How to control/observe where the loop player is in its playlist?

[Conspyre]

Can't find anything in the docs. I'm looking for get/set for current file/time index.

Long versions is I'm running a 24/7/365 loop stacking 12 hour mp4 files into the loop player & starting @ noon so I can clock sync the media. (big files are to avoid client disconnects)

Last night @9pm, after stream has been running for several days, I find it out of sync by ≈+ 3 hours. Restarted the stream today, had an issue, restarted it a couple of times - and I find that it has skipped ahead in the file list by 2 days worth of media. It seems I need to blow out the playlist & create a new one to reset the play head…

[Burak]

Hi @Conspyre,

Thanks for your report. I am snot sure if I understood correctly. Please correct me if I misunderstood.

You have a long playlist running, after a while the real time and video time sync is broken. Am I right? If not, pleasw write me a clear step by step reproduce scenario and expected and actual behavior.  

[Conspyre]

Correct. We were several days into this playlist which alternates between 12 hours of media and 12 hours of “static”. 
 

3 hours before midnight (when the stream should have been playing media) I observed it playing static  No idea how this happened.

Subsequently I believe I have characterized it further, it seems to remember the file position, as stopping and starting the stream is advancing by 12 hours. Or maybe it’s 24 hours. It’s hard to tell. Last night at midnight it did not switch correctly. Instead of the static loop it had jumped ahead to the next media file. 
 

Ant seems very unreliable for this use case. I went to mixing 12 hour loops in premiere as all of the RTMP clients I’ve tried disconnect at  file boundaries on the playlist.
 

At minimum the UI should offer some indication where in the playlist it is playing and a way to control it. 

[Burak]

What do you mean with "static"? Also I couldn't understand what you mean with "RTMP clients"? Please describe your use case more clearly. Sorry for my bad understanding.

[Conspyre]

Imagine a TV station from forty years ago. They stop broadcasting during part of the day. If you tune the TV to that station you get “static”. White noise. 
 

The media player is loaded with 50 12-hour loops. Loop one contains media to watch. Loop two contains static. Repeat the pattern. From midnight to noon (local time) the station is “off air” so plays “static”. From noon till midnight the station plays media (podcasts documentaries commercials etc)

my 25 day playlist is running for 8 days. I noticed it being three hours out of sync. I stopped and started the stream a few times. I am now playing day 12 media when I should be playing media from day 8. 
 

I don’t know how to explain it better without repeating myself, and I’m a little bit confused by how the ant media player works & am trying to characterize it. Please ask for specific clarifications if that wasn’t clear. 

[Conspyre]

By RTMP client I mean anyone watching the stream. Initially I loaded ant with mixed media files, a two minute clip, a five minute clip, a 30 minute clip. At the boundary of each clip the client (viewer of the stream) disconnects. Has to reconnect. Glitches stalls buffers and has anything but a good experience. 
 

How long have you been doing this? “client” is an incredibly common term. 

[Burak]

Thank you @Conspyre,
I understood the use case now. The "Client" word confused me because it is used for publisher and also for viewers in different use cases. Now with the understanding of the use case it is clear now. Also the word RTMP also confused me because we haven't maintained the RTMP playback feature for a while. But it seems we will do again.

Now returning to the issue, the only way that we can understand the issue is checking the logs and compare it with the playlist. Can you provide them to me? If you think they contain any private data, you can send them to support@antmedia.io.

Again I am sorry to understand late.

[Conspyre]

Sorry, I updated this back on the GitHub thread. Pasting again here. 

-----

Coming back to this, I've given up tracking down the previous issue, but it hasn't gone away.

I am creating a 24/7/365 podcast, trying to run it in the cloud from Ant Media Player.

Setup is Ant has four identical playlists, all started at the same time. Those playlists are going to one RTMP endpoint each. Those identical playlists are loaded with 12 hour files. I started the four loop players at midnight, so, we are 15 hours into the playlist (e.g. hour 3 of the second file in the playlist).

