FAQ: General Problems

The audio player seems to be playing but I cannot hear anything

Please check the following: 1) Speakers are turned on and that all the wires are plugged into the correct socket. 2) Sound card is working properly. 3) Volume (In the Taskbar if Windows) is NOT MUTED.

When I click on things, they do not act like they should or nothing happens.

This problem is most likely due to the fact that you have Javascript turned off. Like anything, javascript could be used to really annoy you like those pop up ads and pages you never seem to be able to leave. Since we are doing some pretty complex things, we need javascript to make this all work right. We are working on an automatic detection and non-javascript pages. For now, you'll have to turn it back on for our site.

How do I configure Opera to use Shoutcast streaming Radio?

Go to Preferences, File Types and click on New.
In the mime type box add audio/x-scpls.
In the file extension box add .pls.
Click on the option to open with Other application
Browse to your Winamp (\Program Files\Winamp\winamp.exe) or streaming radio player program file and click on the winamp.exe file.
Click ok.
turn up the volume

I get good sound most of the time. However, the sound is sometimes "intermittent"-that is a second or two of sound, followed by a fraction of a second of silence. (from AudioActive, great information)

The problem is probably the Internet connection. Frankly, we are still in the "crystal radio" days for realtime audio on the net. Most of the time, for most people, it works. But there is no quality promise from Internet Service Providers - they are allowed to have delays in data delivery when the Internet is congested. The net's original purpose was basic file transfer and not the time-critical data streams necessary for uninterruped audio listening.

The player keeps a buffer of audio to "ride out" any network congestion, but in some cases network bandwidth cannot maintain the required amount for continuous audio. The buffer empties, resulting in gaps in the audio. One possible cause may be selecting of a high bandwidth audio stream on a connection which will not support the required bandwidth.

As Internet audio and video media becomes more popular, infrastructure providers and application vendors realize that you expect consistent listening and are working together to resolve this problem. New technologies like IP Multicast and RSVP are expected to be a solution. Of course the Audioactive system will evolve to take advantage of these technologies when they become available.

Here are some ideas and notes on this topic:

This limitation of the Internet is most evident when the most people are attempting to use it. So you will probably get better results in off prime times. If you are trying one of the high bandwidth channels, try a modem one to see if that helps. If the problem is persistent, you might want to consider trying another service provider. Some are much better than others.

Under the Options/URL Options menu, activate the "buffer meter." If the buffer gets low and the sound gets choppy, try pausing the player in order to allow the buffer to fill back up.

Under Windows, the player shuts off audio during a CPU intensive period. The decoding of the compressed audio stream requires a certain percentage of the CPU. If another application requires a large amount of CPU, the total CPU usage may reach a critical level. The player senses this level and stops audio processing in order to relinquish CPU cycles to another application. The player automatically begins audio again when the CPU level drops below critical. The most obvious time this occurs is during the starting of large applications such as Microsoft Word.