All Windows broadcasters need to do these things if they want us to help figuring live broadcasting dropouts. We're just guessing otherwise.

1) We need your IP address. You can get it from http://www.whatismyip.com/ by opening that page form any computer on the network you are broadcasting from.

2) Download winmtr and configure it to analyze your Internet connection to whatever DJBot server you are broadcasting to. You need to run this for 90 minutes and then mail us the report, and it has to be run form the computer that is doing the broadcasting.

http://winmtr.net/download-winmtr/

You have a 768k upload speed then....The 8M is your download speed which really doesn't have a bearing on your broadcasting....If you have more than one computer running, your bandwidth can get eaten up quickly....CL is growing rapidly and increasing speeds up to 25M/4M in a lot of markets....40M has also seen its way into a few select markets like Vegas....Call them up and see if you can't upgrade your speed.

Hosting companies play a sort of bait and switch. They say your getting 8 Megabits of download speed, which is correct, but many think it's Megabytes and it's not. To get the actual speed in Megabytes, you must divide the 8000 bits by 16 to get the Megabytes. This equals half a Megabyte or .500MB. If your upload speed is 768kbs (Kilobits per second), this is actually 48Kbs (Kilobytes per second).

I use Charter and they just recently started offering 100mb download speeds. Not sure of what this will cost is but I'm sure it's out of my budget.

A 128kbs stations actually needs 8Kbs to upload the stream so your upstream bandwidth should be sufficient unless you are on a network and others are using the network at the same time. This could be causing part of your problem.

Thanks for the response. I am so glad to get some direction on this.

184.98.12.184 is my ip.
I will be running the winmtr and report back later.

I was not even thinking about the upload speed. My bad. That makes sense. The good thing is (I would assume) that lets say I am uploading the station stream and somebody at home uses netflix on the wii, the wii would be mostly using download not upload. Would their use of netflix have a big impact on my upload? Just a thought. Thanks again!

Netflix will utilize both up and down. Your computer communicates with Netflix the whole time you are using their site, browsing or viewing.

I have the file. What email address should I email it to?

Oh I see it. support@loudcaster.com

Did you run the test to your broadcast server? Something that would look like djbot02.loudcaster.com or broadcaster01.loudcaster.com. It should be run using the same server you broadcast to.

Nope. My bad again! I will run the test again to djbot04.loudcaster.com.

OK, I sent another one with the djbot04.loudcaster.com. Hope that helps.

@radiojonnyking

it looks like you have intermittent slower periods, and they seem to be originating on your home network.

The 3 columns that are important in that test are the best/worst/average columns. You can see that in the best and average that at best, your connection is quite good, at average, your connection is still just fine, but at worst, it's enough to trip the djbot to cut over to the automated playlist (or white noise).

Since it's on your local network there are 2 common possibilities. First, the computer you're broadcasting from is under a high load (even just for few seconds at a time) which causes it to push network data at longer intervals. Second, you are having network collisions, this happens frequently on wi-fi and sometimes on wired connections (for example if you're using your connection to do something else at the same time like watch netflix - the data being pushed through your router all arrives at the same time and the router freaks out as small routers do sometimes).

Ok, for fixes -
For #1: Turn everything else on the broadcasting machine off, all unnecessary services for broadcasting should be shut off. let it run a few hours and see how it does.
For #2: Try connecting your broadcasting machine directly to your modem (cable or dsl both have a standard ethernet that usually goes to a router, instead put it in your computer directly. Again, let it run and see what happens.

(gee i'm long winded today :) )

Thank you. First off, I do have my broadcast pc directly connected to the router and then everything else in our home uses wifi. Sadly in our world of wifi everyone in our household uses the internet. Smart phones, wii, xbox, laptop computers. Crazy. I guess someday I could order a separate internet connection dedicated to the radio station. That is $$$.

Now I need clarification on "all unnecessary services for broadcasting should be shut off." I am using StationPlaylist Studio Pro with the OddcastV3 encoder. It's been up for about 50 hours with no problems so far. I have some things like dropbox that accesses sometimes, then there is the windows updates that kick in and the Microsoft Security Essentials Antivirus protection which I know does scans and updates. Finally I have Webroot Spy sweeper which also needs some updates at times. Are these the things you were referring to? Thanks again for you help!

