Beoport N.Radio stopped working

[patcherley]

I often listen to this whilst working and if was working fine last week. However, on Friday my Windows 10 PC had a major update which involved me restarting it a number of times after the ones involved in the update. Following this everything seems to be working OK apart from the Beoport N.Radio.

The rest of the Beoport seems OK including N.Music, locally, and masterlinking sound from my Beovision Eclipse.

Looking at the info for a station I notice that the status is blank, I have not been able to find any other issues. Is N.Radio working?

Paul

[Guy]

Not working for me either.  Some stations show ‘opened’ under status but won’t play.

[patcherley]

Thanks looks like an email to support

[Guy]

Did you ever get a response from B&O support about this?

Now that my Beoport is working (see other thread here) the n.radio stations seem very hit and miss.  It’s almost as if they take a while to wake up when selected.  They will usually come up as ‘Opened’ under status on the info page, but don’t transition to ‘Playing’.  I was having some success last night but this morning nothing is yet playing.  I have played around with the buffer time in Beoport but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.

[patcherley]

I did, after they checked various things with me, they said it wasn’t supported under Windows 10. Given that it works under earlier versions it does seem a Windows 10 64bit issue, probably a method that was depreciated.  Paul

[Guy]

Thanks Paul.  After about 20 mins of showing ‘opened’ my n.radio just burst into life playing BBC Radio 2 – I had to mute quickly as it was Cliff Richard’s latest Xmas release!  But then I am on 32-bit Win10 so perhaps different compatibilities.

Makes me wonder how well this new-fangled kit like Stage, Theatre, or even B&O’s simple Bluetooth speakers will work in 15 or 20 years!

[patcherley]

Apart from N.Radio everything else works, including playing a source from my Eclipse. Actually very impressive.

[Guy]

That sounds promising.  I will hang onto my Beoport for when I move house and set up an ML or NL system.  I do like the ability to control my PC using Beo4 and I can see the value in listening to ML/NL sources from the computer room/study.  I suppose one of the major advantages over BL Active (using PC input) is that you can ‘mix’, the computer sounds with the ML audio input, thus still getting PC sounds such as email alerts.

[Guy]

Now that I have Beoport/Beoplayer working I have been listening to BBC radio occasionally.  The stream is interrupted every now and then with a message to say that the service will end mid 2023.

I think that this may be related to end of BBC support for ‘Shoutcast’ as explained here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/help/questions/recent-changes-to-bbc-sounds/shoutcast-closure

I think from the old forum that the BBC did something similar with TuneIn.  It would appear that they are trying to force users onto their ‘Sounds’ app and/or BBC’s Radioplayer on PCs.

 

[SaltineSurfer]

Guy wrote:

Now that I have Beoport/Beoplayer working I have been listening to BBC radio occasionally. The stream is interrupted every now and then with a message to say that the service will end mid 2023. I think that this may be related to end of BBC support for ‘Shoutcast’ as explained here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/help/questions/recent-changes-to-bbc-sounds/shoutcast-closure I think from the old forum that the BBC did something similar with TuneIn. It would appear that they are trying to force users onto their ‘Sounds’ app and/or BBC’s Radioplayer on PCs.

Hi Guy,

I noticed these interruptions listening to bbc on TuneIn on my M5 last month, so being concerned I emailed B&O support letting them know. They emailed back saying BBC were switching to HLS (HTTP live streaming developed by Apple) and that the B&O Radio devices will support this.

Maybe email b&o asking for the stream to be updated for the beoport – Im guessing windows media player can play these streams as it appears HLS is nothing new?

Here are the HLS stream links half way down the page if you want to try them in media player: https://garfnet.org.uk/cms/tables/radio-frequencies/internet-radio-player/

 

Rob.

[Guy]

ebnrob wrote:

Maybe email b&o asking for the stream to be updated for the beoport – Im guessing windows media player can play these streams as it appears HLS is nothing new?

Thanks Rob – I’ll drop them a line and see what happens. I will report back here.

Everything is now pretty much working apart from the strange muting on change of radio station (as mentioned in the other Beoport thread) so I am happy despite these limitations.

[Guy]

I today had a response from B&O about the BBC radio stream:

We regret to inform that when BBC changes their streaming codecs, the Beoplayer will no longer be able to support it. We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

[SaltineSurfer]

Guy wrote:

I today had a response from B&O about the BBC radio stream: We regret to inform that when BBC changes their streaming codecs, the Beoplayer will no longer be able to support it. We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

isn’t the decoding handled by windows media player though?

[Guy]

ebnrob wrote:

isn’t the decoding handled by windows media player though?

