Re-starting this topic that was archived in November 2022.
As of January 2023, MQA / Masters are streaming at 14/44 FLAC quality on 3.5.50 or even the “fixed” 3.5.50_tidal version that came out following the infamous Tidal Streaming debacle here Unable to open an audio file for playback - #56
MQA/Master streaming is working on Audirvana Studio and Tidal Desktop app, so the problem is with the Legacy 3.5.XX version.
My setup is a 2012 5,1 Mac Pro running Mojave 10.14.6
Suddenly having the same issue with Audirvana 3.5.50. I have tried to troubleshoot and found the following:
Under Streaming Account settings, If I am on Tidal Lossless, I get the “stopping audio device…” followed by “Unable to open an audio file for playback” issue on certain tracks, not all. Some tracks play fine.
If I set my quality preference under Tidal streaming to Low or High, I get playback without any issues so far.
I have a HiFi tier subscription with Tidal. This issue has occurred before, and I gave up and used the Tidal app for a month or two. I almost quit Hifi though. The playback was lacklustre and disappointing. Decided to try Audirvana again, and without any intervention from me, everything worked again on the Lossless setting. Been a few months now without any issues.
Please sort this out.
After being affected by the previous issue for months, it was eventually resolved and everything was great.
However, like the original poster says, early this year the same issues returned and I can now no longer stream on any quality above High. I get the same “unable to open audio file for playback” error when attempting to play content of lossless or higher.
The last time this was an issue it seemed to be related to a change on Tidal side that affected how 3.5 accessed the Tidal content. It took many months to resolve. Hopefully this time it takes less time?
Has anyone seen an official response yet? I will be reaching out to support to report my experience to help add visibility to the issue.
Update:
After contacting support, they had me reproduce the error in a way that would capture error output in terminal.
I changed the streaming quality back to Master from High (As I had lowered the quality to allow streaming to work). After changing it back, the errors I got were different. Some Master Quality albums would play at the appropriate quality where as they would not before. However, some albums had issues where certain songs would not play at all while others would. In these cases, Audirvana would not return the error about failure to open the file for playback but instead would just pause on “Loading track insertTrackName” and be stuck there. If I got a track to play and told Audirvana to skip to the next track, it would skip the tracks that were unplayable and go directly to the next playable track (if there was one in the album).
I copied the terminal output and recorded a video of this behavior and shipped it off to support, We will see what comes of it.
This is not totally surprising. Similar change in behavior occurred during the cycle of this issue last year. Files went from completely unplayable at higher quality to intermittently working in some way. Maybe this is a sign that the issue is similar and hopefully this means the path to resolution is the same. If the issue really is a sudden change on Tidal’s side, maybe everyone will be quicker to adapt/revert the change this time around.
I’m facing the same issue. Support team had released a “3.5.50_tidal” version fix that fixed the"unable to load" error but it did load MQA tracks at 16/44 quality.
I am as angry as anyone about this issue. I was sold a product that promised great music for life. Audirvana broke that promise, and I won’t forget that.
But I just want to listen to music, and I don’t have the patience for this. So I subscribed to Audirvana Studio last night.
I can enjoy my tunes again.
You basically bent over and did what they hoped for by dropping support to 3.5: get people on the hook with a subscription model 
@jgore and @Leo78 , the Tidal integration in 3.5 and Audirvāna Studio is not the same in a lot of ways but we have not broke anything in 3.5 because how we would do that without doing an update of it? Thousands of users use the 3.5 and do not have an issue at all to play their music on daily basis.
I will look at @Meesterroboto video and info he sent to me and I will need to ask my contact at Tidal about what is going on before giving you more information.
Let’s not forget that we’re talking about the product that has been discontinued 2 years ago. At some point, Tidal will make some even more significant changes to the API and the integration will stop working completely.
You can’t blame Audirvana for that. If anything, Audirvana team showed good will by releasing few patches to 3.5 that extended the useful life of the product. The fact that people are still using it is a testament to that.
