What is Manual Failover?
Manual failover lets you switch your listeners between your Primary and Backup servers on demand. This is useful when:
- You want to test that failover works correctly.
- You've been notified of planned maintenance on the primary server.
- You want to verify your backup server is streaming correctly before relying on it.
How to Switch
- Log in to your client area and open your Stream Machine service page.
- Click the Switch to Backup button (or Switch to Primary if you're currently on the backup).
- DNS will update immediately. Listeners will be redirected to the other server within moments.
Things to Know
- Make sure your encoder is broadcasting to both servers before switching, otherwise listeners on the new server will hear silence.
- Manual failover is instant — there is no cooldown delay like automatic failover.
- After a manual switch, automatic failover continues to work normally. If the server you switched to goes down, the system will automatically fail over to the other one.
- Each manual failover is logged in your Recent Events timeline on the dashboard.
