Launch update

Well its been a hell of a week. But im mostly there.

So, the past 10 or so day have been a total mess.
I’ve been busting my ass trying to get a solid streaming setup running. It’s been a parade of letdowns.
I coded three new players from scratch, mobile, site, and a WordPress plugin. All built for Radiolize, who promised the world: playlists, schedules, the works. Spent a week tailoring everything, recorded all the voice segments to suit their platform. made sure everything functioned my end. Only for them to drop the ball hard.

A few days after signing up, i noticed the WebDJ panel wasn’t where it was supposed to be. So i contacted support. Crickets. Trouble shooting failed to figure it out. However they did have another option. Connect with any DJ software or Icecast compatible player to control the stream. The information was all there on their dashboard. So it should work right?
Nope, doesn’t work. No matter what software, no matter what settings.

Radiolize? More like Radio Lies!!!

Their setup? It only shuffles tracks, despite advertising full control, despite their tutorials showcasing these feature, despite their AI gaslighting me telling me its only to tell me it was disabled 1 month after implementation when i challenged it. No custom playlists, no scheduling, just random chaos.

Tech support? Crickets. Not a single reply. I paid them for a service and, and they left us with a glorified dice roller. Screw you, Radiolize—your false promises wasted my time and sanity.

But it didn’t stop there. I tried a dozen other providers, and they all flopped in their own special ways. Either Overpriced, barely functional, or they try to make you use their players that aren’t compatible or only work with their special radio site they make for you, covered in ads. 1 had the nerve to sneak ads in to the metadata. Rather than album art being served, there were ads for penis enlargements….

Every single one either jacked up the price after the bait, failed to aload the stream, broke down mid-stream, or demanded I slap their branded player on our site. I’m not here to shill someone else’s junk, server their ads or send them traffic. I can do this better myself from home with Winamp than they can do and quiet frankly that is just not good enough.

Then came CastHost, and holy hell, what a difference. Their staff? Kickass. Response times? Lightning fast. After weeks of ghosting from others, CastHost’s team jumped in, and even tho it was a bit of a tough ask, we managed to get a basic stream functional.
They’re not perfect, the setup’s a bit rough around the edges, and I’ve had to hack together fixes (little bit of a hack of their streaminfo.js) but they’re leagues ahead as far as support goes and that means a lot to me. I suspect they’ll be my permanent go-to once I iron out the kinks.

Right now, I’ve got an acceptable setup. Audio’s streaming, metadata’s pulling (finally!), and it’ll do the job. But it’s not pro-level yet—I’ll be grinding over the next few weeks to build something slicker, something that screams us. Either a decent DJ frontend exists, or ill be making one myself.
Radiolize? Already paid, so I’m keeping it as a backup stream. And from time to time it will be set to the main stream while i mess with the new one and whatever new setup i create. It’s fine for random tracks, when the main player dips offline, it’ll shuffle our backup playlist. Not ideal, but it’s a safety net.

Launch is still set for April 1st, but I’m sweating it. Will everything be ready? No clue. I’m exhausted—two weeks of coding, troubleshooting, and chasing ghosts have me running on fumes. But I’m not quitting on you. CastHost’s holding me up for now, and I’ll make this work, one way or another. It may not be as a professional launch as I hoped for, but i can still make it happen.

Stick with me. We’re building something real, even if the road’s been a dumpster fire. Thoughts? Hit me up, I’m all ears.