From Zero to Karaoke Hero: A Complete Guide to Synchronised Lyrics in Jellyfin, TrueNAS, and Finamp

Imagine a music service that not only stores your entire collection in lossless quality but also displays synchronised lyrics in real time, turning every listening session into a karaoke singalong. What’s more, it’s completely yours – free from adverts, subscriptions, and algorithmic tracking. This isn’t a futuristic vision but a completely achievable reality thanks to the power of open-source software. We can confirm: the karaoke feature works perfectly in both the Jellyfin web interface and the Finamp app on an iPhone. This comprehensive guide will walk you through every stage of building such a system – from installation to creating your own lyric files.

In an era dominated by streaming giants, a movement of “self-hosting” enthusiasts is growing – people who independently manage their own data and services. Instead of entrusting their digital identity to corporations, they build their own private clouds, media servers, and much more. This article is the essence of that philosophy, showing you how to reclaim control over your music and enrich it with features you’d be hard-pressed to find with the competition.

The Architecture of Your Private Spotify: Key Components

Before we delve into the configuration, we need to understand the foundations on which we’ll build our music centre. Success depends on the harmonious collaboration of three key elements.

• Jellyfin (Server Version 10.9+): This is the brain of the entire operation. Jellyfin is a free media server that catalogues and serves your music files. Version 10.9 was revolutionary, introducing a standardised, server-managed approach to handling song lyrics. This means all the “heavy lifting” involved in sourcing and processing lyrics happens on the server, and the client applications simply consume the ready-to-use data.
• TrueNAS SCALE: This is a reliable and powerful operating system for your home server (NAS). Built on Linux, it offers official support for running applications like Jellyfin in isolated containers, which guarantees stability, security, and order in the system.
• Finamp and Jellyfin App (Mobile Clients): These are your windows to the world of music. Finamp, especially in its redesigned beta version, is a favourite among iPhone users as it eliminates the problem of music stopping when the screen goes dark and handles displaying lyrics perfectly. Equally important, the latest versions of the official Jellyfin app also flawlessly support the synchronised lyrics feature.

The Magic of Synchronised Lyrics: The Anatomy of an .lrc File

Confirming that the karaoke feature works is exciting. To make full use of it, you need to understand where this “magic” comes from. The effect of highlighting text in perfect synchronisation with the music depends on the format of the downloaded file. The heart of this mechanism is a simple text file with an .lrc extension.

• Synchronised Lyrics (.lrc/.elrc): This is the Holy Grail for karaoke fans. These files contain not only the song’s words but also precise time markers for each line.
• Unsynchronised Lyrics (.txt): This is a simpler form, containing plain text. In this case, the application will simply scroll through it smoothly as the song plays, without highlighting individual verses.

The structure of an .lrc file is incredibly simple. Each line of text is preceded by a time marker in the format [minutes:seconds.hundredths of a second].

Example of an .lrc file structure:

[ar: Song Artist]

[ti: Song Title]

[al: Album]

[00:15.50]The first line of text appears after 15.5 seconds.

[00:19.25]The second line of text comes in after 19.25 seconds.

Become a Lyric Creator: How to Create Your Own .lrc File

What if the LrcLib plugin can’t find the lyrics for your favourite niche song? Don’t worry! You can very easily create one yourself.

1. Get the lyrics: Find the song’s words online and copy them.
2. Open a text editor: Use any simple editor, like Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (macOS).
3. Synchronise with the music: Play the song and pause it at the beginning of each line to note the exact time (minutes and seconds).
4. Format the file: Before each line of text, add the noted time in square brackets, e.g., [01:23.45]. The more accurate the hundredths of a second, the smoother the effect.
5. Save the file: This is the most important step. Save the file in the same folder as the audio file, giving it the exact same name but changing the extension to .lrc.

If the music file is: My Super Song.flac

The lyric file must be called: My Super Song.lrc

After saving the file, all you need to do is re-scan your library in Jellyfin, and the server will automatically detect and link your manually created lyrics with the song.

Server Configuration – A Step-by-Step Guide

1. Installing the LrcLib Plugin

• In the Jellyfin dashboard, go to Plugins > Catalogue.
• Search for and install the official “LrcLib” plugin from the Jellyfin repository. Avoid the outdated jellyfin-lyrics-plugin by Felitendo, which is no longer being developed and may cause errors.
• Be sure to restart the Jellyfin server for the changes to take effect.

2. The Most Important Library Configuration

This is a crucial, though unintuitive, step. By default, Jellyfin hides downloaded lyrics in a metadata folder, creating a “black box”. We’ll change this to have full control.

• Go to Dashboard > Libraries…
• Find your music library, click the menu (three dots), and select Manage library.
• In the library settings, tick the option “Save lyrics to media folders”.

3. Starting the Process

• Go to Dashboard > Scheduled tasks.
• Find the task “Download missing lyrics” and run it manually. Set a schedule (e.g., daily) so that newly added music is processed automatically.
• Once the task is finished, run a new scan of the music library.

When Something Goes Wrong – Advanced Troubleshooting

Even with an ideal configuration, you might encounter problems. Here’s how to deal with them.

• First Rule of Diagnosis: Always check if the lyrics are visible in the Jellyfin web interface in a browser before you start looking for problems in the mobile app. If they’re not on the server, the problem isn’t on the client side.
• Troubleshooting Scanning and Metadata Refreshing: Sometimes, due to the specifics of the system’s operation, the Jellyfin user interface or database doesn’t refresh immediately after the first scan. This manifests as the lyrics still not being visible despite having completed all the steps. The solution is to run a second scan, this time selecting the more detailed “Search for missing metadata” option for the given library. This extra step often forces the system to re-analyse the folders and register the new .lrc files.
• The Ultimate Weapon – Manual Cache Cleaning: The most persistent problem is Jellyfin’s aggressive metadata caching. The system creates an internal copy of the lyrics and often refuses to update it, even if the source .lrc file is changed. A simple refresh from the interface can be unreliable. The only 100% effective method is to manually delete the cached file from the server’s file system.

1. Locate the Jellyfin configuration path on your TrueNAS server (e.g., /mnt/pool/ix-applications/jellyfin/config).
2. Launch the Shell in the TrueNAS interface.
3. Navigate to the lyrics cache directory using the cd command and your path: cd /mnt/pool/ix-applications/jellyfin/config/metadata/lyrics.
4. Find and delete the problematic file using the find command. Replace “Song Title.lrc” with the actual file name: find -type f -name “Song Title.lrc” -print -delete. The -print flag will display the file before it’s deleted.
5. In the Jellyfin interface, for the given song, select Refresh metadata with the Search for missing metadata mode. Jellyfin, forced into action, will download and process the lyrics anew.

Long-Term Maintenance and Next Steps

• Tagging Hygiene: The effectiveness of downloading lyrics depends on the quality of your music’s metadata. Use tools like MusicBrainz Picard to ensure your files have accurate and consistent tags.
• Backups: Regularly back up your entire Jellyfin configuration folder (e.g., /mnt/pool/ix-applications/jellyfin/config) to protect your settings, metadata, and user data in case of failure.
• External Access: Once you’ve mastered local streaming, the natural next step is to configure secure access from outside your home using Nginx Proxy Manager.

Congratulations! You’ve just built a fully functional, private, and significantly more powerful equivalent of commercial streaming services, with a sensational karaoke feature that will liven up any party or solo evening with headphones.