Incidents are flagged automatically when an interruption to the encoder connection or audio signal is detected by our ingest servers. Incidents of all durations are logged in Portal and can be viewed on the Station page under the Ingest Watch module. Historical incidents can be exported under the "Reports" tab on the Station page.
If an incident fits the thresholds set in your notifiable settings, you will receive a notification to the set destination (either SMS, Email, MS teams or Slack).
This article explains what each type of notification means and provides a few links to useful troubleshooting guides to help in each scenario. Ensure you are reading the correct incident definitions for your stream type as the impacts vary between our ingest-audio service and our ingest-premium service.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Ingest Audio Incidents
Disconnected
A disconnected notification indicates that the encoder's connection to the audio ingest server has terminated. For customers using audio-type streams (contributing to ingest-audio), this will be service-affecting and will impact your listeners.
Impact: Live listeners will be disconnected at the time of the incident and new listeners will be unable to connect to your stream for the duration of the incident.
Recovery Status - Connected: A connected notification will be triggered when a stable encoder connection is detected on the server. At this point, listeners will be able to reconnect to the stream.
Silence
A silence alert indicates that no audio has been detected from the active ingest server. Silence alerts only appear in the scenario where the encoder is connected to the stream.
Impact: As the encoder is still connected, listeners will not be disconnected from the stream. However, as the stream will be inaudible, natural audience dropoff can be expected for the duration of the incident.
Recovery Status - Audible: An 'Audible' notification will be triggered when an audio signal is detected on the mount by the server following a silence.
Unstable
An unstable notification indicates that there have been at least 3 disconnections and reconnections detected in the space of ten minutes. The incident will remain active for a minimum of 30 minutes after the last-detected disconnection and only recover if the stream has remained connected without interruption for that duration.
Impact: Listeners will be disconnected at the point of the disruption. New listeners may struggle to connect to the stream for the duration of the instability.
Recovery Status - Stable: A stable notification will be triggered if the stream has remained connected without interruption for at least 30 mins after the last reconnection.
Ingest Premium Incidents
Disconnected
A disconnected alert indicates that the encoder's connection to the mount's input source has terminated. Encoder contribution issues to the primary servers (a-feeds) will trigger the automated backup on the mount itself.
A note on Premium Disconnection incidents:
The premium contribution array allows for two simultaneous contributions to a primary server (a-feeds) and a backup server (b-feeds). If a server-side issue affecting the primary server occurs, listener traffic will be diverted to the backup server.
This article assumes that the premium configuration only has one contribution point per server. If you have requested a customised configuration with us then please bear this in mind when interpreting incidents.
Impact: If the incident occurs on the primary ingest, listeners will remain connected to the stream, but they will hear the backup content being served from your fallback playlist for the duration of the incident. If the incident occurs on the secondary (backup) ingest only, your live stream will not be affected. However, should there be a server-side outage affecting the primary server during the incident, your listeners will be diverted to the backup content from your fallback playlist as opposed to your live encoder feed.
Recovery Status - Connected: A connected notification will be triggered when a stable encoder connection is detected to the mount's input source. Provided an audible signal is being sent, your stream's content will revert to the encoder feed in accordance with your fallback preferences.
Encoder-silence
An encoder-silence notification indicates that the mount's input source has not detected a signal louder than -40dB from the encoder.
Impact: If the incident occurs on the primary ingest, listeners will remain connected to the stream, but they will hear the backup content being served from your fallback playlist for the duration of the incident. If the incident occurs on the secondary (backup) ingest only, the live stream will not be affected. However, should there be a server-side outage affecting the primary server during the incident, your listeners will be diverted to the backup content from your fallback playlist as opposed to your live encoder feed.
Recovery Status - Encoder-Audible: An encoder-audible notification will be triggered when a persistent audio signal above -40dB is detected on the premium mount's input source. Your stream's content will revert to the encoder feed in accordance with your stream fallback preferences.
Silence
A silence notification indicates that the streaming audio is totally inaudible. In this scenario, one of the above incidents will have occurred and the backup feed is silent. A silent backup feed is most likely due to content being missing or unavailable in the Timbre Live Feed or there is a deliberately-placed 'silence file' in the Timbre Live Feed.
Impact: If the incident occurs on the primary ingest, listeners will remain connected to the stream. However, as the stream will be inaudible, natural audience dropoff can be expected for the duration of the incident. If the incident occurs on the secondary (backup) ingest only, the live stream will not be affected. Should there be a server-side outage affecting the primary server during the incident, your listeners will be diverted to the backup content from your fallback playlist as opposed to your live encoder feed.
Recovery Status - Audible: This notification is triggered when an audible signal is detected. This does not necessarily indicate an encoder feed recovery. Check for an encoder-audible or connected status before confirming your stream has returned to its expected state.
If you are unsure about your current configuration setup, feel free to raise a ticket with our support team.
For more information on how the levels of redundancy work on Premium streams, please see Premium Stream Redundancy Options Explained.