ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Hi all,
has anyone tried MacOS Catalina (beta)? Have you checked how BM-Link behaves in the absence of iTunes? Will it continue to work with the iTunes successors?
regards
Torsten
Hi Torsten,
I’m just looking into this now. I’ve upgraded a MacBook to Catalina to test if BM-Link works okay, before upgrading my main music server (MAC Mini linked to DACMagic D2A).
First signs not encouraging. BM-Link runs fine & speakers can be turned on/off at command, but new Music app doesn’t start playing. It appears the loss of the iTunes app may have broken that function...
I will investigate further & report back.
best,
Rob
On further investigation it’s as I suspected, BM-Link cannot connect to the new Music app at all.
I’ve tried rebooting the Mac, reconnecting the BeoLink PC2, starting the Music app and BM-Link app in different orders. Always the same result, BM-Link starts good as gold, the attached BeoLab 4000s power up and down in response to Beo4 commands, but nothing happens in the Music app. Not 9nly does Music not start or stop playing the track it left off from when the BM-Link is activated, skip track (back or forward) and skip album (back or forward) don’t work.
I did try to rename the Music.app as iTunes.app, as a rather desparate measure, but permissions stopped me.
Unless anyone else has a better idea I think we all need to contact anders@odlund.se (who wrote BM-Link) and ask if he’d be kind enough to look at this for us? I don’t think he’s been actively updating the app for some time, so this might be a big ask.
Best,
Hi Torsten & everyone,
I’ve received an email from Anders Ödlund who wrote BM-Link and it’s unfortunately not good news. He no longer lives in our part of the world and has no B&O equipment to develop or test an upgrade of the software. Consequently, I sadly conclude we’ve reached the end of the road with BM-Link when upgrading to Catalina.
The only temporary work-around is not to upgrade the music server running MacOS to Catalina until you absolutely have to. By then I hope our great community will have found an alternative way to feed music from Music running on MacOS Catalina into MasterLink.
Any ideas would be very welcome, I’ll start a new thread to see if anyone has the solution.
Best regards,
Hi Rob,
sad news indeed but somehow not much of a surprise. If Anders shared source code, maybe some could look into it...
Hello everyone,
I found a solution for my setup.
I've got an iMac in my home office room with 2 Beolab 6000 speakers.
I upgaded to Catalina.
In the system preferences of your MAC, you've got to go to the BM-link Settings. in the 3. tab "Details", I had to switch from "Start when iTunes starts" (which doesn't exist anymore). When I switched to "Start when BM-Link starts" it clicked in my BEOLAB 6000 and Music playing from the new Mac-music-app started
I uploaded 2 screenshots, check them out
That indeeds sounds great. Did you also check music distribution via Masterlink? Still working? In other words, pressing N.MUSIC in a different room starts playing music?
did some testing today with my Catalina-upgraded MBP. I can confirm that BM Link basically works also via Masterlink. What doesn't seem to work is music starting upon pressing N.MUSIC. However starting music manually (or via the iOS remot app) starts music distribution via MasterLink. So it appears the only thing not working anymore (which was to be expected) is remote control of the Music app. Not a major issue from my perspective as I am usually remote controlling music via the iOS remote app anyway.
Bottomline: upgrading to Catalina doesn't break music distribution to MasterLink. It only breaks remote controlling music play. If only we could get our hands on the BM Link app. I am pretty sure the changes to remote control music are pretty minimal. BM Link sends system events to remote controll iTunes. It seems these have changed.
I've install Catalina on my MacPro.
BM-Link start with error message :
=> I can't use Music App but get playback from radio or other source running on my Beo sound system via master link.
If someone get a solution to fix path in BM-Link settings...
Best regards
Christophe
Error message :
Failed to open iTunes Music Library at the following path : /Volumes/HD support/iTunes/iTunes Library.xml
Hi all, I would like to get N.RADIO into my ML network (because analog radio will soon be disappearing).I can stream to my ML network, that is not the issue, I just would love to still be able to control radio with the BEO4 only without using apps or my TV.
Now I do have an idle 2009 mac mini running El Capitan and can get myself a BeoLink PC2. My idea would be to install BM-LINK on the mac mini and use it 'headless' only to provide internet radio to the ML network.
Would you think this is still possible?
The ML network consists of BeoSystem 3, BeoMaster 6500, BeoLink Atcive, BeoLab 3500, BeoLab 2000 (soon).
Regards!
Johan
Googling around I only find a lot of difficulty around these topics.
I do actually listen to one particular radio system only. What I could do is:
1. (in my AV cabinet in the living room) connect my headless mac mini to the PHONO input of my BeoMaster 6500, and leave it playing my regular radio station all the time
2. (in my utility room) find a smart way to introduce the stereo sound from the mac mini into the MasterLink network that is available there
Would you have any suggestion for option 2?
Thanks,
Hi Johan,
I have basically stopped using BM Link (unfortunately). I am using a raspberry pi with a DAC HAT and the free software from hifiberry on it. It is connected as V.AUX on my BV 10 (but any other AUX socket on any other Master will do) and can receive (among others) airplay music. I am listening to it throughout the house by just selecting V.AUX in any B&O equipped room. Music streaming can be done from any Airplay capable device (Mac, iPhone, iPad), a NAS or in fact internet radio stations. It costs you less than EUR 100 and sounds very good.
cheers
Bummer, but thanks for your advice. I think I will give up on establishing a BM-Link based solution then. Still I would like to listen to my favorite radio station just by pressing one (or two) buttons on my Beo4.
I think that connecting the mac mini to the PHONO socket of my BeoMaster 6500 allows me to use N.RADIO under the LIST button of the Beo4 (as this is actually the same command as PHONO) which would be quite elegant ofcourse.
But would feeding the stereo audio of a mac mini into the AUDIO-AUX LINK socket of a 1611 converter (connected to my ML network) be possible? And would selecting LINK (from LIST on Beo4) plus RADIO give me then the mac mini internet radio audio in the rooms where I have IR eyes? I think I read somewhere that any audio command would work in this case. This would allow me to keep all extra equipment in my utility room and avoid adding to the cable salad in my AV cabinet , and I can use a command that has RADIO in it as well.
Hope this could work!
Regards,
I think I got it figured out :-) - I freed up an in-wall tube between the utility room and the AV cabinet and will pull a CAT7 S/FTP cable through it.
I will terminate with RJ45 sockets and crimp some RJ45 plugs on a 3.5mm minijack cable (between the mac and the socket) and a DIN cable (between the other socket and the PHONO input of the BeoMaster 6500).
Advantages: only one cable extra in the salad by putting the mac mini in the utility room, no need to buy (and power) a BeoLink, and I can make an Ethernet connection to the headless mac mini. Plus my trusted BeoMaster serves some extra purpose again (it lost its speakers already to the BeoSystem 3).
All in all I will now will be able to listen to internet radio without switching on the TV or needing to use an app. And in the Beo4 it will be the N.RADIO command - pretty neat!
Thanks for your advice.
And.... Got it working :-)