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Remote URL fails - PlayIt goes silent ?

Just had an unusual one. One of the remote URL's has failed to provide audio for a live show. PlayIt just gave an error message "Player 1 failed to load" plus the URL and nothing was playing? Had to stop, insert a track manually, set it playing, then put auto back on.


I'm not always going to be listening, especially at 1am - what should I be doing to account for this behaviour? The last thing I want is dead air.


It sounds similar to Rich's topic "Autodj not playing after url plays" but different circumstances.


Done some more checking. The stream also failed to play on our existing system too but I was able to play it in WinAmp. So, I tried manually loading it into the PlayIt playlist, turning off automation and choosing the Remote URL button - no, failed to load yet again. 


This is a regular Shoutcast stream we've used for a while, it's their feed to TuneIn as well. Not able to test that as it's gone 1am here and everyone is in bed so I'm not going to fire up my phone again. 

Hello Gordon,


I assume this is some sort of "sustaining feed".


Do you have an alternative source of this feed (different bitrate, coding etc.) ?


Assuming the stream is a bit "tricky" I would suggest a separate device playing it (perhaps with a player that is good at re-connections such as XiiaLive) and taking it via an aux input to the computer with the playout system on it.


Aux will always be there (even if silent) so the schedule will never fail. 

It was a strange one as both PlayIt (on trial) and our existing system failed to play the stream, but it was there, I could listen in WinAmp quite happily. 


It's actually a live show being broadcast from the USA that is aired weekly, so I take the remote URL for 2 hours each time. They've not offered an alternative feed, they say it was up and running so no need for a secondary stream. I will check it when it comes round again, early hours of Wednesday morning. 


We need the system to be fully automated with little manual input so the option of taking an AUX feed isn't viable. It's how we cope with having no output if a remote stream fails that bothers me. Also, that same URL is used 24/7, not just for this one show, so we would have to control the AUX input somehow to prevent it over-riding the other 166 hours of the week :-) 

As I understand it, aux input can be given a duration like a stream, so assuming something playing the stream 24x7 is plugged in to the aux input it will only appear for the required duration and slot. There is obviously something a bit tricky about your source, perhaps a timing issue in that it takes a while for the stream to establish and both Play It Live and your other system doesn’t like it. Alternatively is it AAC or something else that won’t play (I think Play It Live needs MP3 streams). Winamp might be more accepting.

I waited for the show time to come around, and... it failed again.  As already mentioned, not just in PlayIt but in our old system as well.  The URL is http://g10.streamradio365.net:2199/tunein/alienxradio.pls if anyone fancies trying it for themselves ? 


We takes a show from AlenX Radio at 0100 on a Wednesday. All I see is " Player n failed to load: http://g10.streamradio365.net:2199/tunein/alienxradio.pls " and the station goes silent. 


The stream IS active, I can hear it using WinAmp. Strange too that the playout log gives it a Y to say it played...? Yes, I define it as a Live Stream and set a duration, it's live so I cannot get the duration from a file.  


I would prefer a fix or whatever than a workaround. I loaded WinAMp with the URL, set it playing and tried to bring that in as AUX, it was using an external sound card at the time, not the same as PlayIt. I tried many settings but... 


This is the final issue with PlayIt as far as I can tell, everything else has been sorted out and I'm very happy with how it's going - bar this one...

Hi Gordon The .pls file is the playlist file which contains the stream information, not a direct link to the stream. You would need to download the pls, read the link from the contents of the file using Notepad and then use that in PlayIt Live instead.

Give that man a coconut!   YES!, of course... Sometimes these things stare us in the face for so long that we give up...


Thank you Jason, problem solved - again :-) 

The only negative was with the station going silent due to the failed action ? 

Hi Gordon,


The looks like an issue with the scheduler which thinks the stream should have played for the full duration so does not think there is anything left to schedule.


I will look into this.


Jason

If I take Auto off and eject the playing item relating to the stream URL then go back to auto I get the backup playout pattern running, but it needs manual intervention. 


Ideally, it just needs to skip past the bad item when the '...failed to load...' message is triggered ?

To add to this. I just copied the entire setup to my laptop, simply because I already had PlayIt on there. I updated to the latest version, copied over all the ProgramData files and ran it - Everything seems to be there, but when I looked the program had started OK, gone into Automation mode and the current 'programme' is a remote URL. That shows as playing, but it's not...   No moving bars in the player. 

Hi Gordon,


This sounds like a separate issue - you might want to create a new topic. If the elapsed time is ticking but no audio is being hear then either the stream is silent or you should check your playback audio devices.


Jason

Very busy at the moment as we've taken the plunge and I'm in the process of setting up two new PC's that will be running our station using PlayIt by the end of July.


I've installed software on both, copied over the audio files and the database and have them running on test here.  Various other bits of software added, like remote access via VNC, time updates using Symmtime (no longer available).

I will have to address the issues as they arise but the particular instance I mentioned may be to do with the PlayIt software not being completely set up at the time, seems there were two sound cards in the PC - an internal speaker that was muted !  Once again you've located the problem area, but I'd already fixed it :-) 


Need to come back in on this issue as it happened again tonight.

We take a few shows 'live' by bringing in a remote URL that is their stream. Tonight the remote server was not available, PlayIt tried twice and showed error messages to say it had not connected. But, we had dead air.


The clock for this show just has a hard time marker and the stream URL defined. It runs for 4 hours. Am I supposed to have created four hours of playlist to cover the eventuality and run this on after the remote URL? Isn't there some way it would drop to the default playlist if the connection fails? 


This also links in with the silence detection a few people have asked about, had I not manually checked the stream I wouldn't have known it was silent. 

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