Music Assistant with SnapCast Client: No chunks available

[ab-tools]

Hello,

I'm trying to setup Music Assistant to play on a SnapCast client.

What I have done on the server:

• Installed Music Assistant server version 2.3.4 as Docker container using the docker compose running it network host mode exactly as recommended in the instructions here: https://music-assistant.io/installation/
• Added Snapcast as playback provider in Music Assistant.
• Connected both Spotify (with Client ID) as well as a local folder with one OGG file for testing.

What I have done on the client (Raspberry Pi Zero 2W):

• Installed latest Raspberry image (Debian 1:6.6.62-1+rpt1 (2024-11-25) aarch64 GNU/Linux)
• Installed PulseAudio using apt
• Installed latest SnapClient with Pulse from here: https://github.com/badaix/snapcast/releases/download/v0.29.0/snapclient_0.29.0-1_arm64_bookworm_with-pulse.deb
• Verified with paplay that I can successfully play an OGG audio file.

Result:

• The SnapClient shows up in Music Assistant as expected.
• But when I try to play any track on that player, it shows in Music Assistant as started for a fraction of a second and then immediately stops again.
• When I check the logs on the client with journalctl -u snapclient I see this:

Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Resolving host IP for: 192.168.16.48
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Connecting to 192.168.16.48:1704
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Connected to 192.168.16.48
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: My MAC: "e6:77:fd:b0:50:46", socket: 9
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: ServerSettings - buffer: 1000, latency: 0, volume: 25, muted: 0
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Codec: flac, sampleformat: 48000:16:2
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Resampling from 48000:16:2 to 44100:16:2
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Player name: pulse, device: default, description: Let PulseAudio server choose the device>
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Mixer mode: software, parameters: <none>
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Sampleformat: 44100:16:0, stream: 44100:16:2
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Setting property "application.icon_name" to "snapcast"
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Setting property "media.role" to "music"
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Using buffer_time: 100 ms, server: default
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Start
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Connecting to pulse
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:31:16 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: diff to server [ms]: -4.06362e+07
Dec 26 10:31:17 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:31:18 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:31:19 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:31:20 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:31:21 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:31:21 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunk received for 5000ms, disconnecting from pulse.
Dec 26 10:31:21 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Disconnecting from pulse
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Stop
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Disconnecting from pulse
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Codec: flac, sampleformat: 48000:16:2
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Resampling from 48000:16:2 to 44100:16:2
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Player name: pulse, device: default, description: Let PulseAudio server choose the device>
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Mixer mode: software, parameters: <none>
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Sampleformat: 44100:16:0, stream: 44100:16:2
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Setting property "application.icon_name" to "snapcast"
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Setting property "media.role" to "music"
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Using buffer_time: 100 ms, server: default
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Start
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Connecting to pulse
Dec 26 10:32:23 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:32:24 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:32:25 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:32:26 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:32:27 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: No chunks available
Dec 26 10:32:27 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Stop
Dec 26 10:32:27 micclient1 snapclient[1396]: Disconnecting from pulse

Any idea what I might be missing here?

Best regards and thanks in advance for any tip on this
Andreas

[OzGav]

I haven't heard of anyone using this software. People just generally use a straight snapclient.

When I quickly googled PulseAudio I did see a report of issues connecting to the Snapserver so you might want to look into that. Additionally check if PulseAudio is installing the 0.27 or newer version

[ab-tools]

Hello OzGav,

first thanks a lot for your really quick reply, much appreciated!

You mean the SnapClient version?
I explicitly install version 0.29.0 (see the mentioned DEB download link above). Also apt confirms the installed version with:

snapclient is already the newest version (0.29.0-1).

As SnapClient is logging No chunks available, this indicated for me that it would not be receiving audio chunks from the server instead of an issue with writing audio to PulseAudio for output or you think different here?

Best regards and again, thanks for your support
Andreas

[ab-tools]

Yes, I do.

[OzGav]

@SantiagoSotoC

[DerPicknicker]

@ab-tools .. try higher buffer maybe bad connection?

[ab-tools]

First thanks for your reply!

I can't really imagine how the connection could be bad as this is a direct wired Ethernet connection (so no WiFi involved or so).
Also, from the logs it seems that the client does not get any chunk from the server.

