When RTCPeerConnection.onIcecandidate() event get invoked? - javascript

when sdp set to local?
when answer set to remoteDescription?
when any data or streams added to RTCPeerConnection?

They should start firing as soon as you've set a local description, whether it be an offer or an answer.
Think of it as an optimization: partial updates to the localDescription. If you wait a couple of seconds to inspect localDescription then the SDP will contain all ICE candidates already, and you won't need to listen to any events. It works to just send the SDP and ignore these events. But this is slow.
To speed up connection establishment, the initial localDescription provided is incomplete, missing ICE candidates, since they take time to generate. This lets you signal the SDP early — unblocking the other end — provided you promise to follow up and send the missing candidates as they are generated (which is when the event fires).

Yes, onicecandidate event fire as soon as we set offer or answer to localDescription but it will not fire the event till we wouldn't create the datachannel or any streaming channel first.

Related

What about to remove listener once we signal the ice candidate to other peer?

I found the following lines of statements (code) in Pro JavaScript Development while googlin.
// Google chrome often finds multiple candidates, so let's ensure we only
// ever get the first it supplies by removing the event handler once a
// candidate has been found
that.peerConnection.onicecandidate = null;
...
that.peerConnection.addIceCandidate(new IceCandidate(JSON.parse(candidate)))
Is it good practice to avoid icecandidate once we find the candidate?
Nope. Don't do that!
There are different types of ice candidates: host, srflx, prflx, relay.
So, it is not guaranteed that on first negotiation between peers they would be connected. They will try to connect with different routes(don't know exactly what I should say) STUN, TURN servers. With the first attempt of negotiation by using STUN server let's assume both peers are connected successfully. But what if they are not connected? They will try to connect with TURN server.
Thus, if we remove the onicecandidate listener by assigning it to null after we got the ice candidate, then we're not guaranteed to be connected between peers.

webRTC how to tell if there is audio

I am using WebRTC with Asterisk, and getting an error about 5% of the time where there is no audio due to an error with signaling. The simple fix is if there is no audio coming through, then stop the connection and try again. I know this is a bandaid while I fix the real issue. For now though, I will bandaid my code.
To get the audio I am doing the following:
var remoteStream = new MediaStream();
peerConnection.getReceivers().forEach((receiver) => {
remoteStream.addTrack(receiver.track);
});
callaudio.srcObject = remoteStream;
callaudio.play();
The problem here is that the remote stream always adds a track even when there is no audio coming out of the speakers.
If you inspect chrome://webrtc-internals you can see there is no audio being sent, but there is still a receiver. You can look at the media stream, and see there is indeed an audio track. There is everything supporting the fact that I should be hearing something, but I hear nothing 5% of the time.
My solution is to get the data from the receiver track and check if there is anything coming across there, but I have no Idea how to read that data. I have the web audio API working but it only works if there is some sound currently being played. Sometimes the person on the other end does not talk for 10 seconds. I need a way to read the raw data and see that something is going across that. I just want to know is there ANY data on a MediaStream!
If you do remoteStream.getAudioTracks() you get back an audio track because there is one, there is just no audio going across that track.
In the lastest API, receiver.track is present before a connection is made, even if it goes unused, so you shouldn't infer anything from its presence.
There are at least 5 ways to check when audio reception has been negotiated:
Retroactively: Check receiver.track.muted. Remote tracks are born muted, and receive an unmute event if/once data arrives:
audioReceiver.track.onunmute = () => console.log("Audio data arriving!");
Proactively: Use pc.ontrack. A track event is fired as a result of negotiation, but only for tracks that will receive data. An event for trackEvent.track.kind == "audio" means there will be audio.
Automatic: Use the remote stream provided in trackEvent.streams[0] instead of your own (assuming the other side added one in addTrack). RTCPeerConnection populates this one based on what's negotiated only (no audio track present unless audio is received).
Unified-plan: Check transceiver.direction: "sendrecv" or "recvonly" means you're receiving something; "sendonly" or "inactive" means you're not.
Beyond negotiation: Use getStats() to inspect .packetsReceived of the "inbound-rtp" stats for .kind == "audio" to see if packets are flowing.
The first four are deterministic checks of what's been negotiated. The fifth is only if everything else checks out, but you're still not receiving audio for some reason.
All these work regardless of whether the audio is silent or not, as you requested (your question is really is about what's been negotiated, not about what's audible).
For more on this, check out my blog with working examples in Chrome and Firefox.
Simple hack is:
On first second play back to server 1hz tone.
If server got it on first second, server play back 2hz, if no, play back 1hz.
If client not got 2hz back from server, it restart.
Please note, you should be muted while do that.

