Author Topic: MusicBee Remote (Remote Control for Android)  (Read 496908 times)

SonicRings

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That is interesting. And you don't see any covers for any of the albums at all?
I am using a VM to develop with a similar setup but with half the albums.

For the application, you can enable logs this way: https://mbrc.kelsos.net/help/#other-settings and you can send them through the feedback screen.
I am gonna need the application's logs too.

For the plugin https://mbrc.kelsos.net/help/#configuration you need to also enable the debug log option and send me the file.
There are two problems I will have to figure out. The first is why do you have this bad performance problem, and the second is why the covers don't properly sync.

I mean this in the sincerest and politest way possible: I really don't feel like going through all of this, at least not in the next few days/weeks. The app just has too many more glaring issues for me to warrant going through all of this hassle. If these issues weren't present, however, I'd be more inclined to help troubleshoot this new issue.

I was never able to use the app for anything more than a playback control interface anyway because it doesn't allow for sorting by path, meaning I can't even find my damn music because they're all sorted differently than what I'm used to. As well, scrolling through my library is a slog because there's no scroll bar to quickly scroll through my nearly 10k albums. I have to swipe up for 2 minutes just to reach the letter H.

As well, an even more glaring issue is the fact that queuing an item that already exists in the queue completely fucks with the now playing section and play order, making it play the first instance of the track as opposed to the new instance at the end of the queue. I don't remove songs from my queue, and it's at over 33k now, meaning this issue is widespread to pretty much any song I've ever listened to in the past, despite the Library Track Action being set to "Queue Next".

If you're able to fix these issues, then I can actually see myself using the app to add songs to my queue, and thus will be more than willing to help troubleshoot the recent issue with the artwork cache that affects this.

You may not remember me, but I believe I left feedback about this long time ago, perhaps in a review on the Play Store, mentioning winamp's aWARemote, and noting that if you can make the app more similar to that, I'd be willing to switch over to MusicBee, as at the time, that was the one factor preventing me from switching over. I've finally made the switch in 2020, and would thus really love for you to take another look at what makes aWARemote great and try to mimic its features into your app.

kelsos

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That is interesting. And you don't see any covers for any of the albums at all?
I am using a VM to develop with a similar setup but with half the albums.

For the application, you can enable logs this way: https://mbrc.kelsos.net/help/#other-settings and you can send them through the feedback screen.
I am gonna need the application's logs too.

For the plugin https://mbrc.kelsos.net/help/#configuration you need to also enable the debug log option and send me the file.
There are two problems I will have to figure out. The first is why do you have this bad performance problem, and the second is why the covers don't properly sync.

I mean this in the sincerest and politest way possible: I really don't feel like going through all of this, at least not in the next few days/weeks. The app just has too many more glaring issues for me to warrant going through all of this hassle. If these issues weren't present, however, I'd be more inclined to help troubleshoot this new issue.

I was never able to use the app for anything more than a playback control interface anyway because it doesn't allow for sorting by path, meaning I can't even find my damn music because they're all sorted differently than what I'm used to. As well, scrolling through my library is a slog because there's no scroll bar to quickly scroll through my nearly 10k albums. I have to swipe up for 2 minutes just to reach the letter H.

As well, an even more glaring issue is the fact that queuing an item that already exists in the queue completely fucks with the now playing section and play order, making it play the first instance of the track as opposed to the new instance at the end of the queue. I don't remove songs from my queue, and it's at over 33k now, meaning this issue is widespread to pretty much any song I've ever listened to in the past, despite the Library Track Action being set to "Queue Next".

If you're able to fix these issues, then I can actually see myself using the app to add songs to my queue, and thus will be more than willing to help troubleshoot the recent issue with the artwork cache that affects this.

You may not remember me, but I believe I left feedback about this long time ago, perhaps in a review on the Play Store, mentioning winamp's aWARemote, and noting that if you can make the app more similar to that, I'd be willing to switch over to MusicBee, as at the time, that was the one factor preventing me from switching over. I've finally made the switch in 2020, and would thus really love for you to take another look at what makes aWARemote great and try to mimic its features into your app.

