnah

Thanks guys, however I am not at the level to understand your kind advises. I have mounted the remote filesystem, I think, by using the desktop Ubuntu File Manager and in there connected the NAS server remote directory to the filemanager locally. I typed smb://NAS/music in connect to server and clicked connect, Ubuntu replied by asking for the login user name and password, I typed it and Ubuntu connected and displayed the NAS server music folder content correctly. Hence I thought I established the Ubuntu OS local file manager access to the Synology NAS server remote directory where the music is.
Then I thought, I had to do exactly same procedure for scanning, ie typing the same adress (smb://NAS/music) in the scan path and hit enter, cuz the OS already established the pc-server connection.
If this is not the right procedure, I do not know in detail how to establish a mount point and create SMB creds file. I know you guys are not keen on teaching basic Linux handling, but perhaps an exception? I guess I have to dive in to the wonderful terminal to make this right?
If I type the necessary info needed here, perhaps one of you could reply with the required command lines and typing of the scan path to make things happen the right way?
Adress to NAS; 192.168.1.69
Path; //NAS/music
Inside /music there are additional subfolders and these contain the artists, albums and tracks. But I guess that will not create a problem for Linux or HQPe to figure out that it supposed to mount and scan all under /music?
Thanks in advance

Forsaked · November 28, 2023, 5:13pm

Just updated my virtualised instance to 5.3.0 and looks like my fingerprint changed.
Is there an easy way to change my license to the new fingerprint or do i have to email @jussi_laako ?

Dirk_De_Taey · November 28, 2023, 5:14pm

You will have to email Jussi.

Govnah · November 28, 2023, 8:22pm

Is this normal, seems like the GPU resources should be higher see below:

HQPe 5.2

Is it possible config/load additonal GPU ressources?

IgorSki · November 28, 2023, 9:35pm

If you want to stress test your RAM and GPU capacity - just try running “Sinc-L” SDM@1024.

Govnah · November 28, 2023, 10:11pm

Interesting, I added Sinc-L @512 to start and HQPe never starts to play, just gives up via ROON. Running a TR3960x and RTX4070. Am I missing something or is my HQPe resources not up to the task?

HQPe 5.2 on Ubuntu22.04.

jussi_laako · November 29, 2023, 7:07am

No, likely your file manager established connection (through gvfs) to the server. But this is not visible to HQPlayer. This is above the OS level. It is just like establishing connection to Google Drive from your web browser, but it doesn’t mean that HQPlayer would see your Google Drive contents.

However you can confirm whether the mount exists and where it is by opening terminal and running “df”.

HQPlayer will look into all subfolders under the specified scan starting point.

jussi_laako · November 29, 2023, 7:10am

If it happens for each update, I recommend getting the USB dongle in such case. That way you don’t need to ask. And the fingerprint won’t change as the dongle is the fingerprint then.

Generally without the USB dongle, you can ask reasonable (about 1 - 2) number of key updates per year.

jussi_laako · November 29, 2023, 7:11am

Looks normal for those settings and that GPU. You have 14% GPU load.

Your source is 44.1k family? Because sinc-L cannot convert between rate families, so 48k family won’t play unless your DAC is cable of doing correctly doing DSD at multiples of 48k (rare) and you have explicitly enabled this in HQPlayer settings.