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no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues Created May 1, 2009

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Views: 5505     Replies: 20     Last reply Nov 20, 2009  
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orangebus

Posts: 34

Registered:
Feb 5, 2009

no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues

Posted: May 1, 2009

Hello,

I'm compressing a few bug reports into one here. These are all about flowplayer 3.1. All our video is streamed with flash media server. Apologies about #'s 1 and 2 - I hate the "sometimes" bugs too.

1) No audio sometimes
Mac users have complained that occasionally there's picture but no sound. Reloading the page tends to fix the problem. It seems to happen at random. This happens in Safari and Firefox... haven't tested other browsers.

2) 200 stream not found
[Disclaimer: I'm no longer able to reproduce this but we keep getting reports from people so... take that as you will.]
Some IE7 users will consistently see a "200 stream not found" error when trying to play a video. I was able to reproduce this on IE7 on XP, and the error happened every time I loaded the page. At the same time I was loading the page in other browsers and the video played fine (including IE7 Vista). One other person had the exact experience I did, (error in IE7 XP, not in other browsers) but I don't know whether the reports we're getting are from IE7 users or not. We're not browser sniffing / rendering different content for IE7.

3) Last second RTMP bug
[note: this happens when there's a single clip, or to the last clip in a playlist]
This is reproducible every time in every browser. If we allow an RTMP video to play to the end (the end defined by start + duration; the end of the scrubber) the player will show a loading graphic forever. We have implemented a workaround where we use the onLastSecond event to stop the clip. It has to be onLastSecond; onFinish and onBeforeFinish were too late.

4) RTMP scrubber issues
This one also happens every time. When a clip ends, the scrubber becomes borked. So, if you let it finish (using the onLastSecond workaround from #3) then click play, the scrubber stays at the end rather than going back to the beginning. The video is playing from the beginning, but the scrubber shows it at the end. You can also make this happen by dragging the scrubber to the end (or even past the end! In a 13 minute clip I can drag the scrubber to 14 minutes or more, depending on how wide the player is, and the scrubber head moves underneath the time display). The workaround for this is to make the onStop event rewind the clip to the beginning.

cheers

Posts: 1

Registered:
Jun 22, 2009

Were you able to fix the no audio problem?

Posted: Jul 3, 2009

Reply to: no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues, from orangebus
Hey Orangebus,

We are having the exact same problem with the same release of the player as you (3.1.1). Users are experiencing no audio on Mac.

Did you find a fix for this?

Thanks!

orangebus

Posts: 34

Registered:
Feb 5, 2009

No, sorry

Posted: Jul 3, 2009

Reply to: Were you able to fix the no audio problem?, from cheers
I was not able to fix the problems.

My original post was actually about version 3.1.0. With 3.1.1, we haven't seen the 200 stream not found problem, but the others remain. People still report no audio on Macs sometimes.

I also notice that in Chrome on Windows, flowplayer doesn't load at all about 1/4 of the time.

The 3rd bug I reported remains as well, and that one is the most troublesome for our site. Every one of our videos is cut off 1 second short in order to avoid that bug.

Christian Ebert
Flowplayer support

Posts: 2803

Registered:
May 27, 2008

» no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues

Posted: Jul 3, 2009

Reply to: no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues, from orangebus
FWIW, I can't reproduce the loading graphic spinning forever.

I've set up a sample page here so you can test.

I get the the "Play again" at the end of the specified duration.

Once you've clicked "Play again" or the play button in the controlbar, the scrubber works. It does not stay at the end. It could be argued that it should also work while the "Play again" is on.

The "stream not found" error I get only if something is wrong with the clip's url or the netConnectionUrl.

orangebus

Posts: 34

Registered:
Feb 5, 2009

» » no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues

Posted: Jul 4, 2009

Reply to: » no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues, from blacktrash
I have a feeling that the loading graphic problem has something to do with the particular streaming server or videos on my site. I am pretty certain it's not an error in the way I've used flowplayer itself. I was able to reproduce the problem with a vanilla flowplayer installation - essentially copied from the examples on the site and altered to point at my video.

That said, showing a loading graphic forever doesn't seem like good behavior no matter how messed up my server or videos are. That's why I would call it a bug in flowplayer (or in the RTMP plugin, I'm guessing).

