Airtime 2.5.2.1 Released - Airtime Support Discussions on Sourcefabric Forum

Albert Santoni · Post edited by Albert Santoni at 2015-04-08 10:17:28

Hi guys,

First off, thanks for downloading and trying Airtime 2.5.2! A handful of users here on the forums reported problems installing on Debian as well as upgrading from 2.5.1, and so we listened, debugged, and we've now got a couple of bugfixes in the installer that should help.

IMPORTANT: If you were having trouble instaling Airtime 2.5.2, make sure to run the uninstall script first before trying to install 2.5.2.1. There were a couple files related to airtime-liquidsoap from 2.5.1 that were in conflict with the new organization of executables in 2.5.2. Running the updated uninstall script will remove the problematic files.

Download the latest update

Changelog:

- Fixed file path conflict affecting some upgrades from 2.5.1
- Fixed daemons not starting up by default on Debian, better Debian compatibility
- Better default answers for the uninstall script

Thanks again for trying out 2.5.2, and let us know how you're faring with this latest update.

Albert

Micz Flor

Hi everybody,

firstly, I want to say as one of the Sourcefabric people, that we are reading the forum and often discuss the threads much more than many of you might think. Why don't we do this in the forum, you may ask. And I can not give you a good reason for that. At times it feels like a "where do we start..." situation.

Firstly, yes, we want to release a free version. We want to update the repo. And we often find ourselves saying "... and then, next month, we could start working on the github repo". When you say this twelve times, a year has passed.

Our development is focussing on the SaaS offering Airtime.pro. We have decided to do this to create revenue to assure that the development can continue and in the long term grow a team around the Airtime code base. Airtime development is not slowing down. Quite the opposite - which leads to the situation where bringing all the improvements to github becomes a bigger task each month.

Focussing on SaaS also meant that Airtime has grown more and more into a "cloud only" application. Those who have been with Airtime for a longer time know that in the beginning, Airtime was intended to be a software in the studio, assisting live broadcasts with automation and automated recording and rebroadcasting.

Also, the code base is currently very closely intertwined with all the applications needed to run a SaaS operation. It is not easy to rip out the Airtime code and put it on github. Decoupling Airtime from the SaaS infrastructure is what's needed. And because we take our development very seriously, we keep pushing this into the future.

Some in this forum suggested to fork Airtime. Inside our development team, some also think: this is a good idea, why not? Others in our team keep coming back to what I said earlier: let's just soon find some time to work on the github repo.

We also thought about a kickstarter campaign to bring the code base back to github and work on the decoupling from the SaaS infrastructure.

I decided to throw my thoughts into the discussion to overcome the disconnect. I also wanted to give you a bit of insight into where we stand. This is not about turning out back to the open source nature of the project.

I do agree with some voices in this forum that the focus on Airtime.pro effectively makes this project look like a closed source project. Not even like an "open core" project, because what we run on Airtime.pro is fundamentally different from the latest release on github.

This is where we currently stand. Forking the project is a possibility. Looking for an alternative is also a possibility. Using the Airtime.pro SaaS is also a possibility (I am not being cynical here, I mean it.). There is also the possibility to bring some funding together through kickstarter or the like and make the github release not a task on the side but a real milestone on the roadmap.

We want to release a version, but we need time and resources to work on the release. We don't have the resources right now to focus beyond the Airtime.pro offering. Good news: Airtime.pro is growing. So we will eventually be more flexible with resources.

I am not saying if, when and what. I wanted to send you some of our thoughts.

All the best, micz

Matias Morawicki · Post edited by Matias Morawicki at 2015-04-08 14:20:27

Hi!! very anxious to try the update!! any estimate release time for .debs??

thanks!

Robbt

micz, thanks for the response from SF

In regards to how to best move forward with an open-source version I suggest that an attempt to fork the project will be a difficult challenge. Would SF be willing to share some of the code from their Airtime.pro to assist in the fork ?

