Ogg Vorbis streams still seem to crash the client

Admittedly, I've just tried one, but....

In the 1.13.1 release, a number of people commented that trying to use an ogg stream would crash the client. I actually had it work, but then die when I tried to stop it. Other times, it would freeze me immediately.

In 1.13.2, I'm also having problems. Ogg streams seem to freeze the client immediately; the stream keeps playing, but I can't move, and no more updates show up on screen.

MP3 streams seem fine. (I've tried the same stream, where the same outfit has both kinds of streams. Because I'm a free software zealot, of course, I'd prefer to use the ogg stream.) I can start and stop them, move on and off the land, no problems.

(And, yeah, I'm a zealot, but I haven't compiled my own SL client... I'm using the official alpha. Sue me; I'm a hypocritical zealot.)

(BTW: for sound, I'm using OSS... although ALSA is driving my system, the ALSA interface in SL still seems borked. The OSS interface (i.e. using ALSA's OSS emulation) works just fine.)

We've never supported anything except MP3 streams - an ogg stream is just a stream of binary garbage as far as the client is concerned. It would be nice if we didn't crash, but this is handled by FMOD.

Bizarre... beucase I *have* heard intelligible ogg vorbis streams...! The clinet crashes thereafter, but it was more than unintelligible garbage.

-Rob

If ogg is unsupported, or can't even be read by the client, then why is the following to be found in the knowledgebase? Or do you mean it's not supported by the linux alpha client, but it is by the windows one?

That's interesting if it's supposed to work - the FMOD docs are unclear on the matter. FMOD totally handles our streaming audio from the net, so if there's a problem on Linux it may be an FMOD bug or a symbol clash. If the latter, it's probably already fixed in the next client release - I'll test.

Never mind the zealotry. The fact is, ogg has vastly superior audio quality to MP3 at any bitrate. Especially at low bitrates. Especially if you use aoTuV.

Its known among Mac users that ogg streaming does not and has not ever worked on OSX either. Its not just Linux.

fmod really seems to be a load of shit. Can we pleeeease lose it? Anyone started any work to support OpenAL? Once I get the source release packaged I plan to take a look but I suspect it will probably go over my poor little head.

Is there somewhere that people are coordinating SL source based projects? Last thing we need is a million redundant forks that burn out due to thinning out the available brainpower too much...

Seg, I think we may be able to add ogg support via FMOD somewhat easily. The client already has vorbisencode and vorbisdecode functions in the source(for in-game sounds, I think), so it may be easy to create a "vorbisimpl" class or something and plug it into FMOD. Though strangely FMOD's features page lists ogg as a supported file format. Perhaps ogg is supported via the .PLS playlist format, maybe? I'll try to test it out and post the results here.

FMOD supports ogg. Playing an ogg stream in the SL client will work for varying amounts of time. Usually it will crash right a way, sometimes it will play for a while. With 1.13.1.5 I was once able to listen to my own stream for some time (half hour?), I almost started rejoycing, until I strayed out of my land causing it to stop, and moving back in caused it to crash. ;P

Its not a matter of FMOD not supporting ogg, its a matter of being a buggy POS.

And in the larger picture, for the SL client to be truely free, we're going to have to dump FMOD anyway. (And either speed up OpenJPEG or find a better free JPEG2k lib...)

Unfortunately, ogg streams don't work for me at all(even via .PLS, yet I haven't crashed or frozen up). Dumping FMOD should be a long-term goal, but in the interim I'd at least like FMOD not to be a "buggy POS" and handle Ogg as smoothly as MP3, for all platforms(Windows and Mac included). I really don't want to use a wrapper script again, especially for a format that's supported on every other audio-based app on Linux.

P.S. - And I totally agree with you on OpenJPEG, too. It's just too slow now to be a viable replacement for KDU.

Judging from my experiences lately, the problem with in-client streaming of an ogg stream causing an immediate client crash is still around after all this time (hence the necro-post). Has any progress been made towards correcting it?

afaik, there hasn't moved anything on the ogg front, which is a shame, since at the same bitrate ogg will usually sound better....

This is believed fixed in the upcoming 1.21 viewer.

Thanks for the update, Tofu.

I'll look forward to giving ogg another try in 1.21.

let's hope it's actually true this time



and even if it's really fixed in that version of the viewer, it'll take a long time before that viewer is the regular viewer... Before most people use the fixed viewer, ogg will still remain useless...you don't want people crashing every time they enter your land-with-an-ogg-stream....

ps: I use a viewer where fmod has been replaced with openal, ogg does work in that one, but only a small minority of people use that....

Sweet! Do let us know when a first Preview Grid or RC viewer with Ogg streaming comes out, I've got loads of ogg files I'm dying to put at my store.

@Triss: Where'd you get your viewer from? I'd love to try it out.

I get it from http://www.byteme.org.uk/secondlife-amd64/apt-get-a-secondlife.html


this site is aimed at debian/debian derivatives though, so with other linux flavors, you'll probably need to look further...