Steamcast Tying up Server?

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:28 pm

Well, it finally happened. I seem to have had something pretty drastic go wrong with my Steamcast server last week. I run a large Shoutcast process and a 5-slot Steamcast on the same Linux machine. Last week I started noticing that on both the Shoutcast and the Steamcast streams a slow buffer rate made both streams unusable. At first I assumed there was a problem with the hardware or the connection itself, but the problem didn't resolve. I restarted Shoutcast (which Steamcast is relaying locally), and that didn't work. A few days later I decided to try restarting Steamcast, and that fixed everything. Somehow Steamcast, relaying the Shoutcast, was tying up the whole thing.

I've got them both running again now and everything is fine. I suppose this won't become a big problem as long as I keep an eye on it.

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 9:09 pm

It happened again. This time it was confirmed that there was network trouble on the servers prior to it happening (pinging the server yielded a 50% packet loss). During network trouble, all Shoutcast servers would say ICY 200 OK and often very slowly buffer in and stop a lot. After the problem was confirmed to be over, the Steamcast server and the Shoutcast it was relaying did not recover -- Still slow. Upon restarting Steamcast I was able to return all functionality to normal.

Very interesting bug I've found here.

Post by **Jay** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 11:49 pm

does steamcast consume any CPU at the time this occurs?

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 10:19 pm

Probably. Is there a good way to tell?

Post by **Jay** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:57 pm

use top

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:37 pm

That's probably the most logical explanation for it, but I will try and confirm if it happens again.

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:30 pm

Okay, it happened again. I checked it.
It was at 0% and jumped to 0.9 every now and then. This time it seemed to be brought on by sporadic connection from my source prior to the problem -- I was having intermittent connection outages on the source side. Again, the local Shoutcast DNAS it was relaying, was also affected, but the Shoutcast DNAs on another server that it was relaying was fine.

Stopping and restarting Steamcast returned the local Shoutcast DNAs it was relaying to normal.

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 2:37 pm

It may not be using CPU like I originally thought, but this is definitely a real problem with Steamcast that I have witnessed on multiple occasions. It causes Steamcast and the Shoutcast it is relaying to not recover from network trouble. The Shoutcast is "released" when you stop Steamcast. I really hope this can be addressed at some point.

Post by **Jay** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 4:39 pm

are you running on a multi-cpu or hyper thread machine?

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 10:06 am

I don't know. Possibly. It's what's called a "Virtual Dedicated Server", so it's shared. (Don't laugh. It works.)

Post by **Jay** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 12:24 am

ok well next version of steamcast needs some sort of multi CPU code in it. I think it causes the majority of issues that some are having. Once I get my hands on a machine with this configuration this should be resolved.

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:03 am

I've confirmed that it is a dual processor machine. Thank you.

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:33 am

I left Steamcast running while I was on vacation for a week. I was a little uneasy about it, but I like that Steamcast lists in all the directories and forwards to the main server when full. Like clockwork, this problem happened again while I was gone. I like to have Steamcast running, but this issue is keeping Steamcast a little too unstable. It takes down the Shoutcast its relaying with it.

Post by **Jay** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 12:37 pm

in the mean time you could try adjusting Steamcast's nice levels. This might make it tie itself up, rather then SHOUTcast as well.

A little more extreme you could have you host provider set your machine to single CPU mode.

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:34 pm

Last night I had Steamcast take over for both of my main servers, and finally learned the true extent of the damage that this bug causes. I started with two Steamcast servers on separate dual-processor shared machines, and that died really fast. What would happen is the first server would let you play for about 10 seconds, then stop and say "Buffer 0%" forever. This naturally made it so the Steamcast server relaying it would keep going offline (no relay source).

Then I changed so only the relay was Steamcast, relaying Shoutcast. Still not stable. This stops being reliable within an hour or so.

It's a shame, because besides this one problem, Steamcast seems to work great for everything else I need. Now that I finally switched over to SAM3, it would be great to utilize a working version of Steamcast for a larger workload.

If it would help you at all, I can give you a login for one of my shared dual-processor systems so you can experiment with it, Jay. Let me know if I can do anything to help. I know it's a lot of work, and you're just doing this in your spare time, but it would be a shame to keep the project incomplete indefinitely. Thanks.

Steamcast Tying up Server?

Steamcast Tying up Server?

Unstable