Can Socket.io emits arrive out of order? What if volatile?

I've been looking around for a definitive answer to this but I seem to keep finding contradictory answers (ex this and this).
Basically, if I
socket.emit('game_update', {n: 1});
from a node.js server and then, 20 ms later,
socket.emit('game_update', {n: 2});
from the same server, is there any way that the n:2 message arrives before the n:1 message? In other words, does the n:1 message "block" the receiving of the n:2 message if the n:1 message somehow got lost on the way?
What if they were volatile emits? My understanding is that the n:1 message wouldn't block the n:2 message -- if the n:1 message got dropped, the n:2 message would still be received whenever it arrived.
Background: I'm building a node.js game server and want to better understand how my game updates are traveling. I'm using volatile emit right now and I would like to increase the server's tick rate, but I want to make sure that independent game updates wouldn't block each other. I would rather the client receive an update every 30 ms with a few dropped updates scattered here and there than have the client receive an update, receive nothing for 200 ms, and then receive 6 more updates all at once.
Disclaimer: I'm not completely familiar with the internals of socket.io.
is there any way that the n:2 message arrives before the n:1 message?
It depends on the transport that you're using. For the polling transport, I think it's fair to say that it's perfectly possible for messages to arrive out-of-order, because each message can arrive over a different connection.
With the websocket transport, which maintains a persistent connection, the message order is reasonably guaranteed.
What if they were volatile emits?
With volatile emits, all bets are off, it's fire-and-forget. I think that in normal situations, the server will wait (and queue up messages) for a client to be ready to receive messages, unless those messages are volatile, in which case the server will just drop them.
From what you're saying, I think that volatile emits are what you want, although once a websocket connection has been established I don't think you'll see the described scenario ("receive an update, receive nothing for 200 ms, and then receive 6 more updates all at once") is likely to happen. Perhaps only when the connection gets lost and is re-established.
The answer is yes it can possibly arrive later, but it is highly unlikely given that sockets are by nature persistent connections and reliability of order is all but guaranteed.
According to the Socket.io documentation messages will be discarded in the case that the client is not connected. This doesn't necessarily fit with your use case, however within the documentation itself it describes Volatile events as an interesting example if you need to send the position of a character.
// server-side
io.on("connection", (socket) => {
console.log("connect");
socket.on("ping", (count) => {
console.log(count);
});
});
// client-side
let count = 0;
setInterval(() => {
socket.volatile.emit("ping", ++count);
}, 1000);
If you restart the server, you will see in the console:
connect
1
2
3
4
# the server is restarted, the client automatically reconnects
connect
9
10
11
Without the volatile flag, you would see:
connect
1
2
3
4
# the server is restarted, the client automatically reconnects and sends its
buffered events
connect
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Note: The documentation explicitly states that this will happen during a server restart, meaning that your connection to the client likely has to be lost in order for the volatile emits to be dropped.
I would say a good practice would be to write your emits as volatile just in case you do get a dropped client, however this will depend heavily on your game requirements.
As for the goal, I would recommend that you use client side prediction using some sort of dynamic time system or deltatime based on the client and server keeping a sync clock to help alleviate some of the problems you can incur. Here's an example of how you can do that, though I'm not a fan of the creators syntax, it can be easily adapted to your needs.
Hope this helps anyone who hits this topic.
Socket.io - Volatile events
Client Side Prediction

NodeJS stream with multiple 'data' event handler and race condition

I'd like to consume a NodeJS request stream multiple (two) times in two separated Koa middlewares, so I added listeners to its 'data' event. It works now, however I fear there is a race condition behind it, because- based on the documentation- after adding the first event handler the stream starts calling it as soon as there is any data available. Can it happen that the second event listener doesn't receive all of the chunks if there are other codes between the subscriptions? Or is it somehow avoided (how?)?
Thank you!
Node.js streams use EventEmitter to send events. Anyone listening on an event (it doesn't matter how many listeners there are) will receive the event. So each of your subscribers will get the data event.
The documentation is there to warn you that by listening to the 'data' event, it puts the stream into 'legacy' mode (or streams v1). It means that if for some reason, one of your subscribers misses a message, it's gone forever.
However, Node.js also supports stream piping. You can pipe one readable stream to multiple output streams, and the data will be sent to each of those readers (with a separate read buffer for each of them). At the same time, if the readable stream ends, it will end both of the writable streams. Each stream will have its own read buffer, meaning that they won't miss any messages if they stop listening to the stream temporarily (for some strange reason).
streamA.pipe(streamB)
streamA.pipe(streamC)

