[Solved] Problems with IQAudIO Pi-Dac+

Audio Gear DACs
1

Hi,
Has any of you managed to get PI-DAC+ working on Volumio 1.41?

When I try activating the driver from the volumio webpage I get the error “Job Failed - background worker is busy.”

I have run the updates (sudo update, sudo upgrade, sudo rpi-update) but it doesn’t seem to have helped much. My /etc/modules file includes, as I understand, all the necessary things:

snd_soc_bcm2708 snd_soc_bcm2708_i2s bcm2708_dmaengine snd_soc_pcm512x snd_soc_iqaudio_dac

aplay-l doesn’t find any soudcards.

Thank you in advance for help!

2

I did, by following the guide to installing the original PiDAC:

iqaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2 … IO_Doc.pdf

With the 1.41 image, you just need to follow the instructions on Page 9 of that document, and you should find that the PiDAC is set as the default soundcard in Volumio.

At that point I had the PiDAC+ working fine, but the Hardware volume control wasn’t working.

Following Tracer’s instructions on Page 17 of the PDF, I got the Hardware volume control working (though this reverted when I later changed one of the MPD settings in Volumio, I think Volumio must have overwritten the ‘Playback Digital’ setting).

Hope this helps!

3

I have seen this, but it doesn’t seem to differ much from what I have done…

I do not have the blacklist file which the pdf mentions. Alas, despite /etc/modules having been updated, the audiocard still doesn’t seem to be loaded…

4

I didn’t have the blacklist file either.

I’m sorry my post didn’t help! When I emailed Gordon with a query a few days ago he said he was going to do a B+ build and I think update his notes, hopefully he or one of the more experienced Linux’ers here will be able to help. I was obviously lucky - though I’m surprised with the same hardware and image we didn’t get the same result.

5

Hello

Thanks for posting the problem as well as the solutions.

I had the ‘Job Failed - background worker is busy’ message a few times. I restarted the pi and got distracted by a phone call. some time later, I was getting audio via the pi-dac+. Not sure if we are supposed to leave it alone after the initial installation?

Still not getting hardware volume control.

I checked the document linked in this thread. Gordon seems to have updated it as there are complete sections for the dac+, though it might need some proof reading as there are paragraphs/headings which say dac instead of dac+.

I can’t test the hardware control at the moment. However, can’t wait to hear other people’s experience.

one question - I haven’t dared to use rpi update, because I was under the impression that this could break volumio? I’m using 1.41 and have very little knowledge of such things. do let me know if it is safe to go for the updates.

Thanks

6

Got my DAC+ running couple of days ago. I just selected it in Volumios list of I2S DAC’s and away it went.

Couldn’t get hardware volume control working but Gordon pointed me to the new PDF and the section where you need to put the DAC name (“Playback Digital” in my case) into /etc/mpd.conf. I had to do it a second time as Volumio overwrote it when I restarted but all’s well now. You lose the full range of volume control in hardware mode, as has been discussed elsewhere, but fine from 50-100. Hopefully that’ll get fixed in the near future.

It sounds excellent, on line out and headphones, and Gordon has been very quick to respond to my queries. Happy customer!

7

rpi-update must have indeed messed something up. I have reinstalled volumio from scratch and… to my great surprise, the dac started to work immediately!

Thank you all for help.

8

That’s great to know. The Pi-DAC+ uses the exact same linux drivers as the older Pi-DAC. The only issue which should be different between Pi B and Pi-B+ is that the I2S signals are exposed on different pins.

This needed a code change which went into a more recent linux build.

rpi-update / upgrade should pull this change but it’ll also pull a load more changes too.

I need to revisit the docs and will do shortly - thanks for the pointers.

Gordon@IQaudio.com

9

Just wanted to add my experience with this.

New Raspberry Pi B+ and new Iqaudio Dac+. Volumio 1.41

Attempting to select the IQaudio driver resulted in “Job Failed - background worker is busy.”

However, after reading these posts, I refreshed the SD card image, tried again, got the error message and then rebooted. After reboot, I can see audio output is to ‘sndrpiiquadioda’ and I have sound. However, the hardware volume control is not working.

Volume control required the edit to etc/mpd.conf detailed on p. 34 of the iqaudio document linked above.

10

just attached my new pi-dac+ i was getting the “Job Failed - background worker is busy.” when selecting the i2s driver. So i run rpi-update and rebooted, but still no joy when selecting the i2s driver. I then noticed when you select any i2s driver the /etc/modules file has been updated. On restarting the mpd service and playing a track it started to work. I hope this helps

Spacemonkey

11

All, thanks for the great feedback.

Yesterday I took volumio 1.4.1, updated the kernel, selected the Iqaudio I2S device (got various UI errors) and rebooted.

After reboot checked /etc/modules to ensure iqaudio drivers installed
Checked using “aplay -l” from command line that iqaudio sound card was found
Modified /etc/mpd.conf to use “Playback Digital” rather than “PCM” for the hardware volume control
Performed a “sync” to ensure changes were written to sd card
Rebooted.

All worked as expected, audio playback with UI volume control through Pi-DAC+

I did have a bit of a scare at one point as no audio was being played through my headphones but that was due to me being a complete numpty and plugging in the wrong cable. :slight_smile:

Gordon@iqaudio.com

12

I know this thread is ancient but I wanted to throw in my input in case anyone else has a problem like mine.

I had a working Volumio install and plugged the Pi-DAC+ into my Pi this afternoon. I went through the Playback Options and selected the card. It looked okay but I did not get a Hardware Mixer. I tried changing the mixer_control to Digital but I wasn’t having any luck. Also, I had disabled the regular stock Pi audio device in /boot/config.txt as instructed in the IQAudio .pdf file.

My device was showing up as hw:1,0 or something very similar to that. It dawned on me that mpd thought it was the secondary device. Since I’d disabled it, it should actually be card 0. So I did an aplay -L and saw that default was the Pi-DAC+.

I set device as default in /etc/mpd.conf and rebooted, and afterward, I had my choice of hardware mixers (“Digital” was already selected). I made sure those settings were saved, rebooted, and I had volume control.

Incidentally, it seems that these settings are put elsewhere in Volumio’s configuration. There’s no indication of the mixer in /etc/mpd.conf after my changes.

13

This thread is very old and was related to previous version of Volumio (1.4 1.5). With Volumio 2.xxx it is obsolete. Just select iqaudio dac+ as dac and save.
I advice to not change mpd.conf as it is rewritten by volumio.