Snapserver won't start at boot, works fine starting manually. (Alsa USB codec)

[SparkVent]

For some reason the snapserver service does not recognise the Alsa USB input device when starting from boot. When I start the service manually however it works fine. I'm running a fresh install of Raspberry Pi OS Lite. I have checked in dmesg that the USB device is initialized several seconds before the Snapserver service is called for the first time. I have checked that the user 'snapserver' is a member of the 'audio' group.

Syslog at boot: Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: Version 0.26.0, revision e30a9f33 Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: Adding source: alsa://?name=Line_In&device=hw:CARD=CODEC,DEV=0 Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: Settings file: "/var/lib/snapserver/server.json" Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: Using HTTP host name: raspberrypi Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: Adding service 'Snapcast' Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: PcmStream: Line_In, sampleFormat: 48000:16:2 Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: Stream: {"fragment":"","host":"","path":"","query":{"chunk_ms":"20","codec":"flac","device":"hw:CARD=CODEC,DEV=0","name":"Line_In","sampleformat":"48000:16:2"},"raw":"alsa:///?chunk_ms=20&codec=flac&device=hw:CARD=CODEC,DEV=0&name=Line_In&sampleformat=48000:16:2","scheme":"alsa"} Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:1829:(_snd_pcm_hw_open) Invalid value for card Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: Server::start: Can't open device 'hw:CARD=CODEC,DEV=0', error: No such device Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: Exception: Can't open device 'hw:CARD=CODEC,DEV=0', error: No such device Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi snapserver[354]: Snapserver terminated. Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi systemd[1]: snapserver.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi systemd[1]: snapserver.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'. Jul 23 08:57:47 raspberrypi systemd[1]: snapserver.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 4.

But then if I log in and start it manually pi@raspberrypi:~ $ service snapserver start Then all works normally.

Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Version 0.26.0, revision e30a9f33 Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Adding source: alsa://?name=Line_In&device=hw:CARD=CODEC,DEV=0 Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Settings file: "/var/lib/snapserver/server.json" Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Using HTTP host name: raspberrypi Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Adding service 'Snapcast' Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: PcmStream: Line_In, sampleFormat: 48000:16:2 Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Stream: {"fragment":"","host":"","path":"","query":{"chunk_ms":"20","codec":"flac","device":"hw:CARD=CODEC,DEV=0","name":"Line_In","sampleformat":"48000:16:2"},"raw":"alsa:///?chunk_ms=20&codec=flac&device=hw:CARD=CODEC,DEV=0&name=Line_In&sampleformat=48000:16:2","scheme":"alsa"} Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Init - compression level: 2 Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: No data availabale, playing silence. Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Creating TCP acceptor for address: 0.0.0.0, port: 1705 Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Creating HTTP acceptor for address: 0.0.0.0, port: 1780 Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Creating stream acceptor for address: 0.0.0.0, port: 1704 Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: Number of threads: 2, hw threads: 1 Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: StreamServer::NewConnection: 192.168.1.5 Jul 23 09:25:23 raspberrypi snapserver[2180]: State changed: Line_In, state: idle => playing

[bitclick]

i think you need to use other device-ids because alsa is initialized differently for users and system-accounts. i am affected on raspberrypi-os. to fix it i altered a script to output the alsa-device list to systlog on boot and used this as reference.

[badaix]

Maybe Snapserver is started before audio is initialized. Please try to add After=sound.target to the systemd unit file /lib/systemd/system/snapserver.service:

it should look like this:

[Unit]
Description=Snapcast server
Documentation=man:snapserver(1)
Wants=avahi-daemon.service
After=network-online.target time-sync.target avahi-daemon.service
---

Change it to:

[Unit]
Description=Snapcast server
Documentation=man:snapserver(1)
Wants=avahi-daemon.service
After=network-online.target time-sync.target avahi-daemon.service sound.target
...