WebRTC: Unable to successfully complete signalling process using DataChannel

I've been having trouble establishing a WebRTC session and am trying to simplify the issue as much as possible. So I've written up a simple copy & paste example, where you just paste the offer/answer into webforms and click submit.
The HTML+JS, all in one file, can be found here: http://pastebin.com/Ktmb3mVf
I'm on a local network, and am therefore removing the ICE server initialisation process to make this example as bare-bones as possible.
Here are the steps I'm carrying out in the example:
Page 1
Page 1 (loads page), enters a channel name (e.g. test) and clicks create.
A new Host object is created, new PeerConnection() and createDataChannel are called.
createOffer is called, and the resulting offerSDP is pasted into the offer textarea.
Page 2
Copy offerSDP from Page 1 and paste into offer textarea on Page 2, click join.
New Guest object is created, PeerConnection and an ondatachannel handler is set.
setRemoteDescription is called for the Guest object, with the offerSDP data.
createAnswer is called and the result is pasted into the answer textarea box.
Page 1
The answerSDP is copied from Page 2 and pasted into the answer textarea of Page 1, submit answer is clicked.
Host.setRemoteDescription is called with the answerSDP data. This creates a SessionDescription, then peer.setRemoteDescription is called with the resulting data.
Those are the steps carried out in the example, but it seems I'm missing something critical. After the offerer's remoteDescription is set with the answerSDP, I try to send a test message on the dataChannel:
Chrome 40
"-- complete"
> host.dataChannel.send('hello world');
VM1387:2 Uncaught DOMException: Failed to execute 'send' on 'RTCDataChannel': RTCDataChannel.readyState is not 'open'
Firefox 35
"-- complete"
ICE failed, see about:webrtc for more details
> host.dataChannel.send('hello world');
InvalidStateError: An attempt was made to use an object that is not, or is no longer, usable
I also had a more complicated demo operating, with a WebSocket signalling server, and ICE candidates listed, but was getting the same error. So I hope this simplification can help to track down the issue.
Again, the single-file code link: http://pastebin.com/Ktmb3mVf
To enable webRTC clients to connect to each other, you need ICE. While STUN and TURN, which you don't need for such a test, are part of that, even without these helpers you still need to use ICE to tell the other end which IP/port/protocol to connect to.
There are two ways to do this: Google's "trickle ice", where the SDP (answer/offer) is passed on without any ICE candidates. These are then transported over a separate signaling layer and added as they are discovered. This speeds up the connection process, as ICE takes time and some late ICE candidates might not be needed.
The classic method is to wait until all ICE candidates have been gathered, and then generate the SDP with these already included.
I have modified your latest version to do that: http://pastebin.com/g2YVvrRd
You also need to wait for the datachannel/connection to become available before being able to use it, so I've moved the sending of the message to the channels onopen event.
The significant changes to the original code:
The interface callbacks were removed from Host.prototype.createOffer and Guest.prototype.createAnswer, instead we attach the provided callback function to the respective objects for later use.
self.cb = cb;
Both Host and Guest have an added ICE handler for the PeerConnection:
var self = this;
this.peer.onicecandidate = function (event) {
// This event is called for every discovered ICE candidate.
// If this was trickle ICE, you'd pass them on here.
// An event without an actual candidate signals the end of the
// ICE collection process, which is what we need for classic ICE.
if (!event.candidate) {
// We fetch the up to date description from the PeerConnection
// It now contains lines with the available ICE candidates
self.offer = self.peer.localDescription;
// Now we move on to the deferred callback function
self.cb(self.offer);
}
}
For the guest self.offer becomes self.answer
The interface handler $("#submitAnswer").click() does not send the message anymore, instead it is send when the datachannel is ready in the onopen event defined in setChannelEvents().
channel.onopen = function () {
console.log('** channel.onopen');
channel.send('hello world!');
};

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