Feature request: add transport & volume controls to UPnP master device

[mfisher]

I've now had our Sonos system up since the holidays and we really enjoy how well it works. We use the system almost exclusively in whole house mode and I purchased the SonosController plugin in the hopes of seamless music control from HS Touch.

Which leads me to my problem. I have tried to use the provided 'MusicCtrlGrp' group in HS Touch, and added one group for each room (player.) Unfortunately, doing this causes the tablets (Viewsonic gTablet, dual core Tegra2) to grind to a halt for 10-15 seconds when accessing the music screen - which contains only the three player groups and a back button. Once it finally becomes active, I find that the album art is usually missing from at least one of the groups and the transport controls operate intermittently.

So I tried deleting two of the 'MusicCtrlGrp' groups and keeping the one that was set as the Sonos 'master' (using the Sonos software, not the plugin.) This seemed to work just fine until the latest plugin update and now this group will not reliably control the system.

Which brings me to my request. Having the ability to control transport and volume for the SonosController UPnP 'master' device would allow one 'MusicCtrlGrp' in HS Touch to reliably control the entire Sonos system regardless of which device is setup as the master. This would also require adding the UPnP master as a device that HS Touch can recognize as a music device, as it is not currently accessable as one from HS Touch and I can see no direct way to accomplish this.

Dirk, any thoughts on how to accomplish this? If not, any chance you might consider adding this type of functionality? BTW, thanks for your awesome support!

[dcorsus]

I have tried to use the provided MusicPlayer group in HS Touch, and added one group for each room (player.)

Hi Mark, what is "MusicPlayer group"? Not sure I know what this is, is this specific to Android device? Any chance you can do a screen capture?

Dirk

[mfisher]

Sorry about that, I should have written 'MusicCtrlGrp' instead of MusicPlayer. I've changed it in my original post so that its clear. The screen clip below is the stock MusicCtrlGrp that's provided w/ your plugin.

[dcorsus]

Sorry about that, I should have written 'MusicCtrlGrp' instead of MusicPlayer. I've changed it in my original post so that its clear. The screen clip below is the stock MusicCtrlGrp that's provided w/ your plugin.

Ah, now I get it. What baffles me is why this would slow down things, for a second I was assuming you had dropped in a "music browser" function, the latter here pulls all your track info out of the database and onto your device and I can see how that grinds things to a halt.

Now why this MusicCtrlGrp would slow things down and work intermittently is beyond me, it is pretty straight forward so let's dissect things:

1. This ViewSonic is it an Android device or WinCe?
2. Does the ViewSonic disconnect from HS when it powers down or is it always on? I assume it disconnects because your problems seem all to start when it reconnects
3. If you say the buttons don't work, which ones? All of them, can you be more specific?
4. Does the artwork update when you change tracks?
5. Do you have the latest versions of HST server/designer and Android/WinCE clients installed?

Here's what I've struggled with in the past: it appears that HST only updates "music" objects depending on which state the player is in. For example it only updates albumart when the player is either going into play state or change songs. Same for volume sliders etc. I've tried to work around this by generating fake events when I see HST Clients being connected but that was added in one of the more recent versions so make sure you have the latest posted version of the plug-in.

Now the buttons should work, I see no reason why they are not. Could you turn the debug flag of the plugin on and capture the log and email that. Would be helpful if you also turn the debug on for the HST Server which you can find under the "setup"->"Interfaces"->"HSTouch server"->"Config" (don't forget to save).

Could you also specify when it doesn't work, what are you playing on the that zone? A track from your own library, tracks from on-line services, internet radio .....?

Lastly, I'm not tracking on your suggestion for a "sonos" master? You wrote: "one that was set as the Sonos 'master' (using the Sonos software, not the plugin.)" can you elaborate? Did you group the players or something? Do you perhaps see issues when players are grouped? Should we poke holes at that, if so can you experiment a bit when things work and when not? A lot of changes where made in more recent versions of the plugin to support grouped players, as far as I could test, it all seem to work but I may have overlooked some corner cases.

