One of the biggest risks using ST and Network Sessions is what happens if there is a network interuption that disconnects the Network Session connection (e.g. WiFi drop-out, router reboot, Host iPad crashes and restarts, ST4 needs to be restarted, etc.)
ST4 has a re-written Network Session feature (as compared to ST3) which should improve resilience and reliability, but there will still be times when there is a network interuption.
ST4 Current Behaviour
You have to manually reconnect:
- Open Settings
- Click Network Session
- Under Available Sessions, click Connect on the Host you want to connect to
This is not the easiest thing to do mid-performance.
Even if you have to restart your Host iPad before you start a gig, you then have to go to every Client device and reconnect it.
Making this even more critical in ST4 is that the behaviour of the Client device has changed significantly, as compared to ST3, when the Client loses connection to the Host.
- ST3 - the Client device will throw up an error dialog, but after clicking OK, the lyric sheet is still there, and if using timestamping/highlighting, the timing is still intact. In a live performance, this helps you get through to the end of a song before you then go through the manual session reconnection.
- ST4 - as soon as the session connection is lost, on the Client device, the lyric sheet disappears. This is a worse predicament as compared to ST3.
Desired Behaviour
A Session auto-reconnect feature.
This way, after any network interuption that causes the Client to lose the connection to the Host, the Client will automatically reconnect and recover. This would greatly improve the experience for band members.
You could consider this as being a bit like the WiFi on your device where you can choose Auto-Reconnect (or not) for each WiFi Network (SSID).
In ST4, it could be a global setting (auto reconnect to any previously connected Session), or on a 'per Host' basis (this might be important for ST users who work in multiple band setups, and also for security purposes).