Squeezebox and AlienStream/AlienBBC

Hello

I've just taken delivery of a Squeezebox and well chuffed with it (apart fron the announcement of the Squeezebox2). I know quite a few people here use them and i was wondering if any of you are using AlienStream or AlienBBC for radio streams.

I had a good go at the AlienBBC install last night and having little success.

On the Squeeze box when i go to 'Browse Radio' i can see the 'AlienBBC' menu. After a few 'Right Arrow' presses i get to the stream i'd like to listen to.. Press 'Play' then theres just silence. Could anyone help me? Is there something obvious i've overlooked?


Thanks in advance


Chris Gally

 

Oops.... Just looked on the AlienBBC website and found quite a comprehensive Troubleshooting Guide...

http://www.mrtickle.org/alienbbc_faq.html

Will have a look this evening.

Chris.Gally

 

Let us know how you do. I for one havn't got round to installing this yet.

 

SteveC

I was having some initial problems with my upgrade to Slimserver6 last night so i didnt have the chance to play much with AlienBBC.

I'll hopefully be trying again this evening... I'll let you know how it goes

Chris.Gally

 

Thanks Chris. Funny you should mention that. I have a problem currently, too. First it seemed to lose where my mp3 collection was. Then when I fixed that, my 5.x version decided that whenever I try to play a stream (whether from net radio or mp3) I get the message about "lost contact with server..." that I get fairly often anyway if there is a slight network glitch (but it used to then pick itself up). So I installed the 6 beta too. Still the same problem

I'll have to have a fiddle tonight but I have new speakers coming tomorrow so I might not get round to it. Maybe you have something similar and will have fixed it soon

Nice surprise of the day: Slim have graciously knocked $30 off the UPS price to me here, so I have ordered a SB2 just for the hell of it.

Steve

 

Steve

I was having the 'lost contact with server' problem too. I've no idea what was causing it. Seemed to right itself now though .

My other problem was it wasn't finding my playlists from iTunes. Then... after leaving the PC for around 1/2 hour (i really needed to calm down) it found them all. Looks like i was just being a little impatient and not giving Slimserver time to scan my music properly.



Chris.Gally

 

steve,
did you ask for your 'FREEPONY' ?

if you are considering buying an sb2 then you get a $20 discount if you use the offer code 'FREEPONY'
cheers


julian.

 

Oops thanks for that - I just sent them an email - I didn't actually get round to reading my personal product announcement in email

 

Well, after putting far too many hours into trying to get this AlienBBC thing working on my Squeezebox i thoought i'd give you some idea of how it's gone so far.

1. I downloaded the AlienBBC programme and placed it in the directory stated.
2. I installed ActivePerl (whatever that is) and copied bits to all over the slimserver directory as asked to do.
3. Downloaded Mplayer and placed it in the Slimserver plugin Directory.

I then went to the command prompt and typed' slim.exe --d_plugin'

it looked like alien bbc had been recognised. The message it gave was this.

2005-03-13 10:56:44.4643 Requiring Plugins::Alien:lugin plugin.
Subroutine HTML::Entities::decode_entities redefined at /PerlApp/DynaLoader.pm l
ine 232, <DATA> line 1.
AlienBBC reports Version 6 Server says: 0

I've got to admit i have no idea what any of this means.. I just assumed that everything was ok

I startup Slimserver.

AlienBBC is there in the Plugin Menu. I can chose exactly which stream i want to listen to... press the play button and.... nothing. It flashes between the Now Playing and Connecting to Screen.

AARRGGHH...

The instructions given in the AlienBBC website to test that everything works correctly seem to me to be written in a different language. Here's a link to the site.

http://www.mrtickle.org/alienbbc_faq.html

I think that when i pick the stream i'd like to listen to mplayer should fire up on the pc.. i dont know this, i'm just guessing. All i know is that if thsts whats supposed to hapen, it's not .


If anyone could help or like to share their experience on AlienBBC it would be much appreciated.

Just a quick thing.. I had no luck whatsoever trying this on the new Beta 6 version. It was all done on 5.4.

Thanks

Chris.Gally

 

Excuse my ignorance but what is it? From the site it looks like it lets you stream bbc online archives and such to squeezebox etc. Is this correct?

 

Anex...

That is correct. Also, i think it lets you stream almost any other radio station that mplayer recognises, meaning live feeds

Chris.Gally

 

Just a little bump.

I'm still having problems with the installation

I think it may all hinge on what these lines mean.

2005-03-13 10:56:44.4643 Requiring Plugins::Alien:lugin plugin.
Subroutine HTML::Entities::decode_entities redefined at /PerlApp/DynaLoader.pm l
ine 232, <DATA> line 1.
AlienBBC reports Version 6 Server says: 0

I'm sure this may be of some use to other squeezebox users too

Many thanks

Chris.Gally