I just figured out that I do not have a pic for my discussion icon. Just woke up!

One more thought, I monitor the station listening to the stream through loudcaster instead of the direct audio from my StationPlaylist software. Perhaps I should not do that as it takes bandwidth too. Sort of a "duh" right?

Unnecessary Services = Turn off (If you can) all security software, Automatic Updates and any IM type services.

I just upgraded my Party Hitz Radio broadcast computer to a white box running Windows 7. I have disabled Security Essentials, Automatic Updates from Microsoft, Windows Firewall and Advanced System Care. I use it has a dedicated computer and run nothing else on it. The firewall is not needed because I use the firewall provided by my router/switch. I also use the QoS provided to give my broadcast computers priority access to my network.

Thanks reaper, that all makes sense to me. What is a white box?

Custom built. Mine is a P4 3.6Ghz with 4 gigs of ram and 320Gig SATA Harddrive. I used to have dual video cards but replaced them with a 1 Gig card with HDMI out.

OK, thanks. Sounds really cool.

That's right reaper. I've been doing the same sort of thing for about 4 years with constant online with 3 separate streams on one pc (2-128 & 1-56). Two other people still use their pcs on the same network and it works fine (10-dn & 1-up). I go months without a reboot (then i choose too). I do enjoy your effort to help others.

I had the same deal with Time Warner then I switched to Century Link. I had 1Mb up and 10 down there. Then I switched to Road Runner Extreme. Now I actually have 5MB's UP (Very Important). This cleared some of the issues. Since my wife's computer got messed up she even plays games on Facebook and my computer runs like a top. Then again I have a very fast machine with 8GB Ram. But until I got the Road Runner Extreme I had numerous issues with chopping from my broadcast and DJBot.

I've found out that 90% of the time it was on Time Warner's side and I called them and told them every time I got a "cannot send data fast enough" message in SAM. They monitored my connection and found it was on their end.

My suggestion for any station is to purchase the MOST Upload speed you can afford. Many will try and sell you Download Speed, but when you run a Radio station its the upload speed that really matters the most. Let your provider know you want to run an Internet Radio station and that you need as much bandwidth as possible.

I think I win the prize for the fastest internet. This was tested on the computer that runs my station.
http://theechannelhits.webs.com/Speed%20test.png

Remember that the speed tests only show the peak speed for a few seconds. But either way it looks very good. What you can do to really test upload speed is to upload a 700Mb to 1 Gb file to someone who has fast Download speed or upload your music to an online storage service. If it takes long or you see low speeds you know your upload speed is slow.

I'm hearing short drop-outs of my live stream as well. The drop-outs are quite short - usually well under one second. There is no error reported in RadioBOSS. I haven't been able to locate any causal events locally.

My Internet connection is 25/25 FIOS - I did a 90 minute stream test to my Loudcaster IP - no dropped packets.

PC is custom built for broadcast - i5 Quad, 8G RAM, SSD program drive, 1 TB data drive, 1G internal network to FIOS router.

Hay radiodave,

I also use RadioBoss to automate my station. I have the same problem too. I believe they are are going to fix this in the next RadioBoss version. Also if you have any question or issues with RadioBoss, they do have a forums. http://www.djsoft.net/smf/
Also they released the Beta Version of RadioBoss 4.7. If you want to try you can download it here: http://www.djsoft.net/smf/index.php/topic,2752.0.html

I'm testing the RadioBoss 4.7 beta. I have the exact same problem with the drop outs. They usually last, like Dave said, less than a second, and seem to be more frequent after station IDs.

They are annoying, but if there's one thing I know about RadioBoss, it's that RB is always a "work in progress".

I certainly hope they get it fixed in the next version.

My drop outs are similar to DJTs - I notice them during transitions, from one item to the next. They may be song to song, or from scheduled events - such as top-of-the-hour IDs.

are there gaps in the audio between songs? I use Station Playlist and if the next element doesn't kick in the DJBot will take over, like a silence sensor but it comes back when the next element fires.