When I bought Audirvana 3.5. the sales line was “Buy once for life”. There is an implication in that. It means that the product would work for as long as I needed it. Less than a year in, I get notified that the product is discontinued and will not be supported anymore.
Its not my business that Tidal changes the API. When you advertise and sell a product with the promise of “for life” you bear the responsibility for that.
I remain disgusted at the powers that be at Audirvana, but I’m not surprised in the least. People are pigs. They will always be. Lesson learned.
Caveat Emptor.
Not really, you misunderstood the type of the license. It’s the lifetime of the product. The product lifetime has passed, it has been discontinued. That was how the traditional one time purchase licensing always worked. The version 3.5 is not the first product Audirvana released. Previous version where licensed in the same way. You had to buy a new license for each new version.
It’s not like Root lifetime license where you get all updates of the product as long as the product or company exists.
New member here. Same experience with 3.5 I contacted Customer Service this morning and they also asked me to send a copy of my terminal output. I also sent them some examples of “problem” tracks. I must say my experience with them has been very positive and they have been quick to respond. Let’s see how this one goes…
This makes sense. I assume that any issue involves changes outside of Audirvana, either environment or from Tidal. It would make sense that the integration is different between the Audirvana products and affect each one differently.
Why this is happening to some users and not others is certainly curious, but I will continue through the process of trying to determine what his happening.
This affected me a great deal of last year and seemed to have “resolved itself” which I attributed to the Audirvana and Tidal team fixing something on the back end. My environment has not changed but I can only make assumptions on what is causing and what will fix it.
I will continue through the troubleshooting processes for as long as it takes to get to the bottom of it.
Then why a 3.6 version is not released that connects to Tidal’s API the same way the Studio does ?
Because it’s a product that has been discontinued (2 years ago). The current development is done in Audirvana Studio and Origin.
This is what I bought. A LIFETIME license. You say lifetime refers to the product lifespan. It’s software. It does not live.
When Audirvana sold LIFETIME licences, they did not have the right to discontinue the product. They bound themselves ethically to continue support for the product as long as there were patrons alive to make use of it.
I understand the need to move to a subscription model. Its more profitable. Its the financially sensible thing for any software company to do. But Audirvana got where it is today on the support of those of us who purchased our LIFETIME licenses.
I do not expect new features from my right of use license of Audirvana 3.5
I do however expect that the company honours its responsibility that for my LIFETIME, the product will work to a satisfactory level. After all, what is a software, if it doesn’t work?
The problem here is actually quite simple, and it is borne of greed. Audirvana could easily keep 3.5 current with small changes to stay inline with Tidal and Qobuz API. However, they choose to use the situation to force customers into the subscription service.
Its really that simple.
It says clearly Audirvana 3.5 lifetime license, not Audirvana lifetime license. It refers to a specific version. This is how this type of licensing always worked.
Microsoft could have kept updating Windows 7, but they don’t. At some point you draw the line.
Audirvana actually did release few patches for 3.5 to extend it’s useful lifetime. They even released patch for 3.2 when it was long discontinued, when Tidal changed authentication method.
I used Qobuz with 3.5 for some time. Had no issues with it. As far as I‘m aware, it still works. I‘m no longer Qobuz subscriber, so I can’t check.
If any of you all having issues with your 3.5 would be up to posting your debug reports to the community perhaps some of the forum members would be able to help. Otherwise you are just venting which is fine also but ultimately won’t solve anything technical. I’m getting your frustration but I’m going to have to tell you that many many people are still using 3.5 quite successfully myself included with Qobuz not Tidal so I can’t speak to that deal. And I’m also on MacBook not PC.
Send a message directly to support@audirvana.com or post your debug if you want some feedback from the community. Best luck with it.
Microsoft NEVER claims LIFETIME license. I would win that argument in court all day long if I had the inclination to take this issue that far.
I am happy to air the facts right here and let them weigh on the conscience of Damien et al.
For what its worth.
