Shairport audio is regularly dropping out for a second

Hello, I am using Shairport on volumio-2.873-2021-02-19-pi (RPi4)

The problem is that the audio cuts out several times a minute, just for a second and then the audio resumes. This obviously makes it unusable for music so I would love to fix the issue.

If I use sudo journalctl -f to see the logs, I see that every time the audio cuts out for a moment, the following few lines are added to the log:

Mar 27 12:46:01 volumio volumio[1003]: info: CoreCommandRouter::servicePushState Mar 27 12:46:01 volumio volumio[1003]: info: CoreStateMachine::pushState Mar 27 12:46:01 volumio volumio[1003]: info: CoreCommandRouter::volumioPushState Mar 27 12:46:01 volumio volumio[1003]: info: CoreCommandRouter::executeOnPlugin: volumiodiscovery , saveDeviceInfo

I see that other people are having issues with Shairport dropping out but I haven’t seen any other reports of it cutting out for just a second each time so perhaps my issue is different?

Would appreciate any help :slight_smile:

It would be of greater help if you could send the link to the entire system log after a clean boot, and trying to use Shairport for a period of time. An indication of when exactly (time) you start trying to use Shairport would be good too.

Would you share the system log please?

Hi chsims1, I rebooted and ran the Pi as a Shairport node for about 25 minutes. The issue didn’t happen as frequently as it often does but there were still several dropouts during this period. In this case, I started Shairport maybe 2 mins after reboot.

System log is here: http://logs.volumio.org/volumio/ltitFH5.html

I switched over from wifi to ethernet to check whether this was a wifi-related issue. It is still happening with ethernet.

mpd.log full of repeated errors of the form:

Note: Trying to resync...
Note: Hit end of (available) data during resync.
Mar 27 18:14 : mpg123: mpg123_getformat() failed: Message: I am done with this track.
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/mp3: Header missing
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/mp3: Could not find codec parameters (Audio: mp3, 0 channels, s16p)
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/mp3: Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Note: Illegal Audio-MPEG-Header 0x00000000 at offset 4092.
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/mp3: Header missing
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/mp3: Could not find codec parameters (Audio: mp3, 0 channels, s16p)
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/mp3: Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/flac: Could not find codec parameters (Audio: flac, 0 channels)
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/flac: Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/flac: Could not find codec parameters (Audio: flac, 0 channels)
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/flac: Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/flac: Could not find codec parameters (Audio: flac, 0 channels)
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/flac: Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/h263: I cbpc damaged at 0 0
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/h263: Error at MB: 0
Mar 27 18:14 : ffmpeg/h263: concealing 396 DC, 396 AC, 396 MV errors

and finally complaining:

Mar 27 18:14 : exception: Failed to open /var/lib/mpd/music/USB/500GB/Lossless/Laura Marling - Semper Femina/.mpdignore: Input/output error
Mar 27 18:14 : exception: Failed to open /var/lib/mpd/music/USB/500GB/Lossless/Holly Cole Trio - Blame It On My Youth (D153261)/.mpdignore: Input/output error
Mar 27 18:14 : exception: Failed to open /var/lib/mpd/music/USB/500GB/Lossless/Philippe Petrucciani & Nathalie Blanc - Remember Petrucciani/.mpdignore: Input/output error

So, mpd seems to be having problems processing the data you are feeding it via shairport. Have you tried a variety of material?

@chsims1 I am not sure what you mean by variety of material. I have experienced the issue using Youtube (using Firefox v.86/87/Big Sur 11.2.3) and the Spotify web player (using Firefox v.86/87/Big Sur 11.2.3). I am going to test Safari and VLC too but it can take time as the issue is intermittent and right now it seems to be behaving even with Firefox.

Well in your log, the problems are only the result of 3 music selections. I was asking if you had sent lots of different sources. From your last answer, you have.

Ok, now I understand. Yes, there were certainly more than 3 files played in that period. I just had a dropout using Safari/Spotify so I can confirm that this is not isolated to Firefox.

Is no-one else experiencing this?