I thought I would post this to let you guys know you are not alone in the battle with broadcast software.

As you know, I broadcast 2 stations using Sam 4.9.2. There is a known bug with this version locking up. I had not had this problem until about a month or so ago. I thought that one of my broadcast computers was shitting the bed so I upgraded the one stations computer. Then after roughly 3 weeks of running smoothly, she locked up again. Then when I restarted Sam, it would work fine for one song and the lock up about 20 seconds into the next song. Even a new install would not fix this.

I did find a link to Sam 4.9.3 Beta that seems to have fixed the issue so far. If this continues to work I will upgrade the other machine to this version as well.

So, I feel your pain guys, I have almost $700 invested in broadcast software alone and get REALLY frustrated when it does not work as advertised.

I just wonder if your problem could not be caused by the Gap Killer or something like that. I would maybe try disabling certain features and see if that helps (if you haven't tried that already).

I thought the same thing, Leo, and adjusted and even turned off the Gap Killer on RadioBoss. It did nothing. In fact, depending on my adjustments, it cut off the beginning of the song.

I just don't think that RadioBoss is up to the task when it comes to transitions between tracks (and I think that might be why voice tracking over intros still hasn't come back to RB).

I think I'm just going to break down and get Station Playlist this week. I've had the same issues as kentskrypt with Station Playlist at times, but not even close to as frequently. Plus, Station Playlist has a MUCH better sound, much smoother transitions, and it's actually less expensive than RadioBoss.

I appreciate everything that the staff at RB does; like I said, it's a constant work in progress, and they are constantly trying to improve the software and they really listen to their customers through the forums. However, it doesn't have as many features as other softwares, has more bugs, and bottom line, it shouldn't be as expensive as Station Playlist/mAirlist, etc. if it doesn't at least perform nearly as well. That's my take anyway.

Here is a more important point, though. Is their any way to fix the autoDJ from breaking in so quickly? That is the most annoying part. I can handle a couple of seconds of silence, but when the autoDJ breaks in immediately because of a hiccup, it makes me lose listeners, makes me annoyed, and really REALLY throws off Marci, as Marci will pick up the tag and display it each time there is a hiccup, making the autoDJ song appear on the now playing list over and over.

It would be nice if autoDJ weren't quite as "eager to help". Maybe a 2 second gap before it kicks in would be enough.

Anyway, that's my take. Hope SAM 4.9.3 works out for you, Leo. I know how much you have invested in your equipment, and how much work you put into your programming.

Thanks Tim.

Here is the funny things when Sam freezes up. As you know, I stream to Live365 as well as Loudcaster and the Live365 encoder will quit while the Loudcaster encoder keeps streaming. But, I cannot do anything because Sam is totally froze. Live365's Failsafe feature waits and "Listens" for your live feed for about 5 seconds, then a message comes on saying "Please wait while we try and reconnect". It will then connect to the basic (DJ Bot per se) stream. This at least lets a listener know that there is a problem and hopefully the stream will start again.

Don't get me wrong, I am in no way dissatisfied with Loudcaster, just pointing out that there is a better way (IMHO).

I think your right Tim, as @radiodave described his set up, I started thinking that it had to be a RadioBOSS problem because he has a sweet set up. I'm not sure how hard it would be to find a bug like this because to fix it, it would have to happen for them as well. Without that it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Hey guys

I have the same problem now with radioboss

my title streaming won't get updated on here when i go live with radioboss

and my streams always cuts out on me alot when i always check my email at gmail.com

My SAM 4.91 seems to work fine. Sometimes it may crash but this may happen aft more than 30 days of operation.

Oh man just to let you know that 4.92 had all sorts of problems for me as well. I switched back to 4.91 since this one don't give me issues. I don't know what the heck happened in 4.92 but its now worth upgrading at all.

As a test, I've tried turning on the "Mix Point" in RadioBOSS. I set the "Mix Point" value to 0.5 seconds. Since the drop-outs were (seemingly) random, I'm not sure if these actually fixed the problem, or not. However, I haven't heard an interruption in a while.

