WinAmp won't stay connected to RR

[gmclam]

I've had private streams set up since just after the first of the year. I am using ScannerCast on all servers, and WinAmp to listen to the streams. I am able to log in to my streams, all connected over the public Internet, and listen for as long as I'd like.

Last week I started streaming two feeds to RR. WinAmp will not stay logged in to the feeds via RR (I can monitor them locally 24/7). Sometimes it logs out after 5 minutes, other times 2 hours. What gives?

 

[OldDeadOne]

It could be your isp,are you with the same isp or changed?

 

[gmclam]

WinAmp logs out of RR

It could be your isp,are you with the same isp or changed?

Keep in mind this is an ongoing issue. If I log into one of my private servers, it remains connected. If I log into RR, it does not. Same ISP, same software, same computer (or different), same everything. Different result.

 

[n0nhp]

hit the repeat button on WinAmp
The servers on RR do time out after a couple of hours. the repeat will re-connect to the stream and keep it active.

Bruce

 

[gmclam]

WinAmp disconnects from RR w/o constant user attention

hit the repeat button on WinAmp
The servers on RR do time out after a couple of hours. the repeat will re-connect to the stream and keep it active.

Yeah uh huh. But I do NOT have to do that with my other streams. They are connected for so long that the timer rolls over after 999 minutes.

 

[Citywide173]

Yeah uh huh. But I do NOT have to do that with my other streams. They are connected for so long that the timer rolls over after 999 minutes.

Not sure that the statement you responded to was properly worded. The RR servers are programmed to time out after a specified time period.

 

[gmclam]

WinAmp time outs

The RR servers are programmed to time out after a specified time period.

Apparently there are two separate issues here.

It would be one thing if the media player times out after a SPECIFIC time, such as 2 hours, but it seems to be random. Sometimes I see a disconnect after a few minutes. I have seen it stay connected for as long as 110 minutes. The usual timeout is somewhere in between.

This makes using RR to listen to feeds VERY ANNOYING. I have a media player, such as WinAmp, running in the background while I am working. To have to check it every few minutes to make sure I am still connected is ridiculous.

I can understand the need to have things time out, but this is not good. What can be done to mitigate this condition?

 

[PeterGV]

What can be done to mitigate this condition?

Set "repeat" on the playback like N0NHP suggested. That'll auto-magically re-connect you.

Peter
K1PGV

 

[richtidd]

I've had private streams set up since just after the first of the year. I am using ScannerCast on all servers, and WinAmp to listen to the streams. I am able to log in to my streams, all connected over the public Internet, and listen for as long as I'd like.

Last week I started streaming two feeds to RR. WinAmp will not stay logged in to the feeds via RR (I can monitor them locally 24/7). Sometimes it logs out after 5 minutes, other times 2 hours. What gives?

There may be an RR issue but go here for WinAmp suggested settings that I wrote.

 

[gmclam]

WinAmp times out on RR streams only

Set "repeat" on the playback like N0NHP suggested. That'll auto-magically re-connect you.

Peter, thank you for that explanation. I am sorry that I did not understand NoNHP's comment of "hit the repeat button on WinAmp" to mean selection repeat in the option menu. I just took it to mean repeat my connection, which happens when I click on the play button.

I made the selection, and WinAmp still stops receiving the stream from RR.

richtidd, thank you for the link. I will read and see what additional I can learn.

Again I must stress that I have used WinAmp, with its present configuration, to access streams from remote computers over the Internet for months, and they will remain connected indefinitely. They only time-out when accessing RR streams.

 

[SCPD]

If I remember correctly, doesn't RR change urls to prevent people from linking to the streams? If so, I believe this may be the cause and they terminate existing connections. I was never able to listen to a stream for too long without a reconnect.

 

[gmclam]

If I remember correctly, doesn't RR change urls to prevent people from linking to the streams? If so, I believe this may be the cause and they terminate existing connections. I was never able to listen to a stream for too long without a reconnect.

I am able to use the same link I originally captured to reconnect each time. Plus I posted a link to one of my feeds in my tagline. That does not seem to change.

 

[SCPD]

Oh, interesting. Well I think most of all feeds disconnect like such as when I was programming Scanner Force, feeds would stop playing after a set time. I had to add auto-reconnect functionality. I doubt this is an isolated incident to one person or feed.

 

[richtidd]

I've had private streams set up since just after the first of the year. I am using ScannerCast on all servers, and WinAmp to listen to the streams. I am able to log in to my streams, all connected over the public Internet, and listen for as long as I'd like.

Last week I started streaming two feeds to RR. WinAmp will not stay logged in to the feeds via RR (I can monitor them locally 24/7). Sometimes it logs out after 5 minutes, other times 2 hours. What gives?

I see your feeds going on & off line a lot.
This usually means an issue on your end.

In order to see if there is a RR receiver assignment issue, I changed your Sacramento City Fire Dispatch - VHF Simulcast feed from audio3 to audio1.

