Announce : Global Player (UK) Plugin (Classic FM, Capital, Smooth, Heart, LBC etc.)

[slartibartfast]

Weird indeed. I was using Cloudflare as my DNS, not my ISPs provided DNS. I switched that subnet over to Google DNS, and it's working fine. Very strange. Somewhere, something is cached wrongly I guess. Anyway, as you say, a perfectly usable workaround for me. Thanks again for looking into it.

Interesting, I am using Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and mine is fine.

[psketch]

Interesting, I am using Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and mine is fine.

I actually use a local instance of Pi-hole to block ads, and that uses Cloudflare, but Pi-hole is just redirecting and works fine for everything else. I wonder if there's an ad-block thing in play - it's perhaps trying to do something with an ad (since it's used by the app as well) and that's getting blocked by Pi-hole. I did have a look to see if there's anything in the log, but I couldn't see anything interesting.

[stovefan]

I'm encountering a bizarre issue with LBC where the live stream skips back by 5-10 seconds every 30 seconds or so. Playback is otherwise smooth so it sounds like the presenters are repeating themselves. My first thought was that Nick Ferrari's cognitive impairment had progressed but alas it happens with James O'Brien and others too. I don't know about other stations. It's been happening for a few days.

[Shozzer]

We experience this sometimes with Classic FM. It drives Mrs Shozzer crazy!

I'm encountering a bizarre issue with LBC where the live stream skips back by 5-10 seconds every 30 seconds or so. Playback is otherwise smooth so it sounds like the presenters are repeating themselves. My first thought was that Nick Ferrari's cognitive impairment had progressed but alas it happens with James O'Brien and others too. I don't know about other stations. It's been happening for a few days.

[expectingtofly]

I actually use a local instance of Pi-hole to block ads, and that uses Cloudflare, but Pi-hole is just redirecting and works fine for everything else. I wonder if there's an ad-block thing in play - it's perhaps trying to do something with an ad (since it's used by the app as well) and that's getting blocked by Pi-hole. I did have a look to see if there's anything in the log, but I couldn't see anything interesting.

It could be they have some ad blocker detection technology in place for the streams. I notice that the website has ad blocker technology in action when streaming, it was triggered for me and I don't have any ad blockers.

[expectingtofly]

I'm encountering a bizarre issue with LBC where the live stream skips back by 5-10 seconds every 30 seconds or so. Playback is otherwise smooth so it sounds like the presenters are repeating themselves. My first thought was that Nick Ferrari's cognitive impairment had progressed but alas it happens with James O'Brien and others too. I don't know about other stations. It's been happening for a few days.

stovefan & Shozzer Any errors in the logs when this happens?

[psketch]

It could be they have some ad blocker detection technology in place for the streams. I notice that the website has ad blocker technology in action when streaming, it was triggered for me and I don't have any ad blockers.

Interesting thing is that it's worked fine for ages and I haven't changed anything on the network setup, so perhaps Global have changed something on the streaming side.

[expectingtofly]

Interesting thing is that it's worked fine for ages and I haven't changed anything on the network setup, so perhaps Global have changed something on the streaming side.

Yes, I think you are right.

[Shozzer]

Nothing in current log - it has been overwritten in the last couple of days. I will wait for my wife's next complaint and then see if the logs reveal anything.

stovefan & Shozzer Any errors in the logs when this happens?

[stovefan]

stovefan & Shozzer Any errors in the logs when this happens?

As of this morning it was working ok, if it happens again I'll check the logs and let you know

[expectingtofly]

Release 2.3.0

For this release I've gone through the various live streaming issues that have cropped up over the last few weeks, and I believe I've now caught them all and fixed them. All in all, live radio should be a lot more stable now.
For those interested, this is what has been fixed :

• Upgraded the websocket module to the latest version
• Added ping/pong support in websocket handling
• Fixed an issue in the websocket module that was preventing a correct pong response to a websocket ping from the global server
• Simplified the audio chunk download that was unnecessarily complex and causing failures
• Ensured m3u8 updating uses http 1.1
• Added reconnect to websocket on server drop
• Ensure websocket ping is not processed as a message
• Improved meta data detection on live programme change
• Fixed seeking problem on restart

Version 2.3.0 is available now from the beta and main 3rd party repository.

[digitaria]

Upgraded to 2.3.0 yesterday (thanks expectingtofly) then listened to Nick Abbot on LBC, not live but in catchup. Heard the issue described above, where the audio skips back 5-10 seconds, but only once that I recall. The following warnings appear repeatedly in the log, every 5 seconds or so : -

[23-05-19 22:26:15.0194] Slim::Utils::Misc::msg (1325) Warning: [22:26:15.0191] Use of uninitialized value $full_url in string eq at /var/lib/squeezeboxserver/cache/InstalledPlugins/Plugins/GlobalPlayerUK/ProtocolHandler.pm line 910.

May not be relevant, but in case it helps...

[AngloCuencano]

Release 2.3.0

For this release I've gone through the various live streaming issues that have cropped up over the last few weeks, and I believe I've now caught them all and fixed them. All in all, live radio should be a lot more stable now.

Just FYI, this update fixed my issue of the plugin failing to stream that started in January this year.

Thank you.

[expectingtofly]

Just FYI, this update fixed my issue of the plugin failing to stream that started in January this year.

Thank you.

That's good news :-) I think it might have actually been fixed in the release a few weeks ago where I found a problem with timezones

[expectingtofly]

Upgraded to 2.3.0 yesterday (thanks expectingtofly) then listened to Nick Abbot on LBC, not live but in catchup. Heard the issue described above, where the audio skips back 5-10 seconds, but only once that I recall. The following warnings appear repeatedly in the log, every 5 seconds or so : -

Not sure what's going on there, the catchup streams are just normal streams passed to LMS for playing, they are not like the live streams where this plugin is handling the unpacking of the audio. So I assume that skip back is something to do with global.

[23-05-19 22:26:15.0194] Slim::Utils::Misc::msg (1325) Warning: [22:26:15.0191] Use of uninitialized value $full_url in string eq at /var/lib/squeezeboxserver/cache/InstalledPlugins/Plugins/GlobalPlayerUK/ProtocolHandler.pm line 910.

May not be relevant, but in case it helps...

That operation is called by a player to get meta data when playing live streams, I'm not sure how it got into that state, I haven't been able to recreate. I'll keep an eye out.