Qobuz Stuttering (Technical Discussion)

Phew. I don’t know WTF all this stuff is about. But I do know with my Nova Qobuz did the same thing. So I always acess Qobuz through the Naim app…never a problem doing that.

Very interesting thread and I hope you fix your Qobuz issue. Please do keep us updated on your investigation.

Lots to learn as many elements of end-to-end path a file takes from server to player are not transparent without a networking background, and therefore hard to know what helps or hindering performance, as in this case, and what can be done to improve.

The problem has been identified and solved. Kudos to Steve Harris.

I wrote “there’s a lot going on under the hood in Akamai” and so it turned out to be exactly that.

NDX2 working as designed. My LAN and ISP link working as designed. Qobuz app and playlists working as designed.

Problem was in the Akamai content delivery network. By examining the packet traces I provided and zooming in on one particular song download in a playlist, Steve identified a mis-configured retransmit timer on a server in Haarlem that was messing up the packet shaping on the file transfer required for smooth playback.

The is pretty unusual, and not something most users are going to come across, nor be able to diagnose, and certainly not a configuration item they can fix themselves.

Now time to just sit back and enjoy the music.

regards,

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Well done to you and Steve!

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Ah. The Haarlem Shuffle.

Just out of curiosity, did the configuration get changed? I assume yes, once pointed out.

As you say, this type of thing is invisible to majority of Qobuz subscribers. Generally who should be on point for monitoring for these types of issues? Is it an Akamai (I assume Qobuz 3rd pty) or Qobuz problem to solve?

I ask as it sounds like all Qobuz users benefit from Steve’s problem management but which organisation should be doing this anyway?

On a technical note, do you know how Steve identified the root cause and are you able to share the methodology used? I’d be interested to know the steps in the process as I find this stuff interesting.

Enjoy the music

The basic idea is to install a free bit of software on your pc called wireshark which sniffs your local network and captures all the network packets. The clever bit after is interpreting those packets. I have had some success in the past (possibly more out of luck) but usually you need to be a network engineer to interpret them in detail

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I read this sequence of posts with great interest because I believe I have experienced and been mightily frustrated by “stuttering.” Using the Qobuz app on my Atom, wired connection to 200MB.

I play classical albums. Most often, the trouble starts after the first track has played. The second track starts and “stutters.” The Atom stops responding to the Naim app on my phone. Frantic tapping finally get’s the thing to shut up.

Interestingly, sometimes the queue has been erased, but not always. Sometimes not, in which case I may be able to regain control by tapping on a track in the queue, but response is slow.

Now, MeToo, I am very pleased for you but whatever worked for you has left my experience unchanged. I am in Chicago. It is not surprising that what happens in Haarlem has no effect on my experience.

I will be sending this post to Steve Harris by email. But I will not be up to the challenge of providing a Wireshark. I am a mere music lover.

Even this bit can require a good working knowledge of your network to configure mirror ports on your switch, as modern equipment does it’s best to be efficient and only sends packets to where they are required… so running wireshark on your computer only really tells you about your computer’s experience of the network… not what your phone / tablet or Uniti saw.

FWIW: It is these sort of issues that spring to mind when people discuss specialist switches and ethernet cables… there is so much that can affect things outside of your control and can nullify or limit the sonic returns on £1000 RJ45 patch cables.

Steve.

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