Support for Plexamp Headless?

Hi @spockfish,

I’m relatively new to Roon but already had a bunch of Raspberry Pi’s lying around and Ropieee has taken my listening to new heights while still supporting my wife’s Spotify (thanks!). I also use Plexamp (mostly for offline listening) but have seen they’ve just released Plexamp Headless for Rpi. Not sure what’s involved, but it’d be amazing if that ran on Ropieee too (especially if I end up in another build 952 issue where I can’t use Roon for 2 weeks).

Problem is that Plex only provides a binary for 64-bit.
RoPieee uses an 32-bit kernel (for now), so that’s a no-go.

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I’d actually assumed that the reason you had a separate build for Pi4 was because you’d switched to 64-bit, I guess not :slight_smile:

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Nope. But it is customized and as a preparation for 64 bit I created the separate builds.

I’ve looked into it with more detail, and afaik the Plex devs are not going to provide a 32-bit build.

That means I’ll give 64 bit a little bit more prio (until now it was on the list, but not a big prio as it does not provide any advantages).

Thanks

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Awesome, thanks. Happy to be a guinea pig if you’re looking for testers at some stage. I’ve got a few RPi4’s (and one RPi3) and a few different DACs (2x USB and a DigiAMP+ HAT). Also have the official touchscreen (and a non-official one) so should be able to test a few different scenarios.

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Hi @James_Fitzell ,

Just an heads-up that I’ve started doing some 64-bit testing over here.
If this runs properly for a few days I tend to release a beta for this.

Headless Plexamp is the next thing after that.

Thanks

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Just stumbled across this and have to say that as a very satisfied user of RopieeeXL (using Shairport Sync to Airplay Plexamp to RPI4 with Boss2 Dac) I am very excited by this news.
Waiting patiently for now and certain to donate soon.

All the best
Steven

Just wanted to keep this alive by saying I would absolutely be in to this as well!

I’m afraid this is not going to happen. The Plex team is not interested in providing the software for other platforms than Debian based. I’ve been in contact with them about this, but so fo far no luck.

Oh no, what a shame! Thanks Harry, that seems rather short sighted on their part but I can understand why they want to start mainstream. If you want someone to do testing of converted packages in a franken-OS let me know :slight_smile:

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This would have been a really nice way to make Plexamp headless available to more people, RoPieee is so well implemented/supported and user friendly.

Some clarification … Plexamp headless does not specifically require a Debian based system. It does need a specific version of nodejs … until recently it needed node 12 (no longer supported and maybe a concern for integration with systems like RoPieee) … it now uses node 16, in case that makes a difference.

Well, this is the problem. Initially this was in sync with Debian, hence my assumption this was the reason.

Great that it now uses Node 16, but I don’t want to be ‘held back’ by software that requires a specific version of some component: that’s a no-go for me.

Plex could easily solve this in their (build) infrastructure by providing several versions of the libraries that they provide as a binary, but until that happens Plexamp can’t be included in RoPieee.

Thanks

Thanks so much for checking in on this Harry.

Is your sense that there is some willingness to listen to users? I don’t want you to have to bird-dog them, but I’ve been a lifetime Plex member for a long long time, and I’m sure I and a few others here would be willing to “give it the old college try” as we say in America. If there’s any chance of getting them to include multiple versions of their libraries in their build infrastructure, happy to give it a shot. If that’s useful, let us know what specifically to ask for.

Many thanks as always!

-John

I’m a Plex member myself and had a quick chat on the Plex mailing list. But there was no interest. Which is understandable but unfortunate.

Thanks

Just out of curiosity, is there a feature request active here (Feature Suggestions - Plex Forum)? I know that Plex, just like Roon, can be a bit opaque… but I figure if we get a few people here to vote for it, that’s the best we can do. If you would be willing to put in a feature request and send us the link, I know I for one would be happy to vote for it and to rally others to as well.

Thanks,
John

EDIT: There’s this thread that’s already open and now solved which addresses the idea, but which is going to be shut down soon and which doesn’t actually get to the point of what needs to be done:

I left a remark in that thread, but I already know the outcome.

Thanks

Is it just the single node version that’s the limiter here? You may be right, but recall that Plex switched from only arm64 to releases also supporting 32 bit and x86-64. Anything is possible, might just be a matter of time. Thank you for your replies. (EDIT - should have read what you just posted on the Plex thread, question answered :slight_smile: )

So a small update here…

I’ve managed to get Plexamp running… but again I run into a blocker: the whole authorization flow (getting a claim code) is blocking a fully headless installation.

Yes, you read it correctly: the product they claim is headless is not so headless during installation.

So this is again a no-go for me. And no, I’m not going to contact Plex about this. The last time I had contact with them they made it pretty clear that they are totally not interested in helping out parties that want to integrate their product.

Oh… if I sound a little bit frustrated… then that’s correct :wink:

ps: I’m not the only one. The Hifiberry guys also made it clear that this is a no-go for them.

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Shame they are not so flexible. Hats off for trying.

Thanks @spockfish, that’s obviously disappointing but the fault lies entirely at their end. Damn shame :cry: