Holiday Project: Lyrion Media Server & Spotify

This week saw me spending some time to get Lyrion Media Server working with Spotify again. I started using Logitech’s Squeezebox series streaming music players since the Squeezebox 3 was introduced in 2005. Lyrion Media Server is community supported version of what was once known as Logitech Media Server.

Of course, the Logitech hardware eventually died. Electrolytic capacitors eventually age. Our fleet of SB3 were eventually replaced with a handful of Raspberry Pi running PiCorePlayer. Both Lyrion Media Server and PiCorePlayer are open source.

Originally, LMS was all about playing stream from a local library of music. That didn’t last very long. As streaming music sources appeared online the software was extended to include these services. While I’ve used Pandora and Radio Paradise in the past, more recently I access a paid Spotify account by way of Michael Herger’s excellent Spotty plug-in for LMS.

Spotify were on the naughty list this holiday season. On December 23rd they pushed an update that broke the auth scheme used by plug-ins like Spotty. As a result, when I was getting ready to build a playlist for our Christmas dinner I found that I could not access my Spotify account from LMS.

Once the pressing matter of the holiday was past, I had a chance to check the Lyrion forums where Michael had posted an update on the situation. He’d been able to diagnose the problem and implement a resolution, which was manifest in a new release of Spotty.

My ability to upgrade was initially limited. My LMS server is a Lenovo Tiny PC that was running Daphile. Daphile is another open source project. It bundles a thin Linux-based OS with everything necessary to run an LMS appliance. Back in September, I opted for Daphile as a way to get around the fact that the Tiny PC, which had been running Windows 10, was not officially able to run Windows 11.

The OS and the media are physically separate disk volumes. That makes it quite simple to try different hosts OS’s. Also, being relatively careful, I am in the habit of keeping full backup images of the boot volume. At around 20 GB, the boot image is quite small compared to my library of FLAC files. It’s easy to keep a collection of backup images on-hand.

I initially tried various things to get the new release of Spotty working in Daphile. When I could not, I restored the last Windows 10 boot image, since I was more familiar with that environment. I don’t think I tried anything different, but this morning I was able to get the plug-in updated and authenticated.

It may well be risky to keep running Windows 10 on a platform that requires internet access to use things like Spotty. I have another Lenovo Tiny system that’s been upgraded to Windows 11 using Rufus to get around Microsoft’s arbitrary hardware requirements. At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll take that approach for LMS, or simply migrate to Ubuntu.

Twenty years down the road, I still find the Lyrion Media Server and related playback devices compelling. I appreciate the responsiveness of the open source community. It has not suffered the kind of enshitification that has plagued Sonos.