u/TheDeadlyApp

Hey Friends,

I've released an update to the iOS version of The Deadly. There appears to have been some trouble with playback from one of The Internet Archives CDN servers located in Canada. This fix should correct this problem, but please provide feedback and bug reports if you see it continue.

If you're nerdy and you want to know more, then keep reading:

Bug Details and Fix:

When you load a show from a URL at The Internet Archive, each track is a forwarder to a CDN, a Content Delivery Network. That network is a series of servers spread throughout the world and designed to distribute load. This serves two purposes: 1) It prevents everybody from streaming from a single server and overloading it, and 2) it prevents you from trying to stream from a server that's far away from you, which could potentially cause network latency to produce buffering or slowdowns. CDNs are great! We love them.

When The Deadly loads a show on iOS, it populates all the tracks from the playlist on load. We do this to allow for gapless playback. iOS's media player is interesting as it's VERY bare bones, and you can build up any type of player you want, but it lacks streaming, gapless playback.

I found an open source implementation that does this, but it is unable to do gapless playback if it needs to resolve a different URL from the one that is loaded at the time its internal playlist is built. To address this problem, each track, when loaded into the player, is resolved to its CDN address and the playlist actually contains the CDN URL, not the original track URL.

Sometimes, this appears to cause a problem. In the gap in time between loading the CDN url and playing it, there are times when the CDN stops resolving or errors out. I'm not sure why, but this is a documented fact. I've seen it in the logs that you've all sent me. In addition, there are times that the resolved CDN immediately fails. Again, it happens.

The fix is pretty straightforward: If we load a CDN URL and it doesn't playback, we need to go back to the original URL and request a new resolution of the track, and any others that also point to that CDN. When we do that, we'll repopulate the tracklist and start playing again, ideally remembering both the track and position that you were at when it failed. If playback of the track continues to fail, the payload sent from archive contains a field with a VERY reliable address that is outside of the CDN network. We can play that if we have to.

A Note On Testing

I was able to test this by simulating network failures. In the Developer Settings I have a button which I can press that simulates the CDN failing, and then I can watch what happens with playback. But this is not real world. I wasn't able to recreate the issue in the real world, and I'm an Android user, so despite spending over 10 hours in the car yesterday, some of that playing The Deadly, I didn't have an opportunity to test this.

Please test the app by listening to it on iOS and please let me know if you continue to see issues. Please send bugfixes and DM me when you do so I can check them out.

I appreciate you guys. Thank you for using the app, and please tell your friends and loved ones about it.

On 8/8/95, I was 16 years old. My father met my brother and I at Central Park Summer Stage to see Weir/Wasserman and Rat Dog.

It was a great show. Fun to be there with my dad. We split off from him so he could bake and we could too. Then we grouped back up. We danced and sang, and enjoyed the cool summer evening.

After the show, Dad took us to a deli in NYC and we had sandwiches and drinks, then my brother and I got on a bus and headed back to NJ. I climbed into bed that night and, for the first time, thought of myself as a Deadhead.

When I woke up the next day, WNEW was playing the Dead. That seemed odd because that never happened. When the song ended the DJ came on with the bad news. Later, my dad would joke that the only way to get the dead on the radio was for Jerry to die.

That was 31 years ago. I saw the Dead 3 times, and Bobby and rat dog once. I've seen other incarnations since, and I've listened to more hours of the dead than any other band. I built The Deadly because I wanted to make that even easier.

That's my memory of that sad day. Thank you Jerry, for leaving a legacy that lives on all these decades later. More years have passed after your death than the band was together. That's trippy.

Much love

Happy birthday Jer.

Check out the Deadly's home for the 3 shows '73, '82, and '94

Web:

https://TheDeadly.app

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/thedeadly/id6753330346

Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grateful.deadly

Searched for a "Queen Jane" and found this show. Hornsby era. I'm really enjoying it. Jerry sounds great and the band does too.

Please see this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/thedeadlyapp/comments/1u9t8pk/connectremote_is_dead_long_live_connectremote/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

TLDR: Connect/Remote was causing skipping. I have disabled it for everybody which should clear things up. It will be back soon but will default to "off" to prevent issues until it is stable.

I've heard from some users that there are skipping issues during playback. If you are seeing these, you are not alone. These issues will be resolved by the time this post is visible.

The root cause is some uncertainty in the "Connect" protocol. This feature allows you to control sessions across devices when you are logged into the same account. For example, you can play on the web, control from your phone. It's a nice feature... when it works correctly.

Unfortunately, the protocol I designed has some holes as it's my first time putting a system like this together. The result is that the device that is playing will sometimes skip if it gets confused about the state of playing across the ecosystem.

Because this kind of playback issue is unacceptable, I'm shutting Connect down immediately.

