Hi
So glad I managed to get my Bartok before the lockdown. I have plenty of time to enjoy my music.
Can anyone help with a tiny problem. When playing albums stored on my Innuos Zenith they are played in alphabetical order and not in the order on the album. When you are used to the album this comes as a bit strange. Is there any way to change the order? Thank you.
It is also difficult for me that most often the Mosaic App plays all songs of a given artist without arranging them into albums and of-course in alphabetical order. This prevents the artist’s discography from being played in the order in which they were issued.
Regards Robert Tota
Here I go again 
!
Bartok or any other dCS network product only supports MinimServer as the UPNP server. Use anything else and the results will be unpredictable. dCS do not use a standard UPnP interface but one that is proprietary and has been developed for a system using dCS components.
That is not to say that there may not be a work around. But I am unaware of one. I did have a loan Innuos streamer a couple of years ago and that worked fine with no change to track order. That was connected via USB to a dCS Paganini Clock 2 and Paganini DAC with the Innuos controlled via Orange Squeeze. You could try this or the iOS equivalent to Orange Squeeze if possible with Bartok but I cannot guarantee this and do not think you will get it to work with either the Bartok app or Mosaic Control.
Robert , what is your setup? There is no problem at all with Mosaic in a normal dCS system. So I assume that you are using something else to feed whatever dCS network device that you have.
Of course there is a possibility that you may have accidentally pressed the “shuffle” play option. That would result in what you report.
Hi Pete. Many thanks for your help. If I use usb and iPeng it all works beautifully in alphabetical order. I was originally told by Innuos support that the best sound I could get from my Innuos Zenith+Bartok would be by using usb connection. Would you agree with this? Thanks again. John.
Given that combination using iPeng and the UPnP compatibility issue the USB connection may be the best in practice. In this case you are not using the Bartok’s networking feature but as a USB DAC with the Innuos as a streamer ( i.e. player) not just as a server.
Using the network input on Bartok is preferable to USB given a compatible server ( see page 12 in the manual)). Not all Innuos models have a network (ethernet) output port.
I wonder if you can load MinimServer software to the Innuos? More to the point I thought that Innuos already had MinimServer installed by default as well as Linn Kazoo? That seems to have been the case with earlier Zens so maybe they changed with MK.3? Worth checking with Innuos as you can then just select MinimServer and rescan your music library. Mosaic should then function as intended.
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1044191/Innuos-Zen-Music.html?page=23#manual
If it already has MinimServer then there may be a different cause for your issue perhaps as simple as you inadvertently selecting shuffle play as I suggest to Robert Tota.
I use a Melco N1 similarly as a NAS with MinimServer UPnP server software without USB connection or using its USB player abilities. So broadly much the same with the Melco allowing direct network connection to dCS without the use of a network switch ( though I do use the latter for internet sources such as Qobuz or internet radio).
I use the Mosaic App and Minim server as an UPNP source. When I enter an artist, I receive a search list of all his songs in my library in alphabetical order without searching for each album. Everything is mixed like peas and cabbage. Listening to such a playlist is very annoying. Albums should be shown and it is best if they were sorted in alphabetical order and the songs played in them according to the layout on the disc and not in alphabetical order. Maybe there is a function unavailable for the blind person in the Mosaic App or in the Minim Server settings, which allows such sorting but I can’t “see” them.
Regards Robert Tota
With Mosaic using Minim Server the albums are sorted in alpha order. You can even get MInimServer to split everything into letter order so that you can select e.g. “M” directly instead of having to scroll through from “A” ( too long to explain how here). In fact The way that Mosaic displays tracks is basically down to the UPnP server in use.
If you go to artist view instead of album view then all artists will be shown in alpha order. Within that by selecting an artist all of his/her/their album titles will be shown in A-Z order ( be careful of albums that have titles beginning with punctuation e.g. 'round midnight, as they will be displayed before the letter “A”). Within each album the track order shown is as per the order in your FLAC/AIFF etc. file for that album.
For example in my case and using artist view, my choice starts with A La Carte Brass & Percussion. It ends with Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. So A to Z. If I go to , say, The Beatles ( B as they are filed in my music library as Beatles, The), the first album is “A Hard Day’s Night” and the last “With The Beatles”. Alpha order again. If I open A Hard Day’s Night then all of the tracks are in the correct original album order.
What you describe is not the fault of Mosaic. It may be because of the way that you have structured the files in your music library or the way MinimServer has been configured . Have you got MinimWatch on a computer on your network so that you can configure it?
However , as I say, one other reason may be that you are inadvertently selecting the random ( shuffle) play mode. As you cannot see I would imagine that it is easy to do this by accident. The control is found in full album view ( tap the album thumbnail image) The shuffle control is situated to the far right of the play control buttons and is just below the numeric track duration indicator. It is a pretty small icon on an i-pad and would be easy to inadvertently select by e.g. your little finger brushing against it while using your index finger to press “play”. I know as I have done it myself.