Cheers,

Dirk

[mfisher]

Ah, now I get it. What baffles me is why this would slow down things, for a second I was assuming you had dropped in a "music browser" function, the latter here pulls all your track info out of the database and onto your device and I can see how that grinds things to a halt.

Now why this MusicCtrlGrp would slow things down and work intermittently is beyond me, it is pretty straight forward so let's dissect things:

1. This ViewSonic is it an Android device or WinCe?
   Android running Honeycomb
2. Does the ViewSonic disconnect from HS when it powers down or is it always on? I assume it disconnects because your problems seem all to start when it reconnects.
   Always on, connection is rock-solid.
3. If you say the buttons don't work, which ones? All of them, can you be more specific?
   Well, it varies
4. Does the artwork update when you change tracks?
   Sometimes it will show on 2 of the rooms but not the third and it will vary which is which.
5. Do you have the latest versions of HST server/designer and Android/WinCE clients installed?
   Yes, latest designer, client & HS plugin.

Here's what I've struggled with in the past: it appears that HST only updates "music" objects depending on which state the player is in. For example it only updates albumart when the player is either going into play state or change songs. Same for volume sliders etc. I've tried to work around this by generating fake events when I see HST Clients being connected but that was added in one of the more recent versions so make sure you have the latest posted version of the plug-in.

Now the buttons should work, I see no reason why they are not. Could you turn the debug flag of the plugin on and capture the log and email that. Would be helpful if you also turn the debug on for the HST Server which you can find under the "setup"->"Interfaces"->"HSTouch server"->"Config" (don't forget to save).

Could you also specify when it doesn't work, what are you playing on the that zone? A track from your own library, tracks from on-line services, internet radio .....?

Honestly, I really don't care about individual room control as we always use Sonos in a whole-house mode (all players grouped.)

Lastly, I'm not tracking on your suggestion for a "sonos" master? You wrote: "one that was set as the Sonos 'master' (using the Sonos software, not the plugin.)" can you elaborate? Did you group the players or something? Do you perhaps see issues when players are grouped? Should we poke holes at that, if so can you experiment a bit when things work and when not? A lot of changes where made in more recent versions of the plugin to support grouped players, as far as I could test, it all seem to work but I may have overlooked some corner cases.

Cheers,

Dirk

So yes, all of the Sonos players are grouped together all the time. The issues I identified relate to trying to use the individual MusicCtrlGrp controls when the players are all grouped together. Things appear to be ok when the players are not grouped (I only tested this once for a few minutes.)

The main reason for my post was not so much to troubleshoot the issues as it was to ask about adding functionality (volume, transport controls, etc.) to the master UPnP device so that it will control a Sonos group. I'll be honest that I've not completely thought this through as I see that this will get messy in larger installations where there might be multiple Sonos groups.

Can you suggest a way to accomplish this using the existing features?

[dcorsus]

The main reason for my post was not so much to troubleshoot the issues as it was to ask about adding functionality (volume, transport controls, etc.) to the master UPnP device so that it will control a Sonos group. I'll be honest that I've not completely thought this through as I see that this will get messy in larger installations where there might be multiple Sonos groups.

That actually is not possible but grouped or ungrouped players should not hog your system, it should work

Having that said, I just did a test with a large group and playing a radio station and I do see a problem when I try to play/pause from a "non master" player so something is not working properly.

Stay tuned

Dirk

[dcorsus]

Mark,

a new beta (v.90) was just posted here (http://board.homeseer.com/showpost.p...45&postcount=1)

Fixed an issue with play/pause not working anymore after you stopped the zones from a non-master. I also suspect that albumart not being updated has to do that HS was (re)started after the zones were already linked. Depending on the sequence how the players are discovered, either all work, part works or nothing at all until you ungroup and re-group them.

Please post if this takes care of your problem.

Dirk

[mfisher]

Dirk,

Thank you very much, I'll test it as soon as I get a chance and let you know the outcome.