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I use mpg123 to play a list of songs while I work. The host that actually runs mpg123 and plays the music is a local, headless system, but I can connect to it over SSH. I start mpg123 on this host in cron; it plays the audio tracks from my "playlist" in a continuous loop. However there are times when I need to pause the music (incoming phone calls, visitors, etc).

man mpg123 says that by pressing the s key once I can pause the playing, and press it again to re-start. If I start mpg123 in a terminal, and leave it running, this works fine. I've also learned that it's possible to send a "pause" signal (s) to mpg123 when it is being played in a screen session:

$ screen -S mpg123 # to start the screen session $ /usr/bin/mpg123 --loop -1 /home/pi/rainstorm.mp3 # for example 'ctrl+a, d' # quit screen ... $ screen -S mpg123 -X stuff "s" # pauses play

I found a question similar to mine here on SO, but the answer seems to miss the mark - at least I didn't understand it!

I've not been able to find a method that allows me to send a "pause" (s) command to mpg123 if it was started under cron. I'd prefer a more direct route than screen to send this command to mpg123, plus I'm not sure if this could even be set up using cron.

Can someone please advise on an approach? I'd prefer a "bash solution" to one that requires (for example) a C program - but happy to take whatever I can get!

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quoting from man mpg123 :

-R, --remote Activate generic control interface. mpg123 will then read and execute commands from stdin. Basic usage is ''load '' to play some file and the obvious ''pause'', ''command. ''jump '' will jump/seek to a given point (MPEG frame number). Issue ''help'' to get a full list of commands and syntax.

--fifo path Create a fifo / named pipe on the given path and use that for reading commands instead of standard input.

you can start mpg123 in a shell with:

mpg123 -R --fifo /tmp/mpg123_fifo

and then send the help command to the pipe with :

echo "help" > /tmp/mpg123_fifo

it will show you an help with the commands you can send in this way. how to load a file or an http stream or how to mute , unmute , change the volume , etc. etc.

once you are familiar with the commands, you can start it with cron and send command to the fifo (named pipe) file.

you can also redirect the output to the file with:

mpg123 -R --fifo /tmp/mpg123_fifo > /tmp/mpg123_output

then monitor the remote interface with:

tail -f /tmp/mpg123_output

have fun !

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    Wow - I should have read man mpg123 more carefully! This looks like exactly what I asked for; please give me some time to make sure I can follow your instructions. Commented Mar 29 at 19:39
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    "meraviglioso, grazie !" It works as you've said. Unfortunately for me, it seems that mpg123 does not support the "playlist" feature in the remote mode - at least not as implemented in the local mode. But that has nothing to do with your answer - which is excellent. Commented Mar 30 at 0:20

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