[Rebroadcast] Playing out the content results in silence
  • Hi,

    I sense that it is a tricky one. Everything looks fine at the first glance. The 'on-air' is lit. The rebroadcast content is filled with the recording. Even the logs seem to be fairly clean. However, there is nothing on the output... The stream is silent. The case applies only to rebroadcasted content. While playing out the smart block/playlist content everything is fine. No problem occurs. What's more odd is sometimes the rebroadcast works, but it is quite rare.

    I would be grateful for any mean of assistance :) Attached today's schedule and logs. From 0 to 7 the playout was normal. Silent since 7. It will be back with the first show that doesn't contain show to be rebroadcasted (playlist/block).

    Airtime version = 2.5.1

    Any ideas?
    Post edited by Marcin Tym at 2014-05-05 04:48:15
  • 24 Comments sorted by
  • Bumping. Anybody? :)
  • This looks like it may be similar or the same issue as this one.http://forum.sourcefabric.org/discussion/16344/some-mp3s-not-playing-still-

    I am working to resolve it for myself.
    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • @Marcin Tym

    I really hate answer questions that seems broad and could be anything ,but let me take a poke at it and see if we can solve it.

    Can You Play these recorded songs with another player?

    The mp3 seem ok but all these for the time stated , are all ogg files located in your home recorded folders.

    As I said before,you could set your log level to an higher level and it would tell you more about the queue.
    And a I said ,if you download these externally you may have an issue with the mime types.

    Tell me if you can play them with say vlc and if not I will tell you how to route it directly though Airtime to see if that is the problem

    Post edited by Voisses Tech at 2014-02-05 22:42:03
    Anyone reading this a find it funny about my grammar , I make no apology ,Go get a translator.
    "The Problem with education today is that it takes a university degree to switch on a light bulb"
    "You learn from your mistakes but wise people learn from others mistakes avoid Making mistakes there is not sufficient rooms to make them"
    "Innuendo","If's","Assumptions" and "Fear" are for politician.Who,What,where,When and How are for those seeking knowledge and care about Humanity.
    "I might be in Mud but that does not Make me a Wild Hog(pig)"
    “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
    "The only thing that remains constant is change itself"
    May the force be with you,until our path or destiny bring us in tandem.
  • @John Chewter

    Yeah, you're right. Apart from the fact that in my case the problem considers only the airtime recordings.

    @Voisses Tech

    Ok, I have no problem playing the file using airtime, in mp3 using vlc, in ogg using vlc. It must be some other bug.

  • a synopsis of your log shows

     2014/01/31 07:00:00 [decoder:3] Method "OGG" accepted "/var/tmp/airtime/pypo/cache/scheduler/5102.ogg".

    2014/01/31 07:00:00 [s0:3] Prepared "/var/tmp/airtime/pypo/cache/scheduler/5102.ogg" (RID 0).

    2014/01/31 08:59:52 [s0:3] Finished with "/var/tmp/airtime/pypo/cache/scheduler/5102.ogg".



    Which is the normal cycle of liquidsoap

    decode==> Prepared (same as played) ===> finished

    If there is a bug on liquidsoap side it more would have to be track related (like mono etc) but as I said the only way of looking in depth at track is setting the log level to 6,which would eliminate whether its track related

    I used liquidsoap for my recordings  as it gives me better control over where,when and how my recordings are done  a sample is here  See txt file attached for relevant script.

    If I am not correct Airtime uses sox as the recorder (I might very well be incorrect) but ,I notice earlier that there was an issue with recording when between 2.5.0 to 2.5.1 , so I can step away for the time been in finding a solution as I cannot reproduce this specific problem.

    Post edited by Voisses Tech at 2014-02-07 11:22:27
    Anyone reading this a find it funny about my grammar , I make no apology ,Go get a translator.
    "The Problem with education today is that it takes a university degree to switch on a light bulb"
    "You learn from your mistakes but wise people learn from others mistakes avoid Making mistakes there is not sufficient rooms to make them"
    "Innuendo","If's","Assumptions" and "Fear" are for politician.Who,What,where,When and How are for those seeking knowledge and care about Humanity.
    "I might be in Mud but that does not Make me a Wild Hog(pig)"
    “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
    "The only thing that remains constant is change itself"
    May the force be with you,until our path or destiny bring us in tandem.
  • @Voisses

    Could you post a link with info on how to change the log level?
  • sudo pico /usr/lib/airtime/pypo/bin/liquidsoap_scripts/ls_script.liq

    Put this in line 7
    set("log.level",6)


    That's it

    To look at the log

     sudo pico /var/log/airtime/pypo-liquidsoap/ls_script.log

    ***************************************************************************************************************************

    For Those who are NOOB  and read this - take all the precautions


    • Backup your scripts

    sudo cp /usr/lib/airtime/pypo/bin/liquidsoap_scripts/ls_script.liq /usr/lib/airtime/pypo/bin/liquidsoap_scripts/ls_script.liq.bak

    • Make the changes

    sudo pico /usr/lib/airtime/pypo/bin/liquidsoap_scripts/ls_script.liq

    Put this in line 7
    set("log.level",6)


