Vortexbox

[slavedata]

Did you get Material skin working? It worked fine for me on 8.3 but not on 8.4. I've worked out how to remove 8.4 and install 8.3 if you need it.

 

[bencat]

Worked first time for me on 8.4 .Then again I think I installed on 7.9 on the 2.3 build so not sure if that made a difference .

 

[bencat]

Right have been listening to the LIV Zen using Radio Paradise and it has been stable and easy to listen to on any of my players . I am using Material Skin as i have now for years and so far I am not having any issues .

I have decided that before I copy my music files from one of my USB HD I have first converted all file to FLAC with the Zero setting so smallest amount of compression . This is because I have oceans of space on the new drive so no need to not . I decided to pass on using WAV as I have done listening tests with Hi Res WAV and the same album with FLAC and there was no difference I could discern , bit others might hear something different . I have also decided to take on the very boring and repetitive task of going through every file and check there are no duplicates , wrong tags or albums not named . I am doing it two letters per day and then when I finish copying the checked files across . Have managed to get to G and I am moving those files as I speak . Once this has completed I can then get LMS on the Zen to do a full clean scan and Library update and that should be it .

This has been a bit of a slog and there is still things to be completed but so far it looks as if I have now achieved what I was always looking for . A decent and stable version of LMS on a single server with loads of space to add and grow my music as and when I feel inspired to buy .

 

[Lawrence001]

Glad you got there Andrew, as you said when you bought it off me there's plenty of scope to have a play with it and you certainly proved that!!

 

[Lawrence001]

Right now I've finally got round to upgrading to the latest software on my old Vortexbox and everything's working fine except the album art grabber (as I expected). There's a gentleman on the Vortexbox forum who says he's got it working by editing the file that has the code in it. The problem is I don't know how to copy a file off a usb stick to the Vortexbox. This will be great news for anyone still using Vortexbox to rip their CDs. Could anyone tell me what I need to do please?

Here's the link to the thread where he attached the file.

https://www.vortexbox.org/forum/support/2391-album-art-grabber-not-working/page2

 

[slavedata]

I'll have a look this afternoon. Vortexbox is currently backing up so I don't want to disturb it at the moment.

 

[bencat]

Right just an update I have now gone through every file on my 4 TB USB hardrive which has the FLAC files on and both cleaned out any duplicates (albums were it had both song by song title and Artist - Song Title ) there was quite a few and also Artists and Albums with ? or other strange things which made duplicate entries . I am now on the very last work copying all of the cleaned music over to the Vortexbox Hard Drive . I was going to do this as transfer of two letters at a time but when things moved back on the USB hard drive which had been copied over then getting that file in the right place was a pain . So wiped the Vortexbox HD and now just doing a full copy with the new cleaned files in one go . 1.9TB and it is going more than 1 day to copy over so hopefully once this is done then adding is just going to be in small numbers .

Once this copy is done will be doing back ups to 2 x 2TB SSD Drives and keep them safe and disconnected just in case .

Used the Vortexbox over the weekend using both Radio Paradise and Six Music . It has stayed stable and working without any issues and the music sounds excellent even the BBC content which is using a lossy codec . So hopefully by the end of this week I will have the Vortexbox fully complete and doing everything it should be doing . I will just let things play at the moment and enjoy it . I will then look in to how easy it is to load updated versions of LMS as I always used to use the nightly updates which kept that working . Not sure if like there is in Picoreplayer there is any way to add this to the Vortexbox software so it does automatically every night . Would be great if it could loaded as a cron job but leave that for another day . If I have to get a new link and add it weekly I will live with that .

 

[Lawrence001]

Unfortunately to update in Vortexbox it needs to be added to the updated software like in this link.

https://www.vortexbox.org/forum/main-forum/3828-version-8-4-0-of-lms-available

There's a way round it directly in Linux posted earlier though I think.

 

[slavedata]

Copied over onto my Test Vortexbox the revised covergrabber.php file. I'm afraid it doesn't work. When you rescan the library it gets to image scan and terminates unexpectedly.

