Music Assistant for complete media control

[@DavidBruner_NJ]

Here is my take on Music assistant. It is a nice start for a streaming and local
Music app for home assistant. It needs further development. Additional sources are needed like Tidal and others. My largest complaint is that it really needs tighter integration with the GUI. The days of essentially opening a separate application to play music, then needing to return to your GUI for everything else are long behind us. Otherwise, a good start.

[@BeardedTinker]

Thanks for the ideas. Yes. Actually, this was separate AddOn that is now slowly getting integrated. From what I've seen, Tidal should be coming soon, but how long soon is, nobody knows.

[@andymok7945]

Thanks so much for making and sharing this video. I installed music assistant some time back. Never did properly finish off with it so as to have access to my music file on my NAS. Once or twice, I go to it and don't see my music and just go on with other stuff. It was on my get around to it list for some time. Then your video came up and I watched it and finally got around to fixing it up the right way. I have 300+ albums, so it will take a while. I converted all my CDs to FLAC. I have 3 piCorePlayers that will play stereo music only, but very well and a KODI box to play 5.1 channel music in the living room. Busy with my new production HA install. HA on HA Blue hardware with minimal add-ons. I already have mqtt, node-red and zigee2mqtt running in LCXs and VM on my Proxmox system. Next will install InfluxDB, Grafana and Telegraf on LXC or VMs as required.

[@BeardedTinker]

Great to hear that - this video made me finally tackle connecting HA with NAS. To be honest, never got around to doing it for long time and I could have used it for other integrations - but so glad I did get my media library in.
I've given up on using InfluxDB with HA, simply wasn't using the data there for nothing so decided to decommission it - and Grafana, now is only used for non-HA related stuff :)
What's you case for Telegraf, Grafana and InfluxDB

[@andymok7945]

@@BeardedTinker Just starting out with it. So far I am monitoring power consumption for a number of devices, including my server rack. Tracking temp & hum. Will be doing more as time goes on. Looking at trends so I can better control my living areas and see where I can improve conservation.

[@WayneNaylor25]

Thank you for a perfect presentation. I don't have a Sinology NAS but it worked on my WD PR4100 NAS.

[@BeardedTinker]

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback! And good luck with Music Assistant - BTW - currently MA has issues with 2022.12 beta, so you'll need new version to be released for it to work with next released of Home Assistant - just FYI!

[@Argent23]

Perfect! I have Music Assistant up and running for some time now. However, I was not able to use it in automations to play more than a single file. Maybe that was improved in one of the recent updates. I should go and have a look!
I want to start albums and playlists on the living room speaker by scanning NFC tags.

[@BeardedTinker]

That's not that simple. You can trigger service call that would actually play based on keyword in it.
There is example for playing the radio station:
github.com/music-assistant/hass-music-assistant/discussions/459

[@iainhay2823]

Been meaning to look at this for a while, this video will make my life easy! Thanks :)

[@BeardedTinker]

Awesome! Hope you enjoy it!

[@adifoto6362]

Nice one. Thanks for taking the time to tell us about it.

[@BeardedTinker]

Glad you like it Adi! Thank you :)

[@SmartHomeJunkie]

Thanks Andrej! The NAS info is something that I can use.

[@BeardedTinker]

It's one of those small things you can use for a lot of stuff - thank you Ed!!!!

[@SmartHomeJunkie]

@@BeardedTinker Just tried it, but get "Invalid JSON in response" when I go to the media folder in HA. Also, my log files are not loading anymore. I guess it might be something with user rights or so. Will have to dive into this later.

[@SmartHomeJunkie]

At least it's working in Music Assistant. I only get that error in the Media menu in HA, but that's a minor thing I guess. Thanks for the great work!

[@BeardedTinker]

Check for space in folder name, also non standard symbols etc. You know that Unix hates that 😂

[@SmartHomeJunkie]

@@BeardedTinker Yeah, there's no space or something, but it works in Music Assistant, so... happy!

[@Kev7274]

Thanks for this. You always seem to be doing a video on something I want to do.

[@BeardedTinker]

Great you liked it!!! Trying to find some nice gems and there are a lot of them out there.

