Airtime 2.5.1 - browser locks up when deleting content in linked shows - Airtime Support Discussions on Sourcefabric Forum

Alex L

Unfortunately I've now encountered another problem - after rebuilding the database at the weekend (currently it is a continous loop of pre-recorded EDM shows with a couple of jingles before each ones), All the shows are repeated with linked content. I then tried to update the shows with new versions.

I can add the new content into the show, but when I try and delete the old show, the browser just freezes. Screen goes grey and nothing seems to happen. So I am left with a show that has the new one in but overruns with a part of the old show (and hopefully will not be playing it as its overbooked).

I have tried both Cyberfox (x64 Firefox) and Chrome and the same thing just happens. It looks like a timeout somewhere, but where? I am willing to gather diagnostic data to help fix this, and in my day job work with Centos based servers for PABX telephone systems, but need some advice on what to look for.

In am in the UK but the server is on a VPS in the Netherlands, but there does not appear to be excessive CPU or memory usage by airtime. I have even tried deleting the show using my remote desktop at another location 12km away via a different ISP to rule out peering/network issues.

I have seem similar and possibly related reports on here, regarding "browsers freezing" and linked shows misbehaving.

Airtime is still way better than many commercial systems were, and was recently used in an experiment of small scale DAB radio in the UK by Ofcom (our Communications Ministry) but if this project is to grow any bigger than use by hobby stations or those community broadcasters who are lucky enough to have a mostly full time daytime contingent of producers and engineers (often part government funded) and run Airtime locally via a studio mixer and have someone there who can quickly react to problems, things like this have to be sorted out.

From the impressive diversity of the community on here I can see that Airtime is an excellent resource for those "hybrid" community stations but even with those the govt insists on station IDs every 15/30 mins (its an international agreement that radio senders must identify themselves) and of course local businesses will not pay for ads that do not pay out on time. Commercial software developers for broadcast automation have gone bankrupt because of this.

I would rather not have to go back to having to run Zara radio on my studio computers to keep the stream running as thats a lot more work, it ties up this kit when I want to do other music stuff, and electricity isn't cheap either (one reason I put the VPS in NL was that renting it was cheaper than paying the electric bill in the UK!)

Denise Rigato

@Alex+L thanks for your comments.

Check out the Scheduler.php model. Around line 1088 in the function removeItems try adding a set_time_limit(180)

https://github.com/sourcefabric/Airtime/blob/2.5.x/airtime_mvc/application/models/Scheduler.php#L1088

It's located on your file system at /usr/share/airtime/application/models/Scheduler.php

We have done the same for adding items:

https://github.com/sourcefabric/Airtime/blob/2.5.x/airtime_mvc/application/models/Scheduler.php#L519

We need to optimize these functions and queries, and maybe even redesign linked shows. But until then try with the set_time_limit() function.

Alex L · Post edited by Alex L at 2014-02-19 19:51:38

Thanks Denise - I have added that to the code (this had to wait until the evening as I had other more mundane stuff to do for my day job). I think what was actually happening is that linked shows with "no end" dates might create very large amounts of data (as might be expected), and a fix in 2.5.1 that may have stopped problems elsewhere has unmasked.

This woud have been the first time I updated the link show content since rebuilding the database at the weekend following other issues; what looks like a "crash" was simply the task taking a while to complete.

Out of curiosity I used an old analogue stopwatch (that I inherited from my late father, he got it from a military surplus place in 1972, the year I was born) to time how long it took for the remove item to complete (after clicking OK on the warning window that appears). It was as long as 1 minute 45 seconds in some cases, and usually around 1 minute 30 seconds. Which is actually far less than the the limit of 3 minutes.

At least now I am aware this can happen it is not such an issue, but any length of time that can be comfortably and fairly accurately measured by a 41 year old man using a stopwatch the same age is going to be viewed as a very long wait in a more pressurised broadcasting environment, especially as if you make a mistake with adding an item you have to go through this delay again.

if this is currently normal behaviour it be worth putting a warning somewhere in somewhere (perhaps on the wiki?) just so users (especially those who are less technically aware) don't think the whole lot has crashed.

John Chewter

Yes. I have seen this and in one other place too. I forget where it happens a lot - I will post it here when I see it next.

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