I am having a hard time trying to figure out how to setup playlists in Centova Cast properly. I created One Fall Back Playlist that never expires and has a weight of 1. I then created two other playlists to play at certain times of the day from 6 am - 6 pm and then 6 pm - 6 am and they both have a weight of 2. I am trying to get these playlists to play just songs strictly from the playlists during the time of day. The issue I am having is that it keeps grabbing songs from the fall back play list a lot instead of the one that is suppose to be running.

I then tried scheduling the two playlists and having the fall back playlist with no expired time and the application doesn't stay on track it keeps playing songs from the fall back playlist.

All I am wanting to do is have one playlist run lighter songs during the day and run heavier songs at night, and have a couple of scheduled shows. Can you tell me how to achieve this so it runs the playlists properly instead of hopping all over the place?

Leave the fallback playlist at 1 weight, but set the others to weight 20.

It should work setting the two playlists as scheduled ones, as long as they hold enough tracks to cover the entire period during which they are active. (i.e: at least 12 hours worth of music, each)

OK, I will try this and let you know.

Is there a reason why I was experiencing the issue with the scheduled playlists hopping to the fall back playlist while the scheduled playlists were running?

I setup the general rotation playlists as suggested and it still defaults to the standard rotation playlist with a weight of 1 so it is still jumping off track. Is this expected of this application?  My daytime has enough music in it to run for over 12 hours. It has 14 hours of music in it.

I have noticed that my daytime and night time playlist that are set to weight 20 with the fallback playlist set to weight 1 that the playlists have a hard time staying on track and tend to fall back to the fall back playlist quite frequently on certain days.

What is wrong with this software? You would think that this software would work better than this or be designed to work a lot better.

Why cant there be a general playlist that's weighted and a general playlist with no weight? Also when updates for the application are published they are not tested first and it breaks things as of right now there is a bug after the 3.2.4 update where I have to constantly re run the manual library update for it to find all of the new files I uploaded for the Auto DJ. My hosting company is trying to fix the issue but they are waiting for Centova Cast to fix the issue.

What is wrong with this company and not fixing the issues that customers are experiencing first instead of minor issues, and not testing things before they update the application. You would think if people are paying for the application that things would work better and people would devote more time and listen to customers and make it better!

Also I have noticed that this company does not respond well to the forums if they do its like a one time response and never respond again, if they cared about their customers they would respond better and fix things.

"This forum (like all of our forums) is not regularly monitored by technical staff and there is no guarantee of a reply here.  If you need a reply from Centova Support, please do not post here -- contact us directly instead."

http://forums.centova.com/index.php?topic=2179.msg6025#msg6025

I do not have an account to contact them directly, and you cannot create an account, so how else are you suppose to put in tickets or get help?

I do not have an account to contact them directly, and you cannot create an account, so how else are you suppose to put in tickets or get help?

Usually, whoever you're paying for service should be able to provide support.

If they don't then consider switching to a different service provider.

I have noticed that my daytime and night time playlist that are set to weight 20 with the fallback playlist set to weight 1 that the playlists have a hard time staying on track and tend to fall back to the fall back playlist quite frequently on certain days.

Please bear in mind that your weight=1 playlist is only a "fallback" playlist insofar as that's what you're calling it.  To Centova Cast, it's not a "fallback" playlist, and whether or not Centova Cast is having a "hard time" (regardless of how you define "hard time") will not impact which playlist it chooses.  There is no scenario in which Centova Cast would find it "too difficult" to choose your weight=20 playlist, and would thus choose the weight=1 playlist instead.

That said, if you are finding that tracks from a different playlist are being selected when they shouldn't, you should contact your hosting provider -- if they cannot resolve the issue on their own, they can open a ticket with us.  In the vast majority of the cases of this nature that we encounter, the logs demonstrate a problem with the host's server which results in Centova Cast going into essentially a "safe mode" and playing random tracks.  (In technical terms: Liquidsoap is unable to dispatch a request to Centova Cast for the next track to play, or the MySQL server responds too slowly so the request times out, and thus Liquidsoap falls back to a static playlist file instead of its normal dynamic track selection system.)

Posting here on the forums for this particular issue is almost entirely useless, as the only way to determine what's happening is to review the logs.  And if a problem is identified on the server, only your host can fix that (with our assistance, if needed).

Why cant there be a general playlist that's weighted and a general playlist with no weight?

Because a playlist with no weight would never be played?

Also when updates for the application are published they are not tested first and it breaks things as of right now there is a bug after the 3.2.4 update where I have to constantly re run the manual library update for it to find all of the new files I uploaded for the Auto DJ.

I don't recall any such error and the change logs do not show any such issue being resolved.  Please bear in mind that a problem with your hosting provider's server does not necessarily equate to a problem with Centova Cast.

What is wrong with this company and not fixing the issues that customers are experiencing first instead of minor issues

Respectfully, exactly whom do you think is reporting the "minor" issues that we fix?  I'll give you a hint: they're only "minor" issues to you, because they didn't happen to affect you.  They were important enough to other customers to warrant submitting a bug report, therefore they were important enough to fix.

Also I have noticed that this company does not respond well to the forums if they do its like a one time response and never respond again, if they cared about their customers they would respond better and fix things.

The forums are not, and have never been an official support venue for Centova Cast, and staff only check in on them periodically as a courtesy if the helpdesk ticket volume is low.  We do care very much about our customers, and our customers (as in your hosting provider) can get prompt and thorough support, up to and including dealing with me personally, by opening a ticket with our helpdesk.