2021-11-09, 06:40
Hello,
It has been a bit since I posted here but I have had a persistent issue over several versions of Kodi and I am finally circling back to see if I can help get to the bottom of it. I did try to search through the Music forum posts but didn't see any other posts that looked similar to my particular issue.
Several years ago, I posted about a similar issue where Kodi 17.6 would crash occasionally when playing a shuffled M3U playlist. Back then I was running Kodi on Gentoo Linux and have since moved on to Kodi on LibreElec, first with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and now a 4B. Since moving to Libreelec, I have thankfully gotten rid of the crashing issue, but still have an issue playing shuffled M3U playlists. (Also apologies for never responding in the previous thread as I didn't have an easy way to test new things out then. Now I have a much easier setup to test on.)
Let me see if I can describe what happens and how I have Kodi set up. First some of the system details:
What happens is that a little bit before the crossfade is supposed to start (say, 3-5 seconds before), the audio cuts out for a second or two and then continues normally. The song stops and then starts again and not like the Audio device drops the signal (though it is hard to tell). And this happens very randomly. It can go a couple of dozen songs without issue and then happen and sometimes it can happen a couple times in a row. It doesn't appear to be particular songs or files as I have tried keeping a list of songs it happens on (both the current song and then next song), creating an m3u playlist with "problem" songs and can't replicate it. And it has happened on all versions I have run since 17, both on an Intel platform (though that often led to crashes, thus the move to RPi) as well as the RPi's.
And what is the most baffling is that if I go to Genres menu and select something like Jazz, where I have ~3,500 songs, and play those on shuffle with the same crossfade setting, it NEVER has the issue. I can run in this mode for hours on end and it never happens. But if play an M3U playlist from those same ~3,500 songs in the Jazz genre, it will eventually exhibit this behavior.
Some other important items to note about this system. I have just made the move to LibreElec 10.0.1 & Kodi 19.3 (previously running LibreElec 9.2.8 & Kodi 18.9) having started from a fresh installation and rebuilding everything from scratch (i.e. no restoring previous database). (It's a long story but it involves tripping up on bugs with some legacy addons and skin addons causing issues.)
So I guess the questions I have are:
Cheers!
It has been a bit since I posted here but I have had a persistent issue over several versions of Kodi and I am finally circling back to see if I can help get to the bottom of it. I did try to search through the Music forum posts but didn't see any other posts that looked similar to my particular issue.
Several years ago, I posted about a similar issue where Kodi 17.6 would crash occasionally when playing a shuffled M3U playlist. Back then I was running Kodi on Gentoo Linux and have since moved on to Kodi on LibreElec, first with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and now a 4B. Since moving to Libreelec, I have thankfully gotten rid of the crashing issue, but still have an issue playing shuffled M3U playlists. (Also apologies for never responding in the previous thread as I didn't have an easy way to test new things out then. Now I have a much easier setup to test on.)
Let me see if I can describe what happens and how I have Kodi set up. First some of the system details:
- Current system is LibreElec 10.0.1 & Kodi 19.3 on RPi 4B
- Audio out is SPDIF Optical (JustBoom Digi HAT)
- All music & playlists are on a NAS connected via SMB (GigE connected)
- Playlists are auto-generated daily by a script so paths & filenames within are accurate
- Crossfade between songs is enabled and set for 15 seconds (no crossfade for songs on same album)
- M3U playlists range in size from ~1,000 to ~7,000
What happens is that a little bit before the crossfade is supposed to start (say, 3-5 seconds before), the audio cuts out for a second or two and then continues normally. The song stops and then starts again and not like the Audio device drops the signal (though it is hard to tell). And this happens very randomly. It can go a couple of dozen songs without issue and then happen and sometimes it can happen a couple times in a row. It doesn't appear to be particular songs or files as I have tried keeping a list of songs it happens on (both the current song and then next song), creating an m3u playlist with "problem" songs and can't replicate it. And it has happened on all versions I have run since 17, both on an Intel platform (though that often led to crashes, thus the move to RPi) as well as the RPi's.
And what is the most baffling is that if I go to Genres menu and select something like Jazz, where I have ~3,500 songs, and play those on shuffle with the same crossfade setting, it NEVER has the issue. I can run in this mode for hours on end and it never happens. But if play an M3U playlist from those same ~3,500 songs in the Jazz genre, it will eventually exhibit this behavior.
Some other important items to note about this system. I have just made the move to LibreElec 10.0.1 & Kodi 19.3 (previously running LibreElec 9.2.8 & Kodi 18.9) having started from a fresh installation and rebuilding everything from scratch (i.e. no restoring previous database). (It's a long story but it involves tripping up on bugs with some legacy addons and skin addons causing issues.)
So I guess the questions I have are:
- Is there any special sauce I should be adding to my m3u playlists that would help prevent this issue?
- Or is there a way I can take said M3U playlists and "import" them in to Kodi to behave more like using the Genre list generation?
- Or is there anything I can help provide to get to the bottom of this once and for all? Logs? Debug code? Donuts?
Cheers!