Dear All,

On Friday Apple delivered promptly my Snow Leopard disc I first upgraded my MacBook Air with no problems and checked everything out with great satisfaction - definitely faster, very stable and some of the minor tweaks to iPhoto and Expose very good. 

So far so good...

Then upgraded my MacMini which runs iTunes and connects via a DACMagic to MasterLink and my B&O home set-up.

All looked good (despite not having control over playlists any longer from Beo4 after upgrading to latest iTunes for my iPhone) the music was coming out beautifully. For a while it worked well then just stopped. Further inspection showed iTunes still playing but BM-Link running but will not accept commands either from OSX Preference Panel or IR eye & Beo4. The only way I found to restart BM-Link was to stop the Server and Script applications via Activity Monitor and then restart BM-Link via Preference Panel.

2 hours later same thing, music just stopped, but iTunes still thinks it's playing and BM-Link (unresponsive but not hung). Followed same process, stopped and restarted BM-Link all okay again.

12 hours later same thing again.

We've a party on Saturday and as well as a live band I've made lots of play lists for dancing into the night so clearly this random stopping is not a good thing. So today's job is to downgrade back to Leopard via a full re-install of Leopard and restore of files from Time Machine  

So...

If anyone else is upgrading please proceed with this knowledge and test your rig fully for a few hours. I hope this warning helps. Also if you do upgrade I'd be very interested if you get similar symptoms or if it's something in my set-up.

Best

Rob

Upgraded last night. Still testing but did let run for two hours last night with no problems.

I did also update last night. I find BM-Link even more unstable now. Cannot start up the application from the System Preferences.

Did you re-install BM-Link after the update? I did not.

A question: Almost everytime I startup my Mac (BM-Link launches at startup) I have to stop and start BM-link to turn on the sound. My speakers turn on but without sound before I do this restart. Is this a common problem?

amunk:

 I find BM-Link even more unstable now

May I suggest staying with an iTunes version prior to 8.2 (this also means staying with OS X 10.5) and contacting B&O in Denmark via the B&O "contact us" webpage.  I received the following reply with regards to BM-Link failing with newer versions of iTunes.  I figure the more of us who contact B&O the better chances of getting a software update or replacement to BM-Link.

Dear Mr [Last Name],

We are pleased to see that you are the owner of BeoPort. We regret that the BM-Link is not updated with the new version of iTunes. We do not have a solution for you - unfortunately. The only temporary solution is to down-grade your iTunes in order to get the playlists again. 
We will look into this problem and will get back to you with an answer.

Kind regards
Bang & Olufsen a/s

[M... K... H...]
BeoCare

amunk:

I did also update last night. I find BM-Link even more unstable now. Cannot start up the application from the System Preferences.

 

Did you re-install BM-Link after the update? I did not.

A question: Almost everytime I startup my Mac (BM-Link launches at startup) I have to stop and start BM-link to turn on the sound. My speakers turn on but without sound before I do this restart. Is this a common problem?

I also did not reinstall BM-Link. It seems that our system is working as follows: If the iMac is turned off, upon turning the iMac back on I can start iTunes with the mouse, the speakers will be on, but no sound. I finally discovered that when the computer is turned off the volume is being turned turned down to zero so all I have to do to get sound from the speakers connected to the Beoport box in the room with the computer is turn the volume up from mute. If after I have turned the computer off and back on the first time I try to use the system, if I use the Beo 4 in a link room the speakers in the link room turn on as do the speakers with the computer, and iTunes starts. There will be no sound from the speakers until I un-mute the computer. Once the computer is un-muted accessing music  seems to be no problem other than the unavailability of playlists others have commented on.

Interesting things happening in this thread... http://forum.beoworld.org/forums/p/28515/224276.aspx#224276

yes  very interesting

Yes, it looks like we've got a common problem here. I'm certainly going to write to B&O and ask them to assist Anders in updating BM-Link.

Best

Rob

I just found how to set  Snow Leopard to always start preferences, including BM-Link, in 32 bit. First impressions are that it does seem to work better.

Hi Razlaw,

Very encouraging do please keep us all posted. Does it appear stable if started in 32 bit mode (how did you achieve this?), my problem was it would start and work fine for a while, then randomly stop and need a full restart, very frustrating!?

Best

Rob

Yes it does seem to be more stable. However I am having another problem which I have been spending most of my time on.  For some reason the volume is very low in one link room while it works fine in the other link room. I have checked all connections and everything works fine, except the lower volume. As for setting preferences to 32 bit mode, there are two options. 1. When opening the preferences for BM-Link and it says it needs to restart in 32 bit mode, click on the question mark in the window and instructions will appear. 2. Open Finder, in left column click on applications. The icons will appear for various applications. Click once on System Preferences which will highlight it.  Go to main Finder tool bar at top of screen. Click on File and in the menu that appears click on Get Info. There will be a box to check to set to open always in 32 bit.

