Audio dropouts when more than 2 particpants in a session - HELP!

[Mike H.]

So here's my/our scenario: I have a band with 4 members. We have been using Jamkazam for about 2 months. We have had varying levels of success with the usual glitches here and there. We have all acquired and setup our own audio interfaces. We are using a mix of Behringer UMC202HD, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, and Motu or Presonus (our keyboardist, not exactly sure which one he uses). We all downloaded the respective audio interfaces' ASIO driver from manufacturers' website. Our respective audio gear setups went smoothly with both I/O and latency in the green. From a strictly audio and latency perspective everything is functioning perfectly. Each of us is able to do a solo session, play alone with metronome, and play alone with jamtracks with no problems. Stats are usually all green for all of us when we're all working. We do also utilize video in our sessions and for the most part it works fine. As of late, we have been experiencing one or more of our personal live track boxes going grey and then the loss of audio from other participants. This only tends to happen when more than 2 of us are in a session. Two participants and any of the 2 of us, everything is cool. Funny thing, when this happens none of us lose video from the others, only the audio. "Resync" will usually get all participants audio going again but usually only for a few seconds to a couple minutes. Below is a list of what we've tried recently to get things working per information gathered from other forum threads and some of the youtube tutorials.

• Tried "Network Test". Obviously not working and I saw where the app developers know this and may remove it soon.
  
• Changing Outgoing Music Bitrate and Network Packet Rate.  Sometimes this seems to fix things but only temporarily. We've tried making the same change for all 4 of us and individually. 
  
• We haven't messed with Audio Frame Size since it's defaulted to 2.5ms for all of us already.
  
• We all have our IP Protocol set to IPV4 since we're all using Verizon Fios and Verizon does not support IPV6 yet.
  
• We have our Network Port Preferences set to "Always use same set of UDP ports" and keep the default of starting port 12000.
  
• A few of us have done Port Forwarding on our routers. We set it up with ports 12000-12010 forwarded to the IP address of the PC or laptops where the Jamkazam app resides. This did not seem to do anything to fix our problems. Although one of us never did the port forwarding. Those of us who did this also rebooted the router afterwards. Most of us have deleted the port forwarding at this point (i.e. put it back the way it was before).
  
• A few of us have confirmed that UPnP is enabled on our routers which is the default for Verizon Fios routers for past few years.
  

It seems to be that this is a network issue since one or more of us are losing the incoming stream from other participants and vice versa. If anybody out there, and especially the app developers, have any insights/suggestions/solutions/comments that may help us it would be greatly appreciated. We are very close to throwing in the towel/giving up but we all really want to make this work for obvious reasons.

[mark@butterill.plus.com]

After quite a lot of experimenting our 5 piece band (we're minus a singer at the moment) achieves generally good results with latency and quality. One user has some crackles on his line, he had a damaged incoming telephone cable (the internal cable from master socket to router) and had repaired it himself, result was awful, using a new cable has made it acceptable until we try video, when it goes berserk. He only has a 38Mb/s download speed line, which you'd hope was adequate but is clearly overstretched as soon as we add video. I think he actually has some damage to his incoming cable (the supply to his house) or maybe a dodgy router. One other user has a slower broadband (28Mb/s), no crackles but often has to enter the session, then leave & re-enter to get good sound at his end, although he sounds great to us. Again when he starts video there's a problem, this time it's massive and very variable latency. The other 3 of us have 60Mb/s broadband and are generally good, no issues with video either but the bass guitar sometimes has to leave & re-enter too. We all live in a 35 mile radius.

My feelings so far is that a decent interface and fast broadband line are vital and stay away from video for best results. It's not perfect but it sure beats sitting at home playing to yourself!

