How to add headless Squeezebox capabilities to an extender

[damage]

Originally Posted by routerunner

To be quite honest with you I personally wouldn't even think about changing the extender bootloader, with the risk of turning into a brick a still high valuable piece of hardware

i wouldn't touch the extender bootloader either. obviously the price of the dockstar makes it easy to toss if it's bricked.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by sic0048

I haven't played with it in several years, but when I did look at it (along with a lot of other people), we could never get the software version of squeezesoft to run consistantly without crashing or giving us other problems. The hardware side always worked well, but the software player was crap. Perhaps they have fixed that in the last couple of years.

Yes I agree, I too did along time ago, and gave up.
Recently I have tried it again, and it works awesome (for me anyway).
It has proved to be quite reliable.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I think you're missing the point of this "plugin", it's not a replacement for the Squeezebox controller app, or Squeezecenter, or Softsqueeze, or any of the like.

The closest thing this "replaces" is a Squeezebox Receiver (which unfortunately isn't available standalone anymore).

Squeezecenter alone doesn't do you any good.
The iOS/Android app likewise isn't good because it can't play anything directly.
And Softsqueeze isn't any good if you don't have a PC in the room.

So for a lot of us, this "plugin" gets us a Squeezebox in every room we've got an extender, for "free" (vs a few hundred dollars for any Squeezebox model).

Nope didn't miss that.

I was trying to point out that there is a free software solution for what is being done here, as mentioned it needs to be ran on a piece of hardware (PC). In my case I have it runing on my server along side the media server from Logitech. This software player outputs to the default sound card and is distributed through my whole house audio setup (custom - not comercial setup)

The "SoftPlayer" from logitec which is thier software "Receiver". I also use thier new 7.7.x "Media Center". This new round of software from Logitech has proven to work quite well, as there prior stuff did not. It is also free

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

Don't take this post the wrong way, I think your efforts are awesome. I also don't mean to hijack this thread.

I think you've done it already and twice

Originally Posted by Skybolt

I was trying to point out that there is a free software solution for what is being done here, as mentioned it needs to be ran on a piece of hardware (PC).

Everybody that knows a little bit of Squeeze Server, knows that already, in fact, I personally used the SoftSqueeze 2 years before buying my first "Boom" as it was suggested by Logitech website when downloading the server as kind of "try out before you buy".

Originally Posted by Skybolt

In my case I have it runing on my server along side the media server from Logitech. This software player outputs to the default sound card and is distributed through my whole house audio setup (custom - not comercial setup)

Now you're talking!, very interesting and clever solution indeed as you remove completely any sync issue and any need of buying extra hardware, well done , but again, this thread is not about that, but a free solution for existing and fortunate owners of HD200/HD300 and maybe HD100 too.

Maybe what you should do, you should post your clever setup in the Logitech forum...

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by pieroxy

I'd still like a small OSD on the HD300

I took this comment from another Squeeze Player related thread...and I immediately thought, hang on a minute, the sage squeeze slave player I'm using is able to display the text as a standard SqueezeBox does, but I disabled this functionality during compilation time as I thought at a completely headless solution, however, what about a simple USB powered LCD display being driven by the sage squeeze slave player? I know this is kind of steering a little bit the headless concept, however it can be a configurable options for people whom might like it. I think I'll put that in my wish list, what you people think about?

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by routerunner

... Maybe what you should do, you should post your clever setup in the Logitech forum...

you missed a qoute: "Don't take this post the wrong way, I think your efforts are awesome. I also don't mean to hijack this thread."

So I guess this means you don't want the free HD100 I offered you in the PM?

No problem, I like my HD300's anyway. But I agree with Fuzzy, not looking to mess with my now very expensive discontinued equipment. Wasn't trying to upset your apple cart...

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

you missed a qoute: "Don't take this post the wrong way, I think your efforts are awesome. I also don't mean to hijack this thread."

So I guess this means you don't want the free HD100 I offered you in the PM?

No problem, I like my HD300's anyway. But I agree with Fuzzy, not looking to mess with my now very expensive discontinued equipment. Wasn't trying to upset your apple cart...

I think this is gone in the wrong direction...I'm not upset at all and by the way I really appreciated your offer for the HD100, but I live in the UK, so I would prefer to work on a HD100 in the same time zone otherwise what will happen if I ask you to check something for me?. However the poll is not over yet and as I said before I need a reasonable number of interested people to justify the time and effort required, that's all.

