How to Keep Your Radio Stream Playing Reliably

Listeners leave when the music stops. StreamSera has several ways to keep your stream playing and to tell you when something is wrong.

Built in (free)#

• Automatic reconnect: when the connection drops, the player reconnects on its own, waiting a little longer between tries.
• Backup streams: add more stream addresses to a station. If the main one drops, players switch to the next. See How to Add Your Radio Station.
• Off-air fallback: in the player’s Station settings, choose what listeners get when no stream answers: a looping standby track or a message.
• Stream checks: the Check button on each stream, and the Needs attention filter on the dashboard and stations list.
• Notices: the bell in the StreamSera header warns you, for example, about a stream that won’t play on a secure site.

HTTPS streams and “mixed content”#

If your site uses https:// and your stream uses http://, browsers block the stream and the player shows Can’t play this stream. To fix it:

1. Ask your host for the HTTPS address of your stream (often port 443 or a /stream path on the same host) and use it instead.
2. Or, with Pro, turn on the mixed-content proxy (below).

Pro: mixed-content proxy#

Go to Settings → Streams & now playing → Mixed-content proxy and switch it on. StreamSera relays http:// streams through your server so they play on your https:// site. This uses your server’s bandwidth, so use it only when your host cannot give you an HTTPS stream.

Pro: stream health checks and email alerts#

• Check every: 1, 5 or 15 minutes, or 1 hour. Shorter intervals catch outages sooner but ask your stream server more often.
• Alert email: where alerts go (the site admin email if empty). Alerts are sent after two failed checks in a row, at most once an hour, and again when the stream is back.
• Click Send test to check that emails arrive.

See uptime, playback errors and recent outages under StreamSera → Analytics → Stream health.

Pro: audio tools#

In a player’s Behavior settings:

• Equalizer: six bands with presets.
• Loudness normalization: evens out quiet and loud passages.
• Crossfade: fade between stations when listeners switch.

Equalizer and loudness need a stream server that allows cross-origin audio (CORS). If it does not, these tools are hidden automatically.

Pro: real-time now playing#

Push changes to listeners (Settings → Streams & now playing) sends new song info to players the moment it changes, and falls back to normal updates automatically.