Another reason I think it's specific to our videos/server is that the time I need to cut off from the end (to avoid the loading graphic) varies depending on where I originally wanted to end the video.

For example, if I wanted to end my video 10 seconds into the stream, it could be the case that:
- end at 10 seconds = loading graphic
- end at 9.5 seconds = loading graphic
- end at 9.4 seconds = ok

However, if I wanted to end my video 11 seconds in, it might be:
- end at 11 seconds = loading graphic
- end at 10.5 seconds = loading graphic
- end at 10.4 seconds = loading graphic
- end at 10.2 seconds = ok

Cutting off 1 second early always seems to work, but amounts less than 1 second cause the error sometimes.

For many of our videos, I can avoid this problem by artificially adding 1 second to the end. It gets cut off 1 second early, but it was 1 second too long, so that's fine. But some videos don't have a defined end point, so I don't know how long they were supposed to be, and I can't use this workaround.

I will ask the person who manages the streaming server if he can provide me with a sample test stream so I can create a demonstration page, and if so I'll link to it from here.

Christian Ebert
Flowplayer support

Posts: 2803

Registered:
May 27, 2008

» » » no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues

Posted: Jul 4, 2009

Reply to: » » no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues, from orangebus
More things to check:

Are the videos correctly encoded? By far not everything that works in a desktop player works in Flash. The demands on metadata are more restrictive. Perhaps you can put a (small) sample video online, so I can download it and check?

You say this happens in every browser, but it would still be good to know whether for h264 encoded clips you have a Flash version 9.0.115 check in your scripts:


if (!flashembed.isSupported([9, 115])) {
  // ask user to update Flash plugin
}

Sorry for sounding trivial, but my personal experience in debugging is often about annoying trivial details ;-)

orangebus

Posts: 34

Registered:
Feb 5, 2009

demo page

Posted: Jul 6, 2009

Reply to: » » » no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues, from blacktrash
Ok, I've put up a demo here:
http://www.pjtv.com/page/Flowplayer_loading_graphic/181/

The problem appears and disappears depending on how I set the start and duration parameters.

blacktrash,
I don't know if the videos are correctly encoded. Is this demo enough for you to be able to tell? Have any questions I could direct towards the people who encoded it? Do you need a direct link to the video as opposed to one through the rtmp server?

I do not have a flash-checking script, although I have the most recent version of flash and I get the problem.

For reference, here's the code snippet from my demo page:
<script type="text/javascript" src=http://cdn1.hdworks.com/static/js/flowplayer-3.1.1.min.js"></script> <div id="player" style="width:320px;height:180px;"> </div>
<script type="text/javascript">
$f("player", "http://cdn1.hdworks.com/static/flash/player/flowplayer-3.1.1.swf", { 
 
    clip: { 
        start: 6.5,
        duration: 5,
        url: 'crowderzorogerpromo4.flv', 
        netConnectionUrl: 'rtmp://hdworksfs.fplive.net/hdworks/pjtv/flash/2009/promos/090616',
        provider: 'rtmp' 
    }, 
 
    plugins: {
        controls: {
          url: 'http://cdn1.hdworks.com/static/flash/player/flowplayer.controls-3.1.1.swf'
        },
        rtmp: { 
            url: 'http://cdn1.hdworks.com/static/flash/player/flowplayer.rtmp-3.1.0.swf'
        } 
    } 
});

Christian Ebert
Flowplayer support

Posts: 2803

Registered:
May 27, 2008

» demo page

Posted: Jul 7, 2009

Reply to: demo page, from orangebus
Yes, I can confirm the behaviour on your demo page :-(

Yes, I would have to download the video to check it. Looks ok to me though. And I can't test it under your conditions because I use rtmp for mp4 only and php-pseudostream flv. Still, for the fun of it, if it's a small file I would inject metadata to check whether it makes a difference.