Once the system stabilizes I will release a new version of the app which defaults to having Connect turned off. The server will allow any of those clients to try Connect by opting in if they choose, but earlier versions of the app will simply be disabled. This will allow the general population to have a clean experience, and users who choose Connect can help to test it out.

My apologies for the issues. I'm building and shipping a lot of features at a rapid pace. This one was below the standard of acceptability.

A note on bugs. I've added, to both iOS and Android, the ability to capture a bug report and send it to me. Please do. It's under Settings > Send Bug Report. It'll capture the last hour of logs, which you can save to a file or ship to me through Reddit's chat system. Log data is helpful to find a root cause.

Hey fellow travelers of the Golden Road,

Following on the recent post about what to build, I shipped a flurry of features that I had been working on. They are as follows:

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The new Web App at https://TheDeadly.app is getting a ton of traction and usage. In 3 days over 150 people have tried it out and I've gotten great feedback.

To support it, I've shipped a number of features for the mobile apps:

1. Syncing: if you log in on web/mobile or even on 2 mobile devices, and you sign into the same account, your favorites, recent listens, and reviews (did you know you can write your own reviews?) will sync between devices.

2. Remote Control: play on one device, control on another. This is really great if you want to play on, say your computer or TV which is hooked up to your stereo. But control what's playing on your phone. You'll be able to transfer/control play ack for any device signed in to the same account.

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In App Notifications

I wanted a way to send you notifications about updates and features and whatever. So I added an icon on the home screen where I can send you notifications in the app. These are not push notifications. They don't make noise or have an intrusive pop up.

It's a basic inbox where you can mark read and archive.

This all came because the incredibly generous and kind mods at r/gratefuldead finally told me I was posting too much. They asked me to keep it to one per month.

So my plan is to write a monthly summary and post it here and share it to the r/gratefuldead

I'll use the internal notifications to announce features and releases and keep you guys up to date. Maybe even engage on some polls and things for finding out what you'd like me to build.

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Faster Installs

I went to see String Cheese this past weekend in Flagstaff. Great show! While there I shared the app with a friend and saw how long it took to do the data load at the start. Yuck! Thank you all for your patience.

The app, in order to be highly performant and to avoid network traffic, downloads a 25mb file on startup which it uses to build a local database of all the shows and recordings. It takes a while for that to build... Minutes. It's a one time coat but it's slow.

So I fixed it. The new download is 3mb and it takes a second or two to get setup. No more waiting. This should be great when you share the app with friends who install for the first time.

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Database Updates

I've been trying to explore Bruce Hornsby's run with the Dead. I wasn't familiar with much from this era and it's been really great.

Unfortunately my DB just marked all shows during his tenure with the band as having him at them, even though he missed 20+ shows during the run.

I found this source: http://www.agitators.com/gd/bruce.html

And used it to update the DB. So along with the above feature where the DB ships faster, I've also shipped an update that fixes Bruce searches. You will now ONLY get shows Bruce played at (as an official member of the lineup) when you search. Yay!

Along with this, I shipped a bugfix to the DB update system which guarantees that your data will be safe on DB update. Your favorites and recent plays and the like should all be safe.

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I've brought David Dodd's Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics site back to life. You can find it here: https://annotated.thedeadly.app

I had to remove the lyrics because David didn't have the right to grant me the right to publish them. That's okay. The essays and annotations are all permitted and posted.

I also bought his book to support him and have the complete collection. Here's a non affiliate link to the book on Amazon. Pick it up, it's awesome: https://a.co/d/0erbEXiu

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It's been a pretty great week for adding features. There's more to come. Stay tuned for the approval from the app store. If you're lucky enough to have TestFlight access then you can grab the iOS latest now before app store approval.

And if you're in the Android Beta, same deal.

Much love guys. Tell your friends. Spread the word. And may the Music Never Stop!

Hey Travelers of the Golden Road! I'm curious what features you'd like to see next on The Deadly (https://thedeadly.app and the iOS and Android mobile apps as well).

I can't promise that I'll build them in the order you want, but I'm curious what the other users (besides me) would like to see.