For a while there was a saas-dev branch on github and I have a clone of it that I've personally used as an upgrade from 2.5.2 using the upgrade scripts. I'd be willing to put this up on github as a fork so that others can help me make it more usable for the open-source community.

If others were interested and had the time to work on a new release from this codebase it might be feasible. There are a number of questions in terms of whether it would need to need to become a new project with a new name (as typical of forks), whether people other than myself would have time to contribute to the code etc. Since it was downloaded from Github and there were no changes to the license I'm assuming that it is still AGPL v3. The last code that was added by the SF team was the Podcast functionality. I haven't been able to fully get the podcast function working properly, as it uses Celery and I haven't spent enough time debugging what happened.

Whether SF can share the code behind some of their more recent developments to assist the open source fork is another question. In particular I've been interested in tweaking the Rotations code to make it work for my station's purpose.

As Airtime.pro customers my station has benefited from the development improvements but we've also struggled with
the same challenges that occur when running proprietary software, namely
the lack of an ability to customize it or fix bugs.

There are a few alternatives that open-source community members could turn too, but none of them are as user friendly, feature rich or web orientated as Airtime from my testing. I haven't fully tested Rivendell, which is open-source and used by a number of commercial and public radio stations. It is a bit more complicated from my understanding and wouldn't lend itself as easily towards volunteer ran stations.

I've spent a good amount of time working on Airtime on the side and was able to contribute some minor code to the last airtime release. If others are interested in a fork of sorts, contact me. I'd also be happy to hear what the official Source Fabric position is on sharing some of the SAAS code.

According to section 8.1 of the User Agreement it should be available without the 3rd party components.

8. Your Rights to Use Airtime Pro

8.1 The software upon which Airtime Pro is based is open source
software. It is, except for a numberof thirdparty components, licensed
by us under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 (“AGPLv3”).
You can find the text of the AGPLv3 licence here

(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl3.0.html). You can download from our
website the source code of the software upon which Airtime Pro is based.

Now it is possible that this agreement will be changed to reflect the reality but it'd also be very nice if there were a community orientated effort to support a open-source version that would free the SF team of the stress of doing the modifications but without the rupture of a fork.

I'm not sure of the best way forward here and it doesn't sound like anyone else is either. But perhaps we as users, humans and coders can figure out something that brings out the best in all of us and upholds the spirit and vision that attracted us all to Airtime in the first place. If SF isn't interested in sharing their current code we can work from the code that I have and figure out a plan together.

Robb

James Dunn · Post edited by James Dunn at 2015-04-08 11:35:00

I just tried out this version as I was having trouble with liquidsoap starting on my Debian 7.8 virtual machine.

Liquidsoap always fails if the hardware output is enabled. I've tried all the different options (ALSA,OSS, etc) but none of them work. The aplay command works fine from the command line.

Also, despite airtime-liquidsoap failing the 'Stream Settings' claims the stream is connected to the icecast server when it isn't (unless the hardware output is disabled of course).

Another issue seems to be with the timezone. The browser shows the time in UTC, but I have set the timezone to Europe/London in System/Preferences and this is confirmed in the database via phppgadmin.

Recorded shows are not recorded either. A shows scheduled for 15:16 UTC shows the following in /var/log/airtime/pypo/show-recorder.log:

2015-04-08 16:15:56,774 DEBUG - [recorder.py : get_time_till_next_show() : line 246] - Next show 2015-04-08 15:16:00
2015-04-08 16:15:56,774 DEBUG - [recorder.py : get_time_till_next_show() : line 247] - Now 2015-04-08 15:15:56.773970
2015-04-08 16:15:56,774 DEBUG - [recorder.py : start_record() : line 265] - sleeping 3.22603 seconds until show

But no ecasound process starts...

mrkrotos

I tried this update on a 2.5.2 Debian box, still no joy :(
LiquidSoap service fails to start

Bob Larson

Is there any more feedback on this? The two people who tried this version both had problems, so for now I'm sticking with 2.5.1.

