Squeezebox Touch basics.

[Mike H]

I remember back in the home computer days wondering how a disk was copy protected, and discovered an unmarked sector was used, in a particular place, that is a sector not tagged as written over, ergo if you did a normal disk copy the copier only took notice of written sectors.

The trick was to produce a copier that copied all sectors regardless AND put them in the same places on the copy.

Can't remember if I succeeded though ~ but could do it 'by hand' I think by loading the sector then putting it down on the other disk at the same track and sector address.

[Nick]

You can write data slightly off track center and also into track areas not normally accessible, never heard of being able to write in-between magnetic domains though. There are also areas on the disk outside of the normal block addresses presented to the outside world that can be used to write codes and signatures, this is what Apple did with their Apple SCSI drives as we used to take...cough...standard distribution Quantum drives and errr....apply 'Apple' certification to them and sell them on.

This was 5" floppy disks, the data arrived at the processor through a single bit from the head electronics. Timing was done by nop loops and the data density was nowhere near the size of a domain.

[Dave the bass]

Here's a good un........

I've got a music player appeared in the dropdown menu on the Logitech Music Server but I've no idea 'where/what' it is. Its calling itself 'Music Daemon'.

Does anyone else have one of these?

I can switch it on and off and play albums on it... but I've no idea where it is! Errrrrrrrrrrr.........

I've done screen shot. I'm not mad. I've depowered all the other music players (Touch, 2 x squeezeplay on 2 different Macs, the Duet controller) but the Daemon is still there.

[pre65]

How about this ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Player_Daemon

[Neal]

Dave, the MAC address associated with the Daemon check what device it relates to in your router....IE look it up in the DHCP table...or does it relate to the device hosting the music server?

[Dave the bass]

Ta for the linky Phil but it still doesn't explain where I should be hearing sound from? That dropdown menu usually lists each device you can stream music to eg 'Touch' or 'Julies Squeezeplay'. You can control what's being heard using the LMS web interface. I can make it play (say) a Walter becker album but I've no idea where I should (could?!) be hearing it from...

Errrr

DTB

[Neal]

You can stream to a portable device like an iPad or other device with the URL: http://<Server IP Address>:9000/stream.mp3 entered on the device.

This sets up a device in LMS but I don't think it reports itself as a 'daemon'...

[Dave the bass]

Dave, the MAC address associated with the Daemon check what device it relates to in your router....IE look it up in the DHCP table...or does it relate to the device hosting the music server?

Aha! Nice one Sherlock!

Ok, I went into the router 'attached devices' menu and bizarrely nothing relates to the MAC address on the Daemon player...

However... around the back of the Vortexbox is a 3.5mm stereo jack, plug in pair of phones and out comes ol' Walter becker. It would appear that Daemon is bundled with an update of Vortexbox.

Mystery is solved. Scooby dooby dooooooooooooo!

Thanks for the pointers Neal.

DTB

[Dave the bass]

DIET.

Found it! Within Vortexbox is a player (I didn't know I had...). The MAC address match's whats on the Daemon player.

I still have sooooooooooooooo much to learn about all this 'stuff'!

Observe piccie below.

[pre65]

Dave, you must try harder dear boy.

[Dave the bass]

Here's a good 'un.

I bought a 32GB USB stick to load music files on and then play via the USB port on the back of Touch whenever we have a local get-together or the like. I've got a couple of 8GB drives but they seem to fill up really quickly with fave raves, so for £22 or so it made sense to get a big 'un.

So, purchased an 'Intenso' 32GB stick from Morgans Computers and duly filled up with Flac files, remembering to leave a bit of space (about 6GB) so the Touch can build a database in the spare room on the stick and strut it's stuff. Worked great. Then, I went to use it again the other day and it didn't.

Plugging in the USB stick into the back of the Touch results in the Touch not seeing the drive at all. No warning screen about disconnecting the USB device without 1st telling the Touch to drop it or the like. Also, no 'Attaching USB device' whirli message like I get with any of the other 8GB drives. The red LED on the actual 32GB stick lights indicating its getting power from the Touch though. Odd.

I've researched this on the Intwerwebs and tried reformatting to FAT32 on the 32GB then reloading some tracks, nope, no joy. I've ran all the error checking and 'disk repair utillities' on both JTS's Macbook and our old XP PC too. All report the 32GB stick is alive and well. And it is! I can plug it into any computer and transfer copy/modify/drag/drop/delete all manner of files on it.... but the Touch still continues to not 'see' it! How odd.

Every other USB stick we own works fine in the Touch, no problems, so I don't think it's the Touch at fault. But conversely... the 'faulty' 32GB stick works perfectly well in every other USB portal I've had the pleasure of sticking it in aswell.... which makes y'think it's not the USB stick then.

I can't run the Squeezebox 'wipe and rescan the USB drive function' detailed here -> http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/T ... Improperly because the Touch doesn't see the 32GB stick at all so can't wupe and rescan! I've even tried jiggling it about very carefully in case it's a daft mechanical/electrical connectivity problem. Nope, no joy.

"Daft I call's it". Errrrr...? Any ideas?

Baffled of Techno-Land.

[The Stratmangler]

Interesting thread here, Dave http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthrea ... k+problems

[Dave the bass]

Interesting thread here, Dave http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthrea ... k+problems

Ta Chris, I'm up to page 5 so far.

DTB

[Dave the bass]

Bah-limey! Talk about a steep learning curve.

Last week I realised my Vortexbox couldn't/wouldn't update on command. I did a bit of research but struggled to find a simple answer (mainly cos its not a simple problem I later found...) and then registered over on the VB forum to pose the question.

Very helpful folk over at VB gave me links to swot up on. I have.

I have now downloaded an ISO. Carried out the md5 check sum successfully and verified the ISO's integrity. The I downloaded an ISO burner then burnt said ISO file to a CDr so I could install VB 2.0 on my VB in place of 1.10 on Fedora 14 (sp?) which isn't supported in some way anymore

To do this I had to borrow a monitor and keyboard as the VB usually runs 'headless', 1st job was to reboot 1.10 but go into the BIOS settings and change the boot preference from HD to CD ROM. Then it was 'just' a case of a clean install.

Love some of the things I've had to type in tonight "yum clean all; yum update" ..... computer people are funny.

Its scary but exciting at the same time, I think the install has worked. I can see the GUI on the networked home PC and am currently restoring from an external USB HD the 500GB or so of FLAC files I usually have sitting on the server.

12 months ago I never thought I'd ever spend a night doing this....... etc etc etc

Look! 'Computer Language!'... just like from a filllummm!


DTB

[pre65]

Luddite shakes with horror.