Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Sooloos power issues and software versions co-existing

Currently have an MD600 running on v2.494. I have not upgraded to v2.538 as there is a power supply issue and I am concerned I might brick the device.

The power supply issue is that sometimes it will not come out of standby (blue light) unless I do a hard power cycle and wait a few minutes. Seem to remember that the software upgrade takes it through a standby/re-boot phase. Is that only to load up the new software or is it part of the software installation?

There is a second problem with the MD600. It sometimes powers off (no light) without any intervention on a two/three week cycle. The solution is as above, a hard power cycle.

It does this when two 3Tb drives are installed. Currently there is one 3Tb drive installed and it has been running for 37 days. The second 3Tb drive has a white warning light so guess that has failed. This suggests to me that the power supply is droopy - is this a reasonable hypothesis. Is there a cure?


Would it be problematic if I were to add a second MD600 to the same installation but running on v2.538?


TIA

While I was looking at these pictures, it looks like it's based of an ITX motherboard using somekind of pico psu connected to what looks like a G series PSU ?

These G series PSU's do go bad from time to time, of what I know.

Perhaps replacing the G series like PSU first, would perhaps fix your problem, I don't think that pico psu would be the first problem of these two.

Added the second MD600 running at v2.538.

The system identified the software mismatch and promptly tried to update the software on the other MD600 running on v2.494.

This meant that all my Sooloos Web, Control:PC and Touch PC installation did not work, uninstall/reinstall fixed those once the new MD600 (with its new IP address) was in and working.

But the main issue was my not being patient enough and trying the system whilst the MD600 running the older software was still rebooting. It then loaded with two MD600 cores and got very confused

Switched the old MD600 off, configured the new MD600 as core/store, then switched the new device off and the old on, which was then configured as store only, Switched old off and new on, came up roses. Switched the old on, and all the store was visible.

Take-aways:
- take a full back-up before thinking about doing anything!
- get hold of the Meridian Sooloos Configuration software
- get everything on the same (latest) software before doing anything
- do not connect two MD600s configured as core/store at the same time, it seems to crash the system but that may have been something I did wrong
- be patient when updating software and configurations, check the status using Web Debug, reboot the device once the update has settled and again check via Web Debug

A new problem has emerged which hopefully the hive-mind can help resolve.

The (new to me) MD600 was running core and storage with two ~10 year old 3Tb discs and the #5 light illuminated - been stable and working well for 10 days

The (original to me) MD600 was running storage only with two 2Tb discs of indeterminate age - also stable and working well.

Took a full back-up via Export (smart!)

This morning I replaced the apparently non-functional 3Tb disc with a new one that had acclimatised (i.e. not cold from delivery - learnt from my mainframe tape days). As expected the #4 and #5 lights started flashing alternately as the new disc was cloned from the old one, so off I went.

Arrived home to find the #4 light solid illuminated but #5 not illuminated, perhaps the other old disc had failed? So I swapped the two discs over to see if the light went from #4 to #5 and restarted. Now both #4 and #5 light were flashing in sync. Tried various combinations of old/new/one disc always with the same result.

Restarts are taking longer than normal (~5 minutes) and the Meridian Sooloos Configure program cannot see the MD600 with the faulty discs. I can however play music, load music, and use the web-based debug mode so the core is running and storage is running on my old MD600.

I have tried leaving things switched off for 20 minutes to settle down then restarted - but again the two lights are flashing in sync.

<Update>

The device is on, active (white power light) and visible to my ethernet network and to ControlPC functions.

But now there are no warning lights showing.

Still not visible to Soloos configurator


Thoughts?

Russ (Ratburt IIRC?) recommended replacing pairs of drives, the first time I had a HD fail in my MD600, so stuck with that as good advice since.

From relatively recent experience the flashing lights were the Meridian box formatting the new disks, which took longer than I expected... Running restore from my back up (to 4TB discs) took nearly 24 hours (possibly longer, I just set it to go and left it alone for a weekend). I’d be tempted to get a second new HD and then let restore sort out the library.

I suspect this makes a bit of nonsense of the MD600 having 2 drives but when one disk fails you at least get warning and can keep the remaining drive as a spare physical copy back up (I kept mine at work at least until I retired….) Russ, who understood computers, RAID drives and lots of stuff I’ve never understood or since forgotten, had lots of cogent arguments for his approach and as HDs are relatively cheep I’ve just done as I was advised.

