How do I get my music stream to play consistently?

[Professor Albatros]

Often when I enter a new sim, I am unable to play the music stream that others are able to hear.  I have checked all the boxes in my preferences dealing with playing music, and it works in some sims and not the others.  I will click the little music note Icon on my screen, and it will change for a few seconds, then revert back to a musical note without actually playing the stream.  I even try "start all streaming media" and nothing happens.  I normally use Firestorm, but I get the same results using Phoenix or the SL Viewer.  I have tried clearing network cache, and done clean installs...nothing helps

When I arrive in a new sim that is streaming music, I always click yes, "Always play music from this domain" and sometimes I get music and sometimes not.  I do still get the ambient noises (animal sounds, annoying laughter from others, water falling, etc,) so I know my sound card is good.  I just can't seem to get the music stream consistently.  Then I can jump to another sim and the music plays just fine.  What gives?

[Rolig Loon]

What gives is that streaming media are handled by a different set of servers from all of the other sounds you mentioned.  The streaming servers compete with the other servers your viewer is connected to for bandwidth, and they sometimes lose the fight.  In Preferences, you set the Maximum Bandwidth that you will allow your viewer to use.  You can't set that number higher than the total bandwidth you have available, obviously, because there's no way to create bandwidth out of thin air.  So really what you are doing is telling your viewer "If there is this much Maximum Bandwidth, use it". The problem is that your viewer doesn't know that you also need bandwidth for streaming media.  If it uses all of your available bandwidth for other things (like rendering scenes, moving your avatar, communicating..), then there's nothing left for the music (or Voice, which is also limited).  The solution is to never set Maximum Bandwidth higher than 75% to 80% of your measured download bandiwdth (about 1200 kBps or so for most people -- much less if you make the mistake of using wireless).  That way, if you get to a busy sim and your viewer starts hogging bandwidth to render a lot of images and deal with a lot of avatars moving around, it won't choke off the music.

[Monti Messmer]

Windows - Mac - Linux ?

There are some compatiblity issues with e.g. OGG coded streams on linux, just saying ;-)

Monti

[Professor Albatros]

Windows 7

 

[Freya Mokusei]

You will need a connection speed of approximately 5Mbit/s or higher to consistantly stream via an audio connection. This obviously increases with the bandwidth demand from SL, and whatever else is happening on your local network. Torrents, downloads, other browser windows, data synchronisation and all other online activities deminish the amount of bandwidth the audio connection will recieve.

The likely fault is your connection, and not your viewer or computer.

http://www.speedtest.net to diagnose, talk to your ISP or reconfigure your network to resolve.

[Miserlie]

It's the speed of your connection, Like on youtube if you have crappy internet it will buffer forever, if you have decent internet or just a good connection it will play through.