1 Topic by heyartlady (edited by heyartlady 2009-04-06 18:01:06)

  • From: Kansas
  • Registered: 2008-01-28
  • Posts: 231

Topic: Shoutlink particular station problem every OTHER night

Forgive me, I have NO IDEA where this should go, and believe me, I thought long and hard to decide.

Anyway, 1 1/2 years no issue with Chumby whatsoever, until Duane introduce me to the SCANNER idea.

I had been using the SEARCH mode for quite awhile, but never thought about scanners. I tried it and my city came up and I really enjoy it, nightly while going to bed. (Duane was talking about Las Vegas being cool, but when I found my city, I really enjoyed it!)

Anyway, I search on SCANNER, find my city, select it and it works. I put it on timer and go to sleep. The next night is the issue. My city is there, but it won't load. If I load it from the PLAY button, it beeps telling me it is gone. If I load it from the Shoutcast page, it just continues to say IDLE. SOMETIMES, while it is doing this, if I find a magic spot which is one pixel big on the PLAY button link, it hooks up and loads. Other Shoutcast channels on the same search work, so I can't tell if it is just a "My City" issue, (and why would I be surprised!)  :-)

This link comes to Shoutcast via scannerlink.com so it might be their issue, but since it reliably seems to happen every other night, I just wonder if someo...Duane...can check my logs and find out what's going on? If logs are on timers, look around bedtime in Kansas for a tired schoolteacher. Anywhere from 9-11. Again, sorry if wrong spot; and especially sorry if I didn't know how to ask the question so you can understand it better...I do ramble on.

Meanwhile, EVERYTHING else working great. All other Shoutcast stations. All my Pandora channels, as always, work wonderfully. I am just frustrated by this ONE channel that I am not RELIABLY able to receive and I can't figure out whose issue it is. The channel above it and below it on the search page work fine!
Thanks! Me
EDIT: typo

  • From: Kansas
  • Registered: 2008-01-28
  • Posts: 231

Re: Shoutlink particular station problem every OTHER night

Wow.

  • mdkail
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • From: san diego
  • Registered: 2007-08-11
  • Posts: 146

Re: Shoutlink particular station problem every OTHER night

i've checked the logs for the past 10 days and don't show any errors on our end.  the hits to the shoutcast link simply return HTTP 302, which
is how they redirect to their http://yp.shoutcast.com playlist server.

i'll ask QA if they've seen this behavior.

/mdkail

mdkail's Website

  • From: Kansas
  • Registered: 2008-01-28
  • Posts: 231

Re: Shoutlink particular station problem every OTHER night

Thanks so much for checking. I didn't think it was Chumby but its just weird. I've further figured out that if I listen to pandora for awhile, the particular shoutcast channel does work. But it is odd to hit the button and keep getting idle from that one channel every other night. Maybe the fact that I am using the timer is effecting it? I bet it is a scannerlink.com issue. Or my city. Thanks for looking.

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,209

Re: Shoutlink particular station problem every OTHER night

Many SHOUTcast stations are only available periodically - some just come and go randomly, while others operate on fixed schedules.

Another consideration is that, unlike over-the-air broadcasting, any given Internet station can support a maximum number of simultaneous listeners - often a station will appear to be available but reject any new connections until someone else has stopped listening.  A few stations will reject too many sequential connections from the same IP.  Some stations will disconnect from a listener after some amount of time, requiring them to reconnect, which means that they know someone is actually listening rather than have the station playing to no one.   All of these are designed to prevent listeners from "hogging" the stations and give other listeners a chance.

I would speculate that your situation is that these scanners handle a smaller-than-typical maximum number of listeners, since they're not the most popular stations.

Duane's Website

  • From: Kansas
  • Registered: 2008-01-28
  • Posts: 231

Re: Shoutlink particular station problem every OTHER night

Thanks both of you, mdkail for checking into it, and to Duane for that explanation. That does make a certain amount of sense, so I'll stop worrying that I'm doing something wrong. It makes much more sense now and putting a handle on it helps...even though it it not a huge deal and is only a minor aggravation, but it was so regular that it turned bothersome. Thanks for the time.