Live Assist playlist can cause dead air when no host intervenes

[btelliot]

Description

When a scheduled Live Assist playlist reaches a breakpoint and no host is present to manually advance playback, the automation system halts indefinitely. This results in dead air until manual intervention occurs.

This behavior is expected from a Live Assist design perspective, but it is unsafe for unattended or volunteer-run environments and should have a built-in failsafe.

Environment

• Playlist type: Live Assist
• Feature: Breakpoints
• Deployment: Scheduled programming
• Operator presence: Volunteer host (not guaranteed)

Steps to Reproduce

• Create or schedule a Live Assist playlist containing a breakpoint.
• Allow the playlist to play without host interaction.
• Playback reaches the breakpoint.

Actual Behavior

• Playback stops at the breakpoint.
• No fallback audio is triggered.
• System remains silent indefinitely.
• Manual intervention is required to restore audio.

Expected Behavior

When a Live Assist playlist reaches a breakpoint without host interaction, the system should automatically recover after a configurable grace period by:

• Continuing with a fallback playlist, or
• Resuming standard automation / AutoDJ
• Playing a predefined safety loop (e.g. music or station IDs)
  The system should never remain silent indefinitely due to lack of human input.

Impact

• Causes on-air dead air during scheduled programming.
• High likelihood in volunteer-run stations where hosts may be late or absent.
• Degrades listener experience and station reliability.
• Requires active monitoring to detect and resolve.

Proposed Solution

• Add a failsafe recovery mechanism for Live Assist breakpoints.

Preferred approach:

• Introduce a configurable timeout at breakpoints (e.g. 60–120 seconds).
• If no user interaction occurs within that window, automatically load and play a fallback playlist.

Alternative approaches:

• Allow Live Assist playlists to chain into another playlist instead of stopping.
• Add silence detection that automatically resumes playback when output audio is silent beyond a threshold.

Severity
High - results in on-air dead air.

[radiorob]

Scheme, where DJ would do some kind of login, to access LA. if that was the case, system would know DJ present, if not skip breakpoints. DJ plugs in a USB (with a code) that unlocks their session with LA so they proceed with show with breakpoints.

[radiorob]

Related to running player in Kiosk mode. #148

[delongtime]

Idea: Live Assist playlist has a popup that requires user input (popup screen: Are you there? 'Yes') without that user input, the playlist skips breakpoints