[@danieltudor6165]

Installed, I only have cast devices and it seems very buggy with the players, otherwise it seems cool, radio does not reconnect after a loss so it just goes silent forever, I am clueless how to make playlists easily from folders or any other way from PC, but yeah, compared to the nothing option around for HA, it is cool, I will try to work around bugs and use it.

[@BeardedTinker]

This is unfortunately new version, AFAIK still in Beta since it was moved from HACS integration to HA AddOn. Haven't played it since it was in BETA 2 or 3 - I think it's now at BETA 6 or something like that. It required everything to be reworked and some things that worked previously are now breaking. Hopefully, soon, it will be fixed.

[@111Leonidas]

Thanks for a great video, well explained. Very nice to have the code to copy.

[@BeardedTinker]

Thank you Leonidas!!!!

[@williambravin1254]

hello thank you for this video. I managed to install and load music assistant however i cannot play media on amazon echo or play via my home HTPC. I do not see in the config of music assistant an option to select echo opr my stereo

[@BeardedTinker]

I don't use Amazon devices (that much) Did you install alexa media player first as nativlythose speakers are not support in HA without HACS component.

[@EsotericArctos]

Thank you for another great video. This is something I have been thinking about for some time, and this makes it look pretty easy. I also have a large music library on my Synology NAS and the default media browser just doesn't quite do what I need.

[@BeardedTinker]

Thanks for the comment :) It's awesome to get everything synced at one place. And UI is not bad. It could use some more work and options, but :)

[@EsotericArctos]

@@BeardedTinker I am sure it will improve in time. Pretty good for free though 🙂.

[@WayneNaylor25]

Thank you for the heads-up.

[@alfadex50]

ooowwwww that is muchhh better than media, tnxxx mate

[@BeardedTinker]

It is much better indeed! Even my family liked it - and that's not easy :)

[@FritsSpieker]

Nice tip how to mount the NAS. I really would like tidal to be integrated. 😉

[@BeardedTinker]

Hopefully soon! Did try to find info on it but no answers from dev - just people asking for it. I've added my vote for Tidal too.

[@ratliffgreg]

Great video! I think music assistant is going to be one of my favorite parts of HA. I have so much music on my Synology that I dont really access much anymore. This will change that.
I'm having trouble with the share to my NAS thought. I get error 127 from the logs when the automation runs. My HA runs on a VM. The host where the VM runs can map a drive to the NAS successfully. Any suggestions?

[@ratliffgreg]

Turns out it was the special characters in the password. All is good on the music front now. Thanks again for the great videos!

[@kodjoviganazia]

Great presentation. Please can you tell me which version of Synology i should use for NAS?

[@BeardedTinker]

I use 920+ with extra memory inside (for total 20Gb). It runs in Virtual Machine inside and it's been running very good so far.
But I also have older 415+ with extra RAM (10Gb total) - it has both VM Home Assistant and Home Assistant in Docker.
Watch out for 2 things - that it supports VMM (Virtual Machine Manager) and that you can add more RAM (they usually start with 2 or 4 GB)

[@HollyFredD]

Great video, thanks !
Is CIFS for the SMB sharing command line mandatory to make things properly work ? I would have used NFS4 for better performances (CIFS being the worst of all protocols). I am not an expert, but just always heard that CIFS is the worst protocol in terms of performances.

[@BeardedTinker]

I haven't tried it with nfs4, so can't tell you if it would work :) I presume yes, it's pretty standard protocol...

[@gamzenurdemir2822]

Hello, when I search for music assistant in the devices section, it does not appear, what do you think I should do?

[@BeardedTinker]

A lot has changed since video has been released. in HACS you now only have frontend. Main component (BETA) has been moved to AddOns'

[@miketargaryen1210]

Hello!
Thanks for this great addon!
Quick question, can you start a radio station via the service: Music Assistant (BETA): Play Media (advanced), if so can you cover this in a video, please?

[@bestgoprovideo]

Is it possible to add manually my echo dot to be discover by Music Assistant? It it not recognise as a player event if i have the integration Alexa media player.

[@BeardedTinker]

Not that I know or not easily - that's (one of many) limitations of Alexa/Echo speakers. It doesn't support receiving of stream URLs unlike some other speakers.

[@louisviciedo]

great video! Is Alexa echo devices an option for music player?

