Music app for large library over samba share

Question

I am currently using Smb4k to auto-mount my Samba share (a 2TB hard drive plugged into my router USB port). The music collection is only a few hundred GBs. I've tried adding my music collection to a number of different apps, so far with no luck.

I have tried:

1) Clementine 2) Exaile 3) Spotify

The issues with each are:

1) File loading never completes. Even after waiting days. It approaches 90% and then the percentage complete begins dropping. I have no idea why this is happening

2) Exaile is just buggy. The files seem to eventually load (well, I have only tried the albums starting with "A") but even with this small collection loaded I have interrupted music playback and frequent fading out of the app GUI (while it 'thinks')

3) Spotify just doesn't seem to scan the mounted share at all. I can't get anywhere, which is a shame.. as it's a great way to catalog your collection with the additional online resource in one searchable library.

Playback through Audacious works fine when I drop in a folder from the mounted share. The playback seems relatively flawless and snappy.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Rhythmbox handles big music libraries quite happily. I answered a similar question regarding Rhythmbox with Samba shares:

Rhythmbox's not playing music from network share

You'll probably have to modify this method slightly to account for your HDD being plugged directly into your router - I'm not sure how your router would mount the drive or share it on the network, sorry!

Answer 2

Did you try Amarok (I did not test it, but looks like it has SMB support since version 2.2), Banshee, aTunes, or other alternatives?

Answer 3

What I'm used in the past for local network music server is tangerine. It's an DAAP (Digital Audio Access Protocol) server similar to what iTunes uses.

http://linuxpoison.blogspot.fr/2012/05/installconfigure-music-server-using.html

I accessed the server easily with Rhythmbox's built in DAAP client (you need to have the plugin enabled).