Vortexbox

[Lawrence001]

I'm creating an owners' club for Vortexbox as the company that made them seems to be cutting back on support so we can hopefully help each other keep this great streaming/networking/ripping software going.

The main thing at the moment is to be able to upgrade LMS to keep it up to date with all the plugins like Tidal, Qobuz, Spotty, BBC Sounds etc so I will post a link below to instructions kindly written by our very own resident expert @slavedata (hope you don't mind me calling you that, it's all relative!).

I also know how to edit the config file to get album metadata again which I will post below.

 

[Lawrence001]

Post on how to upgrade LMS on Vortexbox:

https://www.hifiwigwam.com/threads/new-toy-and-lots-of-chance-to-faff-about.117735/post-2394611

 

[Lawrence001]

Thread here on how to get the CD metadata again in the ripper and details below in case the Vortexbox forum ever disappears

EDIT: apparently the latest version of VB has this change so if you update VB then try a rip first before going to the effort of doing this. I thought I had done this after the update but I could be mistaken. Also remember the VB update will wipe the drive so copy all your ripped music and any other files somewhere before doing it!

https://www.vortexbox.org/forum/support/3251-cd-ripper-not-identifying-cds

log in to the vortexbox. User = root , password = vortexbox

type ---> nano /etc/ripit/config and scroll through the file for the entries you need and replace them.
In the CDDB Options section make these changes -

mb=0
CDDBHOST=gnudb.org
mirror=gnudb
transfer=http
proxy=proxy.gnudb.org:3128

After that press ctrl + o to save and press enter

 

[Lawrence001]

Some interesting help pages on this website from the old Australian distributor who seems to be helpful despite no longer distributing them (as they aren't made anymore).

http://www.thehockings.org/VortexBox/howtos.html

 

[Lawrence001]

Last thing for now, as I had a Liv Zen (locked down) not a Vortexbox (open source) I couldn't make any changes without knowing the password. I looked online and found out how to reset it, I think it was from here. Posting in case someone has a similar problem and wants to get into the config files.

https://fedoramagazine.org/reset-root-password-fedora/

 

[slavedata]

Looked at settings above for Ripper, I'm on Vbox 2.5 and the settings have already been changed to these values. I would recommend anyone on Vbox 2.4 to move up to Vbox 2.5 by following the Fedora upgrade article here.
https://fedoramagazine.org/upgrading-fedora-24-fedora-25/

For anyone fiddling about with Vortexbox you really don't want to screw up a server that you have loaded with a lot of ripped discs.
Vortexbox will load on any old 32 bit PC or Laptop with minimal memory and a small hard drive. So find such a machine and use this as your testbed for tweaking your Vbox. This is even more important for me as I use Vortexbox as my backup server for all files I want to keep because it has a good backup facility built in.

I documented how to set up a Vbox from scratch in this posting

https://forums.slimdevices.com/foru...7-9-to-8-3-on-fedora-23-vortexbox#post1635900
Follow the instructions down to the line
This takes you to Vortexbox 2.5 and L MS 8.2
This procedure is all standard Linux commands, upgrading to LMS 8.3 is a little trickier but documented.

If you screw up the testbed you can put it back fairly quickly with no data loss.
Once you've setup the test bed you can copy over a few ripped files from your main server for trying out just using windows copy and paste.

 

[Lawrence001]

I could have sworn I had to change the settings and I installed the latest (beta) version. Maybe I'm confused it's happening more often in recent years.

I had my first "fall" the other day too

 

[bencat]

Okay before it arrives Lawrence what version of Vortexbox is the Zen you have sent me ? Is there a way to just update the LMS to 8.2 ? This is all I need really and then the rest is just LMS settings which I am good with anyway . Also have you reset the password as you described above on this unit , if you have please can you PM me the user name and password .

 

[bdvisser]

Thank you !


I share your concerns, as heaps of information was lost before (in the old forum, and wiki).
Some old wiki pages are retrievable through the waybackmachine http://info.vortexbox.org/tiki-index.php?page=HomePage


Thou I'm grateful, I have to say I find it rather clumsy to registrar, keep up and watch three forums about any tweaks and updates.


/bart
still loving and using Vortexbox continuously since 2011

 

[Lawrence001]

Okay before it arrives Lawrence what version of Vortexbox is the Zen you have sent me ? Is there a way to just update the LMS to 8.2 ? This is all I need really and then the rest is just LMS settings which I am good with anyway . Also have you reset the password as you described above on this unit , if you have please can you PM me the user name and password .

I think it's 2.5, it will say on the home page when you put the IP address in the browser. I've done nothing to the password so it's the default one I posted above. @slavedata has given instructions to update LMS as I linked to in post #2 above.

 

[musicbox]

Well done on this this thread chaps

I've been using vortexbox since 2015 and really need to upgrade bits of it so this will be super useful.

