Some suggestions for you to try..

We've been receiving a large amount of messages/calls from people over the last week who are experiencing issues with the Live Streaming.

This is taking up a lot of our time so I've tried to summarise some of the main ways you can try and eliminate a problem yourself if you are having one. We are not IT experts and cannot remedy all of the symptoms, but these may help you.

Live Streaming

Two days ago we asked the Friends of Dyfi Osprey Project Facebook page to run a poll for us. It asked people to explain some of the issues they were having. Based on this and other consultation, around 50% of people are experiencing no issues at all. This in itself is interesting as it means that the video and audio leaving us is fine.

So, why are folks still having problems?

First off, let's try and break down some of the issues and find some solutions:

1. Can't find camera

Go straight to the Live Streaming page. 

2. Numbers under the LS window

It's a clock showing local (British Summer Time - UTC +1hr) time. Over many hours with a slow connection it will 'slow' down - press refresh. We keep it as it's very useful for all our international followers to know what time it is locally.

3. I see a black screen

This is normal sometimes, the LS won't run continuously until September. Just refresh or go to another page and come back.

4. No sound

Try refreshing or leaving page then coming back in. Sometimes the audio simply drops out - as soon as we notice this we can fix it easily and quickly.

If you are using Safari on an iPad and think there is a problem with no sound: The default setting in the video player for sound is ”off”/muted. Turn it on.

5. Sound out of sync with pictures

Sometimes this happens and we refresh the system (so it will go off for a bit). It should not be more than a second out so this is normal. We do reboot the system at least once a day.

6. My Facebook doesn't work/You've broken my Facebook

No we haven't! 

7. Pictures freezing or 'circle of doom'

So, this is the most reported issue. Here are some things you can do to try and sort it:

Make sure your browser is the most current version

• Make sure your operating system (Windows/Android/OSX/iOS etc) is the most current one
• Refresh your page, preferably with a 'hard' refresh
• Enable Flash 
• Make sure your Flash Player is the most current version
• Try using a different browser - Chrome, Internet Explorer, Edge, Firefox, Safari etc. Some work better than others for some people
• Ask a techie/young person - we do all the time!
• Internet Speed: You need a stable connection of at least 1.5Mb/s to run the LS smoothly, more if you are doing other things on your computer at the same time

Here is a link to a Speed Test website. The number you're interested in is the first larger number - the Download speed.

Hopefully, the suggestions above will help most of you.

Live Chat

Ironically, many people sort out their LS issues by sharing experiences on the Chat. Unfortunately the Chat is broken at the moment.

The average speed in the UK is 30Mbit/s, so you need around 5% of this. We have decided not to stream at higher resolutions (currently 720p) or at 4K so that we don't isolate those who have low broadband speeds.

Without going into technical reasons, we have issues with the Chat every year. We built it over five years ago and it is completely bespoke to us and the website operating system. The problem with this is everything around it is talking a slightly different language from one week to the next as they are continually upgraded to newer firmwares and versions - this is beyond our control.

Imagine stepping back 1,000 years and talking English to your neighbour. You're both speaking English, but neither of you would have the first idea what the other one was saying. The same happens with computers/phones/tablets - the language changes continually over time.

This is where we are with the Chat. We've contracted the problem out to specialists who deal with these things but unfortunately they cannot give us a timeframe. We will get it working again, but don't know when at the moment. As soon as we do, we'll let you know, but please be patient, we're trying our best.

Meantime, the lovely Admin folks at the Friends of Dyfi Osprey Project FB page are setting up a new Chat post every day to replicate the Live Chat until we get it fixed. Thank you.

Good luck :-)