Audio Feed Drops Off

[PeterGV]

@jonwrice: Can you email me, please, so we can start a direct dialog to work on this? I seriously appreciate your help.

Thanks,

Peter
K1PGV

 

[jonwrice]

Peter - I emailed you my email a coupe of days ago. If you did not receive it please let me know.

 

[SCPD]

Peter - 1 of two things is gonna happen here.
(1) Radio Reference is gonna make you age by 10 years per software version.
(2) Your gonna become a Bigtime (Rich hopefully) Software engineer!

 

[SCPD]

Now mine is starting to go off line but it does not show it on my end only on RR end it is starting to do this a lot and i have never had these probs before.

My oddcast stays right at 15-16 kbps but on RR it shows offline this might happen 2-4 times a day.

 

[PeterGV]

Peter - 1 of two things is gonna happen here.
(1) Radio Reference is gonna make you age by 10 years per software version.
(2) Your gonna become a Bigtime (Rich hopefully) Software engineer!

LOL...

1... I am well on my way.

2... Sorta hard to get rich giving away software for free, you know?

Peter
K1PGV

 

[PeterGV]

Working with a very helpful user (there are so many... the folks in this community are really pretty great), as far as I can tell the problem is at the RR side of the connection. ScannerCast is actually continuing to send data packets (and having those packets acknowledged) while RR says the feed is down. SaveOurTrainsMichigan says he's seeing the same problem with Oddcast/Edcast.

The next release of ScannerCast has a Packets Sent To Icecast counter that we can use to help confirm this. But, if the source client continues to send packets, it will only do so if those packets are received (at Icecast) and acknowledged. So, something is definitely going wrong somewhere.

I've let Lindsay know about the problem.

Peter
K1PGV

 

[blantonl]

Quick question - when the feed is "reported" offline by RadioReference - can you still listen to the feed by clicking the speaker?

I guess the question is - is the feed really offline, or is the system just reporting it offline?

 

[PeterGV]

It would definitely be useful to hear from others who've had this problem, but in the limited testing I've done with folks, it was not possible to connect to the feed for audio playback via Winamp.

Peter
K1PGV

 

[blantonl]

Ok, I'm going to spin up a new receiver server and start to migrate feeds that are experiencing this problem to it so we can possibly begin to isolate what the problem is.

Icecast has a few random bugs out there, and I'd venture to say we are probably one of the largest implementations of icecast out there -- when it comes to numbers of feeds. We may? be approaching the limits of the software, so I may need to scale outwards instead of upwards for these receiver servers.

But, I'm betting that these problems manifest themselves from providers that have less than rock-solid internet connections. I personally am running quite a few feeds, everywhere from a mountain top in Montana to out of my house, and I've never, ever experienced this behavior.

 

[PeterGV]

But, I'm betting that these problems manifest themselves from providers that have less than rock-solid internet connections.

Oh, I absolutely agree. But, by the same token, when there's a underlying link problem, the connection should either recover automatically or disconnect -- and if it disconnects ScannerCast will notice and retry the connection.

<background>
In case more technical detail helps... the engineer in me yearns to explain these things:

Data is sent in packets from the source client (ScannerCast) to the server (Icecast) using TCP/IP. Each packet sent by the client can be sub-divided into smaller packets on route, and can in fact arrive out of order at system the server is running on. No matter... each packet is numbered by TCP/IP at the soruce client and every single packet must be acknowledged as being received without error by TCP/IP at the server.

The first thing that happens during an underlying connection problem is that TCP/IP notices that it didn't get back an acknowledgement within the time it expects to do so, and attempts to recover the connection (by resending the packets that have not been acknowledged and emphatically asking for an acknowledgement). When TCP/IP gets back the requested acknowledgement, the recovery is successful, no error is reported to either the source or the destination. This seems to be what's happening.

If, after multiple attempts, TCP/IP is unsuccessfull in recovering the connection it gives up and reports the disconnect event. This is when the client and server programs get notified that the connection is down. In this case, ScannerCast closes the existing connection and attempts to re-connect. If ScannerCast tries to re-establish the connection too quickly, the new connect attempt will be rejected by Icecast... because Icecast won't yet have decided that the connection is irretrievably down. It typically takes about a minute or so for ScannerCast and Icecast to both agree that the connection is down, and to establish a new connection.
</background>

I've never, ever experienced this behavior.

Me either. I can't even manage to make this happen by deliberately trying to do so. And, believe me, I've tried. FYI: jonwrice is able to make this happen on demand, and I'm in contact with him via email, if you'd like to setup a test or whatever.

Peter
K1PGV

 

[SCPD]

Well this new Win amp version has a lot of changes in it. I'm not sure whats wrong with NullSoft., (maybe the all went out and got drunk) But they have screwed up more than the ability to use it to listen here on the newest version.

 

[eaf1956]

Feed Dropping

My audio feed drops off after about 24 hours of streaming and I have to reset the K1PGV software. Is there a reason why this is happening? The software shows that it is still live but no audio goes through and I get an e-mail stating that the feed has dropped.

