Need help with multi-room experience with snapcast clients / groups

[jojo141185]

I use several Snapcast clients to create a multi-room experience with musicassistant. I encountered a few problems during my testing, which I would like to briefly explain here.

Depending on the zone/room, I created different groups and assigned the corresponding clients to this group. In addition, I added all clients to the "Default" group, which allows me to select my music source by default and then specifically switch on/off the zones that are currently being played. Depending on which room I am in, the active zones/clients should be able to be activated or deactivated at the touch of a button.

Currently, if I deactivate one of the clients in the "default" zone (via the power button), the music continues to play here.
In Snapweb WebUI, the client shows separated from the group, but the same source is still assigned.

I also noticed that a random "sync leader" is defined in Snapcast groups. It is currently not possible to deactivate this client without stopping the entire music stream. Is a “sync leader” even necessary in a pure Snapcast group? If so, wouldn't it be possible for another client from the group to simply take over the leadership in this case?

A simple workaround for me would be if I could simply mute clients in the "default" zone. But I haven't figured out how to do this via the MusicAssistant web UI.
Before I open a feature request here, I wanted to make sure that I understood and implemented the concept correctly in musicassistant.

[SantiagoSotoC]

Yes, for now a sync master is required. It is a music assistant requirement not a snapcast requirement. The idea is to be able to change the master dynamically but I haven't found time for that yet and there are some other details to fix first

[OzGav]

Note Marcel is doing an overhaul of groups at the moment.

[jojo141185]

Thank you for your answer. That sounds very promising!
Is there already a plan for what the new concept should look like?
Personally, I think the concept of the Sonos app is ideal. Individual speakers can be paired and then groups/zones (e.g. for individual rooms) can be created from them, which can then be added to or removed from the active source with a single click. The new preset function allows a whole selection of several groups to be quickly switched active or inactive (e.g. ground floor, all, etc.) - so the user does not have to select the same groups manually again and again.

On the other topic: I currently have the problem that if someone has muted a device, for example via the Snapweb UI, it is displayed as muted via the MusicAssistant interface, but you cannot unmute it.
Do you plan to integrate a function for muting or unmuting individual Snapcast devices or groups, e.g. in the MusicAssistant volume overview?

I have been a user of mopidy for many years. I really like musicassistant as an alternative and hope to be able to switch to it in my production system soon. At this point I would like to say a big thank you for your fantastic work here!

[OzGav]

Its more a simplification the grouping mechanisms. Discussions are ongoing internally.

On the Snapcast muting I can see what you mean. @SantiagoSotoC thoughts?

[SantiagoSotoC]

Mute/unmute is already implemented at the provider level. it's a frontend discussion.

On the topic groups I think it is a more generic discussion, the focus is on how the UX should be, it is not specific to snapcast

[OzGav]

beta 30 is released which has a reworked groups functionality.

[jojo141185]

@OzGav Thanks for the info!

I finally had the chance to test the new beta version 2.3.0 b33 today. What can I say... The new implementation in the frontend regarding group management is excellent! Even muting individual clients works now. Thanks! :-)

I have put the corresponding snapclients into separate groups for each room. Then I created an overarching group called "Wohnung" that includes all available snapclients.
It would be great if you could add entire rooms (Snapcast groups) to this overarching group "Wohnung" in order to be able to control (volume, mute, ...) the clients of every room in a bundled manner.

During the subsequent testing, I encountered a few issues:

1. When I try to pause the song in a Snapcast group, the following error appears:

2024-10-21 21:35:58.964 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.players] Handling command cmd_pause for player Büro
2024-10-21 21:35:58.964 ERROR (MainThread) [music_assistant.webserver] Error handling message: CommandMessage(message_id=111, command='players/cmd/play_pause', args={'player_id': 'syncgroup_ydrwggvk'})
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/players.py", line 92, in wrapper
    await func(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/players.py", line 226, in cmd_pause
    await player_provider.cmd_pause(player.player_id)
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/providers/player_group/__init__.py", line 337, in cmd_pause
    await player_provider.cmd_pause(sync_leader.player_id)
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/models/player_provider.py", line 83, in cmd_pause
    raise NotImplementedError
NotImplementedError

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/webserver.py", line 362, in _run_handler
    result = await result
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/players.py", line 258, in cmd_play_pause
    await self.cmd_pause(player.player_id)
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/players.py", line 94, in wrapper
    raise PlayerCommandFailed(str(err)) from err
music_assistant.common.models.errors.PlayerCommandFailed

The playback can only be stopped by powering off!

