[BETA] Ear Wax - NOW AVAILABLE - Testers Wanted

[ginjaninja 616]

2 hours ago, MarvinB said:

@ginjaninja

Hi, I havent heard anything from you lately, so I am checking in to see how testing is going and to update you on a few changes..

1) I have finally figured out how to shuffle a playlist from the beginning consistently.

2) and random playback is even more random before.

 

Give the above changes a listen 

Above all, send me your one off/edge cases, MAYBE just MAYBE, they can be addressed

Hi @MarvinB

That (improved random functionality) feels much better to me.

For me the next most important thing is easing the ability to play tracks.

I think the skill is onto something asking the user to re speak if not heard properly, it gives me hope of something more but so far that  just keeps the skill alive (which is promising and useful in itself). I wonder if the desired results can gradually be homed in on?

The chance of getting the skillname, trackname and artist name and keywords all heard properly is ~10%.
if the skill responded to track keyword / trackname with "which artist?/which Album?" and the user could specify "Artist None" (to remove artist filter) or "Artist Elton john" or "Album Honky Château" that might greatly improve recognition.

You said Alexa has to return something to user within X seconds, Could a holding song or message be returned whilst the skill did more heuristic matching when not sure and then interupt the holding session.

"Ask Alexa play X by Artist Y"

"No confident match found, searching....." to give the skill a bit more time?

 

If the skill could prioritise tracks where the artist is a member of album artists then you are more likely to get the best default version.

 

Other than that my next priority on wishlist would be  anything that can be done to improve recognition accuracy first time success. Make us of Musicbrainz search hints for odd sounding/spelt names https://musicbrainz.org/artist/7c20f558-d664-42bd-b6f1-81acf9dbb72d/aliases.

Could popular artist names and tracknames feed into an accuracy improving engine?

probably well past Alexa's capability/architecture but you did ask...:-)

[MarvinB 4]

@ginjaninja

 

Hi,

Can you help test a new Ear Wax artist lookup solution?

Please pick an artist that is definitely in your library, but Ear Wax currently cannot find. Do not use an artist that already works.

I suggest you skip T A T U because we fixed that one.

Then test in this order:

• Ask Ear Wax to play that difficult artist.

• If Ear Wax says it cannot find the artist, stop retrying that artist for now.

• Ask Ear Wax to play another artist that you know already works.

• Let at least 3 tracks play from the working artist.

• After the 3rd track has started, ask Ear Wax again to play the original difficult artist.

Please send me:

• The difficult artist name
• What Ear Wax said the first time
• The working artist you used
• Whether 3 tracks played
• What happened when you tried the difficult artist again
• The approximate test time

Thank you

[ginjaninja 616]

"Play artist belle and sebastian"

"There was a problem with the requested skills response"

Play artist u2

3 tracks

Play artist belle and sebastian

"There was a problem with the requested skills response"

u2 track keeps playing

 

10 minutes testing

 

I am seeing evidence of proper api search that would have returned "belle sebastian" Music Artist 1st  ('and' has been removed to aid results)

but no follow  call on to find the tracks by Belle and Sebastian (id 25553)

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 07:10 PM by ginjaninja

[MarvinB 4]

@ginjaninja

 

 can you perform the exact same test again?

Thank you

[ginjaninja 616]

yah shuffle artist works

Emby search seems better "Cadillac 3" finds "Cadillac Three" - i dont think it used to.

Said "twelvehundred Techniques" Artist is "1200 Techniques" = success

Said "nineteen ten fruitgum company" Artist is "1910 Fruitgum Co".= success - that ones particularly impressive

Said "Gorillas" Artist is "Gorillaz" =success , api was searched for Gorillaz (must of got a hint..?)

Said "Three N One" Artist is "Three 'N One"  =success

 

Said "R E M" Artist is "R.E.M." Search was REM = "Artist Can not be found" tried again and it searched "R.E.M." = success (is it learning?)