Currently I run just a single MD600 with paired 4TB drives, I think that might be the limit on HD size? Regular back-ups, which in turn are backed up to a different NAS drive. When I get a HD fail in the MD600, I replace the pair and restore from my back up. Works for me, YMMV.

My feeling on what you’ve said is that this is just taking much longer than you expect it to. It’s a music server storage device not a particularly fast computer!

Best wishes

Richard

Hi,

Thank you for that walk down memory lane about Russ. Similar to you, I am not very savvy when it comes to hard drives and RAID and music storage and servers.

Russ was incredibly generous sharing his time and advice as I began my Sooloos/Meridian journey. He walked me through building an Intel NUC to be used as my main ROON server.

My last contact with him was just after he retired to France. I hope he is well and still enjoying his retirement. Like yours, my store and core for my Sooloos system is an MD600.

My first one had a bad power supply. Bruce from RMB was kind enough to sell me a replacement.

Now the replacement has a static blue light in the power button on the front of the unit. I am curious if you had a similar experience with your MD600? If so, can you suggest a possible fix?

I still enjoy Sooloos for its (outdated) simplicity. If all else fails, I will buy another MD600 and restore from a backup as you have done.

Kindest regards,
Derek

Derek

The only other thing I have to suggest within my experience is to replace the CMOS battery, a 2032 from memory.

I set my dad up with an MD600 and a couple of MS200s - which he loves, so I have a bit more experience of MD600’s than my single unit might suggest. I have a spare one in the attic in case of a failure. A few years back the one my dad has started failing to boot up so we replaced his CMOS battery and I did my two units as a follow up “preventative maintenance”. He had a hard drive fail recently, he had smaller drives fitted to his MD600, effectively his CDs and a curated selection of my collection. I thought I’d made a separate back up of his MD600, maybe I did and it’s on one of the old HDs that’s in my spares box! But I couldn’t find it so we bought a new pair of 4TB drives and he now has a clone of my MD600 with the full spectrum of music. Quite what he thinks of the wilder and heavier choices in there he hasn’t said….

I’ve replaced power supplies on a few bits of Meridian kit but never had to do my MD600 which has probably been powered up, pretty continuously, since I got it about 12 years ago having very rapidly outgrown the MC200 I had before that. Do you remember if it’s the same as in the G series units, a quick look at the Picture on Duncan’s website looks similar but perhaps not the same one.

Good luck, I think if you have a decent collection of your own music this is a fabulous system. If I didn’t have 1000’s of CDs I might be more interested in streaming as a starting point but at the moment I’d be paying to listen to music I already own, yes I know all the good things about HD formats and the metadata etc that Roon throws at you to follow links to other artists etc…

Richard

Thanks for this chaps.

I have found this thread that talks about changing the CMOS battery

The problematic unit has been standing for a while so a low/dead battery sounds like a likely issue.

Does anyone know what size Torx driver I should procure for this adventure?

Meanwhile the backs continue... slowly

Gianni,

I used a T10 and it fits the small screws.

By strange coincidence my home server has just had a HD failure, I think this might be a first in many years of use. A 3TB drive that holds the backup of my 4TB equipped MD600.

Helpfully I had a spare, basically new, 3TB HD in my spares box so a few minutes work had a new formatted drive up and running. My home server backs up to a NAS device in my attic where the network hub bits and pieces live, so I decided to set my backup software (SyncBackSE) to do a restore from the NAS to the replacement HD.

24 hours later and it’s reckoning it’ll be another 8 hours. So maybe we shouldn’t grumble about the Sooloos/Meridian Digital kit taking as long as it does!

Regards

Richard

Switched everything off for 24 hours and had a think.

Switched one MD600 (configured as Core/Store) on and it started up in under 30 seconds. Tried a few times with one or other drive fitted, same result, so ran a complete restore.

Several days later (!!!) I now have an MD600 with (apparently) two 3Tb hard drives loaded, no warning lights on the front, and with all my music seemingly intact.

I can only assume that something had got messed up in the core and the whole thing needed a little lie down. Something of a relief that surgery is not (yet) required.

If only there were some way of confirming whether a disk was actually operational other than relying on the lights on the front. Debug mode seems to assume that if one disk is good then so is the other, while Configurator shows 6Tb rather than 2 x 3Tb...




Think I will take the win for a few days before trying the other, back-up, MD600.

Jon,

What a relief!

P