What is going on here? Streamer or DAC?

The plot thickens.  Yes, only when streaming Qobuz, though that’s all I stream. Files from NAS play fine as does internet radio and audio from tv (optical in).  

thought I had a theory, now not so sure. 
 

hooked up the old streamer to the new DAC (not able to do it the other way round). Played 20-30 songs perfectly, no stutter start. Aha, says I, it is the DAC!  I then notice that the old streamer is no longer displaying album art (nor is the new one). Aha, it IS the DAC, unable to handle th le album art at the start of each song. I figure, the old streamer realizes there is a digital out so it’s doesn’t send the art. 

but then I decided to revert to original set up to prove the case. The art STILL doesn’t display, and everything works perfectly. Turn old streamer off and on, still no art. Unplug it plug it back in, art is back.  And, it seems to be working perfectly.  
 

so I’m confused. I unplugged it yesterday when it hung up and the art was back and the problems were back also. 
 

so I think the DAC can’t handle the input, but it seems to be doing so now. Will watch for next few days and report back. 

As per Qobuz I’d still go into their menu and empty whatever buffer they were talking about just to rule that out and possibly avoid future issues — couldn’t hurt and only takes a few minutes.  The issues they mentioned from the buffer being near full were, as I recall, very similar to what you’re experiencing, which is why I’m bringing it up again.  

I’ve done that. I have deactivated importing so it doesn’t save anything.  This is on the Qobuz app.  When I go to Qobuz via Cambridge streammagic app, I don’t see where there is a cache and it doesn’t import to Cambridge. 

So you went into Storage in Settings and clicked “Delete music in cache” at the bottom?  I think that’s what Qobuz was talking about and sounds like that’s what you did.  Again, best of luck in figuring this annoying thing out — you have my deepest sympathy cause I absolutely hate troubleshooting stuff like this.

Yes. That is what I did, but the catch was aredynety because I had previously disabled the storage. I’ve started maybe fifty songs so far with no stutter starts. Fingers crossed.