HQPlayer NAA set-up?

I had PM’ed support directly

But best best if you can creat a thread in Support section

If you can share them a YouTube vid also, that might help them

I already did but seems it fizzled

I’m happy to say the dropouts at PCM 1.5M and DSD1024 are gone after upgrading my WiFi network.

For those curious, I went from Archer A7 + TP-Link RE315(wired connection to a Pi4) to Deco XE75.

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@jussi_laako I’m probably facing some networking problems as music just stops occasionally (usually between 5-45min). This also happens with filters/modulators that are easy to compute, so it’s not that.

HQP logs:

! 2023/03/18 20:17:04 clHQPlayerEngine::Execute(): clStreamReaderHTTP::Read(): read timeout 2
  2023/03/18 20:17:04 Stop request (reset)
& 2023/03/18 20:17:04 Stop...
- 2023/03/18 20:17:04 NAA output network engine stopping...
- 2023/03/18 20:17:05 NAA output network engine stopped
- 2023/03/18 20:17:05 Playback engine stopped
& 2023/03/18 20:17:05 ...stopped
  2023/03/18 20:17:05 Set volume: -3 +
- 2023/03/18 20:17:06 Control ended from 192.168.50.32:58760

I would have 3 questions:

  1. Do you agree that this is probably a networking problem
  2. Do you think it’s between Roon and HQP (I’m assuming that as it’s in HQP logs, not NAA logs, it’s HQP doing the reading from the stream and thus the problem would be between Roon and HQP) or HQP and NAA? (All running on separate computers.)
  3. If I were to buy either a switch or a router to connect the three together, which one would you buy? Asking as there may be something in the networking of the three that I’m not aware of. I’m currently using 1y old Asus ZenWifi XT8 to connect them (all with ethernet cat5e cables). That shouldn’t be the bottleneck (my experience with asus in general has been very positive in the past), but you never know.

P.S. I’ve tried with local FLAC files that are on the same computer with Roon, so I’ve ruled out potential problems with Qobuz->Roon.

Which of them are you using?
Are you upsampling to PCM or DSD?
Have you tried to use only HQPlayer to NAA excluding Roon?
… could be an overheating issue …

I’ve tried for example AMSDM7 512fs+ @ DSD1024 which gives me these results, while I can run ASDM7ECv2 @ DSD1024x44.1 as well when I’m on higher clocks, so I doubt it’s temperature issue. My current temps (13900k):

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0:  +65.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:        +61.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 4:        +35.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 8:        +55.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 12:       +35.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 16:       +65.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 20:       +34.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 24:       +48.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 28:       +33.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

Also HQP logs tell me it’s timeout while reading stream. If NAA logs gave me the same error, then I would suspect HQP dropping out due to stress or something. Now it looks like HQP just decides to stop waiting for input.

Yes, some kind of networking problem. Not enough data coming from Roon and HQPlayer gives up. If you are on Windows, then Windows Defender anti-virus is prime suspect. It inserts itself as a proxy also on local connections. Then it gathers the data and scans it. And since it is stream it keeps gathering it and scanning it. As the amount of data grows, it keeps getting slower and slower.

F-Secure and eset should be fine, both offer free trial anyway, so you can test. These replace the Microsoft stock components.

This is between Roon and HQPlayer.

For unmanaged switches, for example HPE or Zyxel switches are fine. Something with a metal box and that supports 802.3x, 802.1p and preferably 802.3az standards.

Managed switches can be also used, but they will need some careful configuration. Since they don’t necessarily have above features enabled by default.

This should be fine, I have tested these same devices myself.

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Thanks, this gave me some peace of mind. I actually tried disabling my firewall on the PC where I’m running the Roon after trying to replace all the ethernet cables one by one. I’ve now managed to listen 45min straight without problems. I’m using linux on both Roon and HQP computers, so Defender problems can be ruled out.

Roon & linux firewall have caused me headaches before as well when using RAAT as Roon isn’t using some fixed set of ports, but wide ranges and it seems to change the used ports constantly. I guess what happens is that even though it’s Roon sending the data to HQP, HQP needs to send something back occasionally through different ports and those don’t always get through (in case the port isn’t open) and then Roon thinks that it lost the device. Just my guess without knowing all the details about how the communication between the two has been implemented.

I’ve just installed HQPlayer Embedded on Ubuntu 22.04LTS - it won’t see my DAC’s embedded NAA unless I disable UFW. Which isn’t a good thing, so is there any documentation about which ports/port ranges need to be opened to allow the HQP host to see any NAAs on the network?

UFW?

There are no specific ports, most are dynamic. These are to be used on firewalled local network.

If you don’t want some service to be accessible form local network, don’t run it in first place. If you want to separate things, then VLANs are the answer on local networks.

Once I’d disabled UFW, it saw the NAA. then, reenabling UFW was OK - it still saw the NAA. LAN is already VLAN’d, but I’m testing it on one of our AI render systems - trying to decide between a Desktop and Embedded licence. Once I’ve worked out which way to go, I’ll do a custom headless build for HQP and sit that on the media VLAN.

Assumption is that you are in protected environment. There is no point in running firewall in such VLAN environment. Because you are just blocking ports that have nothing behind them. And you want the open ones to be open anyway.

For most things, HQPlayer just binds to port 0 - IOW, lets OS to assign a dynamic/random port. And the mutlicast disco dance then figures out where it should be talking to.