Here are my current ideas:

1. A Queue of Shows: I frequently want to listen to another show but I'm in the middle of a different show. By the time the current show ends, I forgot what I wanted to listen to. You can use favorites to do this, but they don't clear automatically, and it kind of mucks up your favorites. Plus that impacts "Fan Favorites" in stats. So this would just be a place you can add shows which you want to listen to, and then you could change them in the queue. They would be removed from the queue once they play, and you'd be welcome to add to favorites or back to your queue.
2. Custom Collections: Kind of related to the above (and maybe even built on a similar function), the ability to build collections like the ones in the app already. This feature would absolutely be shareable. At first by link, but ultimately I'd love to let you "publish" them so that they're just in the system. This points towards some of the social functionality I wan to add.
3. Go To Next Show: Again, related to the above, but simpler. Just... play the next night when the show ends. If you're like me and you make it through whole shows it could be fun to "do a tour" by just... playing.
4. Social: Now that the web app is a bit more mature, and you've got a "Profile" once you're logged in, we can start making friends across the app. Once you have friends, maybe you can see what your friends Recent shows are, what they've written reviews for, and what they've Favorited, etc... Eventually, I'd like to build "Listening Parties" where one person gets to be DJ, and friends can "listen along."
5. Reviews published to the Archive: Right now, reviews are local to the app. But if you logged in to your Archive account, maybe we could post the review there for you?
6. Connect: A single player across all instances of the app. If you're logged in, you can control the player and where the audio is playing. This is a Spotify feature that I love and use regularly, and opens the door to things like an Alexa app that you can control from the phone. I've got a prototype but the edge cases are hard.
7. An in app feature request system: Instead of a post on Reddit, could we do this in the app?

Those are some ideas. I'd love your feedback. Please suggest other ideas if you have them. Maybe things you've seen in other apps you like and would like to see here. One point, I can't add additional bands/content/etc.... TheDeadly is based off what's in the Grateful Dead's Internet Archive and that's pretty much the limit.

I just released a major update to The Deadly's web application.

https://TheDeadly.app

The goal was to build a real music app on the web to go with the iOS and Android apps. It works on desktop and on mobile and is pretty good.

I'm also releasing updates to the iOS and Android apps which will sync your favorites, recent listens, and reviews to the web, and once there, they will show up in the web app. In fact, they'll sync across devices regardless of the app, so long as you're logged into the same account on those devices.

I've got some cool new features coming, but this is a great way to listen to the dead on your desktop or even on something like a TV.

I'm open to feedback. Let me know what you think!

Okay. Exciting stuff guys.

I just pushed out 2.30.0 on iOS and 2.29.0 on Android which includes "Trending Now"

This is currently only available to beta users. If you're on iOS that means TestFlight. On Android, you'll know if you're in the beta group.

On the home screen there is now a trending feature that will show you shows others are listening to.

Check it out and send me feedback.

I also added a bunch of settings to control how this displays. Play with them. You can put trending above or below today. You can change the sizes for trending and today and collections.

I'm curious what you think is the best layout. Is trending more important than today?

I'll submit this for review to Apple and Google so that we can get it rolled out to everybody ASAP.

I don't have a proper bug tracker. I'll get one together soon. In the meantime please post bug reports here and upvote if you see one you've experienced.

Also, please tell me if you're on iOS or Android

Hey All,

Great news! As of today, TheDeadly is in the iOS App Store! That means it's time to bring the beta to a close.

I'll be shutting the beta down in 1 week. Between now and then you'll need to backup your data, remove the app, then reinstall it from the app store.

You can find a guide where the beta signup used to be: https;//thedeadly.app/beta

TheDeadly is a cross platform, completely free, Grateful Dead listening app. It lets you listen to the Dead from Archive in a modern player with a host of features that you'll enjoy. It's biggest value proposition is that you look for shows and then it automatically selects the best recording, biasing towards Soundboards.

All shows stream from the Archive and are free and legal. And the app is free, and will never cost money.

Hundreds of deadheads have started using the app on Android and iOS, but up until now, the iOS beta had a bunch of hurdles to jump through. As of today, those hurdles are gone, and you can install the app from the app store!

Come and join us in r/thedeadlyapp where you can follow releases, features, and engage me, the sole developer of the app. You can also check out the web app here: https://thedeadly.app where you can find links to the Android app (in the play store) and the iOS app (in the App Store).

I need to give a special shoutout to u/JesseFieldFlow. I was blocked by Apple as they wanted proof that I was allowed to stream. u/JesseFieldFlow shared the proof he used for getting his app Scarlet > Fire approved in the app store. Without it, I would still have been blocked. Make sure you check out Scarlet > Fire as well. He's got some really cool community features for sharing and listening together. Stuff I'd love to get into TheDeadly in time.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grateful.deadly

iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/thedeadly/id6753330346

PS: If you're on the Beta, please read the instructions for migrating off: https://thedeadly.app/beta You can backup your data, remove the beta app, then install from the app store. I will be shutting down the beta in the next week. So if you don't want to lose your data, please follow the instructions there.

https://thedeadly.app/beta

Get it while you can. It might tell you that the first invite is expired, but that seems to be an error and it might continue anyway.

If you get in. Please post back here and let me know what you think!

Also, Android version is in the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grateful.deadly