Most playout issues fall into one of three categories: the VM itself, the playout software, or the network connection out of the VM. This article walks through the basic checks for each before you need to contact us.
The VM seems frozen or unresponsive
- First, check whether it's really frozen or just a slow RDP connection — try clicking the taskbar clock or moving a window. A genuinely frozen VM won't respond to any input at all.
- Disconnect (don't sign out) and reconnect — a fresh RDP session sometimes clears a stuck display even when the machine underneath is fine.
- Check whether it's specifically your playout software that's stopped responding while the rest of Windows is fine (e.g. you can still open other apps) — if so, this is a playout software issue, not a VM issue; see the relevant vendor article.
- If the whole VM is genuinely unresponsive, contact us and we'll perform a host-level restart. This is the one thing you can't do yourself from inside a frozen session.
No audio reaching listeners
- Check the playout software's own output/sound device setting first — this is by far the most common cause, especially after a Windows Update (see our Windows Quirks article)
- Confirm the playout software shows itself as "connected" or "on air" to your streaming/encoder destination, not just playing locally on the VM
- If you use a virtual audio cable or loopback device to route playout audio into a separate encoder, confirm both ends (playout output and encoder input) are set to the same device
- Restart just the playout application before restarting the whole VM — it's faster and fixes the majority of audio-routing glitches
Network or streaming connection issues
- Open a browser on the VM and confirm general internet access is working
- Check your playout software's connection/streaming status panel for an error message — most report a specific reason (authentication, timeout, mount point already in use)
- If you're connecting out to your Mediasite streaming service, confirm the server/port/password on the playout side match what's shown under "How to Connect" in your client area — these change if AutoDJ state changes, see our streaming connection article
- A VM-level network blip is rare but possible — if the browser test above also fails, contact us rather than continuing to troubleshoot the playout software itself
If none of the above resolves it, contact us with what you've already tried and roughly when the issue started — it saves a lot of back-and-forth.