As a side note, is it weird that the bot starts whereever it left off? In the middle of a song?

Well, I broke down and bought Station Playlist Studio (Standard). I just couldn't take the interruptions / trying to tweak the settings over and over just to get it to work properly.

I already had SPL Creator for scheduling, though, so it was an easy decision for me. Not an inexpensive one, but easy.

I wish Dmitry and the staff at RadioBOSS all the best. It's a program with a whole lot of potential, and I know how much effort is put into it. It just hasn't achieved that potential yet. I have every confidence it will eventually.

I just needed something that works right now.

(Now, if I can just figure out how to set up the monitor since I'm running one sound card, I can go live. Like REALLY live. I just got my shock mount and mic stand for my AT2020 USB. If I can get things set up, I'm gonna go Live DJ old school, with talking and everything! :) )

Update for those using RadioBOSS - I've had my "Mix Point" set to 0.5 seconds for the past four days and have not heard a single drop-out since then. Granted, I don't listen 24 hours a day, but prior to adding the Mix Point I would have heard a drop-out by now.

Hay I decided to try something with RadioBoss and my station's computer. I turn off all the programs on the computer and only had RadioBoss running. I also changed from having my jingles play from the scheduler to having go through Playlist Generator Pro. Ever since I did that I don't have anymore dropouts. :)

Love the continual discussion on this issue. I now run StationPlaylist Studio and I still do have cut outs from time to time. I think the suggestion to have the DJbot wait a little longer before it kicks in would be very helpful. Can this be adjusted? It would be cool if the user could have some kind of adjustment tool that could decide how quickly it kicks in. That way I could decide if I wanted a instantaneous DJbot kick in or a delay up to 10 seconds. Is this possible? If software has issues at times then this would make it a little less likely to lose listeners if there is a silent gap once in a while instead of bouncing back from a song on the server to one coming from my pc.

I think it is interesting that when it kicks in (even if it has been a month) it continues on the same song it left off. This shows how the DJbot is running. Wonder it that could be adjusted to at least start on a new song or something.

I wonder if StationPlaylist has anything to do with this drop out? I can get a second dedicated DSL line for about $45 a month from Centurylink but right now we are using the same internet for my family wireless devices around the house including other laptop pcs, xbox, Wii, netflix, iphones etc.

My upload speed is 0.61 Mbps and download is 5.92 Mbps. Not impressed but this is the fastest they provide in this area.

BTW, I love StationPlaylist as it is so easy to use (but takes a bit to figure out). It has such powerful features. I have top of the hour, liners, PSA, song intros overlaying upcoming songs, plus I have full control over new releases that are inserted a regular intervals throughout the hour. I am able to schedule sermon messages on Sunday at precise times for the church we feature. It also provides a drag and drop feature where I can simply bring any mp3 into the playslist from my music folder on my hard drive. There is a lot of work required to manage all of this as I add new songs but it is worth the time to get a good sounding radio station. The transitions between songs are smooth and professional sounding. It did cost me about $400 so it was a big investment but I am glad I did it. Hope this helps anybody who is considering what to use.

.

I think the DJ Bot needs to wait at least 20 seconds before it kicks in. This could solve a lot of those drop outs for broadcasters. It was an issue for me during the beta testing of Loudcaster. Some of it was my Internet and some was just because of too much silence you have to keep the sound coming and I found that as soon as the last note hits in a song if I want to announce a three song set I have to hurry up and key the mic and start talking right away.

It would be nice if DJ Bot's wait time was adjustable. I'd agree with thelegacy that something like 20 seconds would be nice. I heard DJ Bot jump into the middle of a song today for about a second (with the middle of a different song).

Just make sure your Internet is not dropping because the modem is changing IP's. Time Warner and I are going through a dispute about this because I have noticed at roughly the same times daily my net will drop off for about 5 seconds and come back. One tech said it was because my modem was changing IP's and that the life expectancy for the ip's is random. Another tech said it should have not had to change that often and the fact it did so twice during the day (which is what I thought) meant trouble.

