Forked-daapd and media player services

Configuration
27

Hi guys,

Not quite sure how to run the media player component. The examples I see are related to the media_content_id, but I don’t know where that is obtained.

Also, in the example above, there is reference to the library and the track, but not the album. How does the player know which track to play?

I’d like to queue up a radio stream. Anyone know where the media_content_id can be found for a a radio stream? It will play when I click on one of the radio stations I’ve set up under Music > Radio. Can I play that using the media player?

Also can entire albums be played, for example using something :album: instead of :track:?

28

Am at a bit of a loss to understand how the media player interacts with forked-daadp. I want to be able to script a track for playback.

From the api call I can see a track id from api/library/tracks/62 gives me:

{ "id": 62, "title": "Not Over Yet", "title_sort": "Not Over Yet", "artist": "Grace", "artist_sort": "Grace", "album": "Savage Meltdown Vol. 1", "album_sort": "Savage Meltdown Vol. 00001", "album_id": "6123511396315858213", "album_artist": "Gavin Campbell", "album_artist_sort": "Gavin Campbell", "album_artist_id": "1702076477525592772", "genre": "Electronica", "year": 1995, "track_number": 1, "disc_number": 1, "length_ms": 696064, "rating": 0, "play_count": 0, "skip_count": 0, "time_added": "2021-01-31T08:35:59Z", "seek_ms": 0, "type": "m4a", "samplerate": 44100, "bitrate": 275, "channels": 2, "media_kind": "music", "data_kind": "file", "path": "\/music\/itunes music\/Savage Meltdown Vol. 1\/01 Not Over Yet.m4a", "uri": "library:track:62", "artwork_url": "\/artwork\/item\/62" }

I gather the “uri” is used for track selection. Within developer tools / services I call media_payer.pay_media:

entity_id: media_player.forked_daapd_server
media_content_id: 'library:track:62'
media_content_type: music

I’ve tried this with and without “&” in the media_content_id field.

But the track does not play. Looking at the forled-daapd web-ui I see the player goes briefly to “shair” (assume that’s the shairport-sync pipe?). Then it resumes playing the previous track.

I am able to play play lists via the custom:mini-media-player lovelace card, so the connection seems to be working.

What am I missing? Is there another way to play a track? Say with MPD?

Any help appreciated.

29

The current version of the integration does not handle content_id and support only TTS. I created a fork for my use by removing TTS support and adding content_id management. If you have HACS, you can add this custom repo: https://github.com/davidlb/ha_forkeddaapd

1 Like
30

Great, I’ll check that out thanks.

31

Can’t it be added to the official integration?

32

@uvjustin is/was working on it to support TTS and manage content_id. I don’t know what is the status.

33

@uvjustin I definitely think this topic is worth reviving!

I ran into the same issue initially described by @davidlb , that is when calling .play_media causes activation of all zones, volume set to 80%. I realise this is not the original issue posted by @squirtbrnr, but in any case has been discussed in this thread in detail.

Now, I realize that @davidlb used his “quick and dirty” (his words :slight_smile: ) hack as a fork which he published, for which I am grateful, since this serves to solve the bug :+1:

However! why isn’t your own branch, which offers a more comprehensive solution (and also a browse_media functionality :exploding_head:) incorporated into core??

Personally, I’m not looking for browse-media functionality since my use of OwnTone is via pipe and stream URIs. So I guess if splitting this into two separate PRs would expedite its incorporation into core, it’s worth a thought. All in all, this would be very useful, and at least all the people involved in this thread would be interested in it!

Thank you for this great component :clap:

34

Sorry all, due to various reasons I was not able to keep up with this component. I’ve recently taken a look at it again and will try to update it over the coming month.

3 Likes
35

I’ve pushed a few changes to the following branch: uvjustin/home-assistant at update-forked-daapd (github.com). You can download the files from homeassistant/components/forked_daapd and place them in your local custom_components/forked_daapd folder. The initial changes include supporting the announce/enqueue service calls and updating the media browser functionality. Please try it out when you get a chance, and feel free to provide some feedback so I can further improve the component.

1 Like
36

I’ve tested the update as a custom_component as suggested.
For TTS the experience is pretty much in sync with this discussion thread, however for other Browse Media options (i.e. Radio streams) overriding the current owntone output on/off and volume settings is probably not what the average user would like to see.

37

Thanks for testing it out and leaving a comment.
Are you sure you’re using the update-forked-daapd branch? It should not be doing anything with the volume for the other browse media options - it only does that for the options that use the ATTR_MEDIA_ANNOUNCE flag such as TTS.

38

Just verified it with an .mp3 file residing in ‘/media’. On pressing Play in the media browser all 6 players defined in owntone are turned on and the volume cranked up. The kids love it :smiley:

39

I see. I realized that for some reason putting the folder in custom_components doesn’t override the integration. I think this is probably what you are seeing.
If you are brave enough, can you replace the contents of the original /usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/forked_daapd folder with the files from my branch? That should work. You will be able to tell that it worked by opening up the media browser with your Owntone instance selected as an output - in addition to the other media sources available, you should also see a bunch of folders with Owntone’s own media listed there.

40

This one has been solved here.
Adding the version tag to manifest.json helps loads the custom_component correctly. I can see the owntone folders in Browse Media. I’ll test the audio functionality in ~1h :sleeping_bed: :sleeping:

41

Oooh yes :slight_smile:

Screenshot 2022-09-11 at 17.29.15
Screenshot 2022-09-11 at 17.29.15674×1152 161 KB

42

Thanks, I will update the manifest.json with a version for use as a custom component.

43

Added experimental Spotify browsing support if the Spotify component is installed.
Note that I won’t merge this feature anytime soon as a proper implementation requires changes to the Spotify component.

44

The changes I’ve made to update the media browsing functionality have been pulled into the HA 2022.10 beta and will be in HA starting from 2022.10 onwards.
I will make some changes to change the volume setting behavior when I have some time, but since I haven’t seen much feedback here regarding my recent changes except from @ddppddpp, I am not going to make this a priority.

2 Likes
45

I’ve just upgraded to latest version and I wanted to thank you @uvjustin for the good work! It now works as expected :slight_smile:

46

Anyone know how to prevent the Owntone integration from auto connecting to all available speakers with playing from the HA media player? This only happens when playing something from HA to the Owntone server so I think it’s an integration issue.