 

[slavedata]

I know this is not specific to Vortexbox, I've seen it posted by Ronnie (Man in a Van) and I think it was available in LMS 8.2, but having installed the Plugins for Information and Lyrics
If you go to the LMS configuration page on Vortexbox . For example browser address
192.168.2.160:9000/material/ and then click on the Info (i) tag on the top right of the screen you get this sort of information

 

[slavedata]

Picked up my phone today and Squeezer is popping up pictures of all the music artists on the server, must be the LMS 8.3 effect

 

[bencat]

Well the Liv Zen arrived today and I have it plugged in and found on my network . A quick look at the set up page and there is literally nothing for me to do . Vortexbox is updated to the latest Fedora 2.5 . One click of the update button and Logitech Media Server has been updated to 8.2 which is as good as I need a quick run through removing those plugins like Tidal and others which i never use a switch to Material Skin and everything is as it should be . Just to be sure I am currently doing a complete clear the library and rescan and once this has been done will connect one of my players to it and make sure that they can see it .

 

[bencat]

Okay now as things are taking their time with Artist Picture look up (always take a huge time the first scan ) I have a couple of things I need help with . Firstly I can see the Innous in my network but i do not seem to be able to see the internal drive as a network drive . I admit I always have issues with this and for my Pi Server I have always used MSCP . Tried that and that works with the Vortexbox as well but would like to be able to map the drive on my PC so I can directly access it but not too much of an issue if i do not manage it .

Now it is quite a long time ago when i tried putting a Vortexbox on an old PC but at that time I think it was correct that if you wanted it to access from a plug in USB HD then the HD had to be empty when you first set it up as in the setup it would clear the drive of anything on it . Is this still the case ? I would like to add a 2 TB SSD HD that currently has all my music on it and use that but do not really want to go through the issue of clearing it first then adding the music back on to it .

I was going to do this as a PM but then thought it might be something other users coming to this new would have issues with too so best on this thread for all to see and gain knowledge from .

 

[bencat]

Right I am getting to grips with this now . The issue is not with Vortexbox at all but the Windows 11 I am using Microsoft in their infinite wisdom have changed lots of things which have left users not really able to access their share folders created on older versions of Windows .

As with lots of things a trawl through the Vortexbox Forum support threads and on page seven is a very decent link to the following You Tube video which takes you through a three step fix which when i completed it correctly showed up my Zen Box and the contained storage directly on my PC so now I can both edit the internal USB drive and also move things across on to it with ease . Result .



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bIcJluf-0Q

 

[slavedata]

Windows can often be awkward at finding networked drives. I find the most reliable is to type into the search box \\ip address so eg \\192.168.2.220 then press enter.
That should show up the shared drive on the Vortexbox. Once it shows up then you can map it as usual in windows.

 

[slavedata]

Right I am getting to grips with this now . The issue is not with Vortexbox at all but the Windows 11 I am using Microsoft in their infinite wisdom have changed lots of things which have left users not really able to access their share folders created on older versions of Windows .

As with lots of things a trawl through the Vortexbox Forum support threads and on page seven is a very decent link to the following You Tube video which takes you through a three step fix which when i completed it correctly showed up my Zen Box and the contained storage directly on my PC so now I can both edit the internal USB drive and also move things across on to it with ease . Result .



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bIcJluf-0Q

Much more comprehensive fix than my quick hack technique. I must implement that on my wife's PC to stop her moaning at me!

 

[Lawrence001]

I alwa

Okay now as things are taking their time with Artist Picture look up (always take a huge time the first scan ) I have a couple of things I need help with . Firstly I can see the Innous in my network but i do not seem to be able to see the internal drive as a network drive . I admit I always have issues with this and for my Pi Server I have always used MSCP . Tried that and that works with the Vortexbox as well but would like to be able to map the drive on my PC so I can directly access it but not too much of an issue if i do not manage it .

Now it is quite a long time ago when i tried putting a Vortexbox on an old PC but at that time I think it was correct that if you wanted it to access from a plug in USB HD then the HD had to be empty when you first set it up as in the setup it would clear the drive of anything on it . Is this still the case ? I would like to add a 2 TB SSD HD that currently has all my music on it and use that but do not really want to go through the issue of clearing it first then adding the music back on to it .

I was going to do this as a PM but then thought it might be something other users coming to this new would have issues with too so best on this thread for all to see and gain knowledge from .

I always use Windows explorer to move files to and from the Zen it shows up in My Network Places or something.

I've never plugged an external drive in so sorry don't know how to do that. I do know the default option is to back up to any drive plugged in but maybe there's an override option?

 

[bencat]

Well as I have now gone through the drive and deleted all the files that I do not want there is quite a bit more room left on the internal drive so I may have enough room to just add things from my current HD to the Vortex box storage . Now that i can find it on my PC it will be that much easier .

After a bit of looking I did find the following but to be honest I would not be sure about doing this and it seems a real faff just to get an SSD for faster response . While the to my surprise the Vortexbox is slower than my Pi Server it is not somehting that will bother me so will just get on with getting things in place and moved over the next few weeks and then see were we are .

https://wiki.vortexbox.org/how_to_use_a_usb_drive_for_storage