Online Player Often Stalls

[acroyear4]

Hello There,
I run the Online Player on my computer for my online games (Roll20). I run Windows 10 with 8 GB RAM on the computer. I find that the Online Player stalls several times during a regular 2-4 hour game session. What I mean is that when I stop one or more sounds (not a sound set, individual sounds), then click on the new sounds for the players to hear, nothing happens. To correct the issue, I have to shutdown the desktop application, then relaunch it, which fixes the issue. I was running a 90 minute session with my grandson last night and I had to relaunch the online player about 7-8 times during that session due to the music not playing when turning off one sound (music) and starting another sound (also music). Also, this issue always occurs when I pressed the Stop button, so I don’t use that button anymore, and have to manually stop each sound from a set (like a battle), before I can change to a new group of sounds.

Am I doing something incorrectly that is causing this stall/crash to occur? Are there more than one servers for Syrinscape, and if so, should I be on another one (and how one one do that?).

[benjamin]

@acroyear4

stalls

Hiya,
Firstly, THANKS for using our thing.

Secondly, I’ll see if I can help.

How much are you running on the system while you are playing. Is it running hot? Using almost all the memory? Can you check on the Task Manager.

You maaaaaaay benefit from an upgrade from 8 to 16. Which may possibly be quite cheap.

NOTE: some programs can be MEGA memory hogs (I’m looking at you, Chrome)… Chrome can benefit from a shutdown and restart to help clear out the guff.

NOTE: The Syrinscape Online Player DOES crash every now and then… that’s one of the reasons it still has that ‘beta’ badge… but something like ONE crash every TWO sessions seems pretty typical from my experience at the moment.

Hmmm… I’ll keep thinking.

Have a look at those things I mentioned and then give me some more info?

[acroyear4]

Hi Ben,
I recently updated my computer from 4 GB RAM to 8 GB RAM, and that helped a lot (with everything ).

When I run D&D sessions online I use the following: Roll20 on Firefox (because a recent change in Chrome added a lot of lag to me and some of my players). I run the Syrinscape Online Player through Chrome, but now I’m thinking I should run it through Firefox to see if that clears up the stalling issue. Lastly, I have open an Excel file (for tracking adventure info) and a PDF (the adventure).

I will check to see how much memory I am using up at my next session (this Saturday) with the above programs running, but I will try the Syrinscape Online Player through Firefox to see if that helps as well. If the issue persists, I’ll let you know!

[benjamin]

I’ll be really interested to see.

Good hunting!

[drscience00]

I have this issue as well. In fact, the online player constantly shuts itself down. It can’t be my rig as I am only running one application and run a $6K CAD machine with 32 GB of RAM. Any suggestions on how to fix the issue?

[acroyear4]

Well, I ran two sessions this weekend, one on Friday night with my grandson and the other on Saturday night with my regular D&D group. Both times I switched to using Firefox to run the Online Player instead of Chrome.

Friday night the Online Player did stall several times, and in order to fix it I had to close out the desktop application and then relaunch it. This is the same issue that occurred when running the Online Player on Chrome. We played two hours, and I think I had to relaunch it about 6 or 7 times. Memory usage on my computer at the time was around 55% to 60% as I recall. I also had open my PDF of the adventure and an Excel spreadsheet along with Discord, and of course Roll20 on Firefox.

Saturday night was D&D with the main group with the same setup as for Friday night. Right off the bat, the Online Player stalled. I decided to disable the auto-protect on my anti-virus program, and that did seem to reduce the Online Player stalling to about 2 or 3 times through a 5 hour session. So, I would guess it is the anti-virus program causing the issue? More testing is needed, but all indications point to this. That said, if this is the reason for the Online Player stalling, I would be a bit reluctant to leave my computer vulnerable to attack in order to run the Online Player.

Any feedback would be welcome by all.

[benjamin]

Hi all,

I’m going to get @sonofconan (our lead dev) to take a look at these reports.

I would just be guessing, now!

Thanks for your patience everybody!

[sonofconan]

@acroyear4 You don’t say if you are using the online player to run a remote game (with each person in your party running their own online player app), or just yours and everyone is in the same room?

To confirm that I understand correctly:

• You are playing a mood.
• You stop one element.
• You cannot start any other element? Or you cannot start SOME elements, but you CAN start others?

If you are running a remote game, do ALL players experience the same issue? NONE of them are able to hear the new element you cannot start?

If you could name specific soundsets, moods and elements that are causing this issue, that would help. Or a specific sequence of actions (play mood A, stop element B, cannot start element C).

@drscience00 If the app is shutting itself down entirely, that sounds like a different issue. After a crash, before re-launching the app, you can find and send me the player.log file:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Syrinscape\Syrinscape Online Player

I think you may also find crash reports in:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\Syrinscape\Syrinscape Online Player\Crashes

You can also try creating a new account/profile on your machine and launching the app as that user, or try a different device (e.g. mobile phone or tablet).

