VOIP inaudible to some players but able to be succesfully heard by others

[Aarnoman]

Build: DCS Open Beta 2.9.2.49940

Description of bug:

1. We had 3 users on private server to test voice chat. All have VOIP correctly set up with TURN servers enabled. The hosting machine has had correct port forwarding setup. All users had VOIP chat volume at 100% using radio mode.

2. Initially, everyone was able to successfully transmit/receive on common frequency.

3. Following some period of flying and reslotting due to deaths of a few client aircraft, we noted the following issue:

- Player 1 could successfully transmit to player 2 on common frequency, however player 3 was unable to received voice transmission. Player 3 still received the static clicks of PTT being keyed on/off by player 1 but did not received any voice traffic.

- Player 2 could successfully transmit/receive voice traffic to all other players.

- Player 3 could successfully transmit voice traffic to all other players, but would only receive voice traffic from player 2.

4. Attempts with switching to a different frequency, all users reslotting aircraft, or being in immediate vicinity on tarmac did not resolve this issue. LOS blocking did not appear to be a factor as all aircraft were within visual line of sight.

 

This issue with VOIP transmission inconsistently not being heard by some players has been reported for a long time and remains one of the issues that limit its wider adoption. My friend group has elected to return to SRS for the time being, as it operates reliably, which is unfortunate as native VOIP is now at a high level of quality.

Unfortunately as the track file is very large (220mb) I am unable to upload it here and given inconsistencies with track replay it likely of limited use. I have included it as a google drive link in case however: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10C4j6CPe2hVTo5W2P7SAaJ2K8cpveabp/view?usp=drive_link

Edited January 19, 2024 by Aarnoman

[Flappie]

Do any of you use the Sonar software? If so, have it configured this way:

 

[Aarnoman]

1 hour ago, Flappie said:

Do any of you use the Sonar software? If so, have it configured this way:

 

No, none of us use sonar. For player 1 a audiotechnica MH50x-sts was used which does not utilise any third party software for functioning/eq etc. Likewise no applications modifying audio output like voicemeter or others are installed.

[Flappie]

It's a good thing that Sonar is out of the equation.

I drew the situation that happened.

There's an internal report about VC being disconnected after DCS has a temporary freeze, even when the player is not switching to another aircraft. Has player 1 or 3 experienced any freeze?

Edited January 20, 2024 by Flappie

[Aarnoman]

7 minutes ago, Flappie said:

It's a good thing that Sonar is out of the equation.

I drew the situation that happened.

There's an internal report about VC being disconnected after DCS has a temporary freeze, even when the player is not switching to another aircraft. Has player 1 or 3 experienced any freeze?

 

Yes, the graphic is correct. And yes, I believe there was a short freeze/desync during mission.

[Flappie]

I'll see if I can reproduce the issue. Do you know a good way to make DCS freeze in MP? A script, maybe?

[Vakarian]

One way that worked for us is when you set a lot of units late activation and invisible (50+ units) and then activate them via trigger at once. That introduced freezes in missions in my group quite consistently so we imposed a ban on doing such stuff

[Tarres]

Same here, but only if more than 5/6 users. Next week we’ll make another test.

[Tarres]

Last test last night. 11 users, no problem at all. Radio and ADF work as intended.

Thanks!

Edited January 23, 2024 by Tarres

[BIGNEWY]

good to hear 

thanks

[Aarnoman]

On 1/23/2024 at 8:27 PM, Tarres said:

Last test last night. 11 users, no problem at all. Radio and ADF work as intended.

Thanks!

 

Thanks for the info. As DCS has not been updated, unlikely that the underlying issue has been fixed (unless ED has changed something significantly with their TURN server backend perhaps). Will require ongoing investigation to confirm it is not an ongoing issue.

[MIghtymoo]

For two weeks now, the two of us have had issues with DCS VOIP when co-op flying on his server. Worked fine earlier.

1. We can talk fine with each other in the common room

2. Only hearing "transmission click" and no voice when in the jets. Green and Red lights shows we are transmitting. 

Restarted server and tried with turn server both checked/unchecked with no luck.

Considering going back to SRS due to all the issues. Any active investigation to the stability of the VOIP?

 

[Flappie]

Are you both using Sonar by any chance? If so, try this:

 

[Aarnoman]

On 2/14/2024 at 2:08 AM, Flappie said:

Are you both using Sonar by any chance? If so, try this:

 

Negative regarding sonar. I personally have not had a recurrence of this issue in the past two weeks, and am unsure if the latest DCS update (common) or turn server backend things have resolved it or whether this remains an ongoing bug at this time. I will report in this thread if we have any further instances of this VOIP issue in our group.

[DualPilot]

Hello, this weekend I experienced exactly this. On a server with 8 players I could hear two of them and they could hear me just fine both in common room and in radio. But couldn't hear or be heard by the rest. It's been working fine till this weekend. I haven't changed anything on my end. Is there anything to do to solve it? Any help will be appreciated.

[BIGNEWY]

thank you for the feedback, if possible please attach your dcs log from a session where you have seen issues. 

[chase]

I have found that the best odds on making voip work the best is to first wait till each and everyone is first loaded and waiting in the spectator lobby before entering a plane and hitting fly. You need to wait first till all are fully loaded in and in lobby first, then all at the same time enter your aircrafts then all works. But if a few enter their ac while others are still loading into the briefing screen those guys won't be able to communicate with you.

Dave.

[DualPilot]

22 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

thank you for the feedback, if possible please attach your dcs log from a session where you have seen issues. 

I will next time. Thanks.

21 hours ago, chase said:

I have found that the best odds on making voip work the best is to first wait till each and everyone is first loaded and waiting in the spectator lobby before entering a plane and hitting fly. You need to wait first till all are fully loaded in and in lobby first, then all at the same time enter your aircrafts then all works. But if a few enter their ac while others are still loading into the briefing screen those guys won't be able to communicate with you.

Dave.

Thanks for the info will try next time. 

[Aarnoman]

Related thread - linking for consistency.

 

[zephi]

Since my squad is having the same issue, we did a few test with two other pilots (Smowing and Hunter)

in this scenario
I (Zephi) was able to hear Smowing and Hunter at the beginning after some minutes testing i wasn't able to hear Hunter anymore so:

Zephi transmits and receives with Smowing
Hunter transmits and receives with Smowing
Hunter can hear Zephi
Zephi can't hear Hunter

Here i share our three DCS.log file,

Thanks Aarnoman who also shared my thread

dcs(smowing).log dcs(hunter).log dcs(zephi).log

[[DTOX] Lima]

We regularly experience this issue. It seems to be irrespective of module, but in some way shape or form there’s always a few combinations of players that can hear some but not others.

It makes the inbuilt VOIP fairly unusable.