Voisses Tech

Because I was a sceptic from day one ,my opinion has not wavered.
I tried it on Guess what Debian cause if it worked there then its a cinch of ubuntu

You see i am using Airtime from

The codes had some real nasty words so theses have not hurt me
Link show(while tedious at times had work around)
Fancy GUI,well I am under the hood man so you bet my interpretation
Stability ,I found Airtime to have been more than 90% stable most of the time
Api. Totally useless 20% of people use it

So what Really Changed?

Now here are some things to considered

if you want to make a PHP Database type of Auto DJ,Then create scripts where individuals can export the Playlist or Smart Blocks and you grab that playout and use either Ecasound to play out or More likely liquidsoap to stream
Create scripts where storage of the Audio (usually /srv can be queried based on tags like Artist,year title etc and use that as auto dj
Create an export template for Api information let the developer designed there own based on their own Api parameters
Expand smart blocks so the users can do almost anything you want they want

There must be at least 1 new featured in any upgrade to satisfied or impress anybody to upgrade.

At this time,if you have worked hard on making a stable system,wait for the summer holidays or when you have time to move to 2.5.2 unless you will likely have sleepless nights

Voisses

Albert Santoni

mrkrotos said:
I tried this update on a 2.5.2 Debian box, still no joy :(
LiquidSoap service fails to start

Hi mrkrotos,

Can you check /var/log/upstart/airtime-liquidsoap.log for any errors?

Also, can you please PM that log and the airtme-playout.log too?

Thanks,

Albert

Roger Wilco

Is this guide no longer relevant? It currently installs 2.5.1

http://sourcefabric.booktype.pro/airtime-25-for-broadcasters/automated-installation/

Andy

Hello, a Question:

Where ist Monit to Start and Stop Services in this Version?

Thx

Andy

Hello,

Sorry, but the installation on Ubuntu Server 14.04 is so buggy, with tis options ./install -fiap .

systemctl: not fund

* Starting PostgreSQL 9.3 database server [ OK ]

could not change directory to "/root/airtime-2.5.2.1": Keine Berechtigung

ALTER ROLE

two processe airtime-media-monitor

two processes liquidsoap

40 - 50 % CPU Systemload on 6 kern

Change Streams i must restart....

..... and so on.

I have a old installition with 2.5.1 this works

Roger Wilco

Trusty Tahr is the new Windows Vista =))

Philippe Demartin

On Ubuntu Vivid 15.04, 2 thing are show stopper....
1) Scheduler don’t work
2 AirTime Icecast client don’t start, port 8001 don't open and mixxx can't connect.

I vas triing AirTime on 14.04 in virtualBox before and every thing was fine, but after instaling a new production machine with 15.04, it’s unusable :=(
You guy’s have an idea when those basic bugs are going to be addressed? If it's soon, I'll wait, if not, I reinstall every thing on 14.04 or 14.10.
thank's

Voisses Tech

Roger Wilco said:
Trusty Tahr is the new Windows Vista =))

That's crazy to compare linux to Windos.

I would not take or drink what you taking

Verheek · Post edited by Verheek at 2015-06-18 13:08:55

I upgraded from precise to trusty and that seemed ok but airtime broke. So I purged 2.5.1 and reinstalled but no joy. So I downloaded 2.5.2.1 and tried that.

The first issue was fixing the python virtual environment which I did from another post on here.

The next issue was with PIP. I had an old version in /usr/local/bin so I upgraded it with sudo pip install --upgrade pip. Some have preferred to symlink to keep the version that comes with Trusty.

Next I have an error and the install stops.

Run "sudo service airtime-playout start" and "sudo service airtime-liquidsoap start"
./install: line 91: systemctl: command not found
System start/stop links for /etc/init.d/airtime-playout already exist.
System start/stop links for /etc/init.d/airtime-media-monitor already exist.
System start/stop links for /etc/init.d/airtime-liquidsoap already exist.
cp: not writing through dangling symlink ‘/etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/airtime.ini’

I tried to run sudo ./uninstall but it dies at:

Uninstalling Airtime...
Deleting vhost "/airtime" ...
Error: no_such_vhost: /airtime
su: No module specific data is present

It would be good if it was more error tolerant as this missing vhost should not stop the uninstall. I realize this is forced because of #!/bin/bash -e

So I got rid of that '-e' and completed the uninstall. :D

Reran the install but same problem with line 91.

