pCloud playback issue

Support
1

Issue description:

Hello, I am experiencing playback issues with Symfonium and streaming from the pCloud cloud space. The issues started about two weeks ago.

The problem is as follows: when I start playing a track, it begins playing and then, after a few seconds (usually between 2 and 20 seconds), the track restarts from the beginning. After that, playback continues without any issues. All my source files are in WavPack format (they are transcoded to ALAC by Symfonium). However, I do not encounter any problems with WavPack files stored in the phone’s memory. The issue suddenly appeared even with files that played fine on pCloud more than two weeks ago. I haven’t found anyone reporting the same issue.

But while searching, I learned that pCloud had modified their APIs around the time the problem started. I don’t know if it’s related. To rule out any doubts, I also removed the pCloud drive yesterday and set it up again. The library was fully rebuilt overnight. However, the problem persists in the same way.

I also tried with a FLAC encoded album: no issue at all.

It’s my first time here: I enabled the debug mode some hours ago. I don’t know if you get it.

Logs:

Upload description: Curwen

Additional information:

 
Appeared around two weeks ago.
 

Reproduction steps:

 

  • File format: WavPack (lossy) encoded with version 5.70 or 5.80. Bitrate : between 400 kbps for 44100 Hz audio.
  • Occured with most or maybe all albums in this format.
  • Symfonium version: 12..3.0 (127402)
     

Media provider:

pCloud

Screenshots:

     

2

Please upload one of those files to https://upload.symfonium.app then tell me so I can try to reproduce.

3

I sent you some files

4

Can’t reproduce :frowning: Have you tried to reboot the phone and clear playback cache in advanced settings just in case ?
Does it happen 100% of the times ?
Any settings changed you may have made like enabling cross fade or smart fades ?

5

Hi Tolriq, thanks for your efforts.
I tried to delete the cache. I also uninstalled the app, reboot and install it again. Same issue.
I don’t know if it helps but take a quick look at this video:

It seems that the first seconds are loading, and when it reaches the end of the cache it starts again. I don’t have any issue with flac.
Can the ALAC auto-encoding be the culprit? What other format need to be ALAC-converted by Symfonium? I can try on my side if it happens as well.
Thanks :slight_smile:

6

Dsd, ape …

But yes this is a race somewhere probably between transcoding and cache and maybe waveform.

You can try to disable playback cache and see if it workaround this.

7

Thanks Tolriq. I’ll try with APE.
How can I disable the playback cache? On the Playback settings? I can’t find it (items are translated to french).

8

In offline cache then playback.

9

Thanks, I was looking at the wrong place.
In short: cache was disabled all the time. I enable it (put 1.2 GB) but nothing changes.
I also tried with the APE format (still hosted on pCloud): bingo, same issue than WavPack.

So apparently the issue occurs when ALAC-encoding is involved.

10

So was able to reproduce when artificially slowing down access to pCloud a lot.

Will add a workaround to better handle that in next release.

11

Very nice Tolriq! Thanks for all your work :slight_smile:

12

I just saw that an update has been posted on Reddit. So far, all the playback and caching issues seem to be solved. Thank you for addressing my issues and releasing a fix so quickly!