But! a note to wrt your config:

Have you tried the netConnectionUrl as rtmp plugin attribute? This is where I put it because the docs say so ;-)


$f("player", "http://cdn1.hdworks.com/static/flash/player/flowplayer-3.1.1.swf", {
    clip: {  
        start: 6.5, 
        duration: 5, 
        url: 'crowderzorogerpromo4.flv',  
        provider: 'rtmp'  
    }, 
    plugins: { 
        controls: { 
          url: 'http://cdn1.hdworks.com/static/flash/player/flowplayer.controls-3.1.1.swf'
        }, 
        rtmp: {  
            url: 'http://cdn1.hdworks.com/static/flash/player/flowplayer.rtmp-3.1.0.swf',
            // netConnectionUrl here!
            netConnectionUrl: 'rtmp://hdworksfs.fplive.net/hdworks/pjtv/flash/2009/promos/090616'
        }  
    }  
});

orangebus

Posts: 34

Registered:
Feb 5, 2009

» » demo page

Posted: Jul 8, 2009

Reply to: » demo page, from blacktrash
Here's a link to the video:
http://cdn1.hdworks.com/test/crowderzorogerpromo4.flv

I just tried moving the netConnectionUrl but it had no effect.

I'm not sure what you mean by injecting meta data. What kind of meta data?

Thanks for all your help, by the way.

Christian Ebert
Flowplayer support

Posts: 2803

Registered:
May 27, 2008

» » » demo page

Posted: Jul 8, 2009

Reply to: » » demo page, from orangebus
The clip seems mostly ok.

You must have additional metadata (codec ids, keyframes etc.) for pseudostreaming, that much I know. I'm interested whether that makes a difference e.g. for seeking in rtmp as well. Probably not, but no harm trying ;-) So, if you're as curious as I am you can download your clip with injected metadata from here and test.

As I said, most probably it's something else, but ... you never know ;-)

gmccomb

Posts: 746

Registered:
Apr 9, 2009

» » » » demo page

Posted: Jul 8, 2009

Reply to: » » » demo page, from blacktrash
I wonder if FMS (or similar) auto-generates the metadata on the fly (not that metadata is needed for a true streaming server). The key metadata needed for pseudostreaming (besides keyframes) is byte offsets for the keyframes, so the server knows where in the file to move to.

Indeed, there would be no harm in updating the metadata with the extra keyframe/byte offset data, and I'd be interested to know if this has any effect with a rtmp.

BTW, never did find a flvtool++ binary for Windows. Pretty darned amazing, considering. I guess no one uses Windows any more...

orangebus

Posts: 34

Registered:
Feb 5, 2009

» » » » demo page

Posted: Jul 8, 2009

Reply to: » » » demo page, from blacktrash
blacktrash,
It seems that the modified clip does not play at all.

I've updated my demo page:
http://www.pjtv.com/page/Flowplayer_loading_graphic/181/

1) Video demonstrating loading graphic bug
2) Same video without loading graphic bug because of a different end point
3) Video with injected metadata
4) Non-existent video, just to show difference from 3

Christian Ebert
Flowplayer support

Posts: 2803

Registered:
May 27, 2008

» » » » » demo page

Posted: Jul 9, 2009

Reply to: » » » » demo page, from orangebus
Thanks for satisfying my curiosity, we can now definitely exclude missing metadata from causing the issue ;-)

Sorry for the work that's caused you, but I think it's definitely good to have that comparison page.

Anssi
Flowplayer Flash & video streaming developer

Posts: 1194

Registered:
Jul 24, 2007

» » no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues

Posted: Jul 5, 2009

Reply to: » no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues, from blacktrash
Will be fixing the spinning problem. Thanks for the test page, blacktrash.

Anssi

chubster
It's all good!

Posts: 8

Registered:
Oct 6, 2008

Issue resolved?

Posted: Nov 11, 2009

Reply to: » » no audio / stream not found / end of clip issues, from Anssi
Have a client who has reported the same no audio issue and slow video loading in Firefox on a Mac.

I am using flowplayer v3.1.5

Is this still a bug to be fixed or is there a workaround I can use?

Actual page:

http://www.spidersandmilk.com/clients/dartington/

It works fine on my Mac, so this appears to be an intermittent problem.

Christian Ebert
Flowplayer support

Posts: 2803

Registered:
May 27, 2008

» Issue resolved?

Posted: Nov 11, 2009

Reply to: Issue resolved?, from chubster22
There are still problems with the sample page: spinning wheel at the end, sometimes reload is needed to avoid spinning wheel during play; so I guess it's not fixed.

orangebus

Posts: 34

Registered:
Feb 5, 2009

» » Issue resolved?

