Hi There,

I run an Internet Radio station that is powered with CentovaCast.   I have been having a number of issues with playlists and I after spending a couple of months trying to troubleshoot it myself, I am now posting here for some assistance.

Our AutoDJ has a number of Scheduled and General Rotation playlists.   The scheduled playlists are things like syndicated podcasts and audio fictions, we have about 15 scheduled playlists (set to repeat weekly) and we have made sure there are NO scheduling conflicts.

In addition, we have 2 or 3 general rotation playlists, one for "chart music", one for "holiday music" (christmas, halloween, thanksgiving, etc) and one for "genre music" (we are a trek radio station so we put star trek music in here).  Finally, we have a Station ID playlist and an Adverts playlist.

Now, we keep getting the following issues:

1)  Sometimes, scheduled playlists do not start when they should.  We have checked, double checked and triple checked the times, and they are correct.   This only occurs SOMETIMES, other times, the playlists play without an issue.

2) Sometimes, tracks from these scheduled playlists, start playing completely randomly at a time that is not scheduled, sometimes it will be 3am in the morning on a wednesday, and a scheduled item set for 6pm on Fridays will start playing.....This causes issues when we have other scheduled items for 3am on Wednesdays.

Our station has 37 DJs, and some of these DJs have shows that finished right before a scheduled playlist should start - in these instances, we always ask the DJ to clear and return to auto-dj at LEAST 3 minutes before the scheduled item should begin.

---------------------------------

I have provided as much info as I can think of, if you need anything else, please tell me.

Zach

Unfortunately without root access to the server and a list of the exact dates, times, and titles of the tracks which played when they shouldn't have, it's next to impossible for us to make any kind of diagnosis.  If you can compose such a list and get your host to contact us with the relevant server information, we'll be happy to take a look.  Be sure to have them contact us within 24hr or so of the playback time, otherwise the relevant data will be rotated out of the logs.

We're certainly open to the possibility of a bug existing, but I should note that we've gone through this with several hosts over the past year and quite literally every time, the "problem" has been tracked down to either a misunderstanding of how a particular playlist type worked, or a playlist conflict that the client overlooked.  So please be sure to double-check your playlists for any "gotchas" noted in the user manual.

Thanks for your response.

I have checked for playlist conflicts several times myself and in addition, I have had 2 of my other station managers check the playlists for conflicts too, and there are none.

Regarding the playlist types - I'm pretty sure we understand how they work.   We use the playlists for Audio Fictions and Podcasts, which are normally at least 30 minutes long, so each Scheduled Playlist consists of only one track.   60% of the time, the scheduled playlists start when they should, or within a couple of minutes of when they should if a previous track ran over a minute or two.  40% of the time, the scheduled playlists do not start at all.

I am keeping a log of all times when this occurs, and downloading the source logs within 24 hours of each occurance.  Once I have collected the logs for 6 or 8 occurances of this occurance, I can provide them to you.

Zach

One occurrence is plenty, but we specifically need access to the server within 24hr of it happening.  Just having the source logs from the time period won't tell us anything in itself.

Hi There,

This is a message from my host about getting you access:

As per that thread, we are more than willing to allow Centova to access our server at any time in order to diagnose potential issues. Please get them to contact me at [removed] to arrange access.

In addition, we had another issue last night, this is a message from one of my managers, as the issue occured overnight:

[02:47:49] Hick: NOTE: DJ Rockwell logged out at 4 minutes till the top of the hour. The aduio ficiton started exactly at 5PM PST, however, it was not the right one. It was Section 31 which plays tomorrow. We've seen this behavior before. Playing the next days scheduled program. The logs show it playing at 1:00:41 AM on 2011-01-13. 8 hours ahead of PST (which is GMT), but it appears to be playing the playlist which is schedule to play at 9AM PST tomorrow.

9AM tomorrow in the logs is 8 hours ahead of the local GMT time recorded int he logs. That's weirdly coincindental.

The centova server config clearly shows its set for GMT -8, so this shouldn't be happening. I wonder if the logs being in the local server time, is a clue?

Please contact the email address above and they will give you access right away!

MOD: removed email address... spambots and all, y'know?

I think you should have your host open a ticket, as long as they have a account with Centova Cast they can securely provide the required information (ie. root p/w, version, etc.) -  Centova has always been able to help us in a very timely manner this way.

From one of my station managers, the same issue occured again last night:

[02:10:56] Hick: NOTE: Scheduled playlist did not play again. Previous DJ was off, and auto-DJ engaged several minutes before top of the hour. A general rotation song was started at the top of the hour, waited for it to finish, and it did not hit the scheduled playlist. I really think this issue only occurs when the local server time has already passed into a new day, and the Centova adjusted time puts it still in the day before. I hope they actually explain the issue when they figure it out, instead of just telling us it should be working now. My IT/trouble-shooters brain is all twisted up and dying to know the answer!

We've had clients claim playlist problems but they have always turned out to be their error -- this however seems like it could be a issue with the server's time.

From my manager, last night:

Hick: Server is screwed up. Says there is someone connected remotely but the AutoDJ is running. And it won't stop playing ST: Excelsior, even though I skipped it to get to Lost Frontier

Hick: server stopped and restarted to fix the auto dj issue.

Hick: notified listeners via IRC/Chat to refresh... listener count coming back up

Hick: I know DJ Rockwell logged out and engaged the auto dj in plenty of time before the top of the hour, but it was one of those deals where the auto dj was engaged, but the server didn't fully acknowledge it. Centova listed source as remote, auto dj api control page showed offline as well, even though AutoDJ was definetly turned on.

Its currently 12.22pm GMT, a scheduled playlist called "Mixes - 80s Playlist" should have started playing at 12.00pm GMT (4.00am PST), however its currently playing music from General Rotation / Heavy Rotation.

This is another example of playlists not playing on time.

I am having my host preserve the logs from the last 24 hours.

Just a friendly reminder that the forums are intended for community support.  I check in every now and again and try to answer questions as well, but we don't have support staff working the forums full-time like we do on the helpdesk.

If you have a time-sensitive issue (i.e., if a playlist problem manifests and you need us to look at the server within 24hr), please have your host open a ticket with the helpdesk... if you just post it here, we almost certainly won't see it within the 24hr window.