I have the stream on in the living room, and, it switches to the next loop. I check, and on multiple platforms (e.g. DLive, Rumble, Twitch, Pilled, Conspyre•TV) they have all skipped playing file #2 and gone to file #3.

I quickly stopped/deleted/reloaded/restarted the playlists. Which is a terrible thing to do on a livestream when you have people watching. They tend to not want to watch your stream when you yank their chain like that, but I digress.

I do not believe Ant Media Player is stable enough for my use case. In two weeks of running this stream, Ant has lost the plot multiple times. Good luck fixing your media server. I'm putting a ton of log file in Pastebin. Maybe there is some gold in there for you to mine. https://pastebin.com/KWCEU2ie

I did one better & zipped up all of the logs:

https://adserver.conspyre.tv/logs.zip

Here is the file that was playing & Ant aborted playing it at about 3 hours + some minutes into playing it:

https://tv1.s3.wasabisys.com/Conspyre-1.017.mp4

[Burak]

Hi @Conspyre,
We have fixed an issue by the help of your reports. I have also written here. But here I want to tank you again for your help. Please provide me your address information for a Christmas gift from Antmedia.

[Conspyre]

Burak the bug fix is already quite a present! It really made my day because the timing is perfect. If you can get a snapshot of the bug fix I can deploy please send to admin at conspyre dot tv. And thank you!

[Burak]

I have sent the link for the snapshot in a direct message. Can you check?

[Conspyre]

I tried to install by replacing the /usr/local/antmedia directory with the contents of the archive & set the owner/group of all files to antmedia/antmedia. But when I go to start the application, I get this error. Please advise!

Quote

 

walt@vps-8279527a:~$ sudo systemctl start antmedia
walt@vps-8279527a:~$ sudo systemctl status antmedia
● antmedia.service - Ant Media Server
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/antmedia.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2022-12-09 01:51:35 UTC; 2s ago
    Process: 1564262 ExecStart=/usr/bin/env ${JAVA_HOME}/bin/java -Dlogback.ContextSelector=org.red5.logging.LoggingContextSelector -cp ${ANTMEDIA_HOME}/ant-media-server-service.jar:${ANTMEDIA_HOME}/conf -Djava.security.debug=failure -Djava.awt.headless=true -Djava.security.egd=file:/dev/./urandom -Dc>
   Main PID: 1564262 (code=exited, status=222/STDERR)

Dec 09 01:51:35 vps-8279527a systemd[1]: antmedia.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=222/STDERR
Dec 09 01:51:35 vps-8279527a systemd[1]: antmedia.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

 

 

[Yash]

Hi @Conspyre
You can follow the below document to upgrade your Ant Media Server to the latest version or snapshot that @Burak shared.
https://resources.antmedia.io/docs/upgrade-ams

[Conspyre]

Hi again, I just went through the instructions and it seems my ant media is in a bad state.

Loading from https://kappy.conspyre.tv:5443 we get the login screen, but the "Let's go" button is dead. JS console has errors:

[Debug] AuthService: is authenticated: true local storage: null (main.ca41b26eceb8e3213d33.js, line 1)
[Debug] AuthService navigating login (main.ca41b26eceb8e3213d33.js, line 1)
[Error] Failed to load resource: Could not connect to the server. (first-login-status, line 0)
[Error] Failed to load resource: Could not connect to the server. (z6c3Zzm51I2zB_Gi7146Bg.woff2, line 0)
[Error] Failed to load resource: Could not connect to the server. (bootstrap.min.css.map, line 0)
[Error] Failed to load resource: Could not connect to the server. (authenticate, line 0)
[Error] Failed to load resource: Could not connect to the server. (blocked, line 0)

Reloading the page redirects to https://kappy.conspyre.tv:5443/#/pages/login and gets "unable to reach server" from the browser.

I tried installing first with -r true, and again without. No change.

I went through the steps to restore the previous installation (e.g. stop server, delete antmedia directory, rename previous directory). No change.

Now the above JS errors on login are persistent. Where is additional state stored? I just want to reset this to factory defaults.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Conspyre