Volumio Tidal integration is terrible

I started my trial period yesterday and I have been having tons of problems with Tidal integration. The integration feels like a beta version, not an end product as IT SHOULD NOT HAVE THAT MANY PROBLEMS. I’m using Volumio on RPI 3+, Allo Kali Reclocker, Allo Piano 2.1. I have don’t usually have any problems with Volumio except for the youtube plugin and I’m ok with it. The overall functionality is exceptionally good but the Paid Tidal option has been so far an awful experience!
When Playing music through Tidal it keeps crashing especially when I try to navigate between the albums or the artists.
Often times during the crash, the “TIDAL” menu keeps disappearing and every time you need to relog on.
The search functions and all other functions on the menu are super slow and often time it makes you regret when you type something in the search bar and click on enter. It gets into a loop and if you are lucky and patient you eventually get what you want if not, mostly it’s the case, it crashes on you.
Going between artists or albums are super slow. So overall my score is 1 out of 10 and that 1 is for the excellent sound quality. The functionality of the Tidal integration and plugin is terrible! I’m having a hard time understanding why Volumio is selling this under a subscription package as it really sucks and feels like a ripoff! I’m really disappointed with it.
I would really like to know whether the problem is my hardware here, again everything else works like a charm on Volumio, am I doing something wrong or is it the same for everybody else?
Thank you.

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We are rewriting the TIDAL integration from scratch, since there are some technological limitations on the infrastructure we used to make it happen. We know its not good in terms of usability but what you report seems to have other roots.
First, I would disable completely youtube (this broken plugin affects search function).
Then, after you have crash, please send us a log volumio.github.io/docs/User_Man … oting.html
and paste the log link to an email to support at volumio.org
I will look at what causes those issues and help you

Avangerx

“overall my score is 1 out of 10 and that 1 is for the excellent sound quality. The functionality of the Tidal integration and plugin is terrible! “

This is exactly the same as my experience.

In particular, you can’t edit Tidal playlists. You have to keep switching between Volumio and the native Tidal app.

I subscribed to MyVolumio Virtuoso early last year and kept it going despite this, in the hope that it would be fixed. Eventually, I cancelled, as it became obvious that it wasn’t a priority.

I keep checking the forum for evidence of a solution, and I see posts like yours.

Michelangelo,

You say you are rewriting the Tidal integration from scratch. Any timescales?

Very difficult to estimate a timescale, but we have the new implementation already running and we are in the process of improving the existing functionalities.
If you should say what are the most important things we should focus on (in order of priority?)

To give you guys a little bit of context of why its taking so long, let me recap what we had to do to improve TIDAL (and why its taking long):

  • Have the plugin crypter in place (so we can stop using our go implementation which is really hard to maintain)
  • Have the new UI3 in place, so we can extend the browsing interactions possible
  • Have a scalable cloud cluster in place, so we can implement the new TIDAL browsing in the cloud (not using Firebase for this) in place of local intelligence. this will allow for better error handling and performances
  • Integrate the new TIDAL Oauth login (done) and the new TIDAL API (done)

All the above has been done, but you’ll see that’s a lot of work and this is why its taking so long. But it will be definitely worth the wait because after that we can really have a great TIDAL integration going

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My requirement is simple. I just need a user interface which provides the functionality of the Tidal native app. The Volumio user interface mostly provides that anyway. Let’s face it, most music player interfaces tend to follow a fairly standard format these days.

However, there are two important requirements for me,

1 Allow creation and editing of Tidal playlists in my Tidal user area
2 Allow tracks to be added and removed from Tidal favourites in my Tidal user area

To put this in context. Nowadays, many users have no local music collection - and I believe this user base is growing. Their only source of music is streaming from Tidal, Spotify etc. These steaming services have mature easy to use apps. In addition, these users access the same streaming service while away from home e.g. at the gym, commuting etc. Any playlists they create have to make the journey with them. Just creating playlists on the Volumio database doesn’t allow this.

I realise Volumio has to appeal to users with local music files. However, I think the users I’ve described above have been largely ignored so far. There could be a large number of potential subscribers out there. Have a look the number of streamers coming on the market with built-in Chromecast to allow the use of native apps. Come to think of it, can you do that?

Best of luck with the Tidal integration.

You’re totally right. Volumio has been designed with files as first use scenario. This was true 5 years ago. Now and in the future this will be the less relevant scenario.
We are now in the process of focusing almost exclusively on streaming services (and to turn your files in your personal streaming service) to accommodate exactly what you picture.
Thanks for the suggestions about managing TIDAL playlists from Volumio, we did think (and we were wrong) that it would not matter that much.
We will work to add such capability

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Hello @ Michelangelo, is it absolutely impossible for Volumio that Tidal works in the same way that Spotify does with Spotify Connect2?
regard

AFAIK TIDAL does not support such thing, Spotify is the only service that has it.

I think you guys are doing the right thing as this is way far from an end product which is sold separately on a monthly/yearly subscription. In the meantime, I had to cancel my subscription as my rustration level keeps going up whenever I try to use Tidal. I’d better wait for the stable version. I trust in you guys as the Volumio is awesome. Thank you for your answer.

What would be the top 3 things you think we should do better in the next TIDAL implementation?

I would say better gui to use and proper sync with tidal account
Offline playback- Saying that but I know it’s jot possible
MQA support- I don’t think it’s possible either

Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

Cast works fine on chromest. Just like the spotify connect. I don’t know if it’s exclusive to chromecast though.

Hi Michelangelo, first thing that comes to my mind is adding the Radio button (so we can play similar artists or songs directly within Volumio

Update: the new integration has reached 80% completition.
We just added my mixes :wink:

That is good news.

How is progress on editing Tidal playlists?

This will be tackled as second step, but it will be done (it requires modification to volumio so we do it after the first part of tidal integration is redone completely)

Whatever you build for Tidal playlist interaction, please would you include the same functionality for Qobuz?

Sent from my LG-G7 using Tapatalk

Yes, please: keep them both on par.

So is there any chance of integrate management of local download/cache from streaming services to lower internet traffic and allow offline listening, as native apps do?

This is fantastic to see that the Tidal integration is getting some love michelangelo, as it is one of the things that has almost made me stop using Volumio. If you need a beta tester for the new integration, I would be happy to help.