Beta Ommpc

[Coder_TimT]

Figured I'd start things off with a beta test and see how much needs to be tweaked/fixed before uploading anywhere. For those not familiar with OMMPC from the gp2x or wiz, basically it is an MPD client along with a standalone version of MPD packaged together. MPD never really worked as a daemon for the gp2x and I think this packaging still works well for the Pandora, although it's not technically necessary. If you already have mpd setup and running, then ommpc will attach to it, otherwise it's going to start it up for you.

First a few comments. My mpd is currently compiled without FLAC support as I was getting a crash scanning for music with it in there. On the positive side, it is compiled for AAC and the included libfaad is correctly compiled for fixed point math and thus uses significantly less cpu for AAC than any other player using the version included in the OS. Also, currently the triggers are not mapped as I still have to figure out how to capture the left one and the cpu speed and screen blanking logic isn't currently working. And the biggest thing is that you apparently need to be connected to wifi or have wifi disabled or mpd gets confused and things don't work correctly. If you hit this problem ommpc will start very slowly and be pretty unresponsive. If your patient you can eventually get it killed...

Download and run the pnd file and you should be presented with the settings screen where you will enter your music, playlist, and album art paths. Also currently if your SD card mountpoint changes you will need to edit your settings accordingly. This shouldn't be a problem after hotfix 3. Go on down the list and select Save and then restart the application. Then you will need to go to Settings->Update Databse. Depending on your library size this can take quite a few minutes. You can go to the Music Library and it will say Updating Database on the screen until it's finished.

Then create a playlist and listen to some music... Let me know what problems you have here... The first thing I noticed it that appending a single song to a playlist apparently crashes the app...which is a bad thing, so that will be the first thing I'll work on. I would like to fix that even before releasing a beta, but I really need to go to work now... :angry:

As I'm sure people will want to change them and there currently isn't a way to do so in the app, I've attached the key binding file to edit. Just place it in your appdata folder and the changes will be picked up when the app is restarted. To get started important keys to remember are p and m to select and bring up the menu. Or if you are familiar with the gp2x version, use the game B button to select and the start button for the menu. For more key binding info select 'h' for help. Tap and hold on list items will bring up a context menu... Just ask if you have a specific question...

Download OMMPC pnd

 

[Coder_TimT]

Hmm, not many downloads...maybe I shouldn't have called it a beta. Anywho, I fixed the appending song to playlist crash and uploaded a new pnd file over the top of the old one. Didn't bother with updating version numbers or anything since there had only been a few downloads.

 

[Coder_TimT]

I think a howto is needed
when i open the pnd, it says MPD hasn't started and I'm supposed to edit settings, which i don't know where.
also, music path could be selected by a prompting folder selection window

well, those are my suggestions for the moment, pretty frontend btw, love that, big buttons

When it brings you to the screen that says mpd hasn't started, it's sitting on the settings screen. You need to scroll down the list to get to the paths to edit them...then continuing scrolling down until you see save. That's mentioned in the above post, but I guess not clear enough.

 

[Coder_TimT]

when i click on save, after editting music path (manually!!!), it crashes every time
i'm running the newly uploaded version

Blech, and the troubleshooting begins. I haven't had any issue like that thus far, plus I don't actually have my Pandora with me right now to experiment with, so I will have to look into it later this evening.

In the meantime,check if ommpc.conf got created in your appdata directory, if so you can try directly tweaking the paths there.

 

[Coder_TimT]

i happen to find out that mpd is gone from my system
installed it again

ommpc.conf is not there, but there are mpd.conf and ommpc.out
check'em

ommpc.out

...
Process Exception: CONFIG: Unable to open config file: ommpc.conf

mpd.conf

...

tried changing paths, no success

I don't think I'm going to have an immediate solution for you, but I have a few comments that might help troubleshoot(or might not).

1. You don't need mpd installed...the pnd includes a standalone mpd which should be started when you start ommpc
2. However if you already have mpd installed and working, then it should just use that already running version. However the paths in ommpc.conf still need to be pointing to valid folders or the client doesn't let you continue.
3. I actually generate the mpd.conf file you see there based on the values in ommpc.conf, so editing it will not work.
4. Our output file seems to hold the key to the real problem. When you're trying to save your settings it tried to write to ommpc.conf and for some reason cannot. It's almost as if it's trying to write to the readonly mountpoint instead of the appdata directory.
5. I thought I had tested from a "blank slate", but maybe I actually still had a appdata folder with conf file already in it. Again, I'll have to test futher when I get home to see if I can figure out what's going on...
6. In the meantime, if you just want to try it out, I've attached the ommpc.conf file you should be able to throw in your appdata directory. I would bet at that point it's able to save the file without crashing...or you could just edit the paths in the file to begin with.
7. The only other thing I can think of is if your card was near full and the file couldn't be written, but as it's writing out the log file and other conf file, I would think that is unlikely to be the case.

