DDOS attack by user?

[KennyO]

Hey KennyO, Apologies for singling you out, however, I'm very glad it is just a bug as it happened in 3 different rooms when you joined and some of them only had 2 people in at the time. I wonder if it's an issue outside of Jamkazam's hands if your connection has been fine before yesterday.

No worries. I understand your frustration. I wasn't too happy about blowing up other people's sessions either.

There were 2 Jamkazam software updates last week. Coincidence? Maybe.

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Hi KennyO. Sorry, didn't mean to suggest it was malicious.

What you explain sounds intermittent. Are you Mac or Win?

I too, on occasion when hosting a session notice a hang can happen when about 5 or more people get in the session. I know there are other posts saying the same thing.
I also start a private session first to make sure my gear is working.

GDJ

No worries.

I'm using a Mac with Resident Audio T4 (Thunderbolt) audio interface.

It's a gamble when you join a public session. There are so many factors that can impact the results. For every person that joins the odds get worse as they introduce their configuration issues into the mix. All we can do is make sure our own config is tuned properly and hope for the best.

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KennyO

>>>
Good man!
Thanks for reporting back!

Hope you get it figured out.
D./

Thanks Dimitri.

Many hours of work later it seems to be working ok again today.

I reviewed every link in the chain - router config, checked for errors, rebooted the router just in case, swapped the cat 5 for a cat 5e cable, reinstalled 3 different versions of the audio interface driver, reconfigured audio/midi devices, played with different configs of the aggregate device clock settings & sample rates, reinstalled Jamkazam, reconfigured the audio profiles, adjusted Audio Booster frame rates & packet rates, etc. etc. etc. My system is tuned to the best of my ability with 2ms latency & reasonably low input/output jitter.

I was able to get on sessions today with no problems. Had up to 7 or 8 players from all over the world join and I didn't blow anyone up - that I'm aware of.

In the end it is still worth the effort!

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Every time a user who i don't know joins a session username "KennyO" JamKazam freezes and crashes. They keep joining lots of sessions and leaving. Hopefully, this is just a bug and coincidence and not that someone is being malicious by purpose?

Can you block a user from connecting to you if you are not the host of a room?

It was not malicious. I do not know why that was happening today. Everything worked perfectly in a private session. I always test in a private session to make sure I am connected ok before joining open sessions. 

I was connected in sessions with other musicians earlier in the day. I have connected in sessions for months and everything worked fine.

I noticed this afternoon that when I joined open sessions that some (not all) other participants  showed 100% packet loss and looked like their sessions hung. I dropped out immediately. I tried coming back in a few times. I tried a few other sessions.

I have no explanation why that happened. But it was definitely not malicious.

I have had this same thing happen to me on a few occasions. Yesterday I was in a session with about 4 people that was going smoothly, then others started joining/leaving, and my client crashed.

I don't see how it would be possible for a user to cause this to happen; I think it's a software issue that remains to be solved.

In the future, I'll use RSVP sessions to limit the number of participants (unless I want to roll the dice with an open session).

I believe it can happen because Jamkazam uses a peer-to-peer network model. You connect to the Jamkazam server to find other member and to set up the sessions. Once you establish a session, each user connects directly to everybody else's computers. If you have 4 users in the session - you are transmitting and receiving data directly from all three of the other users. So if a remote user had a bad h/w or s/w configuration or network link, (or maybe attitude  ) they can make a mess of things.

The more people you connect to at the same time, and the more channels each one has, the more bandwidth everyone needs. 

If you are in a solo room, you hear yourself looped back from your own client - your audio is not going out on the internet. It's good for testing the connection to the Jamkazam server, setting up your local gear, getting all your intrument/mic/plug-ins and interface gain setting correct, and making sure you have the tone you want. It doesn't provide any assurance about connections over the internet. Like you said - just roll the dice.

To me it's worth the gamble and the effort. I've met some very interesting and nice people from all over the world. And occasionaly been able to play music with them. There's no going back.