Isolation Mode

Isolation Mode in PlayoutONE Pro essentially takes away all the stresses and strains of restarting your Automation Server, allowing you to remain on the air whilst the restart happens.

When the time comes to restart the main server, the On-Air Studio can be put into Isolation Mode by following the instructions below.

This effectively tells the On-Air Machine to run from its own local SQL Server and use twelve hours of cached audio from its own local AudioStore.

Whilst in Isolation Mode, you’ll see a yellow triangle on the On-Air Machine, this acts as a confirmation and warning you that you are now in Isolation Mode. On all other client machines, you will see a red triangle, indicating that the On-Air Machine is in Isolation Mode.

This is important as once Isolation Mode is enabled, no audio or log changes can be made to the main database. This is because the On-Air Machine is now in charge and is constantly syncing back to the On-Air database to ensure no changes or data is lost.

Isolation mode is only designed for short periods of time and takes away the need for having an alternative audio source whilst you perform maintenance.

Once the server has restarted, the On-Air machine can be taken out of Isolation Mode once all changes have been synced back to the main database.

Prerequisites

Before you can run in Isolation mode make sure you have the considered the following:

Isolation mode only works when the On-Air Machine(s) is separate from the Server.
On the On-Air Machine(s) make sure you have installed a copy of SQL Server Express
Make sure the C:\PlayoutONE or D:\PlayoutONE folder is shared with everyone on your network and permissions have been set appropriately so the server can read and write to this share. Once shared make sure the following folders exist in the share:

\\MACHINE\PlayoutONE\Data
\\MACHINE\PlayoutONE\Data\Audio

Make sure you have Audio Engine or Monitor installed and configured as below

Enabling/disabling Isolation Mode in Audio Engine

Open Audio Engine on your server (it should be minimised to the system tray).
Open the Settings window by pressing the cog button in the bottom right corner.
Go to the 'Other' tab then 'Isolation & Plugins'.
Enable or disable Isolation Mode, and decide whether it should kick in automatically if needed (we recommend both these toggles are enabled).
If your station is in Isolation Mode, you will see a button to 'Leave Isolation Mode' and return to normal operation.

Enabling/disabling Isolation Mode in Monitor

Ensure Monitor is running on your server.
If you are using Monitor, ensure settings for 'Replicate Audio & Database' are checked in Station Settings under Options tab, then click Save.
You can now view the status of the replication by right-clicking on the station in the grid on the front screen of Monitor.

Enabling/disabling Isolation Mode in PlayoutONE

Check with Monitor that replication is running ok. Do this by following the steps above
Go into the PlayoutONE Settings and click the SQL tab
If Isolation Mode is available to you then you'll see the checkbox to enable it and also a button to enter Isolation Mode.

Once you enter Isolation Mode, you will see a yellow triangle on the On-Air Machine and a red triangle on any other connected machines to the main database.
If you are going into Isolation Mode to take your main server offline, please ensure that the current playing item is playing from the local cache before taking the server down. If it is, a hard disk icon as shown in the screenshot below will be displayed on the On-Air Dashboard
To leave Isolation Mode, PlayoutONE Monitor Must be running. This ensures all changes are synced.
Go Into PlayoutONE Settings and click the Leave Isolation Mode Button
You can also tick the Automatically Activate Isolation Mode setting so that in the event of a connectivity issue between the server and on-air machine, PlayoutONE can automatically fail over to Isolation Mode. When Isolation Mode is activated automatically you will need to manually disable it.