Audio-Streaming Tests
Troubleshooting Audio-Streaming Problems
Common Browser-Based Problems
- Problem: What should be the embedded Windows Media Player is just a gray square.
- Solution 1: Most modern browsers will properly display the embedded Windows Media Player, but older versions may not. Upgrade your Web browser.
- Solution 2:The Java implementation may be corrupted or old. Reinstall Java.
- Problem: The Opera browser does not yet handle the MMS protocol well. It will start the media player in the background, leaving no easy way to stop the audio stream except by killing the job with the Task Manager. This situation is found when accessing the off-Grounds audio stream.
- Solution: Quick configuration correction for Opera browser.
Player Software Problems
- Problem: Macintosh OS complains that it cannot play the stream.
- Solution: Download the Windows Media Player for Macs.
- Problem: WMP starts, but fails to make a connection to the server.
- Solution 1: Configure “Performance” (bandwidth) to the default setting.
- Solution 2: Configure “Network” to accept all protocols.
- Problem: You get a pop-up that reports “The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.”
- Solution: Look for spelling errors in the filename. Spaces and capitalization matter too.
- Problem: I’d rather just use WMP without having to use a Web link.
- Solution: Follow instructions for using WMP to manually access the WTJU signal.
Network Problems
- Problem: You don’t know whether your network can use multicast or
only unicast.
- Solution: You do not need to know this in order to use the main WTJU stream, since it will offer multicast where possible, but back off to unicast if necessary. (View a quick explanation of the difference between multicast and unicast.) You may want to test your connection to see if it will allow multicast.
- Problem: You live off Grounds and cannot access the high-bandwidth
audio stream.
- Solution: If you use UVa Anywhere, you can access the high bandwidth stream. Note, however, that if you do this, your Internet connection may be swamped. Even a high-speed connection may not have enough bandwidth to allow use of the on-Grounds signal and be able to squeeze much else onto the connection. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. This is especially true if you share a connection with roommates.
- Problem: You are on Grounds, connecting wirelessly, and your Windows Media
Player indicates that it is connecting to the server, but nothing ever plays.
- Solution: Use the off-Grounds server. The hardware that provides wireless service does not provide multicast connectivity, and the standard on-Grounds stream has combined unicast and multicast characteristics, which may confuse the Windows Media Player when connecting wirelessly. The off-Grounds service has the added benefit that it is a lower-bandwidth stream. A wireless connection is typically on a laptop computer; the audio system on a laptop will do just as well with a lower-bandwidth signal. In addition, it leaves more bandwidth available for other network activities.
Other Problems
- Problem: WMP is started and there have been no error messages, but I don’t hear anything.
- Solution: Check your volume; and there are two volume controls to check. One is the volume slider on the WMP window—if you’re viewing one of the skins you’ll have to look for it, but it is a standard control. The other volume control is for your computer. On a PC, it is located on the Windows taskbar in the "notification area", and may even be muted.
- Problem: I want to test the characteristics of my network. How do I do it?
- Solution: Since UVa is a member of the Internet 2 Consortium, using the Web applet-based testing suite is appropriate. This can test Abilene access, bandwidth, multicast, and computer IP/name. It also offers an IPv6 test, but since UVa has not yet implemented this protocol, that test will always fail.
Page Updated: 2012-02-16
