Best backend - SQLite, local, or other?

#1

I’m running Mopidy on a local server, and I have a Synology NAS mounted via NFS (to /media/Music), and Iris as a frontend. For awhile I was using Mopidy-Local, but since that wasn’t populating the albums and tracks lists, I switched over to Mopidy-SQLite, and that seems to work a little more smoothly. Rescanning the library isn’t great, though - the initial scan took ~3.5 hrs, and the last time I tried to run a scan, most files threw a gst-stream-error-quark: Could not determine type of stream. error.

My question is: is there a better and/or more performant backend to use? The Synology has a media server that puts out UPnP; can Mopidy use that, and does it even make sense to use that? Are there any other options that people have used that work well?

#2

You can try out https://github.com/tkem/mopidy-dleyna and also other backends listed at https://docs.mopidy.com/en/latest/ext/backends/

#3

Yeah, I saw that list. Beets, DLNA, Emby, and Subsonic (or Ampache?) seem to be the more actively maintained options. I was wondering more if anyone had personal experience or recommendations between them in terms of performance and usability, or if the SQLite backend is among the most performant.

#4

@tkem authored both the SQLite backends and the DLNA backend. I believe he now uses the DLNA backend but hopefully he can chime in with his recommendation.

#5

As @kingosticks already said, I’ve been using mopidy-dleyna almost exclusively over the last couple of years, with minidlna as the media server. Though all DLNA servers seem to have their quirks, I’ve had positive feedback regarding Synology devices, so you might give it a try.

1 Like
#6

@tkem: I just switched it over and it works well so far. This is using the Synology Media Server package, for what it’s worth. But it seems like this could be the answer I was looking for.

1.2.2 (released last year) is the latest version of the plugin, right? Just checking to make sure I’m up to date.

#7

Yes, version 1.2.2 is the latest.

#8

Edit: removed previous flailing around.

In case someone stumbles on this later: Synology Media Server doesn’t support search. I’ve installed Minimserver on the Synology, and it works a lot better.

#9

This thread prompted me to test-drive the dleyna backend with minidlna. Having used the sqlite backend for many years (thanks, BTW!) despite its few flaws[1], I can say that it offers a much better performance. dleyna/minidlna seems sluggish compared to sqlite. Getting a lot of messages
ERROR Introspect error on :1.1:/com/intel/dLeynaServer/server/0/3634243824302441: dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Did not receive a reply...

Any ideas what this could be caused by?

[1] The grouping criteria seemed overly pedantic (at least in their default config) and would cause, e.g. artists to show up multiple times in a list for no obvious reason.

#10

@ooglyhLL: what scale are you using sqlite at - like 50GB+ in your library? Do you have issues with reindexing taking hours?

#11

You may have misunderstood me. I have no performance issues with sqlite backend. 88GB, mostly FLAC.

#12

We’re on the same page here, I just wanted to understand at what scale it was performing well for you. The reason I ask is that I was running sqlite for my library (similar size) and it would take hours (and lots of CPU) to reindex. I was wondering if you had the same issue, and if so, how you got around it.

#13

I did not have this issue. No workaround needed.