Let me know how you get on. I am anxious for you to have full enjoyment of a wonderful product.
Hello, my library is very orderly. Each artist has their own folder and there are subfolders with albums in the artists folder. The folder name of the album begins with the date of release. After that, performers whose names start with the same letter are grouped in the same folder, e.g. “A”. The songs are of course numbered. All songs in the library are tagged.
There is a problem with the mosaic App that it closes very often and needs to be restarted. So choose the UPNP source and then Minimserser etc. Now I looked for the artist: Prince (I know that 10 artist’s discs are mamponad but the minim server didn’t show one. Roon shows all my Prince albums and plays them accordingly. The minimserver shows the number of albums and files in the library and this is the correct number. However, I don’t know why the Mosaic App closes so often and doesn’t show albums of sophisticated artists. This makes me not satisfied with Mosaic’s cooperation with DCS Bartók. I hope that at least some of my error reports generated by The Mosaic App will go to application developers.
Another issue is Mosaic’s problematic service by a person using VoiceOver built-in to IOS. Unlabeled buttons whose functions are unknown cause that you get frustrated. The DCS Bartók App is even worse. Almost nothing can be done here because all icons and buttons have the same name.
Thanks to the Mosaic App, I can at least configure the DAC. Regards Robert
As I said I do not think that Mosaic has any problems in regard to what you report.
" The folder name of the album begins with the date of release". That oddity alone makes me wonder what Minim Server is making of it. So, If I understand things, the folder for The Beatles , Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band would be called " 1967 The Beatles , Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band". Or is it a large “1967” folder containing various albums from artists released in that year beginning with the letter “B”? And presumably you have a “1967” folder for artists “C” etc.? I guess that Please Please Me will be in a 1963 sub-folder, yes? Mamponad? A word unknown to me,
I do not know why Mosaic will not show "sophisticated " artists. It is software. It has no artistic judgement as to the artistic merit of the music.
Frankly I think that you have some kind of idiosyncratic file hierarchy that MinimServer ( NOT Mosaic) cannot interpret how you wish it to. It could possibly be solved via the MinimWatch software for MinimServer which is why I asked if you had it but you have not advised me.
Many of the Mosaic controls are labelled by icons rather than with words. These icons are pretty standard across most player apps. If I remember correctly Andrew Papanikolas of dCS acknowledged the difficulties with blind persons using VoiceOver and Mosaic to you some months ago and said that they will be aware of it in future developments.
There is NO problem with Mosaic that would result in the problem that you describe. As for Mosaic closing the only thing that would result in this is the app ( or the device on which the app is running) losing connection with your network. That is a network not a Mosaic issue. I suggest that you take this problem to the MinimServer forum where expert help should be available.
Well. I have MinimWath and check if there are any options that can affect the display of songs and albums in the right order.
Maybe I didn’t explain exactly the path in my library looks like this:
there is a folder “A” in this folder there are subfolders with the names of artists whose names start with “A”, e.g. AC / DC, Accept, A-Ha etc. in the artist’s folder there are subfolders containing individual albums of a given artist. So there are only AC-DC discs in the AC- “DC” folder. Subfolder names begin with the date 1982 - Back in Black "and so with each album in a separate artist subfolder. I think this should not affect the display of the order of the songs because the songs are numbered according to how they were included on the album and their names they start with the order number followed by the song title.
The only thing that worries me is that the Mosaic App does not display its albums when it finds a performer.
However, Roon has no problems with that. Maybe because Roon has its own library and the Mosaic App uses a library created by Minimserwer.
Regards Robert Tota
Robert I have spent a long time thinking about your situation since writing yesterday. You are right that Roon is not comparable as it uses its own metadata held on its own servers.
My thoughts have led me to ask this question: does your music library consist in whole or in part of CDs ripped to a NAS or other drive? If so how was the tagging (metadata) created? Did you create ID3 files for each track e.g. by using , say, dbpoweramp for ripping? Or if you created .wav files what application did you use to create the associated tagging? If instead your library is composed of bought downloads have you ensured that the metadata supplied by the record label has been stored for each track?
The library has been created by you not by MinimServer. MinimServer is simply using the stored metadata and ordering it as per the set configuration that it has ( the latter can be altered via MinimWatch to fit other protocols such as how the order of fields are displayed etc.). That data is then passed to Mosaic which , basically, just displays it.
If you have correct metadata stored in the correct way then MinimServer/ Mosaic is very flexible in how it can be used. For example, noting that you are interested in year of release, I used the option to get Mosaic to display albums by this criterion. The date is stored in the appropriate ID3 field. Mosaic therefore displayed all my library by date back to 1938 and within this album titles in alphabetic order. There was no need to add the year of release to the title.