Posted: Nov 12, 2009

Reply to: » Issue resolved?, from blacktrash
Yeah, I'm still getting the spinning wheel with 3.1.5. We pad all of our videos with a second of black screen at the end so the onLastSecond=stop work-around doesn't cut off anything important. ;)

orangebus

Posts: 34

Registered:
Feb 5, 2009

» » Issue resolved?

Posted: Nov 19, 2009

Reply to: » Issue resolved?, from blacktrash
Interesting - I don't seem to get the spinning wheel if I specify the clip using streams[] like this:


$f("streams", "flowplayer-3.1.5.swf", { 
  clip: { 
      provider: 'rtmp', 
      streams: [ 
          { url: 'test/crowderzorogerpromo4_original.flv', start: 6.5, duration: 5 }
      ] 
  }, 

  plugins: { 
    rtmp: { 
          url: 'flowplayer.rtmp-3.1.3.swf',
          netConnectionUrl: 'rtmp://hdworksfs.fplive.net/hdworks'
      } 
  } 
});

(whereas the same clip with that start/duration does get the spinning wheel on my test page)

blacktrash, have you tried this?

Christian Ebert
Flowplayer support

Posts: 2803

Registered:
May 27, 2008

» » » Issue resolved?

Posted: Nov 20, 2009

Reply to: » » Issue resolved?, from orangebus
I can't find a streams attribute, but I can find the playlist attribute for instream clips.

However, the resulting behaviour with an instream playlist is exactly the same. I've updated the test page accordingly.

orangebus

Posts: 34

Registered:
Feb 5, 2009

» » » » Issue resolved?

Posted: Nov 20, 2009

Reply to: » » » Issue resolved?, from blacktrash
The streams[] thing is part of the RTMP plugin shown in the "Combining streams" section here:
http://flowplayer.org/plugins/streaming/rtmp.html

The interesting part is that it avoids the spinning wheel bug for all but the last clip. For instance, here's your clip by itself:

(I created a test.html page with the following files in the same directory:
flowplayer-3.1.5.swf
flowplayer.controls-3.1.5.swf
flowplayer.rtmp-3.1.3.swf
flowplayer-3.1.4.min.js)


<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> 
<head> 
  <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> 
  <title>Flowplayer RTMP End test</title> 
  <script type="text/javascript" src="flowplayer-3.1.4.min.js"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript">
    $f("player", "flowplayer-3.1.5.swf", {
      clip: {
        streams: [ {url: "mp4:blacktrash/ccc_trailer2.mp4", start: 10, duration: 10} ],
        autoPlay: true,
        provider: "rtmp"
      },
      plugins: {
        rtmp: {
          url: "flowplayer.rtmp-3.1.3.swf",
          netConnectionUrl: "rtmp://e1f1.simplecdn.net/play"
        }
      }
    });
  </script>
</head>
<body>
  <div id="player" style="width:500px;height:300px;"></div> 
</body>
</html>

That shows the same bug... but here is your clip twice - no spinning wheel after the first clip, only the second:


<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> 
<head> 
  <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> 
  <title>Flowplayer RTMP End test</title> 
  <script type="text/javascript" src="flowplayer-3.1.4.min.js"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript">
    $f("player", "flowplayer-3.1.5.swf", {
      clip: {
        streams: [ {url: "mp4:blacktrash/ccc_trailer2.mp4", start: 10, duration: 10},
        {url: "mp4:blacktrash/ccc_trailer2.mp4", start: 10, duration: 10} ],
        autoPlay: true,
        provider: "rtmp"
      },
      plugins: {
        rtmp: {
          url: "flowplayer.rtmp-3.1.3.swf",
          netConnectionUrl: "rtmp://e1f1.simplecdn.net/play"
        }
      }
    });
  </script>
</head>
<body>
  <div id="player" style="width:500px;height:300px;"></div> 
</body>
</html>

Christian Ebert
Flowplayer support

Posts: 2803

Registered:
May 27, 2008

» » » » » Issue resolved?

Posted: Nov 20, 2009

Reply to: » » » » Issue resolved?, from orangebus
Ah, right, I missed that section on combining streams, sorry.

However, as you say, it does not work for the last clip - and, as, for demonstration purposes, I'm using only one, this is the last ;-)

Still, testing this reveals another bug! The scaling parameter suddenly fails to work.

Updated the test page again; on the whole I'd say, that this is quite broken :-(