Overlay sometimes breaks and skips entries

[radio42]

Mine have been around 6 seconds.
So, please email me a few of your time announce files as well as a few Jingles - then I can test that again here exactly!

[hdradio]

sent in pm

[radio42]

Thanks for providing me with the files.
I now tested at least 40 times with your files...all fine here...BUT...
I have set BOTH script-lines with the following options:
- SupressCheckHistory
- ClearAllCuePoints
- SupressACPD
This produced good results...

Then I changed the script-line options to:
- SupressCheckHistory
- RecalcACPD
(basically to test weather a forced recalculation of the cue points might do bad - and I was using the default mixing settings for music - as I noticed, that your tracks have also never been tagged accordingly or have any saved cue-points in it) - as such, it might happen (as already assumes in my very first post), that the ACPD simply calculates the cue points and fades badly.
And see, in this test, I noticed a cut-off of some of your time announcements as well as a cut-off or sometimes an almost unplayed jingle track?
Why?
Simply because your tracks are quite short and the default mixing settings are good for music, but produce with some short and quiet jingle file just bad cue- and fade-point.
In one example I saw, that the cue-in and cue-out point have quite close together - resulting in a track played for only a few milliseconds.
In another case I saw the fade-out starting almost at the very beginning, so that the 2nd half of the track was already very quiet.

To resolve this issue;
- just use the script-line options as said above (this worked for me all the time, tested around 50 times)!
- or just define cue-points manually for ALL your tracks - this then ensures, that ACPD is never carried out (except you use the 'RecalcACPD' option)

[radio42]

I already explain a way to log what is happening - see above.
Have you tried that?

We already figured out, that the Overlay itself is ALWAYS triggered, but what you explain is, that sometimes:
a) the first entry is only played partially (too short)
b) the second entry seems to be not played at all

I am afraid, that there is no way to 'log' all these scenarios.
How should I 'log' in general if a track is played partially?
How should I 'log' in general if a track seems to not be played?

I might log, if a track was scheduled to the overlay; but this is currently not implement but can be done by yourself, see above!
But a track might also simply be unavailable at certain times (e.g. because of a hard disk failure; yes I have already seem that) - this can not be logged.
Or a track might already have incorrect cue-point be set (I am not talking about ACDP) - this can not be logged.
Certain tracks might be corrupt - this can not be logged.
There are tons of possibilities - which I can not log.

So we should first start with:
a) tracking of what the script schedules to the overlay playlist
-> this can be done as described above or via the script history!
-> To use the script history make sure both script-lines DON'T have the SupressAddHistory option set, but have the SupressCheckHistory option set!
-> then set the script-history to e.g. 100 and disable the extended checks, but keep the history persistent
-> once you detect, that something is not playing as expect - immediately look at these log files resp. the script history!
Now we can track, if really ALWAYS the 2 script-lines are resolved correctly.
If not, we need to check why: Check the availability of ALL your Jingles files and ALL your time files!

b) If the 2 script-lines are always resolved correctly we can continue
-> here we can only check ALL cue-points for ALL files manually!

[radio42]

I just created an exact same script and overlay and executed that around 30 times!
(this is easy, as I can replay the overlay via the 'Upcomming Overlays' popup window by clicking on the yellow play icon, when I specify AllowEditing, AllowCancel and AllowModeratorChanges)

All 30 times the 2 tracks have been scheduled correctly and played correctly - no issue.

So I really assume, that you have either a hard disk issue or you have somehow specified some funky cue-points with some of your tracks (also check the existence of .pfmd files!).

[hdradio]

I 've set everything exactly as you said.
Unfortunately the problem is still there
I 've also manually tested 40 times playing that overlay by clicking the "Upcoming Overlays button" and then play on that overlay.
Not even one time there was a problem. Everything worked as expected.

The problem is when that overlay plays at a time the scheduler asks for it. And this is happening at random times.
Today for example it did that on 10:00 while yesterday played the same overlay ok.

I don't know what else to do

[radio42]

Have you then checked the related script history as suggested and/or tested with the suggested control-command to log what was playing?
If you did that, what the results?

And by the way, starting an overlay manually or automatically does exactly the same thing, there is effectively NO difference, except the real start time.
So if that makes a difference your script (and possibly the used macros) might be wrong?
Please send me your related script file, the overlay calendar, the related audio files, so that I can test with exactly your files!

[hdradio]

Bernd,
I haven't sent you the files because I thought that was working ok after an update to v.3.0.13.2 (which is not on this forum but the update found it).
Unfortunately I was wrong.
After a day of normal playback, today at 12am the time announce jingle played again half of it and skipped the next jingle.
As you suggested I logged what was playing with OnTitleChange event.
Surprised I saw that that event was not logged !!!, instead of the previous hours that were logged ok.
I am sending you with pm the log file and the other files you've asked.

[radio42]

Many thanks - I'll take a look.

[radio42]

v3.0.13.3 now contains a 'Debug-Logging' mode, which can be used to track down exactly what is happening.