    • Save the script

    Save this [usually ctrlX]

    • Check for any errors

    sudo /usr/lib/airtime/pypo/bin/airtime-liquidsoap  /usr/lib/airtime/pypo/bin/liquidsoap_scripts/ls_script.liq

    Stop here if any reported error. You have not done any damage yet and can be fixed

    When ready

    • Restart your script

    sudo invoke-rc.d airtime-liquidsoap restart

    • Check the logs you can do this from the logs (recommended) or realtime (prepare to scroll and read fast)

    I would do the following to look at the log (var/log)

    sudo pico /var/log/airtime/pypo-liquidsoap/ls_script.log

    but if you want to look at it in realtime

    sudo airtime-log -t liquidsoap

    At the end of your Debug or troubleshoot please either comment out the line 7 (set level) or delete it unless you have a lot of disk space .Large Logs are Generated

    Tips
    If You have a backup and introfile for your icecast or shoutcast clients will be greeted with a jingle like instead of disconnect from the streams
    Post edited by Voisses Tech at 2014-02-13 07:31:04
    Anyone reading this a find it funny about my grammar , I make no apology ,Go get a translator.
    "The Problem with education today is that it takes a university degree to switch on a light bulb"
    "You learn from your mistakes but wise people learn from others mistakes avoid Making mistakes there is not sufficient rooms to make them"
    "Innuendo","If's","Assumptions" and "Fear" are for politician.Who,What,where,When and How are for those seeking knowledge and care about Humanity.
    "I might be in Mud but that does not Make me a Wild Hog(pig)"
    “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
    "The only thing that remains constant is change itself"
    May the force be with you,until our path or destiny bring us in tandem.
  • Ok, I'm back with the topic. I observed that the problem also occurs during the playout of the regular files, not only rebroadcasted. But not so often as in latter.

    I'm sensing (jedi mind trick) some cache problems in liquidsoap cause restart is solving all the problems, always. The music is back. However, I wouldn't like to restart the LS engine then and again. That's just stupid :)

    I changed log level to verbose and.... now I can't observe anything in real-time :D I'll post some output when problem occurs. So, really soon I suppose... I don't expect to reveal anything if it is in fact the caching problem.

    @Voisses Thanks for the log level tip.
  • Ok, it happened as predicted - complete silence on stream. The on-air light is on, content is scheduled, files are uploaded to temp, first glance on logs gives me no noticible error. I attached logs (LS is set on verbose) and todays partial schedule. Any ideas? I still suspect a LS bug.

    Is anyone from AT dev team here? :P Problem is potentially quite a troublemaker.

    @Voisses
    Do you know any useful manual for LS logs? It's black magick without any explanation
    Post edited by Marcin Tym at 2014-04-30 03:53:14
  • bumping the topic. Anybody? :)
  • I find this happens quite a lot - but in my case in scheduled shows. I was told this was fixed in 2.52. Alas not.

    To avoid surprises at playout I do this..

    Select the day in question in 'Now Playing' from top menu date/time range picker.
    Is the non-playing silent content displaying here with an error or just plain missing? In my case the problem content is showing as EMPTY. I find these errors show up in this display but NOT in the Calendar view.

    Here is the spooky workaround I use - bug reported for v2.46, v2.5 and v2.52.
    Go to the show's content editor.
    Add a dummy track.
    Delete that dummy truck and POOF my content has reappeared!
    Save
    Now go back to the 'Now Playing' display and verify that it now has content and no errors. If it does - it will play.

    Could you investigate that and see if you get similar results for recorded shows please?


    Post edited by John Chewter at 2014-05-05 05:32:18
    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • It seems just like a problem a faced, but it isn't :) There is no missing content in my case. In the web interface everything seems fine. The only problem is that there is no sound streamed. I think that the problem might be linked with the switch from/to master source. We use master source every evening. As far as I've noticed the silence is likely to appear after switching back to scheduled play.
  • Before someone jumps in and says I am talking crap and says this does not matter.. Is the recorded stream exactly the same format as the ICECAST output? Is it MONO when the output is stereo (or vice versa).

    I have found on many occassions that it does matter, even if it should not.


    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Also, I have found that very occasionally some mp3s just refuse to stream and I get silence. These even pass the AT playability test. These are usually from the same source e.g same podcast series. When I find these I recode them in Audacity or SOX and they then playout fine.

    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • @John, could you provide one of these (pre-recoded) MP3s that required recoding before they'll play? We could then verify and have a reproducible test case, which typically makes finding the source of the bug a bit easier. 
  • I did this. The team said it played fine.
    Next time I find one I will post it.

    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • That would be appreciated John. I'm sure you can appreciate the difficulty in resolving an issue that can't be reproduced... hopefully there will be a better outcome next time.
  • @Steven Any ideas on the problem described by me?

    Anybody from the dev team?

    Sorry for such an intense bumping but my playout is let say... handicapped. It's really messing with my zen here.
    Post edited by Marcin Tym at 2014-05-06 04:57:57
  • @Marcin, I've seen this behaviour previously, but not so much in the 2.5 branch. It does sound a lot like an ls bug, but I wonder... can you provide a screenshot of your /Preference/stream-setting page, or transcribe the details for the input and all output streams you have configured? Feel free to obfuscate  part of the hostname, or all of it if they are all the same.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Voisses TechVoisses Tech
    Posts: 1,423Member
    A file that is in mono will not play in Airtime watch folder.

