Troubleshooting

A ripped CD is not showing on the Linn GUI

Firstly, ensure that the CD has been ripped to the correct location (e.g. to the NAS and not to the PC).

If that is not the cause, it is possible that the metadata is incorrectly applied, or there is no metadata. Tools like Audioshell, which runs as part of Windows Explorer, will show the file properties including the track metadata.

Metadata is a place holder for the track/album/artist information. It can hold much more info, but it is this minimum information that is required by the media server to enable it to find an album and tracks.

In some cases, the FLAC metadata may be incorrectly applied. One common problem is that FLAC files are wrapped in ID3 tags instead of using the standard FLAC/Vorbis tagging. FLAC with ID3 tags is against the FLAC specification, and early versions of DS players reject these files as invalid. When viewing the metadata from MP3Tag ID3 tags will be shown as "FLAC (FLAC ID3V2)" instead of "FLAC (FLAC)". If this has happened the tag data can be removed using MP3Tag, but you will then have to re-add the correct metadata manually using the same tool. Usually, it will be faster to rip the disc again, but before you do so, ensure the ripping software is correctly configured.

Audio drop-out

Audio drop-out is an intermittant interruption to the audio.

It can have a number of causes:

• excessive load on the NAS drives
• network congestion at the NAS, switch, router, or other network device
• lack of CPU bandwidth on the device running the media server

Drop-out caused by the above will be characterised by a fading out of the audio, shortly followed by the audio fading back in.

To eliminate audio drop-out:

1. Validate that your network throughput and latency is sufficient to run a lossless audio distribution network. Standard network evaluation and diagnostic tools will help you here.
2. Verify that the media server is not competing for CPU or network bandwidth with other applications or servers on the device it is running on. Rescanning the media database can require a lot of processing power and disk-access bandwidth to operate without interrupting other tasks.
3. Ensure there are no wireless 'hops' between the media server, NAS and DS. The connections between these devices should be entirely wired.
4. Check the number of connections to the media server. TwonkyMedia will only allow a maximum of 20 connections at a time.

If the audio does not fade in and out, there is likely to be a problem with your source material (e.g. a badly ripped disc). You will be able to test for this by listening to the track again, and determining if the drop-out occurs in exactly the same place.

The music has stopped and the DS player is unresponsive

It is possible that communication between the DS and the media server has been lost. To fix this you will need to reboot the DS from the Linn Config, or power cycle the DS.

This problem will be apparent if the media server is running on a laptop rather than a NAS, as communication will be lost when the laptop goes to sleep.

Linn Config is not showing the DS player

If the Linn GUI is working but the Linn Config cannot see the DS, or can only see the DS intermittently, ensure that there is no more than one network connection enabled on the device running the Linn Config or Linn GUI.

Linn GUI is crashing at start-up

If the Linn GUI always crashes when you start it up, or displays the error message, "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.", reinstall the .NET 2.0 release. The installer can be downloaded from Microsoft [1]

Once downloaded the .NET framework can be repaired or reinstalled.

The DS player has forgotten my playlist

If the DS has "lost" a playlist while powered on but not being used, then it is possible that the DS has reset.

The reason for the reset can be obtained from the Linn Config application, from the diagnostics tab. Select "Download DS fail data to file [xxx.data]". Ensure this is the only item selected. Press the "Run" button. A .data file will appear in the install directory (normally "C:\program files\Linn Products Ltd\LinnConfig\"). Send this file to Linn for diagnosis, along with a full bug report. See How to report problems.

You should clear the data on the failure by selecting "Clear Klimax/Akurate DS fail data" on the Linn Config, and hitting the "Run" button.

The power is on but nothing is happening

Firstly, run through the set-up steps outlined in the installation manual, and validate your network configuration. See the diagnosing network problems section.

On power on, if the DS player has valid firmware and bitstream (FPGA code) the player's LED (if it has one) will flash, or a dot on the display (if it has one) will flash.

If the network is attached and functional, you will also notice network power (LED 1 on the Ethernet port), and network activity (LED 2 on the Ethernet port).

If the boot-up LED/dot is not visible you should attempt to recover the device by reflashing and resetting to factory defaults:

• Press the "fallback" button (sometimes labled "reset") on the back of the device.
• Attempt to discover the device from the Linn Config.
• Consult the Linn Config manual to reflash with the latest firmware, and reset the device to factory defaults.