Anyway, thanks for trying it out and working through this with me. Not a great start for me.

 

[Coder_TimT]

nah, don't worry, i'm glad to help!

so, i removed previous mpd.conf and ommpc.out, editted the attached ommpc.conf file and gave it a run.

at first, it took ages for the frontend to appear on the screen, then i could see in the ommpc.out the line
'setting Pandora clock to 1'
strange

well, rebooted, gave another run,
tried to update DB, it crashed and songdb-journal file was generated
selecting New Playlist has no effect

couldn't play any songs yet, but keeping the faith

good luck, bro

well it appears the config write crash is related to using fat32...the other crashes are likely to be also. I've been testing with ext2 on my card. Time for full regression testing on fat32...

edit...
oh yeah. don't worry about the clock set statement either. For one thing it's not working, and it's okay otherwise also since I'm using a value of 1 to tell my function to reset the clock to what it was when the program was started.

As for the slow behavior the one time, I've found that to happen when wifi is enabled but your not actually connected to anything. Not sure if that was the problem here, but worth mentioning again anyway.

I got the same crash updating the db when using fat32...will have to figure out now what exactly is going on...

 

[Coder_TimT]

Version is now updated to 0.5.1 and available at the download location. This version should work on fat32 partitions. One remaining caveat, if you're currently not running the Hotfix 3 beta, write speed to a fat32 partition is pretty bad, so you will notice two things. 1). When you save the config it will not be instantaneous. 2) The startup after saving a good configuration will take 20+ seconds as it copies over a sqlite database file over to the card. Subsequent startup times are fine... With Hotfix 3, fat32 works just as quickly as ext2, at least in relation to ommpc.

 

[Coder_TimT]

nothing's changed, still crashing
paths are ok, afaik

ommpc.out

lang us-en
bad paths...not starting mpd
child exit status 255
1 joysticks were found.
gpio-keys
set video mode
setting Pandora clock to 500
br 452
Unable to load big vol button image: Couldn't open skins/scribble_800/vol_backBig.png
Unable to load big vol button image: Couldn't open skins/scribble_800/vol_foreBig.png
Unable to load button image: Couldn't open skins/icons/gant/rnd_back.png
Unable to load button image: Couldn't open skins/icons/gant/rpt_back.png
Unable to load button image: Couldn't open skins/icons/gant/action_1_back.png
Unable to load button image: Couldn't open skins/icons/gant/action_2_back.png
target fps=15
away we go
command menu stetet

Where are you getting a crash, updating the database? I would blow away the appdata directory to make sure there aren't any extraneous files in there. I know there was at least one temp file created with the previous crashes writing out the songdb. Also, are you sure the previous ommpc.pnd cleanly unmounted from the last tests. Obviously if you've restarted th e pandora in the meantime, this isn't a problem, but if you crashed the previous run it would possibly leave mpd running and thus not umount the pnd file. Then when you run the program again it doesn't actually end up using the new version. Couple of things you can do to to find out...

• Run df on the command line and see if there are any ommpc mountpoints
• Just run ommpc again, hit 'h' and see what version is printed at the top of the help screen.

 

[Coder_TimT]

Where are you getting a crash, updating the database?
Yes

I would blow away the appdata directory to make sure there aren't any extraneous files in there.
blown, also deleted /mnt/pnd/ommpc and /mnt/utmp/ommpc

Run df on the command line and see if there are any ommpc mountpoints
ok, no unwanted mountpoints

Just run ommpc again, hit 'h' and see what version is printed at the top of the help screen.
ok, v. ommpc 0.5.1

and...

crash again

Can you give me a file listing of the appdata folder, so I can try to get a feel for where in the process it's crashing. Also, take a look at .mpdlog and .mpderror and see if there is anything odd in there...and if there's anything more in ommpc.out... I can get an immediate crash if the paths are not setup correctly and I attempt to update the database. You should still see the "mpd is not started, edit configuration and restart" message at the top in that case though.

Are you running with your own version of mpd or using the provided one?

 

[Coder_TimT]

...


EDIT: WOW, WOW, WOW... Working now, my paths weren't that cool, my bad, damn, nice app, big buttons

Woohoo! Glad it's going for you. Yeah, don't worry about the programRoot...it's depreciated just haven't removed it. I guess I should look into a folder picker to make the paths easier to setup... Not a trivial thing to do using straight SDL like I am though...

 

[sparkymark]

any screenies around? (at work)

 

[God Ginrai]

any screenies around? (at work)

I believe he made a topic about this in GenTalk about a week or two back. That should have screenies, IIRC.

-God Ginrai