2. To quickly add or remove individual clients from the current playback, I activated the experimental option "Enable Dynamic Members." Initially, this worked quite well, but then, the following error occurred when trying to turn on a player group (power button).:

2024-10-21 22:05:05.938 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.webserver] Handling command players/cmd/power
2024-10-21 22:05:05.939 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.players] Handling command cmd_power for player Büro
2024-10-21 22:05:05.940 DEBUG (MainThread) [music_assistant.players] Handling command cmd_unsync for player raspi-buero
2024-10-21 22:05:05.940 ERROR (MainThread) [music_assistant.webserver] Error handling message: CommandMessage(message_id=33, command='players/cmd/power', args={'player_id': 'syncgroup_ydrwggvk', 'powered': True})
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/players.py", line 92, in wrapper
    await func(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/players.py", line 622, in cmd_unsync
    await group_provider.cmd_unsync_member(player_id, player.active_group)
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/providers/player_group/__init__.py", line 599, in cmd_unsync_member
    raise UnsupportedFeaturedException(
music_assistant.common.models.errors.UnsupportedFeaturedException: Adjusting group members is not allowed for group Büro

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/players.py", line 92, in wrapper
    await func(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/players.py", line 348, in cmd_power
    await player_provider.cmd_power(player_id, powered)
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/providers/player_group/__init__.py", line 394, in cmd_power
    await self._sync_syncgroup(group_player)
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/providers/player_group/__init__.py", line 742, in _sync_syncgroup
    await self.mass.players.cmd_unsync(member.player_id)
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/players.py", line 94, in wrapper
    raise PlayerCommandFailed(str(err)) from err
music_assistant.common.models.errors.PlayerCommandFailed: Adjusting group members is not allowed for group Büro

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/webserver.py", line 362, in _run_handler
    result = await result
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/music_assistant/server/controllers/players.py", line 94, in wrapper
    raise PlayerCommandFailed(str(err)) from err
music_assistant.common.models.errors.PlayerCommandFailed: Adjusting group members is not allowed for group Büro

Even after deactivating the "Dynamic Members" feature, I was no longer able to activate any player. Each attempt resulted in the same error.
The only solution was to reactivate the feature, deactivate all players (uncheck from the list), and delete and recreate the group "Wohnung".

Well, this can happen when playing with experimental features ;-)
Hopefully, my experience helps, and you can reproduce or even fix the issue based on the debug logs above.

[OzGav]

@SantiagoSotoC @marcelveldt

[SantiagoSotoC]

Does this still happen in the latest beta ?

[OzGav]

@jojo141185 have you tried with the latest beta?

[jojo141185]

I was able to test the current BETA version 2.4.0b3.
The music in the Snapcast player groups can now be paused and restarted without any problems. This works perfectly so far!
I have added all the permanently installed Snapcast players from the various rooms to the group "Wohnung" and activated the experimental "Dynamic members" option.
There are still massive problems when you try to activate or deactivate different players in this group:

1. The individual groups can no longer be switched on due to an error. This also occurs immediately after starting MusicAssistant
   debuglog_musicassistant_v240b3.log

2. There seem to be problems when changing the master or the grouping / ungrouping in Snapcast. The deselected player seems to be removed from the group, but a stream is still assigned to it, which then continues to play the same music (at least until the next song change).
   debuglog_musicassistant_dynamicgroup_v240b3.log

Thank you for taking care of the problems. If you need further information, please feel free to ask.