First of all, thanks for the hard work on this latest release, things are running fine so far~!

I get so many of the same questions from my clients, all wanting to know about the dj fade option. SO far I have been able to "go live" using my Sam Broadcaster and SHOUTcast2/sc_trans, but I have to stop the auto dj first. The good thing about that is the listeners do not need to restart their players which is great because the station does not loose listeners when a dj connects. But, the question is -- how to automatically switch from auto dj to live dj without having to stop auto dj. I have tried every port (all 5 allocated per account)  -- tried different passwords, created dj username/passwords with no luck
I know this will work because it works with SHOUTcast1 and sc_trans -- the question is does anyone know how. That is literally the $1,000 question for me LOL thanks for any help any1 can provide!

First of all, thanks for the hard work on this latest release, things are running fine so far~!

Glad to hear it... hopefully it continues that way.

But, the question is -- how to automatically switch from auto dj to live dj without having to stop auto dj. I have tried every port (all 5 allocated per account)  -- tried different passwords, created dj username/passwords with no luck.

First, you set up the account WITH autoDJ, add a few tracks to the media library and put them in a general rotation playlist to appease the autoDJ's requirements, then start the server.

Next, if you're using a SHOUTcast v1 style source client, you look up 'djport' in etc/source.conf and connect to djport+1.  eg: if you have djport=900 in etc/source.conf, you connect to port 901.  (Don't ask why, it's a historical thing and the decision was made at Nullsoft to keep it that way. This is, however, documented in the sc_trans2 documentation.)

If you're using a SHOUTcast v2 style source client, you look up djport2 in etc/source.conf and connect to that port.

That's it.  Crossfading and whatnot happens automatically.

FOr SHOUTcast 1 I just cannot find any mention of a DJ port  -- for SHOUTcast 2  I see the dj port and have tried any and every password there is, have also created dj's, tried the format user:pass, just the password, the stream password, I have never been able to get it to connect, has anyone else been successful with this?

the main thing is not knowing what version of SAM you're using as sadly not all versions of SAM are equal. newer 4.9.x releases can run as a v2 DJ with DJ and Password fields or you get a 'crippled' version that can only be used as a v1 DJ connection which needs the password in SAM to be set as <dj>:<djpassword>. This would also apply to anything prior to the 4.9.x releases.

and if you're getting it to work with v1 and sc_trans, then v2 and sc_trans should work exactly the same when connecting to sc_trans as the DJ.


then again due to posts like this that i keep coming across, sc_trans doesn't help things with the port setup (as i don't know why djport wasn't just expanded automatically to do what is needed for v1 and v2 connections instead of complicating things with djport2) and is something that has been started on to be changed to simplify it. the end result of that work would be that you generally only need to specify djport and that will do v1 and v2 DJ connections correctly but that won't help here as it's not ready (like sc_trans in general).

-daz

I am using the latest, 4.9.7 with both SHOUTcast 1 and SHOUTcast 2 support -- so are you saying the dj fade option will not work with this release of Centova v3?

it should be working is what i'm saying as the handling is the same whether you connect in v1 or v2 mode to sc_trans as a DJ.

the only thing i can think off is you've got the sc_trans DJ ports messed up in conjunction with how SAM is setup i.e. you're running one in v2 mode but using a v1 port. or you're just hitting a bug in sc_trans as i know there are cases where it can seem to have setup the DJ ports correctly but then doesn't handle them).

sc_trans is beta so it has it's issues and it is more than likely if things are absolutely correct then it's bugs in sc_trans that are causing you this issue.

-daz

I am using the latest, 4.9.7 with both SHOUTcast 1 and SHOUTcast 2 support -- so are you saying the dj fade option will not work with this release of Centova v3?

And just to clarify -- this isn't specific to Centova Cast (v3 or otherwise) -- anything that works with DNAS2/sctrans2 will work under Centova Cast as well.

Also FYI DrO is the development lead for the SHOUTcast broadcasting tools (incl DNAS2 and sctrans2) so he knows a lot more about the interaction between SAM and the SHOUTcast tools than I do, so definitely try his suggestions.

Has anyone been able to do this?
I have tried any and every single port, password -- every combination there is in my Sam, both with SHOUTcast1 and SHOUTcast2 and I have never been able to connect (unless I stop auto dj)
On my sales pages I have pushed the automatic dj connection that is why I want this to work, this is the key feature everyone wants, this is my selling feature!

yes people have been able to do it but most of the issues arise when people use SAM.

and it's sc_trans which does the handling, so the DNAS version has nothing to do with it. if the passwords, etc seem to be correct, that then leaves it being either
a) an issue with the setup of the calendar.xml i.e. DJ isn't noted in it or scheduled when you're trying
b) it's SAM being notoriously difficult
c) it is a bug with sc_trans (if so then there's little i can do for the moment as i'm pulled to work on other things)
d) you've been doing it wrong and / or gotten confused, as you need to be doing DJ -> sc_trans -> sc_serv for it to work.

i understand the frustration but i know of a lot of streams running which are using the feature without issue.

-daz

Thanks Dro -- yes I have been able to use the automatic fade with sc_trans -  just not with Centova v3 -- either way I am confident Steve will get it sorted out, I'm not really frustrated at all in fact I am very excited as v3 is running stable now and even better it is running at very low server resources, I saw Steve post a while back about how SHOUTcast2 and sc_trans would use more server resources but I just don't think that is the case, I am able to put more accounts on a server now than with the older version, and even more that "the other auto dj" -- so yes I am very happy as I will make much more $$ LOL

Thanks Dro -- yes I have been able to use the automatic fade with sc_trans -  just not with Centova v3 -- either way I am confident Steve will get it sorted out

Ahh I may have figured out what's going on here.

CC always tries to avoid clobbering any manual configuration added to the configuration files outside of Centova Cast.  That's true in the calendar.xml file as well, which is what controls when sc_trans allows the DJs to connect to the server.

To keep track of which entries Centova Cast created (so it knows it's safe to remove them if they're deleted in CC) it adds an extra XML attribute to each of the <event> stanzas in calendar.xml.

Unfortunately it seems that sc_trans rewrites the calendar.xml file periodically and removes those attributes, causing CC's DJ management code to assume that all the DJs were created externally.  That causes login time conflicts and generally leads to mass chaos.

We're just working on some changes to that now, and I'll release a new build soon.

I saw Steve post a while back about how SHOUTcast2 and sc_trans would use more server resources but I just don't think that is the case, I am able to put more accounts on a server now than with the older version

DNAS2 and sc_trans2 are definitely far better than DNAS1 and sc_trans1 -- the comparison I made was between DNAS2 and IceCast (and sc_trans2 and ices).  Most of the extra resource usage is in sc_trans2 vs ices, although that's probably because sc_trans2 has far more functionality than ices.

well sc_trans can re-write the calendar.xml but that only happens on closing or at times when an edit via the api needs it to be saved to the file - that might be part of the issue. there is a config option which disables the re-writing of the xml file as a fyi.

-daz

For all those who thinking about how to get djports working -> http://forums.centova.com/index.php?topic=2003.msg5289#msg5289