Edit:Actually it's the dangling symlink that is stopping it.

So then I deleted the dangling symlink and the install sped past the error on line 91.

Now to configuring PostgreSQL I have version 9.1 and 9.3 starting.

Created the default user and rabbitMQ complained about no module specifc data present.

And the setup is done!

Unfortunately the https redirect gives and error and the http shows me a the Index of / with an API subfolder. Looking in /etc/apache2/sites-available/ I don't find any airtime vhost?!

Edit: there was an airtime file but it had to be airtime.conf so I renamed it.

So I ran the uninstall script again without '-e' in the first line and that completed.

Next I ran sudo apt-get purge postgresql-9.1 to get rid of the old version. I didn't need anything in it.

Then I ran sudo apt-get purge airtime because I realized the package version was still partly in there. There is an error
'bin_dir'
Waiting for processes to close...
./airtime-uninstall: line 61: deactivate: command not found
but it completes.

Edit: aha there is an airtime vhost file in /etc/apache2/sites-available but it needs to be airtime.conf

I renamed it and reinstalled airtime with sudo ./install

Ok that seemed to run through ok but I have a blank page now on my browser for airtime. No configuration page as promised.

Also, all three services are stop/waiting....

Meantime I fixed the airtime vhost file as it wiped out the http redirect to https. http://sourcefabric.booktype.pro/airtime-25-for-broadcasters/secure-login-with-ssl/
This should be updated for apache 2.4 as noted in the minimal install.

mrkrotos

Albert Santoni said:

mrkrotos said:
I tried this update on a 2.5.2 Debian box, still no joy :(
LiquidSoap service fails to start

Hi mrkrotos,

Can you check /var/log/upstart/airtime-liquidsoap.log for any errors?
Also, can you please PM that log and the airtme-playout.log too?

Thanks,
Albert

Sorry been away for a while, I have managed to get 2.5.2.1 working on latest Debian now :P
I did the following:
1) Install the latest 2.5.2.1
2) Run through the web installer (It will finish but 2 services fail to start)
3) Terminal > sudo -u postgres psql airtime
Terminal > airtime=# UPDATE cc_subjs SET pass = md5('admin') where login = 'admin';
4) Reboot
5) Delete airtime.conf and re-run the web installer
6) Reboot

Works for me

Noticed a good few bugs so far, and i still cant workout where i can edit the config like the old ls_script.liq :(

mrkrotos

Been having a play with this version, found a ton of bugs that basically render this version unusable!
The main 2 issues I hit were:
Cant connect to server using either the Master or Show Mount Points, always states wrong user / password no matter what I try.
When changing any of the 3 Stream details, settings like username or password dont work without a reboot.

After this I gave up :(

Roger Wilco

Here we are 1 year later and nothing's changed :(

mrkrotos

Sadly yes, I have begun looking for alternatives already.
Its so slow here now days it feels like an unsupported product.

Matias Morawicki

What about trying to create a new group of users and fork the project??

I know it sounds sad and/or ridiculous given the kind of project SourceFabric claims to be... but given the circumstances...

Also sounds like a lot of work, but Airtime is really a great tool, and if we basically try to make the latest version usable, fixing the bugs mrkrotos mention and then see if we can slowly keep working on new stuff maybe it is possible...

Roger Wilco

I don't want a fork. I want Sourcefabric to stand up and claim their project or pass it along wholesale to someone who does care. Not 6 months from now. Now.

Matias Morawicki

Of course, me too rather staying with the backup of such a great team and community!! Sourcefabric seemed like a dream project a couple of years ago, and it also seemed like a safe bet for those who believe in Free software and Communities.

