I have just installed a few SSD drives as the OS partition for our Audio Server, File Server and Studio PC.  This has stopped the pausing/data IO issues I was seeing and has improved the performance of the OS and Myriad in general.  I can now play five songs, drag tracks in to a play list and open a preview without any issues.

I will next review our SQL setup as I have SQL Standard and Express on the same server that may be causing a conflict when accessing system memoy.

Hi Shane,
you should not need to have dual NIC's, as the amount of communication between Myriad and the SQL server is very small - this would seem to be an extreme fix.

Before heading down that route, try simplifying the network for a few tests.

Remove everything from the network apart from 1 Studio Playout PC (where you are having the pauses) and the SQL server. See if you get the pauses, if yes, try connecting a different playout PC. If No add other equipment in one at a time to the network and see where it starts to go wrong.
If you are still getting pauses with multiple playout PC's connecting to the server, try moving the SQL and the data to the primary playout PC, and then connect a second PC to it.

We have many sites using Myriad where the data is stored on the main playout PC and second studios connect to them without a problem.

If it does seem to be your server PC, check any background tasks that might be hammering the hard drives (anti-virus / dropbox or skydrive etc) - make sure your RAID is optimised and that you don't have a fault condition on the HDD's. Run a network packet sniffer in case you have a dodgy network card flooding the network switch with garbage.

Basically, strip the whole system back to basics, add an item back in at a time and see where it breaks.




Regards

David Boulton
Brand Manager
Broadcast Radio Ltd

Thanks for the update, I was planning to add a second NIC so that I can team the connection to 2G for our SQL Server, Audio Server and Studio PC as we are only running 1G switch and this is supported on the switch.  I'm also running Windows 7 Pro 32bit, might be worth running 64bit so that more memory can be addressed locally?  I will also check the Audio buffers but I'm sure I've already done this.  Regarding the SQL DB I had already shrinked this last time I had these issues, it only slightly helped.  My log/DB and TRN are also on separate physical disks.  I'll keep this post updated with further results.

Many thanks
Shane

Hi Shane,

if you are getting pauses when dragging items from the library tab into the log, then that would indicate that you have a slowdown somewhere on your network as Myriad is running out of audio buffer waiting for the item to be added into the station database.

Please check the PC or server where you have the SQL database stored, to see how it is performing, make sure you have optimised the SQL Database.
You could try increasing the audio buffer size in Myriad, this will help ride out problems, it does not solve the underlying issue of the data starvation (Audio Settings menu item, Advanced Tab, dropdown at the bottom left).

The green triangle appears when you put your mouse cursor over the speaker icon on the items in the library tab, this just allows you to cue the item into a free player, it does not start it playing. 



Regards

David Boulton
Brand Manager
Broadcast Radio Ltd

I had also noticed the small green sideways triangle.....but didn't think it was trying to preview !
well spotted Shane !

Regards,
Paul Moore

HitMix Radio
0792 858 1075

An instance of a pause can be created when a song is playing in a cart whilst having the 'PAD' open and the 'Library' Tab open and by dragging a song to the playlist. 

To drag a song you have to right click to select the track, at this stage I believe it's trying to preview as the songs are displayed with a green arrow when selected.  Is there a way to turn the previous function off when selecting of a track from the library tab?

I have also installed the latest release. 

We've almost cured our stoppages, every now and then it pauses in the audio, but not often now.
we do notice that as you say, when changing tracks, the whole program stops, even though audio carries on.

We try not change or suggest during crucial times, such as up to the news just in case it stops !

Fingers crossed V4.0.24 will fix it !

Regards,
Paul Moore

HitMix Radio
0792 858 1075

I have this same issue in 4.0.23, myriad has recently said on the screen 'buffering'.  I would assume it's related to the Database and SQLExpress.  I'm aware of the memory leak issue so might run the beta.  I've also seen this when on single screen mode when the library tab is opened and then the user drags a track in to the playlist.  It appears that when the track is selected it's either trying to preview or having an issue receiving/updating the data for next play etc at the bottom of the screen just above the players is updating.

I will run a shrink on the DB first and keep this post updated.

Update: We think the pausing of audio is being caused by our sql replication of myriad4data,
We have it backing up at 20 and 50 past, but have now changed this to at the top of the hour,
This should make any pauses un-noticable as the new will be on at that time.

We will keep you updated and I must now read up all about sql replication !

Regards,
Paul Moore

HitMix Radio
0792 858 1075

We don't have our IT guy around at the moment and Myriad is driving us nuts !!

Its stops at 20 past and 10 too each hour, well, almost every hour and it stops for 5 seconds at 20 past and 10 seconds at 10 too, can anyone shed any light on what maybe causing this ??

I have task manager running and when it happens the CPU usage shoots up to 20% on the audio server.
The studio pc stays at 1% but myriad does say not responding for the duration.

Im thinking it maybe a CPU issue and the audio server is about to fall over !

Look forward to your replies in due course

Regards,
Paul Moore

HitMix Radio
0792 858 1075