User Manual

Dante Controller User Guide

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Troubleshooting

Fanout

About Transmit Flows

Transmit flows are 'streams' of audio packets which supply data between devices. Dante devices can

support a finite number of transmit flows, depending on their specific hardware configuration and firmware

version.

Dante supports two types of flows - unicast and multicast.

Unicast flows are used to supply audio to specific devices, and support 4 channels of audio

simultaneously. So if you subscribe 4 channels on a receiver to 4 channels on a single transmitter, that

audio data will be supplied using one flow. If you were to then subscribe a fifth channel, a second flow

would have to be created.

If you were to subscribe 4 different receivers to the same channel on a single transmitter, Dante Controller

would have to create 4 unicast flows, because the audio data is going to 4 different places. In this case, it

would be better to create a multicast flow.

A multicast flow 'broadcasts' the audio across the network, so multiple receivers can subscribe to the

audio, but the transmitter is only using one of its available flows. Multicast flows can be configured with up

to 8 channels. However, multicast audio traffic can propagate throughout an entire network, using up

bandwidth on every link in the network, even on links where the audio is not required. 100Mbps links in

particular are easily saturated when large numbers of multicast flows exist. Therefore, multicast flows

should only be used when there is a good reason to do so.

If you subscribe a number of devices to one channel via unicast, Dante Controller will alert you with the

following message: “Fanout Configuration detected.”

If you then exceed the supported number of transmit flows, any further subscriptions will fail, and the

tooltip for the failed subscription will read 'No more flows (TX): transmitter cannot support any more flows,

reduce fan out by unsubscribing receivers or switching to multicast.'

Messages on Startup

Error Message Meaning & Actions

'Dante Controller was unable to connect to the

Dante Control and Monitoring manager. Dante

Controller cannot function without this connection.

This problem is most likely caused by the Dante

Control and Monitoring ('conmon') service or

daemon stopping unexpectedly. Click OK to restart

Dante Controller. You may also need to manually

restart the Dante Control and Monitoring service, or

the computer, if the problem reoccurs.'

Affects: Windows only.

Meaning: The 'Dante Control and Monitoring'

service is not responding. This can occur after a

computer has been in sleep mode.

Action: Restart Dante Controller. In the event that

does not work, reboot your PC, or restart the Dante

Control and Monitoring service via Control Panel >

Administrative Tools > Services.