After Crash restart allways in "Left Channel only" and "Malfunction Repeat Protection"

Dana

Member
Hello support team.

I run since several weeks 2 to 3 Radioboss Playouts in parallel on a Windows Server 2012 R2. Hosting on a Dell 24 Core Server. Some RB always crashes 1 to 3 times a day. I saw one live in a freeze (volume Peak meter), then after around 10 seconds, the supervisor thread kills and restarted. Ok.

After restart, the channel with activated Equilizer comes in Mono - left channel only.
Also it took a lot of effort, the "Repeat Protection" for my Tracklist doesn't work anymore. I have more than 3000 maxi titles in rotation. For 15 days. And with a7 days protection I get a song after 2 hours or after one day. I can see the last 4 playouts in the mouseover, protection is not working anymore. But it is activated.

One RB doesn't use output streaming, only for test stability and repeat protection. It is a standard installation. Only Tracklist. This is stabile. Never had a crash. But this setup was only to compare. The other RB use Trasklist, Repeat protection, every 10 minutes a trailer (DAB Test Ensemble) and send 2 FLAC output streams.

Crashing is in the winnt.dll. So, difficult to know the real reasoun. Maybe the flac coder. I set another one with maybe mp3 or aac.

Ok, to sum. After a c crash there is a different restart with different initializing. Thats my thought. If I close the damaged RB and start it new, everything is fine with repeat protection. Up to the next crash restart.
 
It looks like there are lots of various kinds of problems. Please ensure that you have downloaded the latest version from our web site: https://www.djsoft.net/enu/download.htm

After the latest version is installed, try turning off all features to see if it works - without EQ, any sorts of DSP plugins etc. The encoders can't crash RadioBOSS because they are launched as separate process.
 
Ok, here some good news.
The bad behavior I described above caused with software version 6.1.1.0. At installation this was the actual version. I think, the crash was caused by the sheduler. I use default settings and only a few changes. And a random tracklist.

The error or fault behavior was: After crash in a middle of a sony, the standard equilizer module lost the right channel and the repeat protection forgot often the protection time limit of 12 days.

I updated to 6.1.2.0 a week ago. 3 RB in parallel. No crash anymore!!! But one stream got silent after a day. Happened twice.

Then I updated to actual 6.1.2.1 yesterday and at the moment, everything is fine. Thanks for your bugfix. We'll see if it is stable the next weeks.
 
Then I updated to actual 6.1.2.1 yesterday and at the moment, everything is fine. Thanks for your bugfix. We'll see if it is stable the next weeks.
If it starts "losing" one of the channels again, please try disabling the equalizer. But I guess this should be fixed in the latest update.
 
If there is no crash, there should also then no left-only EQ. So, difficult to test. Maybe a stop BP by task manager and the service will restart it. I keep you informed. And good to read, that you fixed something in the EQ part.
 
Not fixed in 6.1.2.1

Easy to reproduce here:

Install 6.1.2.1 - don't edit something
Activate EQ
Edit a band to +1 dB
Save Config
Close RB
Open RB
EQ should checked
Activate "Settings -> Options -> General -> Restart the program if it crashes" and "Resume Playlist" below.
Play music, maybe one file end endless repeat
Lock at VU meter: Stereo
Close and open: Stereo again.

Open Task Manager -> Kill "RadioBoss - player"
Wait around 10 seconds
Auto Restart itself
Played on Mono left. Right is with disturbing low noise.
Deactivate EQ -> Stereo! Activate again -> Stereo.

(I was a softwaretester in QC in the last years)

Clipboard01.png
 
Do you use 32- or 64-bit RadioBOSS version? Currently we only see problem with EQ in a 64-bit edition.
 
Thanks for your answer. Good to read that you can see this behaviour also. I'm using the 64 bit version. Windows 2012 R2 64 bit.
So then it is maybe a int or long problem.... strange.
 