But I can still try playing with the buffer size if you think this might help nonetheless:
Currently, this is all set to its defaults, what buffer and chunk size would you recommend trying?

Maybe @SantiagoSotoC has any further idea what could be the issue here?

Best regards and thanks again for all the support
Andreas

[DerPicknicker]

Hi @ab-tools ,

then the buffer sizes doesn't matter so your assumptions are totally right.

Maybe try older snapclient version? I use till today v28 or v27. Because they're so reliable. This could help for debugging.

Best regards

Maybe @SantiagoSotoC has some more ideas.

[naund]

Why do you need pulseaudio? Usually pa is started after login. In your case pa has to be started as system wide daemon. But why not simply using alsa?

[ab-tools]

Hello naund,

thanks for your reply!

PulseAudio is required as I need to access the same audio output device also for Home Assistant audio announcements.
As I understand, this is not possible with ALSA, but it is with PulseAudio to have two processes accessing the same audio device. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

And yes, PulseAudio is running as system demon. I did follow this guide for proper installation:
https://github.com/FutureProofHomes/wyoming-enhancements/blob/master/snapcast/docs/2_install_pulseaudio.md

PulseAudio seems to be working fine, I can output audio with paplay without issues.

Just the SnapClient is not working right now for some reason with the log output as posted above.

Best regards and again, thanks for your support
Andreas

[OzGav]

Try playing to a browser. If that works then it is likely your pulseaudio RPi that is the problem. As suggested above try installing 0.28

[ab-tools]

Hello everyone,

first thanks again for all your support so far!

Looks like I should have just checked the Music Assistant logs to begin with as there are a lot of errors and warnings in there:

2024-12-30 14:44:40.610 INFO (MainThread) [music_assistant.streams] Start Queue Flow stream for Queue Snapweb client - crossfade: False
2024-12-30 14:44:40.819 ERROR (MainThread) [ffmpeg.1158] Stream error: Failed to stream track spotify://track:20I6sIOMTCkB6w7ryavxtO
2024-12-30 14:44:40.824 WARNING (MainThread) [music_assistant.audio.media_stream] Stream error on spotify--h4XuTKYb://track/20I6sIOMTCkB6w7ryavxtO
2024-12-30 14:44:41.039 ERROR (MainThread) [ffmpeg.1167] Stream error: Failed to stream track spotify://track:7Ar5Ovvs0Oq8zqqPBeG64g
2024-12-30 14:44:41.047 WARNING (MainThread) [asyncio] child process pid 1167 exit status already read:  will report returncode 255
2024-12-30 14:44:41.048 WARNING (MainThread) [music_assistant.audio.media_stream] Stream error on spotify--h4XuTKYb://track/7Ar5Ovvs0Oq8zqqPBeG64g
2024-12-30 14:44:41.054 ERROR (MainThread) [ffmpeg.1165] Stream error: Failed to stream track spotify://track:20I6sIOMTCkB6w7ryavxtO
2024-12-30 14:44:41.059 WARNING (MainThread) [music_assistant.audio] Could not determine integrated loudness of spotify--h4XuTKYb://track/20I6sIOMTCkB6w7ryavxtO - [in#0 @ 0xffff85e12b00] Error opening input: Invalid data found when processing input
Error opening input file -.
Error opening input files: Invalid data found when processing input
2024-12-30 14:44:41.259 ERROR (MainThread) [ffmpeg.1182] Stream error: Failed to stream track spotify://track:7Ar5Ovvs0Oq8zqqPBeG64g
2024-12-30 14:44:41.265 WARNING (MainThread) [music_assistant.audio] Could not determine integrated loudness of spotify--h4XuTKYb://track/7Ar5Ovvs0Oq8zqqPBeG64g - [in#0 @ 0xffffac412b00] Error opening input: Invalid data found when processing input
Error opening input file -.
Error opening input files: Invalid data found when processing input
2024-12-30 14:44:41.279 ERROR (MainThread) [ffmpeg.1184] Stream error: Failed to stream track spotify://track:6mmyRfUzsjrZ4WOdetPMRe
2024-12-30 14:44:41.287 WARNING (MainThread) [asyncio] child process pid 1184 exit status already read:  will report returncode 255
2024-12-30 14:44:41.288 WARNING (MainThread) [music_assistant.audio.media_stream] Stream error on spotify--h4XuTKYb://track/6mmyRfUzsjrZ4WOdetPMRe
2024-12-30 14:44:41.289 INFO (MainThread) [music_assistant.streams] Finished Queue Flow stream for Queue Snapweb client
2024-12-30 14:44:41.289 ERROR (MainThread) [ffmpeg.1157] Stream error: No audio data received from source
2024-12-30 14:44:41.504 ERROR (MainThread) [ffmpeg.1222] Stream error: Failed to stream track spotify://track:6mmyRfUzsjrZ4WOdetPMRe
2024-12-30 14:44:41.511 WARNING (MainThread) [music_assistant.audio] Could not determine integrated loudness of spotify--h4XuTKYb://track/6mmyRfUzsjrZ4WOdetPMRe - [in#0 @ 0xffffaa812b00] Error opening input: Invalid data found when processing input
Error opening input file -.
Error opening input files: Invalid data found when processing input