[@BeardedTinker]

Not really - you can check here for discussion on it: github.com/music-assistant/hass-music-assistant/discussions/431
Problem is how Alexa Echo devices handle this - differently than Google or similar devices.
It's currently too complex.

[@01bakra]

It seems RUclips Music only works with a premium account. Is that correct?

[@mariojelic]

That is correct, in the documentation it says: "When using Spotify or RUclips Music as a music source please note that only Premium accounts are supported, free accounts will not work."

[@afp2003d]

nice video. how can i play the music in the browser. I want to play the music from the browser or from my phone directly within home assistant application. I only see my xbox in the list of players.

[@BeardedTinker]

Your browser and phone need to be available as media_players in home assistant to be able to do so.

[@johndekoven7549]

Thank you for another great video. I've been struggling to find a solution to use You Tube Music with Sonos Speakers. Do you know if there's a way to create an automation with music assistant to play a particular song or playlist? Unlike Spotify it doesn't seem like it pulls any sort of ID. When I got into Dev tools it just will show content ID as database/track/number etc... Wishing you a happy and successful 2023!

[@BeardedTinker]

Still haven't even tried that. I'm more of random/radio guy, so didn't play and playlists so far. But I do see from various posts, that yes, you have to use ID from database to do it.
Not sure if this maybe can help you:
github.com/music-assistant/hass-music-assistant/discussions/834#discussioncomment-3718483
There is also mass.queue_command that allows you to start a playlist by it's name.

[@johndekoven7549]

@@BeardedTinker Thanks for the info. The mass.queue command is working for me with Spotify as for the playlist I only have to type the playlist name. Same thing with local files. However, with you tube that doesn't work and I'm trying to determine how to figure out the URI for the automation.

[@koolkiwikat]

how would I setup shuffle? I wish to automate a wake up playlist that shuffles

[@BeardedTinker]

Check the documentation on GitHub - there is command to shuffle playlists

[@AlexeyMoskalev1]

Hi! The first version of Music Assistant had an MPD player. But the latest v2 doesn't have it. Please tell me how to add MPD player to the latest Music Assistant in Home Assistant.

[@BeardedTinker]

You should try asking on MA Discord about that. I'm not using it since it moved to version 2.x

[@13panda13]

Love the jumper!

[@BeardedTinker]

Thank you :)

[@pavolholes]

Do you know Logitech Media Server? That one is years ahead comparing to the Music Assistant. Addons: chromecast, airplay, dlna, youtube (free), spotify, tidal, etc. There is an addon for HA or you can run it in container.

[@BeardedTinker]

But this is not Add-On - AddOns are external Dockers controlled by HA. This internal (HACS) integration, not needing extra docker.
I do know Logitech Media Server, but I use Emby for overall media library management.

[@PersonXes]

Unfortunately the progress on integrating Tidal into Music Assistant seems to have stalled. People are offering to help but the person whose leading this seems to be missing in action.

[@BeardedTinker]

Yeah, just people asking for it and to test beta version, but no dev answer on that. Shame, but new release is coming in December, it would be awesome if this would be included.

[@ScottAlexander68]

I followed this integration to a "T" and it worked perfectly until yesterday when I updated HA to 2023.2. Now I get an 111 error when trying to create the share on startup. Is yours still working? If so, I need to look somewhere else.....

[@BeardedTinker]

You probably didn't update to latest version of MA. There was release to fix issue with 2023.2 HA release.
If you did upgrade, not sure. Mine is working with that update

[@AbdoZaInsert]

What setup are you exactly using for Music Assistant ?
I'm using a ESP32 Audio player as the entity but all I got is static sound from my test speakers.

[@BeardedTinker]

I'm using Google Speakers mostly, but also HASS-Agent to stream music to desktop/Notebooks.

[@bennyrosenwasser2567]

Dear BeardedTinker,
First of all thanks for all your great videos, always super well explained and easy to follow, it makes our life as a HA user so much easier… 😉
Because of the playlist function I also installed Music Assistant, at the moment the radio stations are playing fantastic with my Marantz NR1510.
I only have problems playing songs from my Synology NAS that are passed through as URL Stream.
For some reason the sound is very disturbed by short high peaks and can't listen to it…
When I play the same songs via the mini media player, there is no problem at all !!
Any idea what could be causing this and how I can fix it?
PS: I have no problems playing the same songs via Music Assistant on the Sonos Move.
Regards, Benny

[@BeardedTinker]

Thank you very much Benny. Not really sure. The problem can be in compression or conversion. Check this github.com/music-assistant/hass-music-assistant/discussions/819 and try as suggested to disable ICY.

