LMS won't start

After a couple of years of trouble-free running, my LMS stopped working. Its running on ubuntu server 11.10. After booting the server, LMS simply fails to start. The messages in /var/log/squeezeboxserver/server.log are:

[14-09-23 21:10:49.2234] main::init (354) Starting Logitech Media Server (v7.7.1, r33735, Mon Nov 28 15:45:08 PST 2011) perl 5.012004
2014-09-23 21:10:52 Logitech Media Server died. Restarting.

... over and over again.

I don't recall any systems changes/updates being made at the time LMS stopped working... but I may be wrong.

Does anyone know what's causing the problem or have any suggestions for how I can investigate further?

Thanks in advance

TAO