I searched for the error message and found this issue here:
https://github.com/music-assistant/hass-music-assistant/issues/2313#issuecomment-2395331001
But looks like this was resolved with 2.2.9 and I'm running 2.3.4 at the moment.

I have successfully authenticated to Spotify with an own Client ID.

What could cause the issues mentioned in the logs?

Best regards and thanks
Andreas

[ab-tools]

Hello,

first still a happy New Year to everyone! :-)

I would really appreciate if someone has an idea/tip on the error messages shown above.

@OzGav, did you see such an error before?

Best regards and thanks a lot in advance
Andreas

[ab-tools]

I don't have any music as files here and if I download something from e. g. YouTube, it won't have any tags, I guess?

Do you have a "test file" that I can use which includes the required tags to make it work correctly?
Happy to give it a try then.

[OzGav]

Ok if you literally don’t have any local music then you should remove the file system providers

[ab-tools]

Yeah, I don't have any local music at all - I just added it for testing, nothing else. Will remove it again.

To confirm that the general setup (also with PulseAudio SnapClient) is working fine, I successfully tested with a radio station and this is working correctly as mentioned above.

If you have any further idea what I could test/try regarding the Spotify issue, please let me know.

And thanks again for all your support.

[OzGav]

The next thing is to work out what does and doesn’t work with Spotify. So if you can trying playing an Artist, then album, then track, then playlist and see if you can identify any common factor… or does nothing work?

[OzGav]

If nothing works then look at your network for something blocking Spotify

[ab-tools]

@OzGav, I'm sorry, found the issue and this is totally my fault...

Few months ago I started testing with Music Assistant and just for this purpose I subscribed to Spotify (as I read in your documentation that it would only work with a subscription, not with free accounts). That was one of the Spotify test subscriptions they offered.
Apparently, this expired by now without me noticing it.

I just noticed it now when I logged in to Spotify directly to check API usage once again.

After I extended the Spotify Premium subscription all is working fine, so likely the only issue was that there was no paid subscription active at Spotify!

Really sorry that I wasted your time with that, should have checked that before.

But to conclude if someone else is reading this thread:

1. Using SnapClient with PulseAudio is no problem, tested with version 0.29.0.
2. REALLY make sure you are using a paid Spotify subscription!

I'm wondering, @OzGav, can you detect using the Spotify API if it is a paid subscription or not?
If so, it would be really helpful if you could write a BIG warning message into the Music Assistant logfile that an unsupported free Spotify account is used.

Currently, it just shows success messages about the account login in the logs like this one:
2024-12-26 09:31:14.853 INFO (MainThread) [music_assistant.spotify] Successfully logged in to Spotify as Andreas
This way it did not come to my mind that actually the Spotify account is the issue. If you could check and warn in case of free accounts that would really be very helpful.

In any case, thanks again for all your support, that is really much appreciated
Andreas

[OzGav]

No worries. Normally you do get a “Only premium accounts are supported” log entry but your expired premium account may be an edge case.

[ab-tools]

Just double-checked again and there was for sure no such log entry - maybe that is something that could be improved to also detect expired premium accounts like mine.

[OzGav]

I’ll ask the team

[ab-tools]

Thanks!