[StuartR]

After quite a lot of experimenting our 5 piece band (we're minus a singer at the moment) achieves generally good results with latency and quality. One user has some crackles on his line, he had a damaged incoming telephone cable (the internal cable from master socket to router) and had repaired it himself, result was awful, using a new cable has made it acceptable until we try video, when it goes berserk. He only has a 38Mb/s download speed line, which you'd hope was adequate but is clearly overstretched as soon as we add video. I think he actually has some damage to his incoming cable (the supply to his house) or maybe a dodgy router. One other user has a slower broadband (28Mb/s), no crackles but often has to enter the session, then leave & re-enter to get good sound at his end, although he sounds great to us. Again when he starts video there's a problem, this time it's massive and very variable latency. The other 3 of us have 60Mb/s broadband and are generally good, no issues with video either but the bass guitar sometimes has to leave & re-enter too. We all live in a 35 mile radius.

My feelings so far is that a decent interface and fast broadband line are vital and stay away from video for best results. It's not perfect but it sure beats sitting at home playing to yourself!

Don't enable video during a session once you start playing. That's just asking for trouble.

---

So here's my/our scenario: I have a band with 4 members. We have been using Jamkazam for about 2 months. We have had varying levels of success with the usual glitches here and there. We have all acquired and setup our own audio interfaces. We are using a mix of Behringer UMC202HD, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, and Motu or Presonus (our keyboardist, not exactly sure which one he uses). We all downloaded the respective audio interfaces' ASIO driver from manufacturers' website. Our respective audio gear setups went smoothly with both I/O and latency in the green. From a strictly audio and latency perspective everything is functioning perfectly. Each of us is able to do a solo session, play alone with metronome, and play alone with jamtracks with no problems. Stats are usually all green for all of us when we're all working. We do also utilize video in our sessions and for the most part it works fine. As of late, we have been experiencing one or more of our personal live track boxes going grey and then the loss of audio from other participants. This only tends to happen when more than 2 of us are in a session. Two participants and any of the 2 of us, everything is cool. Funny thing, when this happens none of us lose video from the others, only the audio. "Resync" will usually get all participants audio going again but usually only for a few seconds to a couple minutes. Below is a list of what we've tried recently to get things working per information gathered from other forum threads and some of the youtube tutorials.

• Tried "Network Test". Obviously not working and I saw where the app developers know this and may remove it soon.
  
• Changing Outgoing Music Bitrate and Network Packet Rate.  Sometimes this seems to fix things but only temporarily. We've tried making the same change for all 4 of us and individually. 
  
• We haven't messed with Audio Frame Size since it's defaulted to 2.5ms for all of us already.
  
• We all have our IP Protocol set to IPV4 since we're all using Verizon Fios and Verizon does not support IPV6 yet.
  
• We have our Network Port Preferences set to "Always use same set of UDP ports" and keep the default of starting port 12000.
  
• A few of us have done Port Forwarding on our routers. We set it up with ports 12000-12010 forwarded to the IP address of the PC or laptops where the Jamkazam app resides. This did not seem to do anything to fix our problems. Although one of us never did the port forwarding. Those of us who did this also rebooted the router afterwards. Most of us have deleted the port forwarding at this point (i.e. put it back the way it was before).
  
• A few of us have confirmed that UPnP is enabled on our routers which is the default for Verizon Fios routers for past few years.
  

It seems to be that this is a network issue since one or more of us are losing the incoming stream from other participants and vice versa. If anybody out there, and especially the app developers, have any insights/suggestions/solutions/comments that may help us it would be greatly appreciated. We are very close to throwing in the towel/giving up but we all really want to make this work for obvious reasons.

Audio frame size of 1 msec for everyone. No video while you're playing!
Be sure you look at everyones stats (hover over dot at the right end of the box to verify their frame rate and to be sure they're using Wired Ethernet).

[Hans Peter Augustesen]

Yes, "It seems to be that this is a network issue".
My first advice is to not use video - when playing.

About 4 mbps upload is required for a session with 7. That is without video. 7 is the recommended maximum in session.
For full function about 25 mbps upload is recommended, I believe.
Upload is more important than download.
Crucial is the so-called PING - answertime from your computer to your provider and back.