JK is getting worse and worse since upgrade plan

[Heathcliff_wh]

Hello everybody,
we made the mistake to subscribe an update plan to silver and since then the quality of the connection is worse than ever.

The latency increased, the network jitter increased, there are lots of packet losses. Reasonable rehearsing is no longer possible.

Does anybody experience the same issues?

Next week we will give the whole thing a last chance.

Best regards

[lconway]

Yes, there has been a pronounced decline in quality, increased disconnects, and latency/jitter problems in the last month or so, to a level we have not seen even from the beginning. They replied quickly, but the "fix"promoted was an improved video "soon." The sell is that the video has been the overloading factor. I hope that's true but I am doubtful. It appears there is no error logging in the system, meaning WE have to try to track down the evidence of what was going on. Not a good option since we are immediately frozen or disconnected. With the rapidly approaching opening of in-person practice and shows, if JK can't fix this and quick, they are going to lose their users. All members of both of my groups are discussing breaking from JK if there is not rapid improvement. Sad to see.

[Heathcliff_wh]

So I'm obviously not alone with these problems

[schabeth]

Our five-man-band's experiences over the past few weeks have been the same. Almost like a steady regression? Last week, with four only present, one member could hear the other three, but all he heard was distortion. Various attempts to leave the session, and come back, by all of us, did not change anything. Yes, strangely enough, the jitter readings were substantially higher than before as well.
We're going to attempt a session tonight with three only, to see if the individual has continuing or specific issues, and to try and fiddle with some settings on a trial-and-error basis. Likely play a JamTrack too, because previously one person only got garbage to listen to, whereas the others had it loud-and-clear.

[Dimitri Muskens]

Our five-man-band's experiences over the past few weeks have been the same. Almost like a steady regression? Last week, with four only present, one member could hear the other three, but all he heard was distortion. Various attempts to leave the session, and come back, by all of us, did not change anything. Yes, strangely enough, the jitter readings were substantially higher than before as well.
We're going to attempt a session tonight with three only, to see if the individual has continuing or specific issues, and to try and fiddle with some settings on a trial-and-error basis. Likely play a JamTrack too, because previously one person only got garbage to listen to, whereas the others had it loud-and-clear.

>>>
Hi, in which part of the equation were your "jitter readings substantially higher"? On your Audio Interface or on your Internet Connection? Was this the case for all session peers? Are all session peers using the same Network Route settings? (p2p or ARS)
For the member that heard only "distortion", would that also be the case in a 'quick start private session'?. Did you all try to connect with that member separately to eliminate any possible issue between specific peers?

Then there are all sorts of other variables to take into consideration. Even accidental change of a setting (a box is easily ticked when using a glide-/track-pad, etc.) Also when using other audio processing software, like e.g. a DAW, on the same machine, the settings of an Audio Interface can be changed/set/reset without it being obvious.

[schabeth]

Put things in perspective: for us, comprehending the jargon alone is a challenge, nevermind trying to get to the bottom of all the technical issues. It would be fair to say that all of us naively expected a plug-and-play solution? All credit to the developers of JK so far. (But, it is not foolproof yet, because fools are ingenious?)

During our trial run last night with three participants, some even had to be directed to the "Manage" drop-down menu (didn't know of its existence or functionality). So we did take a quick peek at the "Network + Route" settings, and much to our intrigue saw that we had different ARS locations -- one in Seattle, the other in Tacoma.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Once we got JK working reasonably a few weeks ago, we did not attempt to delve deeper into any of the settings. In answer to your questions: mostly we don't know. I think it was the internet/session jitter? Will take note during our full session tonight. We are primarily trying to play music, not debug software.

Because we had trouble with JamTracks before, we tested that too. Initially, couldn't get it to work. Various successive attempts to open a specific Jamtrack: one member heard nothing; same member had total distortion; other member had total distortion. Then, miraculously it worked for all three (although it was overwhelmingly loud for one).

[ARMCL]

I also have had issues with distortion since upgrading to the Silver plan, which was the only thing that I consciously changed since I didn't even know about framesize etc before I had the distortion issue.

I hear the distortion in my earphones but my jam partner has no issues. I found that setting the audio profile so that I could plug my earphones directly into the laptop reduced the distortion but did not eliminate it. I have since been advised that the earphones should ideally be plugged into the audio interface.

If I set Framesize to 5ms it reduces the distortion but does not eliminate it. However the latency increases from 11.3ms to 19ms and I get a red button for framesize on my stats.

[lconway]

I also have had issues with distortion since upgrading to the Silver plan, which was the only thing that I consciously changed since I didn't even know about framesize etc before I had the distortion issue.

I hear the distortion in my earphones but my jam partner has no issues.  I found that setting the audio profile so that I could plug my earphones directly into the laptop reduced the distortion but did not eliminate it.  I have since been advised that the earphones should ideally be plugged into the audio interface.

If I set Framesize to 5ms it reduces the distortion but does not eliminate it. However the latency increases from 11.3ms to 19ms and I get a red button for framesize on my stats.

I had problems with distortion early on, but it pretty well resolved. My experience with distortion came down to two factors: 1) Originating performers running their source sound too hot instead using Audio Inputs in JamKazam, and letting others use the individual mix to control balance. 2) Earphones. I was using a moderately priced Shure set initially and had lots more problems than when I switched to a lower priced but clearly superior set.

Like others have described in this and other threads, we have had lots of problems recently with high latency and disconnects. We MAY have struck upon a solution and if this was known all along, I regret sharing old information. Our primary problem with latency has tended to be with one particular member. We have tried about everything we could think of (and some we didn't) including ARS. Our last session began as badly as before. We explored for 45 minutes. ARS did nothing to help. We finally realized that this member was the only member who never hosted a session. We disconnected, all selected ARS and under Connections chose Session Host, had HIM start the session, joined in and had no similar trouble for the rest of our night. Might be the answer, might be a fluke. Perhaps having your weakest connection start the session will help. I throw it out for consideration. We will try it again next session.

[StuartR]

Hello everybody,
we made the mistake to subscribe an update plan to silver and since then the quality of the connection is worse than ever.

The latency increased, the network jitter increased, there are lots of packet losses. Reasonable rehearsing is no longer possible.

Does anybody experience the same issues?

Next week we will give the whole thing a last chance.

Best regards

You're not alone. After trying everything we could, our band finally came to the realization that this whole idea was never going to work for us. We're all physically close but using different ISPs and that's a deal breaker for sure. Their promised audio relay service didn't do a thing to help, as it can't magically improved latency and they don't have enough globally placed servers to make a difference for most users. In retrospect, I'm sorry I devoted so much time and effort into JK but desperate times called for desperate measures.

What DID work for us was a true miracle called the MRNA vaccine. After we all got vaccinated, we all began practicing again in person. Hallelujah!

[UPC04539]

As far as distortion goes, I have been playing with the Audio mixer and figured a few things out there.  If everybody puts out a clean signal on their end and make sure they are not clipping, it's a start.
Then there is compression/make-up gain to play with on each track but also on the master track (setting the master track right is important too. I had all nice signals on individual tracks but the master was clipping with the addition of everybody).
I personally send the master mix in Reaper where I add compression and reverb for my taste.  I experimented with plugins in Jamkazam but it is not very user friendly at the moment.

As far as latency goes, there as so many factors that comes into play.  But I can say that I have been playing with my band (5 members) and it went all smoothly.  Sometimes during a practice we may have to "resync" but overall it was pretty good.  I have also been playing with people in USA/Costa Rica and went pretty well (I am from Canada).  We were all on an internet speed between 100 and 400mb/s.

The latest update may show promise in improving things too with a fresh install.