Volumio disconnecting from iMac OSX Shared Music Folder NAS

[mauiboy]

Volumio Information

Volumio Version: 2.907
Hardware: rPI Zero W
DAC: USB Dragonfly Black

I use an OS X Shared folder (Music) as my NAS. I left Volumio on overnight to test its endurance. This morning, the Sources page showed the NAS as disconnected (red x). However, OS X says sharing is still active (sharingd still running, iMac did not sleep, and pmset -g shows “sleep prevented by sharingd”), and when trying to stop sharing, it warns that a connection is active. So Mac thinks Volumio is connected, but Volumio thinks it isn’t.

Power cycling the rPI fixes the problem. But endurance is not acceptable if it won’t last the night without a reboot. Any others seeing this problem? Something I should be configuring in the rPI or Volumio to prevent this kind of connection loss (timeout, etc…)?

Thanks

[dvo]

if you want a reboot at some time,

look at this.

How to set up Volumio to reboot nightly

I have a Raspberry Pi 3B that has been running Volumio for a couple of years through various versions of the OS. I use it exclusively as a DLNA renderer. The biggest issue I’ve had is stability when idle. If I don’t use the machine for a few days in a row, which is common, it becomes unresponsive and I have to unplug it and replug it in to reboot it. I don’t know if it is a hardware issue or network issue or a problem in the OS, but I finally took some time to set up a cron job to reboot the ma…

[mauiboy]

Thanks @dvo, though I’m going to look into the problem a little deeper before putting in a watchdog timer or scheduled reboot.

[dvo]

oke this is what i could find for a reboot on time.

[mauiboy]

So turning on Live Log, in the Dev page, …

first things first… the 2.907 image does not include a /var/log/samba directory so live logging to log.smbd fails to start.

Perhaps the samba directory ought to be created if it doesn’t exist, when starting Live Log. Or else the image should ship with it.

When creating the directory and re-enable Live Log, it creates log.smbd, but never writes anything into it. (Could be fsync issue?)

But here is the Live Log copied from the web session…

info: CALLMETHOD: system_controller system enableLiveLog true
info: CoreCommandRouter::executeOnPlugin: system , enableLiveLog
info: Launching a new LiveLog session
info: Killing previous LiveLog session
info: Live Log process terminated: null
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
wlan0: MTU set to 1500
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13

    :

CIFS VFS: SMB signature verification returned error = -13
info: CALLMETHOD: system_controller system enableLiveLog false
info: CoreCommandRouter::executeOnPlugin: system , enableLiveLog
process exited with code null

Would be great to have more detail from the log.smbd, but alas, there isn’t anything recorded there. Not clear which signature is being referred to here. I’m also not sure how frequently MacOS rotates session keys for SMB sessions, and if that is somehow related to this issue.

– Miller

[dvo]

Mounting a Samba share

Tried again… root@volumio:~# mount -t cifs //192.168.0.6/Music -o username=root /mnt/TonidoPlug2 mount: block device //192.168.0.6/Music is write-protected, mounting read-only mount: cannot mount block device //192.168.0.6/Music read-only “Music” is the name of the samba share defined in smb.conf of my TonidoPlug2 device (which I’m trying to mount) and the mount point “/mnt/TonidoPlug2” already exists. I also tried to install cifs-utils, but again, no joy! root@volumio:~# apt-get install ci…

[mauiboy]

Thanks @dvo for connecting these threads!

Reflecting on Franz’s issue, I had a look at the mount point. Here’s what I get…

volumio@volumio:/$ ls /mnt/NAS
ls: cannot access mnt/NAS/NAS-Music: Permission denied
NAS-Music

So it seems my NAS share is still mounted, but can’t be accessed. And the cryptic error about SMB signature verification failure suggests the two sides can’t agree.

I tried the fix listed for a similar, but different problem with MacOS Big Sur and SMB shares. In Mac OS Terminal, …

sudo /usr/libexec/configureLocalKDC

But this did not impact the problem. I still get SMB signature verification error returned on each retry.

Is it possible that CIFS vs. SMB is the problem here? CIFS is a deprecated protocol on MacOS and has been supplanted by SMB 3. Does someone know if there are options on in Volumio NAS config that might adjust connection and endurance?

– Miller

[mauiboy]

The only work around I have found for this endurance problem is to restart the player. The easy way to do that is to change the Output DAC choice in Settings and save the settings. This kicks of a player restart, which unexplainably causes reconnection to the Mac OS Music NAS share. At least there is a workaround from the “remote control” (web browser) that doesn’t require manually power-cycling the rPI.

UPDATE:
Forcing the player to restart by switching the output does not reliably force reconnection to the NAS. However, unplugging the DAC and reconnecting it causes system to reconfigure and the player to restart. This causes Volumio to reconnect to the Mac OS Share and an update scan to be started. Power-cycling the PI to reboot it successfully reconnects to the Mac OS Share as well.

So I have not found a work-around other than turning the power off when not using Volumio and turning it back on manually each time I want to use it.

I’m noting, however, that simply pulling the power from the PI will not gracefully release the SMB connection from the Mac and so the Mac will not sleep, thinking it has an active sharingd client connection. Toggling File Sharing off and on fixes that lingering connection on the Mac, but this is highly tedious.

For Future Consideration:
A “standby” setting in the Volumio state machine. When entering Standby, the Volumio would release NAS connections. When leaving Standby, Volumio would reconnect to NAS libraries. No auto-update when leaving standby. A settable timeout with no activity causing Volumio to enter Standby. Web interface should enable forcing Volumio into and out of Standby. Other music streamers support this Standby facility. (See e.g. Yamaha WXC-50)

And there should be a checkbox to connect and disconnect a particular NAS to enable graceful network reconfiguration.

There are also bugs in editing the NAS setup. If you try to Edit then Save an existing NAS definition (even if changing nothing) it complains that “mkdir” fails when adding a new network drive. This seems to be related to the authentication error as I can successfully change settings while the drive is connected (it just reconnects and forces an Update).

I do hope folks with Mac OS Folder Sharing find this at least somewhat explanatory, if not super helpful. And I hope @Volumio will add the Standby feature set to the roadmap for the future.

Thanks