I look forward to your advice on your tagging.
I pay a lot of attention to correctly tagging my collections. All files I collect have tags edited with MP3Tag editor software. They all have tags for the artist, album title, song number, song title, release date, music genre and very often the conductor. I am convinced that this does not affect the incorrect display of songs and their absence after searching for a specific artist and selecting him in the Mosaic App. Every day I try to refine my library as soon as I have time. MinimSerwer does not report any untagged files to me …
Perhaps the fact that the collection has a lot of songs means that the Mosaic App is so slow and I have to wait a long time for it to display something.
Best Regards Robert
Thanks Robert. MinimServer certainly creates the metadata that it serves to Mosaic from the ID3 file. That can be easily ascertained by changing the data in the ID3 file and nowhere else and noting that it subsequently changes in in the Mosaic display for that track. That is, of course, after MinimServer has re-scanned the library. You have scanned the music library into MinimServer rather than just copying it to your drive? I apologise if I am guilty of telling granny how to suck eggs but I am trying to cover every angle.
I have changed data in ID3 files often when correcting typos or incorrect artwork. The change always then shows in the Mosaic display. The logical conclusion is that if Mosaic displays no information then the information is not there to display.
Would you kindly just choose a folder in your music library that is an album that you expect to see in Mosaic but which does not appear and open the ID3 file for a sample track from it. Is all of the metadata there and allocated to the correct field?
In regard to your comment concerning Mosaic’s slowness Mosaic should be very fast in displaying songs. Given my library of just under 20,000 songs ( tracks) or over 1,300 albums it will start to display them in a fraction of a second. Mosaic builds the display in tranches of circa. 500 albums at a time but the entire collection is built up so quickly that the existence of these tranches is basically invisible to the eye (for me being sighted).
If there was a fault caused by the Mosaic design that resulted in what you describe then this forum would be full of reports of it from users. However you are the only one AFAIK. All of the other Mosaic display difficulties that I can recall have been because people were using UPnP server software other than MinimServer. There was an issue when iOS v. 13.3.1 came out but that was resolved months ago. However it does remind me to ask what version of Mosaic you are running. Is it v.1.1.0 ?
So it seems that there are two problems which may or may not be related; slowness to display or load and missing data. That slowness may be caused by the data issue . Perhaps Mosaic is displaying what it has for each album one by one. But if that results in a blank for many then you may have to wait for it to find the first for which it actually has information to display.
These things can be so difficult to try to solve remotely.
I have heard back from Innuos who reiterate what you said Pete. The Bartok will play in original track order if I use USB + iPeng but Mosaic will only produce alphabetical order. Thanks for your help.
Just to reiterate here. This is not an issue with Mosaic at all. This is an issue with the UPnP server implementation.
We use a standard UPnP command to request the file information for all of the tracks in a container. Most UPnP servers return this list in an order that makes sense based on what’s in the container so album data is returned in track order whereas other lists may be returned in alpha order. Some UPnP servers are quite stupid here and simply return everything in alpha order when presented with this particular UPnP command.
There’s nothing we can do here as we’re getting a list which tells us the tracks and the track order. We don’t sort this list or do anything else with it. We just play it. Such is the nature of UPnP.
Track listings of albums in Mosaic are shown in track order as we use a different command set to lazy load these lists. In this case the server is returning the correct track order for albums. This is quite puzzling as one would expect the server to return the same list in the same way no matter how its queried.
Other products use different commands and may behave differently. This is the downside to UPnP as there are literally hundreds of command permutations to accomplish the same task. We’re using what we believe to be the most correct and efficient commands to accomplish the task at hand. Sadly this is exposing some deficiencies in some UPnP server software packages. This is one of the reasons why we strongly recommend MinimServer as it is the only one that we’ve found that unfailingly adheres to the UPnP spec.
Further to my earlier response and Andrew’s comment above, did you try my suggestion of loading MinimServer onto your Innuos server? As I remarked that used to be a standard option.
Thank you Pete. Help!! I have downloaded MinimServer onto my Mac but have no idea how to load MinimServer onto my Innuos server!
If you go back to my post of 4th April I linked to an Innuos Zen manual which shows how to use MinimServer with it. I will repeat it here:
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1044191/Innuos-Zen-Music.html?page=23#manual
Now I do not know which Innuos model you have and whether or not these instructions remain pertinent. As you can see from the manual at that time MInimServer appears to be preloaded and is ready to be selected form the Innuos UI. If not I would seek advice from Innuos or ask on the MinimServer forum if any members there have done this. Here is a link to a thread there from a few years back which indicated that it can (or at least could) be done.
https://forum.minimserver.com/showthread.php?tid=3129
MinimServer has released at least one server specific variant e.g. for Melco. Perhaps there is one for Innuos ?