Wow, bit of a trip doing a search and finding my fork listed here!
The issue with this is that playback seems to stall out after the first time playing media. I’m worried a lot more has changed that just a name in forked-daapd > owntone.
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@chase9 Yep, I think so too… 
At this moment I have a stable
workaround with the following docker image: linuxserver/daapd - LinuxServer.io.
Installed with the Portainer add-on. Unfortunately it’s not visible in Hass.io and doesn’t survive a reboot of the host, but most important the airplay speaker is working! 
Hey everyone, been running daapd for some time now and love it. That said, one thing I’ve struggled to figure out is how to automate forcing daapd to rescan the library? Only way I know of is directly through the daapd web UI, but hoping I can automate this. (Daapd doesn’t pick up new files/etc on my mounted drives).
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Not sure why you’d like to automate library rescans, however there’s a good description in the owntone readme for triggers:
touch /some/local/dir/trigger.init-rescan
Once you learn how to do that from the Owntone host CLI, you could setup a command_line switch similar to:
- platform: command_line
switches:
rescan_forkeddaapd:
command_on: "/usr/bin/ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/config/.ssh/known_hosts -i /config/.ssh/id_rsa user@IP touch /path/to/trigger.init-rescan"
command_off: off
command_state: off
friendly_name: Rescan Onwtone Library
I’m running my forked_daapd on a dedicated Pi so I plain restart it instead, but that’s me. If you’re up to this, there are tons of helpful tips how to setup command line switches here.
And then you can go and automate it. I hope this helps 
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Hi sorry to raise this from the dead but your post turned up in a search result for ‘itunes ratings’ I’ve been happily using iTunes API for a few years, but recently thought about moving to forked-daapd. Can you change song ratings with it?
Hi
on my side I tried to install forked-daapd in my homeassistant (on rasperry) but I have anerror.
My understanding isforked-daapd is nolonger maintened but has been replaced bu owntone.
Unfortunqtelly I tried to find the hassio repository but… without success.
So I am stucked…
You can change song ratings, yes, for example with the iTunes Remote or other daap client, or via the forked-daapd UI itself. And smart playlists will update based on ratings, etc, just like in iTunes.
If you want your main iTunes library to use these ratings, you will probably want to run forked-daapd against your primary itunes library. This can be done by sharing the library folder with wherever you are running forked-daapd and have it access it as the primary library it runs against. Or you could set up your itunes to use forked-daapd as it’s libary by running as a daap client. There are guides on how to do this stuff on YouTube.
I don’t know of a way to change song ratings within home assistant though. I don’t see a service call for it.
I can confirm that you can run multiple owntone (forked_daapd) instances on the same server, so long as you configure them to run on different ports (and separate out the databases). HA even sees them all and will offer for you to configure them. HOWEVER, it will only let you configure one instance. Once you attempt to configure a second instance it throws up an error. Even more, it can (and will) redefine the name of your configured instance when it sees the broadcast of the other instance, because it’s only checking the hostname and not the port number.
I opened Issue 60313 on this topic (I’m trying to get ~4-5 instances running simultaneously to support different zones in my house). Who knows if/when it’ll get fixed, so I might need to install N VMs to host N instances of owntone. 
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Ive deployed owntone server, looking at how to move from Google home devices to AirPlay devices for playing local music. Do you guys just interact with the web ui for owntone via Remote apps or do you use the web UI?
I have added the web UI in a webpage lovelace card on my tablet device, its a bit small but workable. Just wondering if there is a better way with the native HA media browser to browse local music and play to airplay but i dont think there is.
I do everything via the homeassistant UI unless I need a specific album or song, then I use use the Apple Remote app. You can see how I have it here
So each of your media player entities is from the owntone server?
When you play music do you then tap each one on/off if you want it to play as part of a group?
Or because you are using the iTunes integration you get different entities?
Yes one owntone server gives me all of those entities. I stopped using the iTunes integration after I installed owntone. You can select the speakers and adjust volumes manually and then press play on the main owntone media player to play the media. You can select playlists via the button or dropdown on the mini media player.
But how I actually use it most of the time is via alexa which I have programmed my main playlists into as voice commands which then launch this appdaemon app I wrote which will then look at which alexa I made the request to and turn on the appropriate speakers for the room, set the volume correctly by room and playlist, and then play the playlist I asked alexa to play. So I just say “alexa, play jazz music” in whatever room I’m in and it will handle everything needed. If I go to another room and want to add those speakers, I can just say “alexa turn on the speakers” and it will add those speakers to what’s already playing.
Nice setup. Makes more sense now you have explained it. For me I was seeing the main owntone media player was showing the media art but the other media players (airplay endpoints) where not showing their status.
So far I’ve just added owntone page in an iframe Lovelace card.
It’s a shame airplay devices don’t integrate better like chrome casts.
Hi there, thanks for the great write up! Can Owntone play a Spotify multi-room audio stream on a combination of native AirPlay devices (like Sonos) and Google Cast (like Chromecast, Nest Hubs etc.) devices?
Yes It can do all of that! I don’t personally use Spotify that much but I’ve played with it enough to see that that’s possible.
Thanks very much! I’ve just installed it and having a couple of issues, but feel like I’m close to my goal of syncing Sonos and Google Home speakers together.
Currently my native AirPlay Sonos is about a second in front of the Google speakers. I’ve tried to add the following to my owntone config but it results in Owntone not booting:
airplay "My Speaker Name" {
offset_ms = 500
}
If I remove the offser_ms = 500 and set another option like nickname it boots, so I seem to have the syntax and speaker name correct. I found that the above code was suggested in a couple of forums by one of the Owntone devs, but it may have been deprecated since then.
I also tried uncommenting the high_resolution_clock = yes but that made no difference.
Do you have any suggestions on how I could get things in sync? Is it a common use case to Google Cast and AirPlay devices together?
Ah, that’s a different case. I highly doubt that it will allow synchronization between chromecast and airplay devices. Each uses it’s own protocol for syncing up and they aren’t compatible.
It would certainly be great if Owntone had figured out some way to bridge these protocols to make them sync up, but based on your testing, it appears that’s not the case.
At a minimum I can promise you that airplay devices should sync up with each other if they implemented AirPlay correctly (I did find one device where that wasn’t the case, and it wouldn’t sync up using iTunes either). Hopefully that would be true of Chromecast devices with other Chromecast devices too…
Maybe only put devices of the same type in close proximity to each other?
Oh dang, that’s a shame. Yeah I suppose I could put my Sonos in the garage or something and that would get around it, hadn’t thought of that. Did you do something similar with your Audiocast device?
If anyone else has any experience with syncing AirPlay and Google devices and could chime in, that would be helpful!
Yes I put the audiocast device in my daughter’s room, she only ever plays music there, not in other places in the house.
@scstraus - Just looking over your GitHub and see that you have buttons for each playlist.
When selecting the button, does the media automatically play?
Mine does not and I have to select the playlist and then hit play - which is annoying. Wondering if this is isolated to my system or if this is standard?