HEADS UP: Server.downloadFile() issue on macOS Sequoia - and a solution

[aaronventure]

@d-healey said in HEADS UP: Server.downloadFile() issue on macOS Sequoia - and a solution:

I made a feature request back in January to add proper network detection in HISE by getting the status from the operating system. Someone else has already done the work to implement it as a JUCE module, it just needs integrating into HISE.

Background Task

ping -c 1 1.1.1.1 >/dev/null
echo $?

If it returns 0, you're online.

[d.healey]

@aaronventure How is that different from HISE pinging google's server?

[aaronventure]

@d-healey It's not really, but how would you check if you're online if not by connecting to another server? 1.1.1.1 is a CloudFlare IP which uses AnyCast, so it automatically connects to the nearest operational server, vastly reducing a chance that you're making a call when the server appears to be down.

I Imagine that's why Google was picked: the chance of downtime being so rare.

This is supposed to be even more robust, with the benefit of the latency being almost non-existent in most countries where people buy audio plugins.

[d.healey]

@aaronventure said in HEADS UP: Server.downloadFile() issue on macOS Sequoia - and a solution:

but how would you check if you're online if not by connecting to another server

Ask the OS if the system is currently connected to a network.

[aaronventure]

@d-healey that's true, but how do you think the OS does the check? I would bet it's something like this. Maybe macOS is calling www.apple.com and Windows is calling microsoft.com, as that also confirms DNS resolution and HTTPS working.

[d.healey]

@aaronventure How it does it doesn't matter, the problem is that every time you ping from in HISE and you don't reach the server you have to wait for the timeout time. I had a user in China who kept getting hit by 20 second delays every time I was calling Server.isOnline() - which I was doing in a few places in my login/download chain.

If I could just ask the OS are you online, I get an instant yes/no. The checking, however it happens has already been done - it's probably reported by the router or access point but I'm not sure.

My solution at the moment is I call Server.isOnline() once when the plugin loads and store the result. However if the user goes offline during the session then this will no longer be true, but I can handle that more easily than the 20 second delay.

It's also possible to reduce the server timeout time, but you can only take it so low before you start giving users on slow connections the wrong result.

This method would also allow for a broadcaster that reports when the system goes online/offline - I think I said this in my feature request post too.

[aaronventure]

@d-healey Ah I see your point. Also I figured if you're making a channel strip plugin or something and a user just happens to have 100 instances in a project, it could get interesting on load.

I did some more digging. On macOS, it appears that

/usr/sbin/scutil -r $? 

will check your internet connection without sending any packets. It returns "Reachable" or "Not Reachable".

If you call

/usr/sbin/scutil -r -W $? 

the task will run until terminated and will respond with Reachable or Not Reachable whenever the network status changes (I just tested it), which is pretty much like a broadcaster.

@Christoph-Hart you can implement this instead of having to clean room that module. I'm sure Windows has a similar mechanism.

[d.healey]

@aaronventure said in HEADS UP: Server.downloadFile() issue on macOS Sequoia - and a solution:

I did some more digging. On macOS, it appears that

Oh that's nice and simple.

I bet ChatGPT knows the magic spell for Windows too, I'll ask it tomorrow if you don't get there first :)

[aaronventure]

@d-healey said in HEADS UP: Server.downloadFile() issue on macOS Sequoia - and a solution:

I bet ChatGPT knows the magic spell for Windows too, I'll ask it tomorrow if you don't get there first :)

Hah, sure, but I'm too lazy to go test it right now.

So here's the reply :

One-shot check (returns Boolean, no packets sent)

$nlm = [Activator]::CreateInstance([type]'Microsoft.Windows.NetworkList.NetworkListManager')
$nlm.IsConnectedToInternet   # $true = online, $false = offline

Continuous monitoring (no polling)

$nlm  = [Activator]::CreateInstance([type]'Microsoft.Windows.NetworkList.NetworkListManager')

Register-ObjectEvent -InputObject $nlm `
                     -EventName   'ConnectivityChanged' `
                     -SourceIdentifier NLM `
                     -Action { 
                         if ($Event.SourceEventArgs.IsConnectedToInternet) {
                             Write-Host 'online'
                         } else {
                             Write-Host 'offline'
                         }
                     }

# keep the session alive
while ($true) { Start-Sleep -Seconds 3600 }

HISE-native integration of this might be better than manually launching Background Task as then it can just start a process and every instance of the plugin can read from the process instead of having every plugin instance start its own monitoring process through BackgroundTask (as I don't think BackgroundTask can connect to an existing one?)

[tomekslesicki]

@Christoph-Hart is this a part of the latest develop branch commint?