I’ve recently setup 2 AmpliPro Streamers and today I was playing with them a lot. A couple times I was no longer able to reach the streamer via the browser, both the AmpliPro UI and the LMS UI. When this happened playback continued. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting the ethernet cable with no luck. I had to power cycle the streamer via unplugging to get back the web UI.
This is of course disturbing, as I need it to be stable.
Any ideas what is happening? Any way to debug this?
This morning one of my streams had no output. LMS and AmpliPro showed it as playing, but no output. I moved speakers to another AmpliPro output and the speakers work, but there is nothing from the other AmpliPro output. I deleted the stream and recreated, now it works.
Since I had to give up on Spotify I’ve been using LMS to play local files from USB. I saw AmpliPro has media support, but it’s early and missing features. Also LMS can do “group” playback which I like. The LMS UI is atrocious though.
While typing that last paragraph, the volume jumped to max out of nowhere, or at least very loud. It scared the hell out of me and took me a while to fumble to the LMS UI to turn it down. I absolutely can’t be having that happen! Since LMS controls the volume, I guess I need to stop using LMS. I was using only the Group Players plugin.
I’m willing to keep trying to use AmpliPro, but if I ultimately can’t get both the hardware and software to work reliably, then I’ll have to find another solution. 
However, right now without Spotify or LMS I don’t have a way to play my media.
Hey Nate!
Sorry to hear you’re having trouble, I can promise you that Spotify is a high priority issue for us right now. I’ve got many questions for you, so to make it easier on you when you respond I’ll make this an ordered list:
{hostname}.local:19531/entries or {IP}:19531/entries, and sending them to us at support@micro-nova.com{hostname}.local instead of amplipi.local but they will also stop fighting for network superiority, if this is the issue.amplipi.local:9000) or one on a different device?Steven Engelbert
MicroNova Support Coordinator
Hi Steven, thanks for the reply.
Kitchen + Lanai that plays the Kitchen and Lanai AmpliPro streams.I’ve decided LMS is terrible: going 100% volume is crazy and dangerous, and the Spotify support is unusable.
What other options are there? I’d like Spotify to work, but I could replace it if I had to. Should I look at Roon + Tidal? Something else?
My requirements:
AmpliPro’s Spotify previously didn’t show devices in Spotify Connect consistently. I tried it again, but when I choose a device, it connects and then playback stops. Here are the logs after trying that. Edit: I rebooted everything and it works now. I’ll see over time if the devices are available in Spotify Connect. If they are then this works OK, I just lose playing on multiple zones.
When Spotify playback starts, the volume is max. This is terrible! If I forget to turn it down while it’s connecting, it’s way too loud. Even if I could set a max volume, I want playback to start at a medium volume so I can turn it up from there if I like. Switching between devices it keeps the last set volume, but it isn’t clear for how long.
Edit: Kitchen no longer appears in Spotify Connect. Lanai and Living Room still play fine, and I can switch back and forth. Here are the logs. Error seems to be:
Audio Sink Error Connection Refused: Device lb3c May be Invalid, Busy, or Already in Use, ALSA function ‘snd_pcm_open’ failed with error ‘EINVAL: Invalid argument’
I don’t know why this occurs, but can you recover from it? The zone should not just disappear from Spotify Connect forever if something goes wrong.
@jason has just reported having the same issue at his house. This may take us a bit to get to the bottom of. We are tracking it here: Spotify controlled loopback getting into a bad state · Issue #957 · micro-nova/AmpliPi · GitHub
Unfortunately our decibel limiting functionality is unsupported on the Streamers as they do not have amplifiers to control the audio current, sorry to hear that’s such a consistent issue regardless of stream type you try
As for LMS, I wouldn’t suggest writing it off; it sounds like you’re quite close to having your ideal setup. I’ve a plugin called VolumeLock that should provide an equivalent of our decibel limiting function once you get it installed and dialed in. Simply install it, set the volume to your maximum comfortable level, and go to settings and select “Set current volume as maximum” and apply (make sure you do this on a per-output basis!) and you should be good to go, I’ve just tested this on a streamer on my end and it seems like it should be good for your needs.
Steven Engelbert
MicroNova Support Coordinator
Thanks, I’ve subscribed to that issue.
VolumeLock for LMS sounds like a good idea, but even with that it’s unacceptable to have volume go to 100% randomly. I like the Group Players functionality, but LMS is buggy and I’d rather not use it.
I’ve been using the AmpliPro built-in Spotify support. It’s worked fine last night and most of today. Mid-day today the music stopped. The streamer could not be reached via a browser and the e-ink screen showed “Error Code 1” and disconnected. I pulled the plug to reset and then it worked again. I’d provide logs, but I expect they are in-memory and so reset when it reboots. If you have a way to debug a hang requiring reboot, please let me know.
Otherwise the built-in Spotify support seems acceptable, except for the volume is set to max when an AmpliPro stream is chosen via Spotify Connect. I have to remember to turn it down, else I get a terrible surprise. I can’t expect my family members to remember, so for me it is unusable until that can be remedied.