 

[bencat]

Okay now that things are fully loaded and working as they should i can get my head up a little and digest what has been said here . To confirm when the Vortexbox arrived back from my brother he had loaded Fedora and Vortexbox 2.3 , this in turn had the LMS as 7.9 which was not good for me . I had made all the set up of LMS including removing those plug in,s I do not use and adding all those I do like Material Skin .

It was not till I was adjusting some settings that I noticed that they were absent and realised I was on 7.9 and 2.3 . At this stage Material Skin was working without any issues . I then after a quick look on line and following the instructions via SSH I started the upgrade to 2.5 Fedora and Vortexbox . In my case after adding a line there was quite a delay and no signs that anything was happening . Stay calm and patient it does finally give you another line and evidence that it is doing what you ask .

This upgrade went as sweet as a nut as I say it only required patience on my part and remember to a full reboot when you finish . Vortexbox opened up after this as 2.5 and with LMS 8.4 and Material Skin is still working without any issues .

Now I have to be truthful I do not really need to and will not be using the Vortexbox CD Drive . All of my CD rips are being done on my Laptop using dBPoweramp . I switch destinations from the USB HD connected to my Laptop which is my back up to the Vortexbox as a network drive straight in to the flac folder under files/music/flac pathway . Works well and means that dBPoweramp handles all the tagging and album pictures etc which it does really well . Another reason for doing this is that I use a USB Iomega CD/RW drive which is very fast and accurate and cuts ripping times in half .

I know that using this off board method to rip is not ideal for those who want to use the cd drive fitted but it does sort out the tagging issue mentioned above . So now waiting the delivery of the next bunch of CD,s I ordered and will rip those to both drives and make sure things are working correctly .

 

[slavedata]

Update art scanning
Just had another go at this with a new build 2.5 8.4 Vortexbox on my test machine.
Modified art scanner program now works.
To transfer the file needs access to a Linux machine.
Lawrence if you pm me your address I will stick a memory stick and instructions in the post to you. The memory stick has to be configured for ext3 file system.

Dave

 

[bencat]

Well running the new improved Vortexbox for over a week now and have to say it has been pretty much fit and forget . The MCRU power supply was working fine but did get a little hot , then like the idiot I am I remembered that I had a 12V 5Amp power supply on my MiniDSP 8x10 digital crossover . So put the MCRU in to the MiniDSP as this is only on a few hours at a time and put the other in to the Zen . Been on 24/7 for five days now and the case is as cool as you like . Background noise has dropped and everything in every room is sounding excellent . Loads of me CD,s have arrived and been ripped via laptop in to the Vortexbox and I have now reached the stage where only my 4TB USB hard drive can be used as back up all the 2TB units have become full . I might well have to invest in a new back up for my back up . Pleased now and very happy that I am not ever going to run out of space . Aside from being able to easily update LMS this set up just works well and let's me ignore it and just access my music .

 

[Lawrence001]

Copied over onto my Test Vortexbox the revised covergrabber.php file. I'm afraid it doesn't work. When you rescan the library it gets to image scan and terminates unexpectedly.

That's a shame thanks for trying I was a little sceptical. I assume you changed the file extension before you copied it?

 

[Lawrence001]

Well running the new improved Vortexbox for over a week now and have to say it has been pretty much fit and forget . The MCRU power supply was working fine but did get a little hot , then like the idiot I am I remembered that I had a 12V 5Amp power supply on my MiniDSP 8x10 digital crossover . So put the MCRU in to the MiniDSP as this is only on a few hours at a time and put the other in to the Zen . Been on 24/7 for five days now and the case is as cool as you like . Background noise has dropped and everything in every room is sounding excellent . Loads of me CD,s have arrived and been ripped via laptop in to the Vortexbox and I have now reached the stage where only my 4TB USB hard drive can be used as back up all the 2TB units have become full . I might well have to invest in a new back up for my back up . Pleased now and very happy that I am not ever going to run out of space . Aside from being able to easily update LMS this set up just works well and let's me ignore it and just access my music .

There was a basic PSU in the box I sent you of course.

