Windows Media / Playlist File Formats

Post by **DIYWebHosting** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:22 pm

What playlist file formats does Steamcast generate?

listen.m3u
listen.pls
listen.asx

Any others?

My listeners who try to connect via Windows Media have been reporting problems connecting using any of the above playlist files even .asx. Do you have any tips for getting the stream to play in Windows Media Player?

Thanks for your help!

Post by **Jay** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 2:55 pm

the restriction is that they must use Windows Media Player 7.1 and up. It should work as long as they have at least that version. You also must be streaming mp3. All other formats currently supported in Steamcast are not supported by windows media.

Also as a side note, if you plan on having windows media player listeners it is safer to set the IPMaxUser to at least 2 or leave it 0 (unlimited). Windows Media player makes 2 connections to the server initially for some weird reason.

Post by **DIYWebHosting** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 6:31 pm

People have been commenting that they get this error when connecting with Windows Media Player using listen.asx:

"Windows Media Player cannot play the file. One or more codecs required to play the file could not be found."

I've set the IPMaxUser to 2 as opposed to 1 but the error message still exists.

Is there a special codec required to hear streaming audio in Windows Media? This has been tested on the latest version of Windows Media Player and we're playing MP3 files only.

My stream is up at http://radio.threeohsix.org:8000/listen.m3u

Post by **Jay** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 7:56 pm

well something isn't right. When I try to listen with Winamp I get mpeg sync errors.

You don't need anything special for this to work in wmp. But if the stream doesn't work in winamp it for sure won't work in WMP.

What are you using as the source tool btw and what method are you using to source, Icecast2 style or SHOUTcast style?

Post by **DIYWebHosting** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:01 pm

I haven't heard of any problems with it connecting in Winamp. Please try again, as I had a friend DJ'ing for a while and now it's back to my default playlist.

We are using Oddcast2 with Shoutcast mode as the source tool.

Post by **Jay** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:03 pm

still the same problem, you might try upgrading to oddcast3. Also make sure you are using the LAME encoder.

/EDIT: I finally got connected, but still it's hit or miss if I try reconnecting.

Post by **DIYWebHosting** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:34 pm

Sorry, I am actually using the latest version of Oddcast, not v2, that was a typo.

Post by **Jay** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:18 pm

well I finally captured what is going on, the server only sends headers then for some reason abruptly the connection is aborted.

May want to post your configuration file so I can see what is going on more clearly.

Also check your log for any strange Reason messages for connections being aborted.

I am connecting from 24.0.17.68 so those might give some insight into why the connection is being lost.

Post by **DIYWebHosting** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 12:23 am

My config file:

PortBase=8000
MaxUser=30
IPMaxUser=2
LogFile=306.log
ScreenLog=No
RealtimeLog=No
YPLog=Yes
PidFile=306.pid
NameLookups=No
ClientTimeout=30
AdminUser=*****
AdminPass=*****
SourceMount=/live.mp3
SourceUser=*****
SourcePass=*****
SourceUserMax=30
SourceAvgBitrateLimit=100
SourceIsSC=Yes
SourceIsDefault=Yes
Directory=http://www.radiotoolbox.com/mediatoolbox/yp-cgi.php
Directory=http://www.oddsock.org/cgi-bin/yp-cgi
Directory=http://dir.xiph.org/cgi-bin/yp-cgi

Here's some bits regarding your connections in the log file:

[02/15/2005@21:16:17] <24.0.17.68> Request: /listen.m3u {UA: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0}
[02/15/2005@21:16:18] <24.0.17.68> Connection Opened (A: 209.172.44.111:8000/live.mp3) [L: 2] {UA: WinampMPEG/5.0}
[02/15/2005@21:16:24] <24.0.17.68> Connection Closed [L: 1] {269325 bytes} (6 secs) RE: Broken pipe
[02/15/2005@21:16:25] <24.0.17.68> Connection Opened (A: 209.172.44.111:8000/live.mp3) [L: 2] {UA: WinampMPEG/5.0}
[02/15/2005@21:16:25] <24.0.17.68> Connection Closed [L: 1] {0 bytes} (0 secs) RE: No Data Flow Timeout
[02/15/2005@21:16:27] <24.0.17.68> Connection Opened (A: 209.172.44.111:8000/live.mp3) [L: 2] {UA: WinampMPEG/5.0}
[02/15/2005@21:16:27] <24.0.17.68> Connection Closed [L: 1] {0 bytes} (0 secs) RE: No Data Flow Timeout
[02/15/2005@21:16:29] <24.0.17.68> Connection Opened (A: 209.172.44.111:8000/live.mp3) [L: 2] {UA: WinampMPEG/5.0}
[02/15/2005@21:16:29] <24.0.17.68> Connection Closed [L: 1] {0 bytes} (0 secs) RE: No Data Flow Timeout
[02/15/2005@21:16:51] <24.0.17.68> Connection Opened (A: 209.172.44.111:8000/) [L: 2] {UA: }
[02/15/2005@21:16:51] <24.0.17.68> Connection Closed [L: 1] {0 bytes} (0 secs) RE: No Data Flow Timeout

Just would like to say that I very much appreciate your help with this!

Post by **Jay** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 12:41 am

hmm looks like I need to re-examine the Data flow detection code. Will fix it by next release.

You might try restarting the server and see if that resolves it although I doubt it.

Post by **Jay** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 11:10 pm

What OS are you running this on?

This seems a bit more wide spread, so a specific compile may be the problem.

Post by **DIYWebHosting** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 11:13 pm

This is on CentOS 3.4 (RedHat Enterprise Linux Community Build)

Post by **Jay** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 11:20 pm

ok I am seeing a pattern

try this www.steamcast.com/downloads/steamcast/steamcast

it is a redhat 7.3 compile.

Post by **DIYWebHosting** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 11:24 pm

I'm getting a 403 Forbidden error on that file.

I was previously using Fedora Core 2 during our initial testing if that may help you troubleshoot.

Post by **Jay** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 11:26 pm

Fixed url try again. Another user just tried it out and it is no longer kicking me so I think I found it. Let me know if you still see those no data flows within a minute of a connection.