I mentioned this in another thread about Masterlink but thought I would put it here also. Hope nobody minds. Has anybody else tried different settings in the Audio Midi Setup?  It allows various settings for the Hz and the bit rate. For some reason changing these settings affects the output in different rooms differently. For example, for awhile I had normal volume in the room with Beoport and one link room, but very minimal volume in another link room. After changing some settings I now have normal volume in the two link rooms but low volume in the speakers connected directly to the Beoport box.

I have also tried to set System Preferences in 32-bit mode. I agree that its a bit more stable. BM-link starts - but sometimes it just shuts down when operating the BEO4.

All in all I consider BM-link to be broken by Snow Leopard.

While I can get BM-Link working reasonably well, I have noticed another problem. At certain frequencies there is now a bit of static. I have listened to the same pieces of music via Apple TV and the static is absent. HAs anybody else noticed this?  I have just about decided to do a backup and reinstall the older operating system.

Turning off the iTunes equalizer solved the static problem. All does seem to be working well now with Snow Leopard.

Hi Razlaw,

I'm glad to hear you've got SL working well with BM-link and solved your room level problems.

I've still got the same problem as Amunk, BM-link simply stops randomly when using the Beo4 and ocassionally on its own! I've now, sadly, restored Leopard and all is stable again. Has anyone else found SL stable?

Regarding changing midi settings on Mac, yes, I have done this so get the best from the DACmagic. I changed to output to 24bit and 96KHz so the fibre optic link from Mac to DACmagic runs at best definitions. No problems with levels in link rooms nor the speakers attached to the BeoPort experienced.

Best

Rob

All still seems to be working. I did have it stop once when I was using the Beo 4 to skip through albums very rapidly.

An answer from B&O:

"Dear Mr. ,

We re pleased to see that you are the owner of BeoPort.
As mentioned on our web site this software is not developed by Bang & Olufsen. When Beoport was produced it was not intended to support MAC OS. 
But a kind customer in Sweden wrote the BM-link software, so this could be possible. The software was not ordered by Bang & Olufsen, and therefore also not supported by us.

However, we are pleased to say that we are looking into a solution to this, and as soon as information is available we shall inform about this on our web site. 

Kind regards,
Bang & Olufsen a/s

Helle Pramanik"

How long should we wait for?

But a kind customer in Sweden wrote the BM-link software, so this could be possible. The software was not ordered by Bang & Olufsen, and therefore also not supported by us.

This statement above is not accurate. Bang & Olufsen are still advertising on their website that Beoport is supported with MAC:

http://www.bang-olufsen.com/beoport/software-downloads-mac

I'm becoming very annoyed at the constant 'we do not support MAC'. Why did no one tell me this when I was prepared to spend one thousand dollars, plus cost of cables for this product. My local store has kindly offered to refund my purchase and I appreciate that. When the product works however it is great and I'd like it to work, as B&O still advertise it does!

Yours in frustration

David Coyne

I concur.  Furthermore, I add that it is unethical for a company to state or imply one thing in one forum (their official website) and another in correspondence to its clients.

But what is really sad is that B&O seems to be unaware a significant portion of its customers use Apple products and this trend will only grow.  B&O's blindness in this regard is to its detriment.

I believe B&O is in talk with "the kind customer".

A few years ago, they started to advertise BM-Link on their site and it looks like they had a sort of deal.

They really should get the source code and manage it themselves...

----------------

On this note, I have an announcement to make... another kind customer, myself, is working on a Beoport replacement for the mac.

I currently have a working prototype, but I still have a lot of work to do. The problem comes from the fact that the protocol between the PC2 and the computer is not public and need to be reversed engineered. It is like trying to decipher the rosetta stone!

I am planning to cover most of the features of the PC version of the Beoport software. That is to say to work in all Option settings, and emulate a Beolink active, like the PC version. There could be extra Mac specific features...

I may need a month or two before I can release it.

Here is to make you salivate...

Wow, Phil, quite an undertaking!  Is there a possibility you could get B&O to release the APIs to you like they apparently did to Anders Ödlund?

Best of luck, and looking forward to your product,

Sounds wonderful!

Hi Phil,

This sounds great. I'm based in London and live nearby so if you want someone to be a beta tester just shout.

Good luck!

Rob

I having the same problem with BeoPort after I just upgraded to Mac OS 10.6. Unfortunate I didn't see this thread until AFTER I upgraded - I was pretty sure that my BeoPort hardware was broken - but from this thread it looks like it is the software that is broken. The BeoPort integration with my 32-bit Mac Mini works fine for the first two or so acivations on the beo4 remote after that it simply locks up and some minutes later the music also stops playing.

Any news on Odlund (or someone else is) looking into this?