[fennel]

Since the 9.0 upgrade to my Shield I've been unable to play 5.1 FLAC files in 5.1. My receiver only plays them in stereo. This worked perfectly fine for a year, prior to the 9.0 upgrade. I've gone through the 9.0+ hotfixes, then the 9.0.1 upgrade and I just upgraded to the 9.0.1+ hotfix today, but the problem remains. I've been troubleshooting and looking at log files but can't figure out what the problem is so I'm at least wanting to see if there is anyone out there that is able to successfully play 5.1 music files that are in a music library.

Setup: Shield Pro 2019, Kodi 19.3, Denon X3500H AVR, all music files live on on Unraid server

I only use Kodi to playback my 5.1 FLAC music. I use Plex for everything else (server on Unraid, client on Shield).

Things I've tried:
- Completely reinstalled Kodi
- Confirmed that my settings match what's in the Audio quickstart guide (AVR HDMI (HD Audio))
- Confirmed that passthrough is enabled on the Shield
- Confirmed that Kodi can play multi-channel movie files (in a movie library)
- Confirmed that no settings changed on my AVR that would force 5.1 into stereo
- Tried to play 5.1 FLAC files through Jellyfin - my AVR still plays them as stereo

I've copied what I think is the relevant part of the log file here. The full file is too big, but I can post if that would help. For the test I played:
- The Who - I Am the Sea (5.1 Mix).flac
- 01 - Abacab.flac
- Kraftwerk - Autobahn (5.1 mix).flac
- A Quiet Place (2018).mkv

I'm no expert at reading Kodi log files, but one thing that's odd is for each of the FLAC files it first shows this:

html:
2022-02-19 15:30:45.962 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Output Device : AudioTrack (IEC)

2022-02-19 15:30:45.962 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Sample Rate   : 96000

2022-02-19 15:30:45.962 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Sample Format : AE_FMT_S16NE

2022-02-19 15:30:45.962 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Channel Count : 6

2022-02-19 15:30:45.962 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Channel Layout: FL, FR, FC, LFE, BL, BR

2022-02-19 15:30:45.962 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Frames        : 4614

2022-02-19 15:30:45.962 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Frame Size    : 12

But then about 10-20 seconds later it shows this:

html:
2022-02-19 15:31:06.751 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Output Device : AudioTrack (IEC)

2022-02-19 15:31:06.751 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Sample Rate   : 44100

2022-02-19 15:31:06.751 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Sample Format : AE_FMT_FLOAT

2022-02-19 15:31:06.751 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Channel Count : 2

2022-02-19 15:31:06.752 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Channel Layout: FL, FR

2022-02-19 15:31:06.752 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Frames        : 2122

2022-02-19 15:31:06.752 T:12898   DEBUG <general>:   Frame Size    : 8

Given that they also play back in stereo through Jellyfin, I wonder if this is somehow tied to Android 11, but I haven't seen any posts from others reporting this problem. If I can find others that are able to successfully play 5.1 FLAC music back that at least tells me it's possibly something unique to my setup and not an Android 11 bug.

I welcome any and all suggestions. I've spent an absurd amount of time trying to figure this out.

[black_eagle]

@Hitcher Can you maybe confirm or deny this?  I don't have a shield to test it with.

Thanks!

[Hitcher]

I'm not going anywhere near the latest Shield update simply because of all these bugs.

[BenMcLean]

Same issue.

I posted about this on the nVidia forums here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/for...as-stereo/

[BenMcLean]

nVidia staff has responded with an explanation of what has happened with this.

The new patch added a new option to the Display & Audio menu called, "Dolby Audio Processing." What this does is have Dolby activated all the time. The purpose of that is to eliminate the small gaps in playback which occur when you first start some Dolby audio streams while your AVR figures out that a Dolby stream has started. It is turned on by default in the new OS version.

The problem with this is that it doesn't handle 5.1 PCM streams. To play back 5.1 PCM streams, you need to turn "Dolby Audio Processing" off in the menu. You're back to getting those gaps in playback while your AVR catches up, but you also get 5.1 PCM playback again.

[jjd-uk]

So they transcode PCM to DD+ by default now, must be a shitty implementation if they can't map PCM 5.1 to DD 5.1, as Kodi is able to transcode PCM with the correct channel map.

[fennel]

You are my favorite person on the planet right now! Thank you so much. I had posted on the Nvidia forums about this 3 weeks ago but got no response. I'm just going to go enjoy my surround music now and try not think anymore about this upgrade or how much time I burned trying to troubleshoot this problem.

[wbree]

Didn't work for me. 
Kodi 19.3 and Nvidia 9.1

Wilco

[ntropy]

Did Nvidia respond? Does Kodi 20 have a workaround?

[jjd-uk]

Did Nvidia respond? Does Kodi 20 have a workaround?

Kodi can't work around Nvidia enabling stupid settings by default. This Dolby Audio Processing setting is not anything anyone should want.