I am not sure. I think I will just wait and see what happens.

To be honest most of my radio listening is on good old FM, which isn’t due to be switched off until 2030, so I am good for a few years yet!

[XavierItzmann]

I was never much of an N.Radio listener in the years I had the BeoPort hooked up until I put it away in 2014.

Now that I have a BS 5, I have been playing with N.Radio and dug out the BeoPort.  Some comparisons between the BS5 and the BeoPort  (BP) on Windows 10 Home 21H2 build 19044.2251:

• Very few radio stations work on the BeoPort, and even those which work can’t be relied upon 100%.  Even a “dependable” station appears to play from first selection only about 3/4ths of the time.  If the “dependable” station doesn’t start, going to another station and coming back will usually work after a couple of times.  Sometimes it will start on its own after a few minutes.

• The radios are sometimes labeled differently on BS 5 vs BP.  One BP-working station I found had two different label endings on the BP (only the 1st worked) whereas on BS 5 the “two” stations had exact same labeling and same audio, so on BS 5 it appeared to be a repetition of the same station.

• BBC on BP starts with Afghan Network, Afrique, Arabic, AsianNetwork Gold, Burmese, etc.  On BS 5, BBC starts with Asian Network, CWR, Essex, Guernsey, Hereford & Worcester, etc.  Eventually going down the list you come to BBC World Service Afghan Network, World Service Afrique, Arabic, “BBC World Service Bangla”, etc.  Inconsistent labeling results on different alphabetical positioning.

The argument that Windows 10 broke BeoPort N.Radio is a bit suspect, don’t you think?  If it had broken N.Radio then nothing would work?  How come a very few stations appear to be relatively reliable?

[Guy]

XavierItzmann wrote:

• Very few radio stations work on the BeoPort, and even those which work can’t be relied upon 100%.  Even a “dependable” station appears to play from first selection only about 3/4ths of the time.  If the “dependable” station doesn’t start, going to another station and coming back will usually work after a couple of times.  Sometimes it will start on its own after a few minutes.

Have you checked that windows/beoport muting problem mentioned in the other Beoport thread? Basically every time you change station the BeoNetRadio level is Muted in the volume mixer – I have to go to the volume mixer and unmute each time I change radio station. See below (you can just see the red mute symbol – click the photo to enlarge):

XavierItzmann wrote:

• The radios are sometimes labeled differently on BS 5 vs BP.  One BP-working station I found had two different label endings on the BP (only the 1st worked) whereas on BS 5 the “two” stations had exact same labeling and same audio, so on BS 5 it appeared to be a repetition of the same station.

Did you refresh the radio database when you reconnected the Beoport? It may be that the BM5 and Beoport are using different (i.e earlier/later) N.Radio database downloads.  The latest Beoport N.Radio update was dated 2021-11-15.

I am not sure how to update the BM5 radio database, but on the PC running Beoport you can navigate to C:\Program Files\Bang & Olufsen\BeoPort and look for a file called UpdateNotifier.exe

Double click to run a database update, whereupon you get this message:

And see if the radio stations are now consistent with the BM5.

[XavierItzmann]

Thank you Guy.  I ran the “BeoPort update” and it ran successfully.  No change to my situation.

I also found an old thread on the archived forums where it was revealed that BeoMaster 5 radio updates were terminated a few years ago, with a few surprised comments from BeoSound 5 owners… after all, BeoSound 5 incorporates a BM5 !!!

But the comments on the thread appeared to confirm that BM 5 N.Radio updates were a thing of the past; there was quite a bit of puzzlement that B&O had actually used different databases for two products which were apparently one and the same.

Methinks the radio db for BeoPort and for BS 5 are also distinct.

[Frog]

I asked support about this – albeit with a Beosystem 5/ Beosound 5 combo and they replied:

Thank you for getting back to us. We will be more than happy to continue to assist you.

We have been informed that our product will still support BBC even after the deadline you have heard from B&O Radio unless BBC decided to change it.

Should you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

[Guy]

Frog wrote:

I asked support about this – albeit with a Beosystem 5/ Beosound 5 combo and they replied: Thank you for getting back to us. We will be more than happy to continue to assist you. We have been informed that our product will still support BBC even after the deadline you have heard from B&O Radio unless BBC decided to change it. Should you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Thanks for this update. Perhaps if Xavierltzmann’s theory about two different dBs is correct then BS5 uses a different stream to Beoport. If you don’t get the BBC announcement interruptions on your BS5 then that would make sense.

[Frog]

Well that’s the problem; I am getting the announcements on BS5 – I double checked with Support – and they got a little bit shirty with me, but re-confirmed.

[Author]

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