[Icecast] Severe problem with Icecast2 and streamTranscoder

[Dennis Speekenbrink]

Antti Näyhä wrote:

> I have a setup where Icecast 2.2.0 is serving a single Vorbis stream.
> The source is either a local ices2 or a remote Winamp/Oddcast.  I'm then
> running a streamTranscoder 1.2.8 instance on the server to transcode the
> Vorbis stream to MP3 on the fly and send it back to Icecast, to be
> served at a different mountpoint.  My config files are very basic with
> most settings at their defaults.
>
> The problem is that whenever enough listeners (usually more than 10 is
> needed) connect to the transcoded MP3 stream at Icecast,
> streamTranscoder seems to go crazy after a while.  When you're listening
> to it on a client, it seems to skip forward (kinda like fast forwarding
> on a CD player) for a few seconds, then buffer for a few seconds, then
> skip forward again, etc.  The only way to fix this seems to be killing
> streamTranscoder and starting it again.
>
> I don't know how it's possible that the number of listeners connected to
> the Icecast server can affect streamTranscoder like that, but after
> rigorous testing I'm positive about the relation!  At first I was sure
> that this was a bug in sT, but I have now tried the same setup with
> Shoutcast and the problem did *not* appear.  So it seems to have
> something to do with Icecast after all.
>
> The Icecast logs don't show anything significant.  My original
> streamTranscoder bug report (with log snippets) is available here:
> http://www.oddsock.org/openbb/read.php?TID=1640
>
My first thought is that the amount of listeners is reaching your 
bandwith limit.
Does your server have enough continuous throughput to keep up?
(the buffering / burst settings might produce the skipping output)
(note: if the Shoutcast setup uses the same bandwith and users, then 
this is not the problem)

Try lowering quality and/or bitrate to reduce the amount of data it has 
to send and see wether you can connect more listeners.

Also, is the CPU able to handle it all?

Dennis