No compatible streams are available

That title is an error message from Emby, the music, movies, and more, server that I use on my systems, so all our music is available. It’s really very, very good. But sometimes it stops working. And you get that error message.

All over the internet, you can find people searching for that message, asking what it means, and how to fix it. What you won’t find is anyone giving a simple, direct answer, not even the people who wrote it.

I don’t claim to know the answer in every case. But I can tell you what caused it on my system, and how I fixed it. It is worth seeing if you have the same problem…

When I set up Linux Mint on my big PC, the hard disc the music is on appeared to be in the /mnt directory. I didn’t decide that, it’s just how it set itself up.

I had a look at the directory structure, and found that the hard disc now appeared in the /media directory. I hadn’t moved it.

So, I told Emby to forget its libraries, and then added them in again with the right path.

It worked.

My favourite bouzouki player

If you know me, you probably thought that would be Markos Vamvakaris. But you would be wrong. He was great, but Halikias played some instrumentals that made a huge difference to Greek music, and he played them in America.

Music by Ki & Ki – very enjoyable

I can’t remember who lead me to look at Ki & Ki on YouTube. Sorry, whoever you were! They play some rather astounding pieces of music on the traditional shamisen, which is a fascinating instrument to any really bad bouzouki player, such as myself.

They were so interesting that I ordered a couple of CDs from their web site, and the CDs arrived today. With them was a signed photograph, and it had a personal message on the back. The only other band I’ve had anything like that happen with was the wonderful Rembetika Hipsters (http://rembetika.com/) who are based in Canada. Anyway…

I‘ve always liked it when bands include posters and such like with their CDs, so this one was a pleasant surprise. It’s a bit on the psychedelic side, don’t you think? The message on the back of the photograph says they would like to play in the UK some day. Musical event arrangers, please note.











I has saz!

I present an unboxing! The ParcelForce guy was surprised this box was so light!

It contained monstrous amounts of bubble wrap…

Getting there…
There’s another layer!

The gig bag is revealed…
The short necked saz, undamaged by the shipping. Does anyone want to come and get two huge bundles of bubble wrap?

And here’s a back view. You can’t see them in this shot, but the huge pictures on eBay had what I thought might be traces of a repair job to the bowl.


Here is a part of the shot on eBay. Completely honest selling by a really helpful seller, which is the right way to do it.


I made my bid based on the probability of a repair being there, and it turns out it was right to do so. Looking in through the sound hole, without flash, I saw light coming through glue. But the bowl is sound, solidly re-glued, and has been nicely re-varnished as well.

And here’s the same shot, with the flash turned on. A pretty tidy repair!



































I have tuned the saz, as closely as I could manage it with my electronic tuner. Those wooden peg tuners can be a real struggle! The tone is lovely, and I’m looking forward to attempting to play this. It may be necessary to adjust some of the frets, but perhaps I will just get used to the weird intervals!