    If you can download any of the BBC,SkyNews or NPR podcast you can use that as a test case.

    It therefore behooves me to wonder if these recordings are airtime line in recording contents or are they from the LIne IN.

    If Its From the line In Then maybe we would have better way to fix.





    Anyone reading this a find it funny about my grammar , I make no apology ,Go get a translator.
    "The Problem with education today is that it takes a university degree to switch on a light bulb"
    "You learn from your mistakes but wise people learn from others mistakes avoid Making mistakes there is not sufficient rooms to make them"
    "Innuendo","If's","Assumptions" and "Fear" are for politician.Who,What,where,When and How are for those seeking knowledge and care about Humanity.
    "I might be in Mud but that does not Make me a Wild Hog(pig)"
    “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
    "The only thing that remains constant is change itself"
    May the force be with you,until our path or destiny bring us in tandem.
  • @Steven There you go. The 401 error is always on however the stream works perfectly. I have no idea why it's there.

    I just found this in the bug tracker -> http://dev.sourcefabric.org/browse/CC-5729. Maybe that's the deal. It's poorly described so I can't tell.


  • Vote Up0Vote Down Voisses TechVoisses Tech
    Posts: 1,423Member
    401 errors are problem with password and username.
    This was notice from 2.5.0 and if you backtrack in this forum to when that 2.5.0 was first out,You will see a number of post of people complaining about Icecast connection (401 errors).

    The Only fixed ,I could come up with was to tell everyone to purge and reinstall Icecast.

    Trying to find it ,when I even comment that it was unusal that everyone have this problem.

    but the problem here is that its three different one.

    1. its possible that files download like podcast are mono
    2. After upgrades
    3. Incorrect user names and Password( check the Icecast xml) although your system will still show.if you log on to your Icecast  (like http://localhost:8000),nut you will not see a mount point.



    Post edited by Voisses Tech at 2014-05-07 08:06:40
    Anyone reading this a find it funny about my grammar , I make no apology ,Go get a translator.
    "The Problem with education today is that it takes a university degree to switch on a light bulb"
    "You learn from your mistakes but wise people learn from others mistakes avoid Making mistakes there is not sufficient rooms to make them"
    "Innuendo","If's","Assumptions" and "Fear" are for politician.Who,What,where,When and How are for those seeking knowledge and care about Humanity.
    "I might be in Mud but that does not Make me a Wild Hog(pig)"
    “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
    "The only thing that remains constant is change itself"
    May the force be with you,until our path or destiny bring us in tandem.
  • @Voisses That doesn't bother me. What bothers me more is that unexpected stream silence :)
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Voisses TechVoisses Tech
    Posts: 1,423Member
    When is it that silence are streamed,When does it occured?
    If its rebroadcast as the post suggest,make sure you state if you use the line In to record and rebroadcast,you checked the file size and that the file actually exist

    Are all your time slots (calendar has a full schedule with contents)
    It must have contents not just a schedule show

    Are you using a fall back ( mod script)?
    try even my one line mod

    Are you downloading files from podcast and trying to play them via the watch folder?
    Mono files will not play, you will have to convert them to stereo or use the Api 
    source=audio_to_stereo(source) in your fallback


    Make sure you fixed the 401 error first, If you did an upgrade from 2.4.0 to 2.5.0 or 2.5.0 to 2.5.1 make sure you purge and reinstall the Icecast script. Airtime have a script that overwrites the standard install Icecast and for some reason that install script does not work.

    Ps.

    This post http://dev.sourcefabric.org/browse/CC-5729 do not  state exactly what was the issue,but it clearly state that it was solved (ironic!) .May a script error in install or upgrades I assume

    And

    I did not comment on this post http://forum.sourcefabric.org/discussion/16344/some-mp3s-not-playing-still  because its not clear that its a downloadfiles,files via media monitor,or watched folder, if they are files being experimented on or mono files.

    I just hope everyone knows that mono files will not play it will be accepted at times or other times it will say insufficient channels.

    Please Note I cannot download any compressed files or file post to this forum.
    Please put in a text file or paste to pastedbin instead remember to remove any passwaord or confidential info like your api keys.

    Please take a fresh look at your problem it might be different

    Post edited by Voisses Tech at 2014-05-07 08:33:00
    Anyone reading this a find it funny about my grammar , I make no apology ,Go get a translator.
    "The Problem with education today is that it takes a university degree to switch on a light bulb"
    "You learn from your mistakes but wise people learn from others mistakes avoid Making mistakes there is not sufficient rooms to make them"
    "Innuendo","If's","Assumptions" and "Fear" are for politician.Who,What,where,When and How are for those seeking knowledge and care about Humanity.
    "I might be in Mud but that does not Make me a Wild Hog(pig)"
    “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
    "The only thing that remains constant is change itself"
    May the force be with you,until our path or destiny bring us in tandem.