Don't worry it is completely understandable. Either way, I will somehow figure it out and provide a fix.

While I understand your frustration, since we are being honest and sincere here, you need to understand a couple of things.

First and most important is that this application and the plugin were practically abandoned for almost 4 years.

In 2020 I was seriously considering taking the application off Play Store and stoping development completely. When I actually took the app off Play Store because it was completely broken on Android 11, quite a few users reached out to me. It seems that even in its current state, the application provides value to them. This is the only reason I resumed the application development and started updating the application.

Also a small note, I don't personally use the application and the plugin other than for development since 2013, and all of the changes in the application are based on user feedback.

I am not getting anything out of the application. I don't charge for it, I don't display any ads and I don't ask for any compensation. I do both the development and support in my free time, I have a full-time job as a software developer, and this is a just side project of mine. I try my best to address feedback and help the users get the most value out of it. The only thing I ask in return is to receive help solving the issues, to provide the value back to the users.

I am sorry if you feel that your feedback was ignored, but some things are easier to address, and some require bigger structural changes first. I always try to evaluate the feedback based on what provides the most value to the most users and how easy or hard it would be to implement. If a great number of users reached out or have been asking for something specific for a long period that will also take priority.

The artwork support was one of these things that were long overdue by the way.
The fast scroll was something that required re-evaluation and the choice was between having a version that works on Android 11 and not having a version that works on Android 11 at all for months.

With that being said thank you for bringing the issue to my attention and thank you for your time.
Last Edit: May 31, 2021, 08:01:00 PM by kelsos

Nubblez

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Hey kelsos,

I'm not experiencing the HDD cache issue mentioned above, but I did notice a cache error message ("could not find..." can't recall what the exact message was.) in MB's bottom status bar, and I also don't see covers for songs on the remote app.  I'll follow the logging steps you posted earlier, and send you the log files within the next day or so.

Thanks again for all the continued improvements. 

kelsos

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I've finally made the switch in 2020, and would thus really love for you to take another look at what makes aWARemote great and try to mimic its features into your app.

FYI, Out of curiosity, I did a small check and it seems that the developer of that app followed a similar route to what I was thinking to do at the end of 2020, because of the Android 11 breaking the application completely.
 
The application is no longer listed on Play Store. You can find it through some apk hosting sites, but I am not sure what is the malware situation, and I would not risk it. The listing I found out says that the pro version was last updated in the December of 2016. The site of the application was still available in early 2021 according to the Wayback machine but it is no longer available.

So there is no trusted way to access either the application or the server app/plugin since the application was not open source.

I was never able to use the app for anything more than a playback control interface anyway because it doesn't allow for sorting by path, meaning I can't even find my damn music because they're all sorted differently than what I'm used to. As well, scrolling through my library is a slog because there's no scroll bar to quickly scroll through my nearly 10k albums. I have to swipe up for 2 minutes just to reach the letter H.

Sorting is one of the features that require big structural changes so it would take a bit of time, you are the first person to request sorting by path, most of the people usually want the combinations available in MusicBee. If I manage to finish with the structural changes it shouldn't be hard to add an extra field.

Fast scrolling was removed as I mentioned above because it was between having a working application or not. The previous implementation of fast scrolling also had a lot of performance issues. I have an issue to re-evaluate because of course, it is useful, however, this is also not something trivial. If it was then it would not have been removed in the first place.

In the meanwhile you should be able to use the search function to filter things.
As well, an even more glaring issue is the fact that queuing an item that already exists in the queue completely fucks with the now playing section and play order, making it play the first instance of the track as opposed to the new instance at the end of the queue. I don't remove songs from my queue, and it's at over 33k now, meaning this issue is widespread to pretty much any song I've ever listened to in the past, despite the Library Track Action being set to "Queue Next".

The only thing I can say is that up to this point, no one else has reported this as an issue so far, this is the first time I am getting a report about it. I will open an issue about it.