Again, I'm proposing the forking idea based in the actual circumstances... more than a year without news for the Free version of Airtime, only for the Pro version... thats quite enough subtleties for me...

Lets hope SF listens and give us some honest info...

mrkrotos

Sadly I have given up, watching this whole thing slow down to a complete standstill over the last couple of years is enough for me.
Unless you pay for the Pro service, this is a dead product as far as I can see.

Voisses Tech

@Micz Flor

This is where we currently stand. Forking the project is a possibility. Looking for an alternative is also a possibility. Using the Airtime.pro SaaS is also a possibility (I am not being cynical here, I mean it.).

I hope I can say all good and I mean it.

I am glad that the team has realized that revenue is important and I would always advocate that sourcefabric should have a dual branch.

my thoughts though is what is the life cycle of 2.5.1.6
ubuntu trusty and debian 7 lifecycle is around May 2018

As we all know zend is now 3.0

So I am left thinking is Airtime a long term viability unless you go pro?

I just hope you all come to a balance decisions because competing and cheaper alternatives are there depending on the needs.

There have also being some troubling changes

The wiki have disappear
Articles.scripts and links too
dev demo have disappear
as confirm github is all but obsolete
bugtracker is in mars(not relevant to earthly creatures)

All I can say is we are at the mercy and people like me code for fun,so if its New we learmn it,if its old we make it new .Alternatives is not an option.

So my immediate task will be to make my own repository cause one day we will all be in the cloud or crying the rain tears as it all disappears.

GLSFB

Roger Wilco

There's potato salad

And then there's potato salad

Voisses Tech · Post edited by Voisses Tech at 2016-07-02 07:00:27

Ok ,so here is a summary of skill set I think we need to fork

Zend Framework especially with context switching json

Liquidsoap

Python

Database (I think we should also be able port it to windows)
CSS
Jquery with tab,datatables and panels
Json and Ajax (limited Javascript)

PhP (limited necessary)

I think I looked at the SaaS when it was available,it get complex with two addition

I do not know if these are necessary to bring Airtime to a competitive edge as was perceived by the current team as some software are using less than that.

I can dedicate up to 10 hours per week starting Sept 10,2016 .

I am can provide reasonable support and development in Liquidsoap and up to Zend V2(although 1.12 in use)

So if some one can come up with a reasonable team .I will be willing to participate (no Joke)

I will put out feeders at my linux group net meeting and see who are available and how much time to allocate

@Rodger Lol

Robbt

Well the first question is whether we want to build off of the code that was in the SaaS branch.
The UI is definitely improved. There is no reason to not use the code in my opinion as it is still open-source AGPL v3 according to the license files.

I don't recall anything being added that used Django. Celery is used for the podcast downloading.

I have tested a manual upgrade via script from a working 2.5.2 install.

But really a fork will require quite a bit of project coordination.

Something to consider is the Collective Code Construction Contract - http://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:42/C4/

There is a lot there, he's a discussion the next cloud people had about it after their fork - https://help.nextcloud.com/t/should-we-adopt-c4/113/13

So far we have 2 potential developers (myself & Voisses Tech

). I have an interest in starting this process before September 10th, but there are still a few decisions that need to made before anything collaborative can happen.

Ron Step

I'm not very good at coding but willing to support it however I can.

I am quite good at writing idiot proof manual's etc.

regards Ron

Roger Wilco

Y'know... 500 units of a stable parbaked 3.0 release sold for low $xxx would be tall mound of dough wouldn't it? Maybe offer a high $xxx investment tier for 90-days direct SoFab support and higher ones for a year or forever support -- and bam! That might be a compelling campaign. Then with enough resources, 3.5/4.0 would be ready for Jessie before Wheezy LTS ends May '18. Oh to dream...

Roger Wilco

Thread bumping because hey, why not?

Nolan Wagner

Can someone from the development team comment on the status on this project and what we should expect coming forward?

Roger Wilco

Status: radio silence

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

Poll

Top Posters