Stereo Tool

Hi,

Recently, I have been trying to use the streaming output of Stereo Tool standalone v9.52 to feed an icecast server. The problem is that while everything is fine with Stereo Tool when I just use "normal output", as soon as I turn the streaming output on, I get audio dropouts every 20 or 30 seconds. Each dropout is very short, like half a second. And each time, I get this message : "Timeout detected : Sound card input or output did not respond (attempt xx)".

The audio is coming from the mixing desk into a Behringer UMC202HD soundcard. The computer is a very fast i7 and CPU use is very low. W10 Pro. No other software running. Internet connection between computer and icecast server is not the issue (tested with two different fiber lines).

I have tried playing with almost every setting, but nothing helps. Errors start as soon as I enable the streaming output, whether normal output is on or off.

The solution I have found is installing Edcast and VB cable on this computer, and connect normal output of Stereo Tool to Edcast input via VB Cable. Edcast then connects to the icecast server without issue. It works just fine, but it's a bit annoying.

Anybody here with an idea?

Thanks!

Hi Patrick,

Do you have a way to give us (temporarily) access to the server that you're using? We know that what you're describing doesn't happen with the servers that we tested with - but I have heard of this before. So I want to check what our code is doing internally - but for that I first need a situation where this problem occurs.

The exact opposite thing happened to me. To be exact normal output through VC to BUTT, didn’t work properly (audio dropouts) but streaming out worked fine (with icecast). When the audio dropouts happened I saw the normal output buffer bars going to 0 and then back to full... this thing never worked, I settled with the built in streaming solution (which in fact is great, but at that time I didn’t have much confidence to it).

Hi Hans, sorry for answering so late, I was abroad.
I cannot give you access to the server I had problems with because it is now used for on air broadcast, but I certainly can give you access to another one because actually I haven't found any server which was working fine
Today I have tried at home with a local network, a brand new setup of the latest icecast server version, on a different Windows PC, and with latest ST version 9.61. Guess what ? Same results The only difference is that now, the yellow bar remains yellow during the dropouts and the error messages (no red parts anymore). I sure can give you access to this server, but honestly, I don't think it is related with the server itself. Let me know!
Oh, an interesting thing, I guess. I measured the time between each dropout. Well, it is ALWAYS exactly 40 seconds. Maybe that can help you?
Thanks for helping!

I think I found the issue and if so it's solved in the latest release (9.62). It was caused by a combination of using streaming and having "Detect and restart on sound card timeouts" enabled under Configuration.

Confirmed! Problem solved for me with 9.62 release. Thank you!