Android App Plays One Song Then Stops

[rcblackwell]

I've installed Mezzmo Pro for Android on a Sony Xperia T3. Mezzmo Android finds the Mezzmo server on my PC and successfully lists all playlist. When I select and add songs to the Mezzmo Android playlist the first song plays fine. Subsequent songs in the list fail to play. This behaviour seems related to the sleep function of the phone as if I maintain the display in an active mode by occasionally swiping my finger across it the next song in the playlist will load and play. If I ignore the screen and allow it to go to sleep the current song will play until the end but the next song will not load and play. If I wake the phone the next song starts playing about ten seconds after the phone awakes. I have looked for a setting to prevent this behaviour but cannot find one. The renderer device on the phone is Mezzmo. Share Local Server and Auto Start Local server have been disabled as music is being streamed from a remote PC to the phone. How can I correct this problem?

[Peter]

Hi,
it is possible that your Wifi connection is being turned off when the phone goes to sleep, please go to the Wifi settings on your phone and press the menu button to get to the advanced settings then make sure the setting for wifi to remain active when the phone goes to sleep is set to Always.

[rcblackwell]

.... go to the Wifi settings on your phone and press the menu button to get to the advanced settings then make sure the setting for wifi to remain active when the phone goes to sleep is set to Always.

Wi-Fi Always On was enabled some time ago as I had a different application that required it. Checked it anyway - as suspected, it is set to always on. FYI: A Sony Walkman application on the same phone streams from Mezzmo PC Server without interruption even when the phone goes to sleep. This suggests Wi-Fi is always on even when the phone sleeps. What else could be causing this issue?

[Peter]

This could be a wake lock issue in the app, can you please try streaming music from the server in the android app to see if the same problem occurs?

[rcblackwell]

Some interesting findings.......

When steaming music from the Android App server to the Android App on the phone, songs continue to play.

When music is "Pushed" from the Mezzmo Server on the PC to the Android App on the phone, songs continue to play without interruption.

[Peter]

The Mezzmo app holds a partial wake lock on the android system when the app is in the foreground, when the app goes into the background the wake lock is released. This occurs when the lock screen is shown also.
The Mezzmo android server holds a wake lock also while it is running, if the server is not running then the phone could go into deep sleep and this will prevent the app from receiving the broadcast to play the next song.
Do you have the Mezzmo app's server set to start automatically when starting the app?

[rcblackwell]

No, the Android Server was not running, not until I tried "pushing" music to the app from the PC. I found out you can't push to the android app when the server is off - the android app isn't seen on the Mezzmo PC server until the Android server is enabled and started. Let me try running the app again now that the server is set to start automatically.

Testing, testing..........

- first song is playing now
- waiting for next song to start
- interesting..... the next song started
- let's let it play through to see of the next song on the playlist will play
- the second song completed and the that next song on the playlist is now playing

Looks like the Android server needs to be enabled and auto-started with the application otherwise only the first song on the playlist plays.

[Peter]

Thanks for the testing results, this indicates that the wake lock in the android server is the only thing keeping android from going into deep sleep. We will fix this for the next update, until then you can keep the android server running to work around the issue.

[mhg]

This thread is rather old and looks like the issue is (or should be) solved however it's not the case: actually I'm using Android Mezzmo 2.0.10 under Marshmallow 6.0.1 system and in fact playlist playing is stopped after system is locked. The sequence of events is as follows:

- local server is started and running however it's not active. Tracks are delivered from Mezzmo PC server. Network wifi connection is permanently active.
- time of a first track is 3:12
- after 2 minutes (setting defined) screen goes black, track still plays
- after 3:12 minutes next track starts playing
- after 4 minutes (setting defined) phone is locked, track still plays
- next track doesn't play
- Mezzmo is in "Play" state however nothing plays
- in order to play next song you need to swipe View screen

Similar behaviour can be observed while tracks are played from using Android local server. After the phone is locked, playing stops.

Please let me know if further testing would be needed.

[Christopher]

Thanks for another feedback.
It will be some time before we may be able to investigate this issue due to the holiday season.
Have Happy New Year 2017.

[mhg]

Thanks. Maybe the time has come already?

[Peter]

Hi,
we tried to reproduce this problem here but were unable to, can you please check your advanced network settings in Android to see if the setting for 'Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep' is set to 'Always' as this could stop playback if the phone disables the wifi. There is also a setting in the Mezzmo app's setting to 'Keep device awake', try enabling this then see if the music still stops when the phone is locked.

[mhg]

Thanks, Peter. I came into conclusion my issue shouldn't be discussed here because it's of different nature: in fact I experience intervals of different length between music tracks. For the impatient person (like me :)) it sometimes looks like stop but it is a pause in reality. So I'll send the description to your support soon.

[Peter]

We have just found the cause of this issue and fixed it. If your device runs KitKat or later then the alarm timer set will be inexact and the delays between songs will be variable, we have made a change to force this to be exact.