Mine drops off too for no reason shows following in the LOG:

Scancast-Icecast2-timeout3
Scancast Disconnected
Scancast started to connect to Icecast2 Server
Scancast connected to Icecast2 Server

Not using SCANCAST, I am using PROSCAN 4.3 seems to happen all the time throughout the day

KC9LVX Evansville, IN Feed

Thank God for AUTORECONNECT!

 

[eaf1956]

Also, I had a USER on REMOTE SCANNER over IP and it never dropped offline like ICECAST did

 

[PeterGV]

Not using SCANCAST, I am using PROSCAN 4.3 seems to happen all the time throughout the day

...

Thank God for AUTORECONNECT!

Right. Disconnects and reconnects happen all the time. That's just part of streaming audio.

But that's not the situation we're discussing in this thread.

Here, we're specifically looking at the problem where the source client (ScannerCast or Oddcast/Edcast) continue to send data while RR shows the feed as down. No disconnect is logged by the source client in this case. That's why we have this mystery going on...

Peter
K1PGV

 

[johnmac]

OK,

I showing offline again after a few days of staying online just fine.

I have a cable connection and run two feeds from the site on two different computers. The second feed never seems to go down. The second feed is Proscan running Scancast and the problem feed is running peter's Scannercast not the RR version.

Here is a sample of the port monitoring program I am running on the feed that never seems to go down. I am making the assumption that Proscan Scancast is seeing a problem and automatically restarting as the feed never seems to go down. I turned this program off on the problem feed so I do not have a current log. It is monitoring port 80 to radio reference.com here is a sample log. Not sure if means anything or not.

3/11/2010 08:24:54:018 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (No route to host)
3/11/2010 08:24:55:033 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding
3/11/2010 08:25:39:955 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (port may be down - Connection timed out)
3/11/2010 08:25:41:002 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding
3/11/2010 09:11:25:067 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (No route to host)
3/11/2010 09:11:26:082 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding
3/11/2010 09:41:01:328 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (No route to host)
3/11/2010 09:41:02:344 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding
3/11/2010 09:58:36:913 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (No route to host)
3/11/2010 09:58:37:929 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding
3/11/2010 10:27:15:971 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (No route to host)
3/11/2010 10:27:17:002 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding
3/11/2010 10:56:58:357 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (No route to host)
3/11/2010 10:56:59:389 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding
3/11/2010 10:57:38:389 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (port may be down - Connection timed out)
3/11/2010 10:57:39:420 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding
3/11/2010 11:05:28:814 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (No route to host)
3/11/2010 11:05:29:829 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding
3/11/2010 11:14:51:333 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (No route to host)
3/11/2010 11:14:52:380 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding
3/11/2010 11:32:33:152 Info - Port:Radio Reference Confirming No Response (port may be down - Connection timed out)
3/11/2010 11:32:55:574 Info - Alert: Port Monitor, Port:Radio Reference not responding (port may be down - Connection timed out)
3/11/2010 11:32:55:684 Info - Port:Radio Reference Not Responding (port may be down - Connection timed out)
3/11/2010 11:33:00:762 Info - Alert: Port Monitor, Port:Radio Reference ok now - responding again
3/11/2010 11:33:00:762 Info - Port:Radio Reference Responding

The problem feed is showing that Scannercast is connected and ok. I am going to let it sit and see if it starts back up on it's own. My feed is #1410

 

[SCPD]

When mine shows this offline issue it will not let you listen to the feed it shows it offline in red but on my oddcast it is showing up and running.

This has just started within the last week or so.

 

[GTR8000]

Well this new Win amp version has a lot of changes in it. I'm not sure whats wrong with NullSoft., (maybe the all went out and got drunk) But they have screwed up more than the ability to use it to listen here on the newest version.

Totally irrelevant to the discussion. This problem is presenting enough confusion on its own, it doesn't need completely off-topic posts on top of everything else. :roll:

 

[blantonl]

Those of you in this thread who are experiecing the problems we are discussing (only related to this thread please!) - please send a message to audio@radioreference.com letting them know you are requesting a change of your feed to the audio6 receiver server reference this thread.

You'll need to coordinate a time when you can bring down your feed, the admin team can make the switch, and then bring it back up.

Thanks,

 

[jonwrice]

I had my feed switched to server 6. Over the weekend I twice cycled power on my router and RR showed the feed as dropped while Scannercast shed it as connected (status page).

When I got up this morning the feed was down again. Showed down on RR, showed ok on scannercast status page.

Thanks,
Jon

 

[keithmj]

scanner problem.

I have been having this problem for a long time and have been blaming it on the BCT15 scanner, which it still might be. But what I have found is that I am using ProScan to monitor my scanner with a serial connection to the computer. If I disconnect the serial cable the scanner does not lose audio or quit scanning as it has been. I still think it is a bug in the firmware for the scanner, but what do I know, I am just the end user and this also is the only scanner that I have this problem with..Cheers..Keithmj