 

[Lawrence001]

Update art scanning
Just had another go at this with a new build 2.5 8.4 Vortexbox on my test machine.
Modified art scanner program now works.
To transfer the file needs access to a Linux machine.
Lawrence if you pm me your address I will stick a memory stick and instructions in the post to you. The memory stick has to be configured for ext3 file system.

Dave

Doh replied too soon. Thanks that's amazing we could share this around I can forward on to anyone else that needs it.

 

[Lawrence001]

I've had a Eureka moment regarding the copy errors you encountered when copying files from the Zen to a HDD via Windows @bencat

It just happened to me with my Innuos Zen Mini Windows gave me an error that the files couldn't be found or something and I had to skip.

I realised all the files with issues were in folders that had the same names but one had small caps and one capitals. Eg "Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds" and "Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds".

Linux file paths are case sensitive whereas windows aren't. So Windows thinks they are the same folder but the Zen thinks they are different and Windows is looking in the wrong folder.

The solution may to change one folder name slightly or drag all the folders from one into the other and delete the empty one. This will copy all the files onto the HDD. What happens when the Zen tries to play them I don't know but hopefully a rescan of the music library again should sort. Not sure if anyone has a better idea @slavedata ?

 

[Craze]

I hope you guys can help me. I am totally new to vortexbox. I installed it in virtual box. I have a 2.4 version and a 2.5 version. Niether of them are working.

The 2.5 version will do one of several things:

1) tell me that a directory with some large negative number as a name exists and it "finishes" in 3 seconds doing nothing.

2) it creates a directory sdtructure which is clearly html i.e.
movies
|----->.
|------>html
|------> body

And then i may get a file name (happened once, but thats it)

It misreports that a rip took over 300 minutes

If i put an audio cd in, it straight crashes my system.

My system is a new build running on AMD 7800X3d w/32 gigs with Windows 11

The 2.4 version acts in a similar fashion...

I have used several optical drives... some dvd, some bluray and i have tried both dvd and bluray media.

Any insight or help would be much appreciated...

 

[slavedata]

I have never found a version of 2.5 on the web that works. I use the 2.4 iso from here.
https://wiki.vortexbox.org/available_images

Then using this method I upgrade to vesrion 2.5 with an up to date LMS

https://fedoramagazine.org/upgrading-fedora-24-fedora-25/

The resulting 2.5 version of Vortexbox then works fine. It's a long time since I used Vbox in a VM under windows but it used to work OK.

Try the method above and see if you get more luck using the resulting Vbox 2.5

 

[Craze]

I have never found a version of 2.5 on the web that works. I use the 2.4 iso from here.
https://wiki.vortexbox.org/available_images

Then using this method I upgrade to vesrion 2.5 with an up to date LMS

https://fedoramagazine.org/upgrading-fedora-24-fedora-25/

The resulting 2.5 version of Vortexbox then works fine. It's a long time since I used Vbox in a VM under windows but it used to work OK.

Try the method above and see if you get more luck using the resulting Vbox 2.5

Thanks so much for the response. I went through your suggested solution and I arrived at the same place..

I deleted the negative number directory that it was complaining about and put a disc in.

The first time i got the following:

Using device /dev/sr0 Reading DVD track info. Getting DVD name. Ripping to /storage/movies... Ripping main movie only (track 1) Ripping took 300 minutes and 19 seconds. 12/28/2023 00:19:31 - Done.

and it took all of 6 seconds to do nothing.

Then the second time i put in a dvd, it does nothing as if it doesnt see anything in the drive.....

i am so very confused... so many people seem to have good luck with this...

 

[slavedata]

Thanks so much for the response. I went through your suggested solution and I arrived at the same place..

I deleted the negative number directory that it was complaining about and put a disc in.

The first time i got the following:

Using device /dev/sr0 Reading DVD track info. Getting DVD name. Ripping to /storage/movies... Ripping main movie only (track 1) Ripping took 300 minutes and 19 seconds. 12/28/2023 00:19:31 - Done.

and it took all of 6 seconds to do nothing.

Then the second time i put in a dvd, it does nothing as if it doesnt see anything in the drive.....

i am so very confused... so many people seem to have good luck with this...

Have you tried ripping a CD does this work?