Thanks for your answer. Good to read that you can see this behaviour also. I'm using the 64 bit version. Windows 2012 R2 64 bit.
So then it is maybe a int or long problem.... strange.
EQ implementation is 3rd party, so it's possible that there's some sort of bug. Meanwhile you can use 32-bit version instead, until we fix this.
 
Ok. At the moment, there is no crash. And then, no wrong EQ. I have no idea, why after a crash the external module is not resetted or initilized properly.
One question about audio quality: Is the EQ module decoding and coding the audio material? For example:
Original track in MP3 -> EQ converts into RAW/WAV to process by FFT the bands -> coding back the result into MP3 -> convert to stream in AAC by recoding from MP3 into AAC ???
 
Original track in MP3 -> EQ converts into RAW/WAV to process by FFT the bands -> coding back the result into MP3 -> convert to stream in AAC by recoding from MP3 into AAC ???
EQ does not convert anything. But RadioBOSS will first convert the input to PCM, the PCM data is then processed, and after everything is encoded for streaming into target format(s).
 
Ok, using 6.2. In 32 Bit. Never hat the Left-channel-only problem. Ok. Thanks for your help.

What do you think about another audio format: RAW? Send the internal uncompressed audio 1:1. No conversion. I know, that the FLAC is RAW, but not with a constant datarate. And you need some CPU load at the receiving station. If you habe a douzend channels, this is taken into account. Also the varing use of bandwidth.

Is this huge effort for you? For the next RB version?
 
Question for the topic above regarding your suggestion of the pcmraw output:
I have no success to get a raw stream out of RB, for example to receive with VLC for a test. FLAC streaming output is often silent once in a week. So I need raw output.

Config like manual. But mime type is difficult. /X_WAV or /pcma - both with no success. There is a stream with strange content then.

1671397221268.png


RAW stream with Samplerate? Should be raw, so the samplerate of the title, not resampled. Also Bitrate....

1671397318431.png


Any idea with the correct mime type? audio/raw gives strange interpretation:

1671397892034.png

Sorry for the german screenshots.
 
FLAC streaming output is often silent once in a week. So I need raw output.
FLAC should work with no silence - we'll update the encoder in the next release maybe the problem is with that.

RAW output is sent without a header, so probably that's why VLC is not able to detect the format properly.

If you want to try new FLAC now you can download it from here: https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/xiph/releases/flac/flac-1.4.2-win.zip
Place "flac.exe" and "libFLAC.dll" to the Plugins folder where you have RadioBOSS installed (right-click RadioBOSS shortcut and select Open containing folder).
 
Just got a silent RB. FLAC is stuck and silent. Only unselect and select again started the stream. So, thanks for the information. I updated the flac to 1.4.2 in 32 bit and we'll see. I keep you informed.
 
Just got a silent RB. FLAC is stuck and silent. Only unselect and select again started the stream. So, thanks for the information. I updated the flac to 1.4.2 in 32 bit and we'll see. I keep you informed.
How long did it work before silence started?
 
Output is fine for around 1 to 2 weeks.
A few days ago, I got one "silent" live. After playing a short trailer (every 15 minutes) the musik didn't start again. Typically by fading in the same title. Nothing. Only silence....
I have an output of 2 simultaneous streams. The DAB encoder can catch the active one. But both are silent. Strange. Only uncheck and check it again helps to start the sream again.

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The config is:

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If there a logfile for this details and crashed of external plugins?

1673302248719.png


I changed in the event, which crashed the output the volume of the underlaying music from 0 to 1. That both streams are taken into account all the time. Maybe this is irrelevant. I keep you informed about the next silence...
 
When it detects encoder crash or abrupt exit, it will automatically restart it. If it only happens once in two weeks, there's a workaround: you can create a scheduled event with two actions: disconnect, connect. This will make it restart the encoder. It's also possible to only restart one encoder, please see those commands description here: https://manual.djsoft.net/radioboss/en/scheduler_commands.htm
 
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