# MPDStats requirements

**URL:** <https://discourse.beets.io/t/mpdstats-requirements/796>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [June 6, 2019, 8:37pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/mpdstats-requirements/796 "2019-06-06T20:37:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![xanadu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c4cdca/32.png) [@xanadu](https://discourse.beets.io/u/xanadu)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2019, 8:37pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/mpdstats-requirements/796/1 "2019-06-06T20:37:50Z")

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I’ve got the mpdstats plugin installed, but it does not seem to get any data from mpd. No errors, just no ratings. Are there additional steps that need to be configured on the mpd end, such as enabling certain fields in metadata\_to\_use?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![arcresu](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/arcresu/32/222_2.png) [@arcresu](https://discourse.beets.io/u/arcresu)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2019, 3:16am UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/mpdstats-requirements/796/2 "2019-06-07T03:16:15Z")

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You really don’t get any output from MPD? If you connect to the wrong port, you should see something like

```auto
mpdstats: connecting to 127.0.0.1:9999
error: could not connect to MPD: [Errno 111] Connection refused

```

If you connect to an MPD server that isn’t playing anything you should see

```auto
mpdstats: connecting to 127.0.0.1:6600
mpdstats: stop

```

When the current track changes or the player is paused then you should see additional output (`mpdstats: playing <path>`, or `mpdstats: pause`).

Is there any chance that it’s connecting to a different MPD server to what you expected?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![xanadu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c4cdca/32.png) [@xanadu](https://discourse.beets.io/u/xanadu)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2019, 6:47pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/mpdstats-requirements/796/3 "2019-06-07T18:47:21Z")

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I think this is a misunderstanding on my part. I didn’t realize you needed to have beets running while mpd was playing, I assumed it was querying mpd’s sticker database.

Do folks normally just leave beets running for this purpose? Using a daemon or tmux or some other solution?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![arcresu](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/arcresu/32/222_2.png) [@arcresu](https://discourse.beets.io/u/arcresu)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:29am UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/mpdstats-requirements/796/4 "2019-06-11T08:29:02Z")

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That’s right - `mpdstats` is an MPD client that needs to be running to listen to live changes in the MPD server. Perhaps the docs could be clearer here.

Does MPD actually record play stats in the sticker database or is that something some clients do? I haven’t really found much usage of the sticker database in clients I use so I’m interested to know what it’s used for elsewhere to know if it’s worth implementing the feature for BPD.

I proposed a change to the docs here:

> <https://github.com/beetbox/beets/pull/3307>