Regarding my suggestion to post your clever setup to Logitech forum, it wasn't ironic, quite the opposite, I think you should post your custom audio distribution system as it could help other people in the same situation as you. Never take things for granted. Take this project for instance, I never realised there were so many people out there with the same requirement as mine, you'll never know.

Also, I don't know where did you get the idea that this plugin will mess up things with your existing extenders, in fact, quite the opposite, I always said that the software is not permanently stored in the unit and if you power cycle it will go away, I've also asked to change the thread title to clarify that.

Everybody feedback is welcome.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

No problem, I like my HD300's anyway. But I agree with Fuzzy, not looking to mess with my now very expensive discontinued equipment. Wasn't trying to upset your apple cart...

There's no "messing with", involved, at least not IMO. It's just downloaded to temporary storage and executed at runtime. Reboot and it's gone. I tried it a little while ago and it works fine.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by stanger89

There's no "messing with", involved, at least not IMO. It's just downloaded to temporary storage and executed at runtime. Reboot and it's gone. I tried it a little while ago and it works fine.

I didn't realize the program resided in ram only, I thought it shared flash. So you need to be running Sage and launch the plugin and then reboot the STB to get back to Sage. Ok, I guess that works for some.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

I didn't realize the program resided in ram only, I thought it shared flash. So you need to be running Sage and launch the plugin and then reboot the STB to get back to Sage. Ok, I guess that works for some.

I don't want to confuse matters, but if you download zip file and read the "READMEFIRST" document it explain in details how this is currently working.

At this stage of the project you don't even need SageTV server running at all, in fact, it does work even when the HD200/HD300 is running in standalone mode, also even if your extender is connected to the SageTV server and you're currently watching TV you can still upload the software which will sleep until you attempt to play any audio file via the Squeeze server. You can switch on/off you SageTV application as many time you want a day and use your extender as usual and the Sage Squeeze Slave application will still be silently running in the background awaiting commands from your Squeeze Server, but if you power cycle your extender then the "plugin" software will disappear and to upload it again you just need to re-run the batch file, that's all.

What I do everyday in my setup is:

- At 7:00AM the extender is getting power by using a timer connected to the power supply.
- At 7:01AM the "upload-smb.bat" file is executed from one of my servers, that will upload the software
- At 7:02AM the extender is powered off automatically and will stay for the whole day awaiting to be woken up by someone in my family by means of pressing the power button on the remote, but at this stage the Sage Squeeze Slave is still running awaiting commands from the Squeeze server, if any.
- At 01:00AM the timer will power off the extender.

then the whole cycle is repeated...

Please note that on the HD300 only is possible to upload the software in the flash file system, but as I posted already, I decided to not use this capability to avoid any possible issue with the extender.

I hope this helps
Eddy

[Skybolt]

Eddy,

That sounds great, not my original understanding of how this worked. For me this is too risky, should something happen to the HD300, it can't readily be replaced.

I would like to dedicate the HD100 as a Squeeze Box receiver, meaning be able to flash it. I also like your idea to support a USB monitor as well, but then again you can get squeeze box for ~$100 or less.

-Skybolt

[briands]

Just getting around to trying this out. Does not seem to work for me and do not really know how to start diagnosis.

I unzipped the files on my server into program files(x86)\sagetv\sagetv\plugins\sagesqueezeslave

For now, I am only trying to install onto one HD200. IP is 192.168.0.18 so I edited the upload-smb.bat with that IP

After several minutes still the new client does not show in squeeze server. Restarting the squeeze server also did not help.

Any suggestions?

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by briands

After several minutes still the new client does not show in squeeze server. Restarting the squeeze server also did not help.
Any suggestions?

Hi,

please follow the instruction below and let me know:

1) Boot the extender in standalone mode
2) Go to "Settings > System Information"

then reply to this post with the Hostname string as reported in the "System Status"

how did you run the batch file:

- By double clicking to the "upload-smb.bat" in a Windows File manager window?
- By opening a cmd prompt in the installation directory and running the batch file from there?
- Via schedule task?

Also, please follow these other instruction:

- Open a DOS command session
- Change the directory to point where you have installed the software
- Edit the first line of the "upload-smb.bat" by removing/commenting out the line "@echo off"
- Run the batch file from the command line typing without quotes "upload-smb.bat > debug.txt"
- Let it finish
- Send me the file "debug.txt" as PM

thanks
Eddy

[briands]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Hi,

please follow the instruction below and let me know:

1) Boot the extender in standalone mode
2) Go to "Settings > System Information"

then reply to this post with the Hostname string as reported in the "System Status"

Hostname was SERVER which was my old server... changed to current server2

Originally Posted by routerunner

how did you run the batch file:

- By double clicking to the "upload-smb.bat" in a Windows File manager window?
- By opening a cmd prompt in the installation directory and running the batch file from there?
- Via schedule task?

