No audio when using systemctl start, but works fine when launched manually

[narFnarF]

Hello

I'm a long time user of Shairport-sync on my Raspberry Pi 2B. This week, I completely reinstalled the OS on it from a fresh image to upgrade from Stretch to Buster.

Now I have a weird problem:
When I launch Shairport manually by typing shairport-sync, everything works. I can connect my phone and get music playing.

But when I launch Shairport using sudo systemctl restart shairport-sync.service, I don't get any audio from my speakers. But I know it's running fine by looking at service shairport-sync status and I also see it on my iPhone. I can connect my phone to it, but then I get no audio.

If I manually type sudo shairport-sync, I get the same problem (connects but no audio)

What's wrong with my installation? How can I troubleshoot?

What I tried so far:

• Installing shairport by using sudo apt install shairport-sync. This installs shairport-sync/oldstable,now 3.2.2-1+b2 armhf. As described above, it works when launched manually, but not via systemctl start
• Use raspi-config to set audio output to Headphones
• Check alsamixer to set the volume to maximum
• Doing a clean manual install from these instructions: https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync/blob/master/INSTALL.md. Same behaviour.

Device used:

Host: Raspberry Pi 2B, running Raspbian Lite (Buster)
Streaming device: iPhone 6S, latest iOS version
Version : 3.3.9-OpenSSL-Avahi-ALSA-soxr-sysconfdir:/etc

Setup

Speakers are plugged in the headphone jack of the Raspberry Pi 2B.

[narFnarF]

I guess this is the problem?

$ shairport-sync -d
shairport-sync was built without libdaemon, so does not support daemonisation using the -d, --daemon, -j or --justDaemoniseNoPIDFile options

but how is that possible?

I tried to reinstall the packaged version with sudo apt install shairport-sync and it launches correct with sudo shairport-sync -d.

One thing that I noticed: Launching manually with shairport-sync works but not with sudo shairport-sync (no audio)

[mikebrady]

but how is that possible?

Thanks. This is possible because systemd can do its own daemonisation and doesn't need libdaemon.

My guess is that problem is that the startup script is faulty in some way (I vaguely recall something about it in older issues) , so I'd suggest that you manually remove it and build and reinstall Shairport Sync yourself.

[narFnarF]

For anyone with the same issue, I managed to fix this by starting over from the beginning again. Somehow this time worked.

So basically:

1. Uninstall the apt package
2. Follow the instructions on how to remove old packages and old startup script: https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync/blob/master/INSTALL.md
3. Reboot
4. Continue following the instruction on how to clone the git repo, build and install.

I don't understand why it didn't work the first few times but now it works and I'm happy. I really like Shairplay-sync, but I like it more when it works! 😜