Troubleshooting Myriad Anywhere performance issues or Tunnel Service dropping & reconnecting

Introduction

Important: If you are looking for how to restart the tunnel service, please see here.

The Myriad Anywhere Tunnel Service forms the link between the Remote Edit Server application (running at your station) and the Myriad Anywhere Cloud servers. If the Anywhere Tunnel Service is not able to establish a stable connection or if the connection is unexpectedly severed (through a loss of internet at the station) then this could result in unstable performance on Myriad Anywhere.

If your station is experiencing this then there are a couple of things you can check before you get in touch with the Broadcast Radio Support team.

Potential Issue 1 - Unstable performance at the station end

The most common cause of stability issues is poor or intermittent internet access at the station. Obviously if your web connection at the station is unstable then this will also affect Myriad Anywhere performance as even although Myriad Anywhere is Cloud hosted (assuming you are not self hosting), it will still require a stable, real-time connection to your Myriad system via Remote Edit Server. If you are experiencing connection or stability issues, this is the first thing you should check.

Common issues include:

• WiFi -The PC running Remote Edit Server must not be connected to the internet via Wifi. You must connect the PC running Remote Edit Server directly to your network switch or router using a physical cable.
• Bandwidth Restrictions - Myriad Anywhere will download preview audio to clients as well as upload Voice Tracks (in high quality) back to the station. It can also do this for multiple clients simultaneously! You need to ensure that you have adequate bandwidth (in both directions) to accommodate the Myriad Anywhere traffic. We would recommend a minimum of 2mbits in each direction if you only have a small amount of simultaneous connections, more if you anticipate heavy usage. Also remember that the upload speed is often much lower than the download speed provided by most ISP's so check your connection speed in both directions.
• 4G Connections - Whilst 4g or mobile services are generally fairly stable now, we would not recommend using RES with a 4G connection at the station unless you have no alternative. 4G connections at the client site are less of an issue as there is will not be multiple connections. As 5G become more common, it is likely this will be less of an issue.
• Stable IP Addresses - If your connection is unstable, check that your router is not regularly changing the IP address of the PC running RES.

If you see a message similar to "There is a problem with this Service, please try restarting the Myriad Anywhere Tunnel Service", this is highly indicative of a connection issue. Although Myriad Anywhere Cloud automatically reconnects, in some unusual network conditions, a manual restart of the Anywhere Tunnel Service can flush this error message.

Restarting the Myriad Anywhere Tunnel Service

Myriad v6

Firstly, you should attempt a remote restart of the Myriad Anywhere Tunnel connection which can be done from any web browser.

To do this, login to the Broadcast.Radio portal via https://my.broadcast.radio/station/x/options/anywhere and click on Manage Anywhere Tunnel Connection, then click "Restart Station Tunnel" and say YES to restart.

If this hasn't worked, the second step is to connect to the computer running your Remote Edit Server ("RES") and in the RES software, click on the Anywhere Cloud menu, then expand the Restart the Anywhere Tunnel Service menu, and choose "Restart the Anywhere Tunnel Service" (highlit in green below.

If that has still not resolved the issue, then go back to that same menu and this time choose the "Force the Anywhere Tunnel Service to be restarted (hard restart)" option (highlit in red below). This will require a Windows Administrator username and password.

If you don't have Administrator access, but you have access to the PC running RES then open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost:6016 - then click the "Save" button.

If you are still not able to connect to Myriad Anywhere, then as a final try, you can try restarting the computer that RES is running on, however you should make sure that no other users are using the computer, including any local users if it is the computer that is storing the Myriad files or databases.

Myriad v5

To restart the Myriad Anywhere Tunnel Service, open Remote Edit Server. Under the Anywhere Cloud menu, click Restart. This will prompt you for an administrator password.

If you don't have Administrator access, but you have access to the PC running RES then open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost:6016 - then click the "Save" button.

Potential Issue 2 - Unstable performance at the client end

If you are confident that your station end is working well but you have some clients that continue to experience connection issues with Myriad Anywhere, check the list below for some common issues that could be the cause:

• Browser & Version - The first thing to check is that they are running one of the supported browsers (Google Chrome, Firefox or the latest Edge). Also check they are on the latest version of the browser. Myriad Anywhere uses many browser features that were not supported in earlier browsers.
• Local WiFi - Check to see whether they can connect their PC or laptop directly to their network router to eliminate the potential for poor wifi performance to be causing issues. If they cannot do that, ask them to move to as close to the wifi router as possible to see if it helps.
• Sound Device Issues - Check they have the sound device is configured correctly and that Myriad Anywhere is set to use the correct device.
• Reduce Animations - The client PC is slow or does not have a great deal of RAM then you can try the Reduce Animations option in Anywhere which optimises the software for slower PC's
  
  
  
  
• Close Some Tabs - Browsers (particularly Chrome) eat up a lot of system resources as as you open more tabs. When using Myriad Anywhere, try to avoid having many other tabs open as system resources are reduced by each additional tab.

Potential Issue 3 - Out of date software

You should always ensure your are on the latest full release of Remote Edit Server. This is especially important if you update your Myriad Playout software as sometimes, new features are introduced in Myriad Playout that need a corresponding update to RES. 

Some earlier versions of RES took some time to reconnect if the Tunnel Service pipe collapsed which meant that Anywhere users could not connect. This has been changed in more recent releases so it is worth checking you are up to date.

If you are using Myriad Anywhere Cloud then there is no need to update the client side as you will always be on the latest release but if you are self-hosting then it is equally important to update the Myriad Anywhere web services (and associated package files) alongside your RES updates.

Potential Issue 4 - Multiple RES trying to connect using the same API key

Remote Edit Server (RES) connects to Myriad Anywhere Cloud using a unique API key that is generated for your station. The problem is that if you have more than one Remote Edit Server attempt to connect to Myriad Anywhere Cloud using the same API key, the system will constantly switch the connections between them as each one attempts to connect (disconnecting the other).

If you need to move RES from one PC to another, or if you have RES installed on more than one PC it is important that you fully disable one instance before connecting the second.

To do this:

• Manually stop the Broadcast Radio Tunnel Service in Services, or use the Anywhere Cloud menu option in Remote Edit Server to "Uninstall the Anywhere Tunnel Service"
• Use Task Manager to find and close any "Anywhere-Service.exe" and "Anywhere-tunnel-win.." applications.

Of course there are legitimate reasons why you might have RES installed on more than one PC but you either need to ensure only one of them has the Tunnel Service running, or configure them to 'connect' to different Myriad Anywhere Cloud instances via unique API keys.

None of the above helps?

If none of the above helps you to track down stability or performance issues with RES and Myriad Anywhere Cloud, you should raise a support ticket with the Broadcast Radio Support team via support@broadcastradio.com