Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the prerequisites to run the application?
   eezUPnP is a JAVA application and so you need to have a installed Java Runtime Environment (as example from here). You can download any implementation, also in a newer version like Java 17. The application is desktop software and needs a graphical window environment like 'MS Windows'.
2. Windows: The program doesn't start, i got the message "Java was started but returned exit code == 2"
   On MS Windows this is a common problem with botchy JAVA installations. Typical reasons are mixed 32 and 64 bit installations and older/newer JAVA versions in a shared environment. There is no simple solution (the only simple answer is a complete/clear new installation of your Windows). But you can check the following: The Windows system folder ("C:\Windows\system32") mostly contains the three JAVA launchers java.exe, javaw.exe and javaws.exe. These three executables should be the same files than in the /bin folder of your JAVA home (%JAVA_HOME%, a folder like "C:\Program Files\Java\jre7"). Check date and size of the files. If (one or more of) the files are different, replace the files in the Windows system folder with the files from the JAVA installation directory.
3. Linux: Pushing the 'play' button doesn't start playing with builtin player.
   Trying to play any track with builtin player fails with the message "The sound system is rejecting the activation to play!".
   One reason is: You are using the OpenJDK (instead of a Sun/Oracle variant) as JAVA VM. OpenJDK is using the 'PulseAudio' system as default to play audio on a computer. With a incomplete or missed 'PulseAudio' installation no sound is possible with eezUPnP.
4. When is gapless playing available?
   There are several factors influencing the capability to play music gapless between tracks. First: the tracks to play gapless should be of same content type (MP3, OGG, FLAC,...). Remark: MP3 is not designed for gapless playing.
   The internal player of eezUPnP is trying to play all streams gapless, but does not cut any silence at begin or end. The tracks have to start and end without 'dummy' sound frames.
   Remote/Hardware based UPnP clients may have a different behaviour. A client playing a complete playlist may preload tracks for gapless playing with it's own strategy... but eezUPnP doesn't pass complete lists to clients, because many clients give not back a correct feedback about the playing conditions so eezUPnP has to limit the required functionality to work together with most renderers. But there is another way existing: the UPnP specification defines a optional command called 'SetNextAVTransportURI' to announce a track following to the current played one. Every device supporting that command is able to play gapless while controlled by eezUPnP. Allowing a client to play the 'next track' automatically is resulting in loosing of control for eezUPnP and the software has to trust in a correct implementation of communication protocol. So it's recommended to use DLNA certified devices, they have not so many bugs :-)
5. How can i see the state of local cache?
   Creating a local cache of meta data of available UPnP servers is a background activity outside of control by the user. You can see a small animated indicator () while the caching process is running on the right side in the lower status bar. Every change in the content of the media server will trigger a complete rebuild of the cache.
   The indicator is only available for the standalone application, not while integrated into Eclipse.
6. I have problems using eezUPnP, how can i get more informations?
   In case of problems using the software like buttons do nothing, the application open popup windows with error messages and many more, it can be helpful to get the chance for a deeper inspection of the software. There are two existing commandline options for user:

   • -consoleLog
     This option opens a console window where you can see informations about the 'living' software.
   • -debug
     In Addition to the first option this one increase the detail level of informations: a log file is written to $home/.eezupnp/log and a list of files reporting all found devices and it's capabilities is also written.
7. Linux: eezUPnP does not start on my GTK+ desktop
   Some linux distributions have a GTK+ 3 installation not completely supported by the Eclipse platform used by eezUPnP. In such a case the software does not open any window. On the console you can see error messages like:
   
   _{Gtk:ERROR:/build/buildd/gtk+3.0-3.15.4/./gtk/gtkstylecontext.c:338:gtk_css_node_get_parent_style:
   assertion failed: (cssnode->parent == NULL || cssnode->parent->values !=NULL)}
   
   You can force the software to use the GTK+ 2 version by inserting the following two lines at beginning of file CP.ini in the application directory:
   --launcher.GTK_version
   2
   
   This is the default since version 3.0 of eezUPnP.

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