Is it possible for AmpliPro to set a default volume just before Spotify Connect plays? I know the streamers don’t have volume control, but Spotify does, so the volume I’m talking about is the Spotify volume. Looking at other software, it seems Moode has a way to set the default value, so it should be possible to do the same.
To recap the state of my AmpliPro solution:
Just now I was giving a demo and showed someone how easy it is to choose a zone in Spotify. Well, I forgot to reduce the volume. Now those speakers are blown! They play static with zero volume and one tick up from zero plays loud and very distorted. Four Revel C783 speakers need to be replaced now at $528 each. Fuck!
Playback stopped again. This time the streamer did not hang, so I was able to capture the logs:
http://n4te.com/x/586-esmb.txt
authbind[839]: subscription terminated
authbind[839]: Unable to load audio item: MercuryError
authbind[839]: Connection reset by peer (os error 104)
I can’t tell if this is a problem streaming Spotify or a problem with the streamer itself.
I’m at my wits end here. Even if Spotify and LMS worked right (they don’t), the AmpliPro hardware/software doesn’t appear to be reliable, having multiple problems that require reboot to resolve. I’m now out $2k+ for blown speakers and $2600 for AmpliPro streamers, and in the end I don’t have a reliable streaming solution.
I’m ready to cut my losses here, both financially and time spent. I will have to look for another solution.
From your logs, it looks like you’re the first person we’ve seen experiencing both of the Spotify-related errors (957, 958) as well as an issue we’ve never seen before, which may require you reaching out to us at support@micro-nova.com to see about a hardware repair
1 . spotifyd, the library we’ve used to implement Spotify Connect support, has been screwed over by Spotify updating their API. We’re currently shopping around for other implementations and seeing what we can implement ourselves, currently librespot has a PR to their own repo that allegedly solves this issue so we’re watching their development closely so we can potentially implement them in the next update.
3 . You can set your default startup volume of spotify by changing the initial_volume parameter in the amplipi-dev/streams/spot_config.toml file to something lower, though that file will get replaced with every update (or at minimum the next update, I’ve been upgrading the updater to preserve user settings lately and provide more options across two PRs 828, 870 ). Further, you can set your maximum outputs as outlined here.
4 . This is a default functionality of our main units, the streamer is unable to do so natively as its streams are tied to its outputs. It seems LMS is able to provide this functionality for you, but would take some tinkering as you’ve discovered.
As for your speakers, I think we may have to do an autopsy: What does your setup look like? The Streamer is meant to be used in conjunction with multiple other audio devices, ideally having the volume controlled by an amplifier or amplified/powered speakers. What amp have you been using? Does it have a control interface, whether analog or software?
I noticed that your speakers have a maximum recommended input of 150W based on the specs, while your amp appears to be set to 200W, as discussed in the other thread, this feels like the source of your issues.
Steven Engelbert
MicroNova Support Coordinator
I guess I’m just lucky to find all the errors! 
Ah, I wish I had known about the initial Spotify volume setting. IMO it should be 25% by default and configurable via UI.
My setup is streamer → 2x JBL SDA-7200 → 12x speakers in groups of 4. I have 2 of these setups, one on each side of the house.
The SDA-7200 has no volume control, the volume is based on the voltage levels of the input. It’s a simple amp, there are no controls except auto sense and a standby button (that does nothing when auto sense is on).
Revel C783 says:
Recommended Amplifier Power Range: 10W – 150W
SDA-7200 says:
320 watts per channel, 2 channels driven at 8 ohms
200 watts per channel, 7 channels driven at 8 ohms
Shown in my other thread, if the streamer output is 0.78 Vrms I should have 73W (7 channels driven) to 117W (2 channels driven). I did not configure the streamers for 1.1 Vrms.
Pairing speakers to an amp is not as simple as matching continuous power ratings. There are dynamics in play, it is not a constant load, and it’s better to have some headroom and to derate the amps rather than run them near their limits. They run hotter and have a shorter lifespan at the limits, and the limits are specified at some level of distortion (<1%THD in my amps’ numbers above) that you want to stay away from. Given all that, you want to choose an amp that has power beyond average needs.
For example, in a home theater you do not expect the volume to ever get cranked to max because that could damage hearing and speakers. The answer is not to size your amps so absolute max volume is safe. Instead it’s to take care with setting the volume.
For AmpliPro and the WHA use case, it’s more likely to accidentally get turned up to max by a careless user (even though that was not what happened in my case). IMO volume limits are an absolutely mandatory feature. Defaulting to max volume is an extremely bad idea. Even crazier is LMS randomly changing to max volume without being touched, in the middle of playback, after playing just fine at a normal volume for over an hour.
When LMS jumped to max volume (twice!) I had 6 channels driven on each amp. It appears the speakers were not damaged from that. When Spotify did it I was driving 4 speakers, and all 4 now have a blown tweeter. The music was different, so that may have made a difference. I did notice that Spotify playback was not doing volume normalization, some songs played much more quietly than others. Besides affecting the max volume fiasco, that is something that needs fixing to make Spotify use comfortable.