If you're able to fix these issues, then I can actually see myself using the app to add songs to my queue, and thus will be more than willing to help troubleshoot the recent issue with the artwork cache that affects this.

So in essence you are not willing to help me fix these issues you encountered, if I don't fix the other issues you encountered?
Last Edit: June 01, 2021, 01:50:50 AM by kelsos

kelsos

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Hey kelsos,

I'm not experiencing the HDD cache issue mentioned above, but I did notice a cache error message ("could not find..." can't recall what the exact message was.) in MB's bottom status bar, and I also don't see covers for songs on the remote app.  I'll follow the logging steps you posted earlier, and send you the log files within the next day or so.

Thanks again for all the continued improvements.

Hey Nubblez,

Thanks a lot, It is really appreciated :)

SonicRings

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FYI, Out of curiosity, I did a small check and it seems that the developer of that app followed a similar route to what I was thinking to do at the end of 2020, because of the Android 11 breaking the application completely.
 
The application is no longer listed on Play Store. You can find it through some apk hosting sites, but I am not sure what is the malware situation, and I would not risk it. The listing I found out says that the pro version was last updated in the December of 2016. The site of the application was still available in early 2021 according to the Wayback machine but it is no longer available.

So there is no trusted way to access either the application or the server app/plugin since the application was not open source.
Oh wow, interesting. I was not aware it was taken off the play store. I still have it, so if you'd like the apk of the pro version and server exe, do let me know and I'll gladly provide it.

Sorting is one of the features that require big structural changes so it would take a bit of time, you are the first person to request sorting by path, most of the people usually want the combinations available in MusicBee. If I manage to finish with the structural changes it shouldn't be hard to add an extra field.

Fast scrolling was removed as I mentioned above because it was between having a working application or not. The previous implementation of fast scrolling also had a lot of performance issues. I have an issue to re-evaluate because of course, it is useful, however, this is also not something trivial. If it was then it would not have been removed in the first place.

In the meanwhile you should be able to use the search function to filter things.
I'm honestly quite surprised I'm the first person to request sorting by path, but then again, the percentage of people who make requests are very, very small compared to the total user base. Looking forward to fast scrolling being re-added. Searching is a good way of filtering things, but that requires you to already know what to filter in the first place, so not really an alternative in this case.

The only thing I can say is that up to this point, no one else has reported this as an issue so far, this is the first time I am getting a report about it. I will open an issue about it.
Awesome, glad to hear.

So in essence you are not willing to help me fix these issues you encountered, if I don't fix the other issues you encountered?
If you choose to look at it in a way that antagonizes me, sure, I guess? In reality I'm very busy for the next week and will barely have time to even listen to music, so I wouldn't want to spend my free time figuring out how to troubleshoot an issue that does me no benefit since I can't use your app in its current state either way. If the other issues were fixed, then it WOULD benefit me to help fix the new issue.
But they're not, so I'd rather relax during the little free time I'll have this week. I'll troubleshoot it next week like I said. Priorities.

Though looks like Nubblez is willing to troubleshoot in my place, so hopefully he's able to help you fix it!

kelsos

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If you choose to look at it in a way that antagonizes me, sure, I guess? In reality I'm very busy for the next week and will barely have time to even listen to music, so I wouldn't want to spend my free time figuring out how to troubleshoot an issue that does me no benefit since I can't use your app in its current state either way. If the other issues were fixed, then it WOULD benefit me to help fix the new issue.
But they're not, so I'd rather relax during the little free time I'll have this week. I'll troubleshoot it next week like I said. Priorities.

Though looks like Nubblez is willing to troubleshoot in my place, so hopefully he's able to help you fix it!

I am not choosing to look at it in such a way. It seems that I got a completely different intent from the original message. I have seen it quite a few times that things don't translate well from spoken to written language. I can understand being busy and prioritizing work and obligations, and also wanting to relax in your little free time, believe me, I have been in this situation too many times, and this is what I would also do in such a case :).