The only other thing I can try is to pay for a VPN and see if that helps lock my net to the same IP for a longer period of time. Especially if I can get a SSL type VPN. This way the modem will think I'm on a SSL link like paypal and never mess with the IP making it in a sense static. Cyberghost uses SSL encryption.

This brings up another issue bandwidth throttling which is a no no in my book. Using VPN's help to confuse the throttling software and thus keep your bandwidth at the speed you expect. All in all a vpn is the way to go and when I get the $$ I'll most like pay for a good one.

What email do i use to send this info in to? I to been having problems with my station cutting in and out.

@thelegacy - my FIOS IP hasn't moved in years, even though I refresh (power-cycle in order) the entire network stack about once a month. I've done some tests for lost packets, but I haven't caught one yet - even though I left the monitor running for hours.

@radiodave I do the same thing about every three months. I update both broadcast computers with Microsoft updates and power down my modem, Linksys switch and 3com switch.

I just wanted to update my situation. I switch my radio station stream to COX cable and now I have uploading speeds around 5 Megabytes per second and I have no problem with the station cutting out any longer. When I was running under CenturyLink at .69 Megabytes per second it would cut out all the time. I think I fixed the issue!

CenturyLink gave me problems almost every month. When they went down it was for days at a time. I told them if they didn't fix the issues I'd quit their service. Now they still want my money and guess what they won't get it.

I switched to Time Warner's Extreme Internet with Road Runner and found at first it would cut off for a few seconds during the wee morning hours and around 7:30PM-9PM. I told them millions of times I'm running a Internet Radio station and the last few days it was so bad all day long that I could not even broadcast. Finally they gave me level 3 support after swapping the modem and not getting any luck. I told them that they need to listen to my station on the Mp3 side of Loudcaster since there is less delay than the AAC+ stream or listen on the "other service" and see that even though I have two separate broadcast companies and two separate streams BOTH act up at the same time. For a while they tried to blame it on Loudcaster to which I said "Ah Ah" because why would COMPETETOR'S server do the same thing at the same time.

finally I had them ping from my house the server I use to broadcast to on the competition side and finally they saw it. Hopefully with any luck this fixed it. Og one more thing those clowns wanted me to pay $250/mo for business class. What a racket. I told them No I was not born yesterday and that when they say 5 megs up I expect to get 5 megs up 24/7. Some of these ISP's have been getting away with murder you know throttling, bait and switch and the like. I also let them know that me having a Radio station can make or break them for if my listeners know I have lousy service with Time Warner they won't use them. So don't put up with the ISP's BS show them you mean business and you'll get the Internet fixed. They will try anything to make a extra dollar.

When dealing with your ISP always emphasize you broadcast internet radio as a hobby. If you don't they will get the incorrect impression that you run a business and require you to purchase their business package. If you run a business you are required to use business class internet, or you are breaking the law.

I told them I don't make and money because I have a Amature broadcast license that pays royalties to the organizations like BMI, ASCAP, SESAC and Sound Ex. I told them however that if I can get enough listeners I may switch to http://streamsicensing.com and broadcast commercials and at that time I'd consider switching to business class if I had a direct pipe to the internet not shared with anyone else. I think that would be a T3. but I'd have to have 250 listeners 24/7 and making at least enough to pay $250/mo for the net, $750/yr for my license plus pay for my mortgage, lot rent and the like.

I've thought about Pro licensing, but due to the fact that someone stole $900 from my bank account I was not able to try it this year. Maybe if I can save up I can try next year.

I have read however other people have had problems with Time Warner's so called business class. I did finally get a tech that knew what sort of Internet Radio I was running and has been listening to my station. So if anything I got a listener out of the deal lol.

I guess I should not be so harsh with them, but I grow impatient when the same issues occur and I get folks on the other end who act like I'm crazy or something.

radiowayne has previously worked as telephone tech support for a dsl providers. The people on the phone to take the calls were generally non-technical and could only solve 'normal' issues for 'normal people' via a script. Streaming audio is not normal and more of the folks on the phone had no concept of it.

But, then again, he could be wrong.

Wayne G. aka radiowayne