I started with just double clicking... when that did not work, I tried in cmd window

I have not tried via task scheduler

Originally Posted by routerunner

Also, please follow these other instruction:

- Open a DOS command session
- Change the directory to point where you have installed the software
- Edit the first line of the "upload-smb.bat" by removing/commenting out the line "@echo off"
- Run the batch file from the command line typing without quotes "upload-smb.bat > debug.txt"
- Let it finish
- Send me the file "debug.txt" as PM

thanks
Eddy

I notice a file created in the folder named- this file remains after the batch completes. - upload-(192.168.0

I'll PM the debug file.

[emveepee]

It's possible the mipsel squeezeplayer for the PCH A110 will work on the HD100, if not I'm sure it is close.

http://code.google.com/p/squeezeslave/downloads/list

I think it includes a generic Sigma driver for HDMI

Martin

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by briands

I'll PM the debug file.

Many thanks for the file which looks absolutely fine. The software has been succesfully uploaded, however I cannot tell whether has been executed as you should log into the unit and look at the processes list.

Before starting this kind of deep investigation, can you please verify the following:

- Make sure the Squeeze Server is up and running and you have at least one Squeeze client succesfully able to connect to it. I'm currently running Squeeze Server 7.6.1 - r33110.
- Hard power cycle the HD200 and wait until it connects to SageTV (it isn't normally necessary, but just to play safe)
- Run the "upload-smb.bat" file and wait about 15-20 seconds
- Connect to the Squeeze Server web service and press F5 to refresh the plugged client list
- If everything was successfull you should be able to see a new client called "Squeezeslave" in the list of available players.
- Select it and choose some music to play.

thanks
Eddy

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by emveepee

It's possible the mipsel squeezeplayer for the PCH A110 will work on the HD100, if not I'm sure it is close.

http://code.google.com/p/squeezeslave/downloads/list

I think it includes a generic Sigma driver for HDMI

Martin

Hi,
AFAIK the HD100 is an ARM processor and not a MIPS like the Popcord Hour or the HD200/HD300 which both are different incarnation of the MIPS (little endian).
Also, if the kernel has been compiled with the "modvers" flag enabled (at least for Linux 2.6), as in the HD200 then you must have the exact configuration file used to produce that kernel otherwise you wouldn't be able to install the audio drivers.

One of the sage users kindly gave me the direct connection to an HD100 so that I can do a preliminary investigation on the unit.

thanks
Eddy

[routerunner]

The poll has ended and as anticipated I needed about 25-30 "Yes" votes to justify the work. To be quite honest a bit of shame really as I spent about half an hour on gathering feasability information into one of SkyBolt (thank you very much ) HD100 and it was really really promising. In fact, I have to say that this project was originally intended for the HD100 as a way to re-purpose an old piece of kit that maybe some of you didn't use any more in favor to the most advanced HD200/HD300. Unfortunately I didn't have any of those HD100 to play with...

[emveepee]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Hi,
AFAIK the HD100 is an ARM processor and not a MIPS like the Popcord Hour or the HD200/HD300 which both are different incarnation of the MIPS (little endian).

Sorry, I thought the HD100 was the first MIPS one, not the HD200. You might still be able to cross compile the popcorn version, certainly the HDMI driver is based on Sigma code not really linked to the kernel or even a specific version of the SDK.

Martin

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by emveepee

Sorry, I thought the HD100 was the first MIPS one, not the HD200. You might still be able to cross compile the popcorn version, certainly the HDMI driver is based on Sigma code not really linked to the kernel or even a specific version of the SDK.

Martin

Hi Martin,
unfortunately the file you're talking about doesn't contains the sources of the required kernel drivers, so It cannot be cross compiled unless you reverse engineer it which is illegal, also it has been compiled for Linux version 2.6 and the HD100 is running version 2.4 which was a big step in the kernel development and any kernel driver must be written/compatible to the specific kernel version.
That's the reason why I decided to write my own drivers for the HD200/HD300 which as the moment supports only analog audio and SP/DIF, but I've got plans to support HDMI in the future as well...

thanks
Eddy