[acroyear4]

Hi SonofConan,

I am running a remote game using the Online Player.

You are correct in what happens when the Online Player stalls:

• I am playing a mood or a collection of elements of my choosing.
• I stop one or more elements manually or sometimes all using the Stop button.
• I then cannot start any other element. None will react to my attempts to start them.

As it is a remote game, sometimes the remote players hear the sounds stop, but more commonly they hear some of the elements I am trying to play, but I do not see my master control panel indicate I have successfully started that element (the panel does not react to my commands at all). When I close the desktop application and relaunch it, I will sometimes see the master control panel update to show I was successful in starting some of the elements I attempted. But more often than not, nothing plays successfully, and the reboot of the desktop app restores my control over the master control panel.

So again, the issue appears sometimes when I play a mood or collection of elements, then stop those elements manually or with the Stop button, which leads to me being unable to start any other elements. It does not matter the sound set or moods being used.

I have another remote D&D session this evening. I will monitor the issue closely should it arise again. But it seemed that turning off my anti-virus protection on my computer helped reduce this issue significantly. I will attempt to run the session for the 1st hour with the anti-virus protection active, and if the issue persists, I will turn it off and make note of the difference (if any).

Please let me know if I can provide you with any further information.

[acroyear4]

UPDATE: Used the Online Player (through Firefox) last night. During the first hour it stalled at least 3 times. After first hour I turned off my computer’s anti-virus protection, and from that point the Online Player only stalled 2 times, but to be fair, I did not need to change up the sound elements playing for for the last 3 hours of the session more than two or three times.

When the Online Player stalled for me, my players reported still hearing the sound element that I had tried to select playing. For example, I would turn off the sound elements I did not need, then click on the one or ones I wanted, but the Online Player would not react for me (clicking the element had no apparent effect). I could not hear the new sound element playing, but my players reported hearing it. Once I closed and relaunched my desktop application, the Online Player would show the sound element I had selected when the Player stalled to be playing, and then I could hear the element playing as well.

Will observe this again during next week’s D&D session.

[acroyear4]

UPDATE II: Had another D&D session last night with my regular group (our last for a while), playing remotely using the Online Player through Firefox. The session was just over four hours long, and in that time the Online Player stalled about 4 times. I did not turn off my computer’s anti-virus protection this time, and the only real difference from previous sessions is that I did not have a PDF and Excel file open on my computer as in previous games.

When the stall’s occurred it seemed that this time when the master control board stopped reacting to my attempts to deactivate/activate new elements, it would sometimes do as I had intended AFTER I closed the desktop application and relaunched it. Thus, after relaunching the desktop application, I would return to the master control panel and watch as the elements I attempted and failed to activate when the stall occurred now began playing, and I could then hear the sounds from them.

While this time the stalls were only about 1 per hour in the four hour game, it still was an issue to pause the game with the group, then relaunch the desktop application. I have no idea if my not having a PDF and Excel sheet opened on my computer as I normally do during a game reduced the stalling.

I have one more D&D session next week with my grandsons. I’ll report how that goes as well to see if any kind of pattern emerges.

[sonofconan]

@acroyear4 Thanks for providing this information. It sounds like there might be an intermittent communication issue between your computer and our server.

Normally the way it works is:

• Your Master Interface (web app) and your Online Player (desktop or mobile app) maintain a connection to our server.
• You send a “play” or “stop” command from the Master Interface to our server, and our server relays that command to all connected Online Player apps.

But it sounds like:

• Sometimes your play or stop command does not reach our server at all, and no Online Player apps respond to the command.
• Sometimes your play or stop command does reach our server and is relayed to other Online Player apps, but is NOT relayed to YOUR Online Player app.

Could you please:

• Visit https://www.speedtest.net and do a couple of test runs, after selecting two different US West Coast servers (e.g. one in Oregon and one in Los Angeles), and report back screenshots of the results.
• Visit https://speed.cloudflare.com and report back a screenshot of the results (no server selection necessary).
• Next time you are using Syrinscape, view your browsers network inspector and JavaScript console to look for any errors. With Chrome on macOS press CMD-SHIFT-J to view the JavaScript console, and from there click across to the Network tab.

Any errors on either of those two views should show up in red.

[acroyear4]

Hi SonofConan,
Here is some of the information you requested.

This is a speed test from Speedtest.net, but it is only from my local Detroit server. I could not figure out how to change the locations, but I figure this test may be useful to you anyway.

Next is a speed test from Speakeasy, which is the site I normally use to test my Internet speeds. This site does have an option for Los Angeles, which is one of the locations you asked for. The results are below:

Finally, I have the speed test results from Cloudflare.com that you asked for:

Hopefully this information is useful. Next time I use the Online Player I will attempt to gather the remaining information you asked for.