Since we changed the receiver assignment, you will need to stop broadcasting with ScannerCast, and log into your RR account to reacquire your feed in ScannerCast, then restart the broadcast.

Please wait at least 5 min from the time I made the change for you to be able to use the new receiver. If you are using different streaming software, you will need to change the setting manually and then restart the broadcast.

Let me know the results.

 

[gmclam]

My feeds restarted 06/30 @ 22:40

I see your feeds going on & off line a lot.
This usually means an issue on your end.

Very interesting. I have a window open here showing the RR status. It has never shown anything except online. I see no signs here of any disruption to the feeds.

In order to see if there is a RR receiver assignment issue, I changed your Sacramento City Fire Dispatch - VHF Simulcast feed from audio3 to audio1.

Since we changed the receiver assignment, you will need to stop broadcasting with ScannerCast, and log into your RR account to reacquire your feed in ScannerCast, then restart the broadcast.

Done at 22:40.

Let me know the results.

I am simultaneously monitoring several remote feeds via other instances of WinAmp that have not dropped. We'll see what the RR feeds do. Thanks.

 

[gmclam]

Nothing here is a solution so far

The changes to WinAmp made ZERO difference; other than now it takes longer to start up because of the larger buffer. It still drops out from my RR feeds and that is with Repeat ON.

I am using a separate PC to host my streams. It is running 8 instances of ScannerCast from 6 scanners. The feeds to RR are also being streamed privately. I can log into those streams from across the Internet, with WinAmp, and they never time out. It only happens with the streams coming from RR.

I have been reading other threads indicating others having trouble with their feeds to RR. I will say I am not running AVG or much else for that matter. The machine doing the streaming is only doing that. I am using other machines to (attempt to) monitor.

I am not getting errors from ScannerCast either. The only issue I see is the timeout when listening. It can happen after 5 minutes or 2 hours.

 

[PeterGV]

Gosh... I'm at a loss in terms of what to suggest. It doesn't SEEM to be a ScannerCast issue, though I guess it COULD be. Note that there are dedicated threads that handle each locally connected client, and a separate dedicated thread that handles pushing data to RR. So, being able to listen locally tells us ScannerCast is receiving audio FROM your scanner and storing it appropriately, and it's able to send this data out to a local client, but it really doesn't tell us much about the data going out to RR.

Between your home systems and RR there could be... ah... bandwidth issues? Latency? What do you get, in terms of times, when you ping audio3.radioreference.com (if you have no idea what I mean, get a command prompt window open on your system and enter the command "ping audio3.radioreference.com" (without the quotes) followed by a carriage return. Tell us what the responding "time=" parameter says.

I'm stretching for a solution here... I admit it.

Peter
K1PGV

 

[gmclam]

Weakest link: RR to me

Gosh... I'm at a loss in terms of what to suggest. It doesn't SEEM to be a ScannerCast issue, though I guess it COULD be.

Peter, I do not think this is a ScannerCast issue, nor do I think it is a WinAmp issue, nor do I think it is an issue with the Internet connection I am using to stream to RR. Here's why....

I have no less than 3 remote setups, each running multiple instances of ScannerCast. From several different locations (including where I stream to RR from and a rural location which can be DSL or dial-up) I can open multiple instances of WinAmp and listen to no less than 10 of my streams (which are 16k BTW).

I will say there are times when I have THAT MANY streams going I will see a stutter, but everything continues w/o my intervention. I am able to monitor these streams for so long that WinAmp rolls over 999 minutes many times, until I stop them.

At one location, I have 2 additional instances of ScannerCast running, feeding RR with 8k streams. ScannerCast does not report any errors and I can see the outgoing traffic via my router just fine.

The last step is a desire to listen back to those two streams from RR. WinAmp starts up fine but times out and disconnects after some random period of time. The repeat function in WinAmp does nothing. Adding more buffer to the listening only makes WinAmp take longer to startup. Moving the sliders in WinAmp does not alter the timeout (and note that I use everything at default settings when monitoring my own feeds not through RR).

The only element here that is different is traffic from RR to me. I guess another test is to see what happens from a different IP. Perhaps someone else out there can chime in as to whether or not my stream times out on them and/or if all streams time out on them when using WinAmp. Is there another player I can use (it is on my list to check what WMP does)?

I'd rather be paying attention to fire calls over this Independence Day w/e than dealing with issues like this.

 

[SCPD]

You can try Scanner Force (auto reconnect) and see if this makes listening better. If so, go to Scanner Force and download it. Then create an account and I can issue you a trial. I'm in the process of redoing Scanner Force so that it doesn't rely on subscription but instead a one time payment of $14.99 per major version. Also, PM me your email so I can find your account.

 

[gmclam]

Too many connections?

Over the long weekend I had the chance to try other programs including Windows Media Player. NONE of them stayed connected to RR.

I also ran into situations this w/e where I was unable to reconnect. I would get messages the server was busy or unavailable; all while my two streams to RR were going out just fine. VERY FRUSTRATING.