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Too many glitches on pi/Volumio

Nic Robinson

Nic Robinson

Moderator
I'm really enjoying using Volumio on my Raspberry Pi. The sq (via my old Apogee DAC) is excellent and gives vinyl a run for its money, for sure.

I use a USB HD connected directly on which sit rips of all my CDs and other digital stuff. The radio services and Spotify integration are fantastic.

Just 2 issues which others might have come across:

1) When listening to ripped CDs there are occasional crackles/glitches (not repeatable so not on the actual track). It's not enough to stop me listening but a little too regular to make me enjoy the music unreservedly. This doesn't happen on radio streams or Spotify as far as I can tell.

2) Booting is a pain. If the HDD is connected on boot, it won't make a sound. The only way I can get it to work is to boot without the HDD connected then listen to a radio station. At that point I can plug in the HDD and after a few minutes it's settled sufficiently to use. Thereafter it works perfectly.

So a couple of compromises which slightly tarnish a dream machine. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Nic.
 
When using Squeezelite on a Pi (mk 1) to drive a chord 2Qute DAC I used to get frequent clicks and pops. But with another type of linux device (Wandboard) the problem went away. I was told by someone (who has a lot of expertise in computer audio) that the USB implementation on a Pi is not very good, which may account for it.
 
I too found Volumio implementation buggy. I've settled on Pi core player driving a Project Pro S2 Dac through an Allo Digione coax interface. Source is Vortexbox / LMS Seems to be bug free with excellent sound quality.
 
Probably something to do with not enough power for the HDD, not sure if that will cause the issue you describe but I know the Pi can't power all drives itself, dependant on what power your drive needs.

I use a USB hub to power my external drive and have never had an issue with drop outs since I installed it in 2016. I also use Volumio.
 
I have no experience with Pi but using a netbook as digital transport via USB once in a while there was a crackle/ glitch with high resolution or DSD files.

After heavily tweaking Windows 7 services configurations I had no more crackles/ glitches.

Could it be that the Pi isn't powerful enough to run smoothly?
 
I have also had some recent glitching issues on Linux, but it was my fault as I was using ALSA direct, and it seems my drivers prefer working with Pulseaudio rather than ALSA. Reverted it and all good again. I think you can do the same with Volumio...
 
Thanks for the answers so far. Maybe I should look at a powered USB hub as a first resort. Actually I think there's one in a drawer somewhere...
 
Nic Robinson said:
Thanks for the answers so far. Maybe I should look at a powered USB hub as a first resort. Actually I think there's one in a drawer somewhere...
Click to expand...
If it's the USB/HDD causing boot problems maybe there will be a clue if you connect a display via HDMI.

My Pi 3B+ (underclocked and undervolted, running picoreplayer) network mounts my music files and never glitches.
 
What model of Pi is it?

I've forgotten the details but Volumio improved substantially when I put the 4 core version in. This is with quite a big FLAC collection. I don't recall any glitching while actually playing though. Perhaps there's an issue with the DAC (interface)? I'm using Hifi Berry S/PDIF out, quite often with 96kHz material and the only issue is that the sample rate is a bit wrong if you measure it. So I don't.
 
if you can put up with the pain of setting up Moode Audio, it might be worth a try. It’s from the same stable as Rune & Volumio.
 
Which model pi is it? It is possible to increase the available power to the USB output on some models.
Also a small 2.5" hard disk should work fine withe the supply from the pi but a larger 3.5" disk needs 5 and 12 volts supply, hence it may falter a little and require a separate power supply.

Edit: or is it 3.5 and 12? I can't remember o_O
 
I think Volumio is the 3rd distro I've used and the one that suits my needs best. Definitely tried Moode and one other (forgot the name).

Anyway...I connected up the TV and it was giving repeated Undervoltage warnings. Seems that this prevents successful boot and when in use, happens every few seconds. At least one of these coincided with a pop.

I couldn't find my old powered USB hub (probably given away) so I've ordered a new one and will report back when I get it in.

Thanks again, all.
 
The pi may be booting too fast, so it tries to mount the usb disk before it's spun up. You can add a delay parameter to the boot command line to fix this.
 
Hi Nic.

It might be worth checking the volumio dac compatibility list although if its random and non repeatable that would suggest to me the pi is running out of steam.

I dont know if you have a spare PC k nocking about, I am a geek so have computers all over the place. Anyhow an X86 version of volumio exists which is a big thing as plenty of PCs exist out there in not much bigger boxes than the pi, although admittedly more expensive.

But any recentish NUC or even dell SFF pcs with as a minimum 5th gen core i5 are going to run quiet and are so much more powerful,. With an SSD in you get a powerful and very fast volumio.
 
One other thing make sure you are using pi 3+ the latest one, it makes a nice difference to speed etc.
 
Nic Robinson said:
I think Volumio is the 3rd distro I've used and the one that suits my needs best. Definitely tried Moode and one other (forgot the name).

Anyway...I connected up the TV and it was giving repeated Undervoltage warnings. Seems that this prevents successful boot and when in use, happens every few seconds. At least one of these coincided with a pop.

I couldn't find my old powered USB hub (probably given away) so I've ordered a new one and will report back when I get it in.

Thanks again, all.
Click to expand...


The under-voltage may be caused by the power supply connecting cable gauge being too thin (this has been reported by many users on different forums). Is it possible to use a thicker cable?
Which power supply are you using?
Also, which model pi are you using?
 
Thanks again for all the replies. I think it's a B+ so far from the latest. I agree, Gary, it's probably worth investing in the latest. The power supply I'm using is the one from my daughter's ancient Sony "pebble" walkman, which seems a good, solid unit.

I've never found that the Apogee Minidac (which I love) is officially supported but, glitches aside, it does just work.

I'll report back when the powered hub arrives. To be honest, I'll be perfectly satisfied with it if that clears up the glitches.
 
I had a Pi2 running picoreplayer, and would get the odd click, especially noticeable when I was using it sync'ed to other squeezeboxes around the house. I then bought a RPi3 and all of a sudden everything works perfectly. I had a lot of issues when running the pi2 as squeezebox server and client and had the discs attached to it (separately powered). My conclusion was that the mk2 wasn't quite up to the job. As they are so cheap, I've just bought another mk3 - I like to keep one in stock in case I want to play. I may look at building myself a patio speaker using a Pi zero W, if I can find a suitable power amp and drive unit, just for the fun of it.
 
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