[@bennyrosenwasser2567]

@@BeardedTinker This helped, didn't know there were advanced settings at all.
I changed the codec from FLAC to MP3 and now everything plays normally.
Thanks again and keep up the volume!👍

[@manuelmatus2959]

Hi, I followed the steps but I got this error: "Retrying setup: Setup failed of provider ytmusic: '__Secure-3PAPISID'" any idea?

[@BeardedTinker]

Did you make sure you copied full cookie for YTMusic?

[@alephtaph]

Sweet, thank you!
But I was not able to call the shell action. It just won't show up. Restarted several times. I added the snippet to the configuration file. Any idea?

[@BeardedTinker]

When you go to Developer tools - Services, do you see it listed there? If not something is not configured properly.
Check your log files. In Developer Tools - YAML, when you check your configuration, what does it say?

[@alephtaph]

@@BeardedTinker I found it under "services" and after a other restart, I also found it as a Action.
Thank you!

[@alephtaph]

@@BeardedTinker Now the next issue: mount failed: not supported
Any idea?

[@MatSmithLondon]

Nope - this doesn't work. Even after 4 restarts - getting an error when trying to add it.

[@BeardedTinker]

Hi Mat, you probably missed documentation. This integration is now (BETA) Home Assistant AddOn. And you need to install AddOn first, than add HACS integration.

[@ipkeeau6303]

Following this video, I managed to integrate Music assistant and my youtube account. However, when in Shuffle mode, it pick songs from all playlists with different languages . Can I shuffle songs within one particular playlist selected? Please advise

[@BeardedTinker]

Check this issue: github.com/music-assistant/hass-music-assistant/discussions/725
And documentation says following:
You don't shuffle the music providers you enable shuffle on the queue for the player and then whatever gets added to the queue gets shuffled. You enable shuffle on the queue from within MA by selecting QUEUE at the bottom, then the context menu Top Right then SETTINGS then SHUFFLE ON or you can do it via yaml as follows:
service: media_player.shuffle_set
target:
entity_id: media_player.mass_bath
data:
shuffle: true

[@rrpedrigal]

I'm getting "Invalid JSON in response" using the shell command when I go to Music folder it created in HA media. I have unraid server and HA is running on it on docker. Means that HA and Unraid is the same IP but different port. Any help please? I don't know what to do.

[@BeardedTinker]

For Docker, it should be a bit easier. You can map folder via docker command -v for volume or -m for mount. With mount command in Docker I haven't played that much but both should be OK. Same as you mapped -v cnfiguration folder in Docker repete command for music folder

[@rrpedrigal]

@@BeardedTinker I spent a lot of time figuring this out but I just need to add a "Path" to the docker template. Then I removed the shell command and automation and it works.

[@walberg61]

hmm, i dit for my Syno use the media option of HA, how is this different from the Shell command you use?

[@BeardedTinker]

No difference, except mapping drives from within HA was added 3-4 months after I recorded this video.

[@johnadams1976]

how do you control it with voice assist?

[@BeardedTinker]

Trick question ;) By voice ?
Sorry, had to do it.
But really not sure. Since version 2.0 is out I haven't tried it and not sure what is exposed and what can be used for that.

[@joeblstrn]

ive rebooted over a dozen times...still wont finish

[@BeardedTinker]

There is known issue with Music Assistant and HA version 2023.3 or higher. It doesn't work. Beta version is available on Discord server for new AddOn. It will not be available as HACS integration in future.

[@koolkiwikat]

same here :(

[@BeardedTinker]

Get new MA AddOn (beta). It's not available as HACS integration but as ha AddOn with Hacs fronted

[@michaelmcelrath1163]

Am I insane? Is this a reupload? I swear I watched this video on this channel last week.

[@BeardedTinker]

Two words - time travel... But seriously, no, I've not done video on it - just Media Browser - internal HA Media page.

[@AbdoZaInsert]

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