Said "Number one Dads" arist is "#1 Dads" = success ..odd it never even searched for "Number One Dads" found it based on "1 Dads" search - impressive to drop "number"

Said "Churches" artist is "Chvrches" dto crash below "There was a problem with the requested skills response" played 3 songs by depeche mode (7 minutes) "Play Artist Churches" dto crash "there was a problem with the requested skills response"

 

some of the skills api calls are causing exceptions - weird never seen that. only get with artist with special characters only on ear wax (other clients including Emby Alexa ok)

 

2026-06-21 00:20:37.890 Debug ArtistsService-0HNMF3R9PIT51:00000001: http/1.1 GET https://‌‍‍xxx.xxx.xxx/emby/Artists/five%20thousand%20six%20hundred%20seventy%20eight?UserId=‌ba605147d56742b1b91f1e90f91db45c‌&api_key=‌‌. Source Ip: ‌‍‍34.253.204.90‌, UserAgent: 
2026-06-21 00:20:37.985 Error ArtistsService-0HNMF3R9PIT51:00000001: Error processing request
	*** Error Report ***
	Version: 4.10.0.15
	Command line: C:\Users\xxx.xxx.xxx\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\system\EmbyServer.dll
	Operating system: Microsoft Windows 10.0.19045
	OS/Process: x64/x64
	Framework: .NET 8.0.28
	Runtime: C:/Users/xxx.xxx.xxx/AppData/Roaming/Emby-Server/system/System.Private.CoreLib.dll
	Processor count: 12
	Data path: C:\Users\xxx.xxx.xxx\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata
	Application path: C:\Users\xxx.xxx.xxx\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\system
	System.NullReferenceException: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
	   at Emby.Server.Implementations.Dto.DtoService.GetBaseItemDtoInternal(BaseItem item, DtoOptions options, User user, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
	   at Emby.Server.Implementations.Dto.DtoService.GetBaseItemDto(BaseItem item, DtoOptions options, User user, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
	   at Emby.Api.UserLibrary.ArtistsService.GetItem(GetArtist request)
	   at Emby.Server.Implementations.Services.ServiceController.Execute(HttpListenerHost appHost, Object requestDto, IRequest req, Type serviceType)
	   at Emby.Server.Implementations.Services.ServiceHandler.ProcessRequestAsync(HttpListenerHost httpHost, IServerApplicationHost appHost, IRequest httpReq, IResponse httpRes, IStreamHelper streamHelper, RestPath restPath, String responseContentType, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
	   at Emby.Server.Implementations.HttpServer.HttpListenerHost.RequestHandler(IRequest httpReq, RestPath restPath, String urlString, String localPath, String contentTypeInPath, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
	Source: Emby.Server.Implementations
	TargetSite: MediaBrowser.Model.Dto.BaseItemDto GetBaseItemDtoInternal(MediaBrowser.Controller.Entities.BaseItem, MediaBrowser.Controller.Dto.DtoOptions, MediaBrowser.Controller.Entities.User, System.Threading.CancellationToken)
	
2026-06-21 00:20:37.985 Info ArtistsService-0HNMF3R9PIT51:00000001: http/1.1 Response 500 to ‌‍‍34.253.204.90‌. Time: 96ms. GET https://‌‍‍xxx.xxx.xxx/emby/Artists/five%20thousand%20six%20hundred%20seventy%20eight?UserId=‌ba605147d56742b1b91f1e90f91db45c‌&api_key=‌‌. 

Good stuff its supporting a level of atomised instruction "Alexa Play Artist" "which artist would you like" Artist Cadillac Three"

"Play Track" shouldnt match to "play randomly" when "play randomly" would do....id rather it ask which track would you like.... indeed the "Play Track" pathways seems a bit unreliable.

Edited 7 hours ago by ginjaninja

[MarvinB 4]

@ginjaninja

 

You ask if Ear Wax is learning?  the answer is NO!    I am the one who is learning and this piece of knowledge came from you.

You suggested musicbrainz, I found a way to connect it to Ear Wax, but not real time. That is why Ear Wax will initially not find something but if you move on to another song and come back, it will find the artist that was initially missed.

Now this only works name Artists' names. Albums maybe in version 2.  it depends on storage costs.. 

 

Thank you

[ginjaninja 616]

Well i hope it bears fruit, like i said ive done no research into search hints on MB.

How is the learning persisted?
Chvrches is stubbornly holding out despite having a perfect musicbrainz search hint
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/6a93afbb-257f-4166-b389-9f2a1e5c5df8/aliases
Causes that dto exception.

Are you seeing the dto exception in your testing, is that indeed initiated by the skill, why would a rest api expose something that would cause an exception