Scores not playing in NFSmartPlayerCLI tool

[PaulSlocum]

I've built the library (libNFSmartPlayer.a) and the command line tool (NFSmartPlayerCLI) on MacOS 10.15.6, but I can't get the command line tool to play. I added some debug output, and I can see that it successfully converts the JSON and loads the score, but I either get an error or playback stops at 0 seconds, depending on which score I use. I wasn't able to find a definitive test score in the documentation, so it's possible that there could be something incorrect about how I'm constructing the JSON score. I'm including the scores that I've tried below.

I thought the noise plugin would work for a simple test score, and although the CLI tool accepts the score, it doesn't play anything and playback stops at zero:

{
  "graph": {
    "id": "graphId1",
    "loadingPolicy": "allContentPlaythrough",
    "nodes": [
      {
        "id": "noiseId1",
		"kind": "com.nativeformat.plugin.noise.noise",
		"config": 
		{
			"when": 0,
			"duration": 2000
        },
        "params": {}
      }
    ],
    "edges": [
    ],
    "scripts": []
  },
  "version": "1.2.24"
}

...and this is the output from running the CLI with the above score (with some extra debug output added by me):

paulslocum@Pauls-MacBook-Pro cli % ./NFSmartPlayerCLI --input-file test8.json
Native Format Command Line Interface 7-f74da5b
Loading JSON
DECODING JSON
PARSED JSON: {"graph":{"edges":[],"id":"graphId1","loadingPolicy":"allContentPlaythrough","nodes":[{"config":{"duration":2000,"when":0},"id":"noiseId1","kind":"com.nativeformat.plugin.noise.noise","params":{}}],"scripts":[]},"version":"1.2.24"}
CREATING GRAPH FROM GRAPH IMPLEMENTATION
LOADING...
Initialised playback.
Time: 0
Final time: 0
Finished rendering...

I've also tried the score described in the NFGrapher Javascript documentation, but it doesn't work with "spotify:track:275KAjHjZOtnTVWZ2Kcr7k" as the 'file', and I've tried changing the 'file' to a local mp3 or an mp3 on my web server, but the CLI just says "Failed to play the JSON file." I also noticed that the file duration is set to 0 (not sure if this is a mistake or if the loop overrides this duration) but I tried changing the file duration to "10000" and I still get the same results.

{
  "graph": {
    "id": "07f96d1b-2d3f-46e8-bbc5-c424f30a19c3",
    "loadingPolicy": "allContentPlaythrough",
    "nodes": [
      {
        "id": "2eedb6a8-3230-4fc6-9343-f140d5b29af1",
        "kind": "com.nativeformat.plugin.file.file",
        "config": {
          "file": "spotify:track:275KAjHjZOtnTVWZ2Kcr7k",
          "when": 0,
          "duration": 0,
          "offset": 0
        },
        "params": {}
      },
      {
        "id": "5f5ec094-3471-404f-9566-bcdce8f8df4c",
        "kind": "com.nativeformat.plugin.time.loop",
        "config": {
          "when": 0,
          "duration": 5600000000,
          "loopCount": -1
        },
        "params": {}
      },
      {
        "id": "7f08e466-650c-4960-ab02-dbecea03daab",
        "kind": "com.nativeformat.plugin.waa.gain",
        "config": {},
        "params": {
          "gain": [
            {
              "name": "setValueAtTime",
              "args": {
                "value": 0,
                "startTime": 0
              }
            },
            {
              "name": "linearRampToValueAtTime",
              "args": {
                "value": 1,
                "endTime": 3000000000
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ],
    "edges": [
      {
        "id": "eb4cfcc1-4829-4200-b0c9-810075c865eb",
        "source": "2eedb6a8-3230-4fc6-9343-f140d5b29af1",
        "target": "5f5ec094-3471-404f-9566-bcdce8f8df4c"
      },
      {
        "id": "abb01f3b-26de-4efa-9e79-b30e8a1bde44",
        "source": "5f5ec094-3471-404f-9566-bcdce8f8df4c",
        "target": "7f08e466-650c-4960-ab02-dbecea03daab"
      }
    ],
    "scripts": []
  },
  "version": "1.2.24"
}

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide.

[PaulSlocum]

We're probably not going to use this library because we encountered too many issues, but I'm adding information about what we found in case it helps anybody else.

The library had a lot of build configuration issues, and was challenging to get building in the first place, required various changes to CMake, scripts, and Gyp configurations. Even thought I did get it to build successfully, I was never able to get any sound output working.

In debugging the issues I outlined above with the CLI tool, I found that the noise plugin was being instantiated but its audio callback was never being called. I traced this to a problem with NFDriver where the Apple Audio Units were being loaded correctly but never triggering a callback. I tried switching to outputting to a file instead of the sound card, and this did get the noise plugin callback working, but the file writer never would write a valid WAV file output. Either the file was empty or not a valid WAV file.

I tried playing files using the File Plugin instead of using the noise plugin, and MP3 files always failed to play. When I tried to play WAV files, it didn't give an error but seemed to be stuck in a loop that I had to use CTRL+C to break.

I tried all of this on OSX, so perhaps it works better on other platforms.