Here's to trying new things, buffering, lagging etc

General Chat
#1

Everything was going great and then you guys decide to try and improve on a good thing. Ya know what…I can’t blame ya.

I have been using the remote links and a quick fetch line of code to activate my animated spell effects while also getting syrinscape to play the sound FX of said animated spell with a touch of a button for nearly a year now, and until 10 some odd days ago it was working great. I have no idea how this works, but now regardless of using the online player app (the app we had to DL to play the sounds from the master interface) or the web player (using the share audio link to listen through my chromium browser) the waiting times from both my activating the sound IN syrinscape or via macro in Foundry VTT range anywhere from 0 seconds ( which it should be) to anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds which is really frustrating. Its not my com, I was running things just fine before the web player came out and I get great internet.

The funny thing is that after it buffers and loads, the SFX will then have less lag but sometimes some of the FX that I already played before ( and one would think already loaded, buffered or whatever) don’t play at all… or may play eventually but not for a while.

I’m really happy that you guys were able to make it easier for players to use this lovely piece of software, but if the FX don’t play when they are supposed to, or play unpredictably, then what’s the point?

I tested this by opening my own browser window with two tabs. One had the interface and the other had the web player. I muted the tab with the interface and was monitoring from the web player tab. I also did it with the app. There was significant lag with both and in a lot of cases I had to push the stop button a number of time for the cancel command to work, and then try and play the SFX again. This is bad guys. Please use whatever sorcery you have to fix it or put out an optimization guide.

Thanks.

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#2

Thanks for the report. We are aware of some performance issues impacting both the online player and the new web player. We are working to resolve them. We have made a change about an hour after your post that we hope alleviates the issue while we continue to investigate.

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#3

Hi,

unfortunately we suffered pretty much the same problem just now (so 15 hours after the change mentioned above), sfx firing many many seconds late, then sometimes retriggering randomly over a couple of minutes, plus the sound became more and more distorted as the session went on. It really feels like the server is suffering massive lag.

This is using the new web player, triggered from Fantasy Grounds.

Hoping this is an easy fix as the ease of use for my players is amazing, and I’d hate to lose that.

Thanks for all your work.

Cheers,

Simon

1 Like
#4

I appreciate the reply. Here’s to everything working out ok. My sessions are on Fridays. I’ll report back and let you know what comes about.
Thanks

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#5

@simong_audio thanks for the report. We are still looking at this, but here’s a few things you could try to help us next time it happens, if you’re willing:

  • Try using the app.syrinscape.com interface instead of Fantasy Grounds. This removes the Fantasy Grounds integration as a potential cause of random triggers.
  • Trigger a single oneshot element and report how many seconds it takes from click to the countdown animation starting (not necessarily hearing sound). This is a measure of server latency. E.g. how long it takes us to deliver an instruction to the player.
  • Note how many seconds it takes between the oneshot countdown animation starting to hearing sound. This is a good measure of bandwidth. E.g. how long it takes the browser to download the required sample. Once a sample has been played and is in the cache, this should not be an issue as no download will occur.

If you are hearing distortion, you could try to reload the player window or try a different browser. Audio distortion is not related to server latency or your available bandwidth. Using a different browser might help in two ways:

  • Chrome and Firefox have different web audio API implementations.
  • Your primary browser might be busy doing other work in many other tabs/windows, which could cause momentary glitches in the audio. A separate browser that is just running Syrinscape might be less affected.
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#6

We found and fixed another issue today that would have affected users who left their session with elements still playing several days ago. On rejoining the old session they and other users on the same server could experience significant delays. This should no longer be a problem. We are continuing to monitor performance and prioritise performance impacting issues.

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#7

Sorry for the late reply but I wanted to let you all know that whatever steps you have taken over the past 5 months …they worked. The lag time has diminished and even my player living on the other side of the country is getting the SFX in an appropriate manner.

I truly appreciate the hard work. I wouldn’t be having nearly as much fun as I am if it weren’t for Syrinscape. Thanks!

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#8

Thats great news! thanks for the update :grin: