Very long delay (>30secs) on macOS Sierra 10.12.6

[rossco255]

Hello! Very glad to find this app, the lack of Chromecast connectivity on both Spotify and iTunes is maddening.

I installed using homebrew, and the functionality is all there, but there's a latency of over 30 seconds between the computer and the Chromecast. I use Soundflower regularly without any such problems. Is this the sort of thing that switching to ffmpeg rather than node might help?

[polyzen]

Sure is. IIRC the wav format doesn't work yet on macOS, but that would reduce latency even more.

Edit: I haven't switched to the Homebrew install method yet. Perhaps wav support works there.

[rossco255]

Wav is just noise. Flac however has the delay down to a much more manageable 8 seconds.

[polyzen]

I think I got 8 seconds with mp3 at 320 kbps as well.

[diegotrigo]

I think I got 8 seconds with mp3 at 320 kbps as well.

What about sample rate? I'm still stuck with 30sec delay on both node and ffmpeg.

[polyzen]

The default, 44100.

[pasikarkkainen]

8 seconds is still a very long delay. Which setting needs to be tweaked to get it to something tolerable, like less than one second?

[vojczejk]

Experiencing same behavior on Debian 9, mkchromecast v0.3.7.

[pasikarkkainen]

@muammar Any idea what's the reason for the huge delay? Is there some big audio buffer in use?

I guess I need to start reading the sources to figure it out..

[muammar]

On Sat, Feb 9, 2019 at 2:43 PM pasikarkkainen ***@***.***> wrote: @muammar <https://github.com/muammar> Any idea what's the reason for the huge delay? Is there some big audio buffer in use? I guess I need to start reading the sources to figure it out..

No idea. I tried before to fix it but never succeeded. This does not happen to me when I use Sonos speakers. I don't know what the difference is.

[polyzen]

Sonos here as well.

[pasikarkkainen]

@polyzen hmm, so you have ~8 seconds delay with Sonos, but @muammar doesn't.. how much is your delay/latency, @muammar ?

[polyzen]

Apparently the node backend on macOS has <2s delay, but according to this comment, it should also be possible with ffmpeg?

[muammar]

This is with ffmpeg in macOS. I am casting to my sonos speakers using aac with 500k.

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPb0Fn2IdBxKtlW9hk0_7GpuSdHuk4P_L67qKtWWodYjrh6crBOChY_YRksmU8tPg?key=VkdkWUxhRV9ROUIxTkNVcHNwVGU4Wl9QNlV6RHlR

The video SUCKS but shows the idea :).

[legolasdimir]

I am seeing the same delay on xubuntu 18.04 LTS I am very new to this. Has anyone found any settings that can be tweaked to reduce or eliminate the delay?

[viktorsmari]

I also have around ~30s delay on Ubuntu Studio (16.04, 18.10, 19.04) when casting to Chromecast Audio.

[muammar]

If some of you are interested, please check out this b6d0b3b.

[viktorsmari]

If some of you are interested, please check out this b6d0b3b.

If I want to test it on Linux, I need to build it right?
Are there build instructions in the docs somewhere? I cannot find it

EDIT:
In the setup.py I found this:
python3 setup.py build
python3 setup.py install
Which created a new bin/mkchromecast - which I use to run the program.

And now the delay is 24 seconds

Am I missing a step?

[muammar]

If some of you are interested, please check out this b6d0b3b.

If I want to test it on Linux, I need to build it right?
Are there build instructions in the docs somewhere? I cannot find it

EDIT:
In the setup.py I found this:
python3 setup.py build
python3 setup.py install
Which created a new bin/mkchromecast - which I use to run the program.

And now the delay is 24 seconds

Am I missing a step?

The easiest way would be to clone the repo (I think you already did that), and inside it do bin/mkchromecast --yourflagshere.

[viktorsmari]

But would that use the latest commit?
I pulled from the git repo and the bin/mkchromecast file's timestamp was still +3 weeks old, so I guess the binary was not updated even though the repo has new commits.

So how can I use the latest commit?

[muammar]

But would that use the latest commit?
I pulled from the git repo and the bin/mkchromecast file's timestamp was still +3 weeks old, so I guess the binary was not updated even though the repo has new commits.

So how can I use the latest commit?

bin/mkchromecast is just a python script. If you use it, it will load the updated modules that I changed in the last commit.

[muammar]

I forgot to mention that before executing the application you have to verify that you are in the latest commit with git pull.

[viktorsmari]

Thanks for clarifying. On Ubuntu 19 the delay is still long, around 25 seconds.

[jphein]

mkchromecast v0.3.8.1
I am getting a 30 second delay on Ubuntu 19.10.
Changed settings to ffmpeg, wav, 96000. Reduced to around 3 seconds.

[jruh23]

Debian 9, regardless of the mkchromecast configuration (codec, backend, etc) and version (tested 0.3.9, 0.3.8, and 0.3.7) and regardless weather using alsa or pule delays of at least 20 seconds.

[sillydan1]

Debian 10, I will always get around 30-38 seconds of delay. The very first time I ran mkchromecast I got 27 seconds, but that's probably just a fluke

[muammar]

I think this helps: 30f4e85 I will close this report but feel free to reopen.