Yes, at least Nubblez seems to have encountered the same issue you have with the covers not syncing so we will figure it out no worries :)

MrUser

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Hi everyone,

I'm yearning to use MusicBee Remote and have run into the following issue.

When I click to play a song using Remote I get this error:

The source file for track " could not be found

There are no issues with playback when using my mouse to directly select files to play.

Strangely, if I go to MusicBee>Tools>MusicBee Remote and then click save on the pop up and allow it to make changes, sometimes I'll be able to get the song playing via remote. When I try another song it then stops working.

I've seen another post suggesting remapping, but I'm having no issues using MusicBee directly through my computer. The same songs that won't play through Remote (any and all of them) will play just fine when using the app directly through the computer.

I feel I'm so close to getting this thing set up! I've used MusicBee for years and love it, but I'm not exactly computer-literate, so any help using layman's terms would be very much appreciated.

kelsos

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Hi everyone,

I'm yearning to use MusicBee Remote and have run into the following issue.

When I click to play a song using Remote I get this error:

The source file for track " could not be found

There are no issues with playback when using my mouse to directly select files to play.

Strangely, if I go to MusicBee>Tools>MusicBee Remote and then click save on the pop up and allow it to make changes, sometimes I'll be able to get the song playing via remote. When I try another song it then stops working.

I've seen another post suggesting remapping, but I'm having no issues using MusicBee directly through my computer. The same songs that won't play through Remote (any and all of them) will play just fine when using the app directly through the computer.

I feel I'm so close to getting this thing set up! I've used MusicBee for years and love it, but I'm not exactly computer-literate, so any help using layman's terms would be very much appreciated.

Hey MrUser, I have seen that a few times, but I have not been able to replicate it in some consistent way.

It happened to me once, but it was actually after using deduplication in the library and then moving the library to an external disk.

If you have some time to send me logs of this happening that would be great.

What I would like to see what the location for the track in question is (you can see that under properties when editing tags, also if there is a value in origin that would help to know) and what pressing play for the track sends to the plugin.

MrUser

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Thanks for such a quick reply, Kelsos.

I'll do my best to get you that info. My feeble brain likely won't be capable of it, but my wife's software engineering brain can probably point me in the right direction.

Mahesh

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Hi Kelsos,

Please include "Get Albums" along with "Get Artists", in Genres Menu.

Genres Menu Snapshot
Last Edit: June 11, 2021, 06:48:43 AM by Mahesh

kelsos

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Hi Kelsos,

Please include "Get Albums" along with "Get Artists", in Genres Menu.

Image

Hey Mahesh I will open an issue for this :)

dh5217

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I forgot to mention something in my previous post requesting the addition of album names to the play queue list.  It would also be very nice if I could see the track properties of the currently playing track on the home page, where the player controls are.  This one may be a bit harder to implement since it may require repositioning of current info to accommodate a new line of info.  What I mean by track properties, look at MusicBee main app, you can see info like "FLAC 44.1 kHz, 900k, Stereo, <length of track>".  It would be great to see filetype (FLAC/MPC/AAC/etc), bit-depth (if applicable), sample-rate, and bitrate of file.  For example, a high-res FLAC could read something like: "FLAC 24bit 96kHz 900kbps Stereo" or a lossy file could read something like "MP3 44.1kHz 235kbps Stereo".  Thanks once again @kelsos for keeping the remote alive.

bloodfu

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Latest version detected as a virus by windows defender. I assume this is a false positive?

Edit - Trend Micro says it might be  ransomware. Not the first time I encounter this problem. Had it with another legit program.
Edit 2 - More on this, when I scan the exe, it says its clean. Only when I execute it, the AV warns me it might be a potential treat and to only execute it if its from a trusted source.
Last Edit: June 23, 2021, 11:29:25 PM by bloodfu

bloodfu

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BTW. awesome job with this plugin. Really useful, especially when I'm on my balcony and don't want to go back inside to change the music.  8)