Overlay with News breaks off

You found a bug or have any issues? Please post them here!
prometheus
Posts: 17
Joined: 04 Nov 2017 19:28
Overlay with News breaks off

Post by prometheus »

Hello Bernd,

we have irregular but often the problem that breaks off the overlay player during the news. The overlay appears, plays normally and then aborts abruptly. This usually announces itself shortly before, when the overlay disappears immediately after starting, but it still plays in the background for about half a minute. That happens only with the news. Never at advertising. The audio files are all fine. I added a debug log as PDF. Maybe you have an idea? We use PFOA v4.0.5.5 Enterprise-Edition.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sr3qmwdopxgxj ... g.pdf?dl=1
User avatar
radio42
Site Admin
Posts: 8295
Joined: 05 Apr 2012 16:26
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Contact:
Re: Overlay with News breaks off

Post by radio42 »

This looks indeed very weird. From the debug log, the started overlay reported everything okay, but immediately when the playback of the news do start, it immediately stops and breaks it. Unfortunately there is no real indication why this is happening.

In the new v4.0.5.6-beta version I added some extra handling as well as some additional debug logging.
So when you install that beta version (for the object handle issue) and you might observe the issue again - please submit the related debug log again. Many Thanks.
User avatar
radio42
Site Admin
Posts: 8295
Joined: 05 Apr 2012 16:26
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Contact:
Re: Overlay with News breaks off

Post by radio42 »

I once had a customer who had a similar problem. The reason at that time was the following:
The news related overlay is always created ahead of its playback time (show in advance time), lets say it is displayed 90 seconds in advance.
Lets further assume, that this is at x:58:30 - whereas the effective play time is scheduled to be at x:00:00.

At this creation time (x:58:30), the overlay player loads all the tracks and calculates all the timings.
It now happened, that the user scheduled the download of the most recent news at x:58:00 - however, the download effectively finished practically actually at x:58:50, i.e. after the overlay creation.

This now had the effect, that the overlay timings (incl. the news play back duration) had been calculated based on the old/previous news file and not on the news just downloaded.

The solution was simply to schedule the news download to 5 minutes earlier and all was good.
Could this be also a reason in your case?
prometheus
Posts: 17
Joined: 04 Nov 2017 19:28
Re: Overlay with News breaks off

Post by prometheus »

Thank You for your help!

Our news file is downloaded at xx:50. That should not be a problem? But i will take a look once again.

Here is the original log file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qb8ekzbzgcm6y ... 4.log?dl=1
The problem occurred today at the 6:00 AM news.
User avatar
radio42
Site Admin
Posts: 8295
Joined: 05 Apr 2012 16:26
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Contact:
Re: Overlay with News breaks off

Post by radio42 »

I am a bit lost now, as I assumed, that the case is already closed.
Let’s recap. I found an issue with the OVERLAY_DOPLAY command.
This issue was fixed in a version almost 2 months ago.

As such, I assume, that you either never retested it with that version or we have something different here?!

Please make sure, that you are using that very latest version, which is v4.0.5.23.
If you can still reproduce the issue with that version, than please create again a new Debug_...log and provide this to me.

Many Thanks
Bernd
User avatar
radio42
Site Admin
Posts: 8295
Joined: 05 Apr 2012 16:26
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Contact:
Re: Overlay with News breaks off

Post by radio42 »

I will take a look at the debug log - maybe I find something, but please give me some time.
Can you give me a time indication when exactly in the log file the break off did happen?

I also just see, that the debug.log file is a .pdf - is possible to get the original plain .log file as text?, because then I could better search stuff I need to look for... thx
prometheus
Posts: 17
Joined: 04 Nov 2017 19:28
Re: Overlay with News breaks off

Post by prometheus »

Today the problem recurred.
The overlay player stops at the 7:00 AM news.
Here is the logfile: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6jalhn8qd599u ... 1.log?dl=1
User avatar
radio42
Site Admin
Posts: 8295
Joined: 05 Apr 2012 16:26
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Contact:
Re: Overlay with News breaks off

Post by radio42 »

Can you explain this a bit more.
In your initial post you explained, that overlay player breaks off the news, which indicated (and this is also what I saw in your previous log), that the news file was not accessible an could be played. Instead the playlist was resumed immediately.

However, now it sounds like that the overlay player stopped at all and you ended with dead air?
Or is the problem exactly the same as before?
prometheus
Posts: 17
Joined: 04 Nov 2017 19:28
Re: Overlay with News breaks off

Post by prometheus »

Sorry if I have expressed myself wrong. The problem is like in my first post.

But: The file is available and playable. If the overlay player aborts, I immediately finish playing through the Stanby Player. And our other stations also play the same file at the same time as normal and all overlays are created or generated at the same time. The problem also occurs in the other stations from us but never at the same time.
User avatar
radio42
Site Admin
Posts: 8295
Joined: 05 Apr 2012 16:26
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Contact:
Re: Overlay with News breaks off

Post by radio42 »

I looked to your debug log and found the following...
The log indicates, that the related Overlay is set to be started manually (and not automatically!)
See here:
01.02.2019 06:59:22: Overlay 'Nachrichten@2019-02-01T07:00:00' Start Playback (ManualStartType=True, ManualPlayout=False).

However, you are then sending multiple times! a control-command to start the Overlay playback:
e.g. here: 01.02.2019 06:59:22: DispatchCommand: OVERLAY_DOPLAY
BUT also another time (which is causing the problem actually)

No the first command effectively does start the Overlay playback...
...whereas the 2nd time you send the command it effectively stops it!

I.e. in your case the timing is so badly, that the OVERLAY_DOPLAY actually acts as a toggle command start/stop.
This prevents the full play out of the news.

I will make another check in the next version, so that sending the OVERLAY_DOPLAY command will not act as a toggle.
But in the meantime you might check, why you are sending the command twice.

Post Reply