So, I couldn't find a proper answer in the dosens of threads that already exist.
What I have is custom music that starts at the beginning of a map even though it's not triggered yet and it doesn't have the flag ticked. It also stops completely when I come out of a funnel. I have another map that the music is triggered but doesn't start at all.

I'll assume that you are referring to an ambient_generic... For the music that starts without triggers, maybe the music is not coming from an ambient_generic as you think it does, have you checked if maybe you also used that same sound for any other entity like a func_door or func_movelinear or else?

yishbarr wrote:
What I have is custom music that starts at the beginning of a map even though it's not triggered yet and it doesn't have the flag ticked

What flag is not ticked? You should indeed tick "Start Silent" so it doesn't start automatically.... again, if you have an ambient_generic

yishbarr wrote:
It also stops completely when I come out of a funnel.

This is normal... Greykarel found out that if you place your custom music file under your sound/vo/ folder, it doesn't stop after you've entered a funnel

If you can't manage to find the causes for your issues, try turning developer mode to 2 in order to check out what I/O are taking place when you load your map and which ones are not. This console command:

developer 2

It is coming from an ambient_generic. Sorry, I meant it was ticked. I'll try Greykarels method.

I tried playing the map with the sound that didn't play, and it sent the output, but the music didn't play. Does it have to do with a soundscape? Should I send my VMF?

Yes, post the VMF.

But did you take a look to the I/O console messages when turning developer mode to 2? this is very useful, you can check EVERY internal input/output and see what is triggering the sounds or where exactly your I/O chain is failing (being interrupted) for those that aren't being triggered.

I looked at the developer 2 as I said, the output worked but nothing happened.

map.7z

yishbarr wrote:
it also stops completely when I come out of a funnel. I have another map that the music is triggered but doesn't start at all.

I have this problem with one of my maps as well, I solved it by having a logic_timer trigger itself, and the ambient_generic's volume to 10 every 3 seconds, so the music starts as soon as you leave the funnel .

Tmast98 wrote:
yishbarr wrote:

it also stops completely when I come out of a funnel. I have another map that the music is triggered but doesn't start at all.

I have this problem with one of my maps as well, I solved it by having a logic_timer trigger itself, and the ambient_generic's volume to 10 every 3 seconds, so the music starts as soon as you leave the funnel .

Yes, I tried that, but the music starts over.

Ok Yishbarr, I took a look to it (which was very annoying since I had to substitute a lot of custom instances and get a lot of materials to be able to compile it >.<).

I don't understand your issue: your custom music (vo/bpmusic/simply think.mp3) is triggered by a trigger_multiple (which btw should be a trigger_once ) that there's at the 2nd door entry, and the music plays fine. If you erase that output, the music won't play... that's all.

What was the other issue? that sound that you couldn't play?

You installed the textures? I thought you (or me) could have just replaced them... I thought I put there a trigger once. I guess I'll just try again compiling. It's strange that for me it didn't work. Well I haven't tested the funnel that stops music map yet, so I'll put the results here later.

yishbarr wrote:
You installed the textures? I thought you (or me) could have just replaced them...

I didn't install them, most of the map was whitish, but you can't finish compiling if there are missing instances So I had to grab Skotty's bumbbleball stuffs, replace your edited elevator instances and one for the button frame...

I am unsure about if you really understood the developer mode advise, because yuo would have seen your I/O immediately, so let me explain it a little bit better:

1. Run the game
2. Open the console and enter this command:

developer 2

1. Load your map

What you got is that you will be able now to see (at the top left side of your screen) all messages for the inputs / outputs happening in your map. If you miss any, don't worry, you can check them calmly in your console too (and scroll up/down). If you read them all, you'll easily identify when is the custom ambient_generic called "music" and which entity was the one that triggered it. Or find if a any other sound was actually triggered or not, and what was the last effective output in the I/O chain, ok?

But that's exactly what I did. I saw the IO working but nothing happened to the music. I'll try compiling again to see if it works.

Alright. In the console: "An error occurred while attempting to download a file from the UGC server!
[Sound] S_StartSound(): Failed to load sound 'vo\bpmusic\simply think.mp3'. Can't create mixer."
And for the funnel map, the music still stops when entering and exiting the funnel even though it's put into the vo folder.

Nice music, btw. First of all about sound file path - it should be sound/vo/cavejohnson/(your file) to keep music playing while player is in a funnel (for me it works, check my last map Demonian). As for an ambient_generic's flags - you sould have first two checked and the last one unchecked. And finaly, did you update game's audio cash (snd_updateaudiocash command in the console) after you placed your file in game's folder?
Oh, and I have my music in .wav not .mp3. This way it can be looped automaticaly.

Hmm, I'll try that, thanks. (FYI, the music is from "The Hamster Alliance", made for Blue Portals OST).

All right, I'm getting nervous. Now it says "cannot find mixer" or something like that.

Well, I don't like people being nervous so I went into your problem more deeply.
And found that problem is caused by the file name. Renaming it to "Simply.mp3" has fixed the issue. So it seems like the engine doesn't like spaces in file names.

Offtop: do you skybox and env_sun works ok?

I'm not really sure what the effects are anyways with the env_sun, but the skybox is OK for now.
Edit: Still can't create mixer.

Alright, it worked. I changed the name and rebuilt the audio cache. Now I'm going to check the funnel map. Thanks for everyone's help.

I'll just throw this out there even though the problem was solved. I find that if all the tags and outputs are correct (meaning it would work even if the sound was not custom), if I run -tools mode (go to properties and launch options), the song gets fixed into the map permanently, and will work w/o tools mode. I recommend this in the future for anyone having the same issue.

EDIT: snd_rebuildaudiocache also seems to work, if you type that in the console. (though I have not tested it)
(Granted anyone sees this)