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I'm having trouble streaming audio on my site

When using Chrome, loads up to a random point of the track, and then just stops (most of the time).

Additionally, when I try to stream/download the file directly from the soundrown.com/Audio/Final%20Normalized/mp3 folder, the coffee shop file will just partially stream or partially download.

Several of my users have reported that the audio file on the site "does not loop" or "stops intermittently"

I am unable to replicate this behavior on Safari / Firefox.

I have spent multiple hours with my web host tech support, and I'm unable to pinpoint the issue. Any help?

I don't think I'm having the same issue as this.. but not sure: streaming audio with html5 `<audio>` tag

Thanks for your help!!

Edit: same thing happens with .ogg files

Edit: I don't think this is code related since the track pauses when going directly to the file path on the web server

Edit: I read up a decent amount on jplayer, which sounds similar to what Tucker is suggesting. I'm going to try implementing that. Sucks that we're not sure what's going on here

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rishim3
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1 Answers1

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Firstly, does the users browser support html5? does the html5 browser support the audio file type? see here for compatibility: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_audio.asp

The quality of the playback will depend heavily on your users' internet connection as well as the bandwidth & location of the file server. Check your bandwidth with whatever tools are available:

you can use ganglia if you are a true coder and have full access to the machine and aren't afraid of it ;-), don't do this though unless you're sure your getting a lot of hits each day...

the problem more likely is due to the location of your web server relative to your end users OR the quality of your web hosting service.

re web server locality: The farther away your users are, the longer it takes to load the file and the higher the risk of something weird happening

re web hosting service quality: you can upgrade your hosting package and perhaps provide a better quality sound drown service...

if your website is hosted on Amazon, maybe try out AWS cloud front for your hosting to help your website availability and for low-latency? read into their 'edge locations' to help with latency

edit

I can't seem to find the exact cause for your error, but i do know that the <audio> tag isn't the oldest tag in html. i run audio on my site, and i use sound manager 2.

If indeed your issue has something to do with a quirk with the audio tag + browser support, maybe you should test an alternative method for playing audio. Why don't you try out sound manager2 (http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/)? It uses flash (and can also use the audio tag as well i believe). Personally i use it because my site plays a lot of mp3 files which some browsers (e.g. firefox) do not currently support. You can also use it to hook up a cool looking html ui to the flash player too. Perhaps it will fix whatever quirk youre experiencing with your site.

Another idea might be to have shorter sound files and loop them. there might be a little blip when the audio resets but perhaps thats a good enough workaround

Tucker
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  • Thanks for the super quick response. I do know that my browser supports HTML5, and I'm having the issue on my browser. Regarding availability and scale: my web host claims that their server isn't showing any signs of issue. They're not even able to replicate the issue in their browser. Is there any clue as to why this might be specific to chrome? I have tried it in incognito mode as well (which I believe would start with a clear cache/cookies, right?) – rishim3 Mar 16 '13 at 06:29
  • i thought about it more and updated my answer. its probably not a bandwith issue unless you get a lot of traffic (i don't know what your traffic is like). It could be due to the version of chrome that people are using? developers tend to keeps their browsers up to date while users dont. it could be due to internet connectivity as i said above- or it could be due to your web hosting server as i mention bove as well – Tucker Mar 16 '13 at 06:34
  • The site was hit with a ton of traffic earlier, so I upgraded to the "pro hosting" package which puts the site on a more powerful server. I also signed up for a content delivery network service to bring the content closer to users. However, I'm still experiencing this issue on chrome (up to date) on my laptop.. not sure what could be the culprit – rishim3 Mar 16 '13 at 06:39
  • if you can replicate the issue, try looking at the chrome error console for errors when they happen. they might provide more insight (and don't forget to post the error if any!) – Tucker Mar 16 '13 at 06:43
  • Error thrown in Chrome Console after a few minutes: "Failed to load resource http://www.soundrown.com/Audio/Final%20Normalized/ogg/CoffeeShop%20Final%20Thirty.ogg" – rishim3 Mar 16 '13 at 07:16
  • don't think this is an answer, but perhaps a lead: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=158245 – Tucker Mar 16 '13 at 07:33
  • sounds more and more like a browser bug – Tucker Mar 16 '13 at 07:38
  • That bug seems very relevant, but I haven't noticed any issues when I open the html file in chrome and play from the laptop locally. If it were the bug stated, then I should see this problem offline also, right? – rishim3 Mar 16 '13 at 09:39
  • One user stated that they were having the same issue in IE.. now I'm back to square one.. – rishim3 Mar 17 '13 at 04:38
  • When I open the following link on chrome the file stops streaming, but stops at a different point, each time I play. Any ideas?? I've been searching across the web for multiple days without any luck so far http://www.soundrown.com/Audio/Final%20Normalized/ogg/CoffeeShop%20Final%20Thirty.ogg – rishim3 Mar 18 '13 at 04:54
  • Hey been awol for a bit - the link you posted doesn't work (couldn't find soundrown). we can start a chat if you want – Tucker Mar 18 '13 at 05:17
  • hey Tucker, thanks for the response. am I not allowed to send chat messages since I'm new? not seeing an option start a chat. – rishim3 Mar 19 '13 at 01:29