File not found in vod application

I am using Wowza 4.7.2 on Windows server 2012. I have it configured to use the default /content dir as StorageDir.

Instead of just placing my video source directly in the /content dir, I have it in a sub-directory.

So the file system looks like this:

C:\Wowza\content\myStream\myStream_20181129_0912\myStream_160p.mp4

I’m trying to get an HLS chunklist with the following URL:

http://host:1935/vod/mp4:myStream/myStream_20181129_0912/myStream_160p.mp4/chunklist_w1160089940.m3u8

This results in a 404 and the logs show:

MediaReaderH264.open[vod/mp4:myStream]: Not found: C:/Wowza/content/myStream_20181129_0912/myStream_160p.mp4

See how it is missing the myStream directory reference?

If I change the URL to include some character string after the mp4:, it works fine.

http://host:1935/vod/mp4:FOO/myStream/myStream_20181129_0912/myStream_160p.mp4/chunklist_w1160089940.m3u8

If I don’t put anything there at all and just try to have a file separator it also fails with a 404, although the error log shows a different path than expected:

MediaReaderH264.open[vod/mp4:]: Not found: C:/Wowza/content/127.0.0.1/myStream/myStream_20181129_0912/myStream_160p.mp4.

I’ve used this sort of subdirectory setup with other instances and not had any problems, so I’m guessing it is something related to my setup, but what? What controls this sort of behavior? And why is the localhost address being used in the file lookup?

Thanks.

Hello @kurt mehlhoff, thank you very much for sharing this information with us. Typically, our engineers require a support ticket to run tests on your files so we can more accurately identify the cause.

We’d also like to check to see if it has anything to do with the Engine version you’re using since we now offer 4.7.6. But, again we’d like to take a closer look to identify the issue. Thank you.

https://www.wowza.com/support/open-ticket

I upgraded to 4.7.6, no change in behavior.

Ok thanks for trying that first @kurt mehlhoff. The engineers are suggesting you submit a support ticket and they will work with you directly at this point.

For other people who run across this problem, I am including the answer to this from the ticket that was opened.

You need to add the definst portion to play back the file as shown below.

http://[wowza-address]:1935/vod/_definst_/mp4:subdirectory/testfile.mp4/playlist.m3u8

Note that definst will show up in our sample player when you add “mp4:subdirectory/testfilemp4” to the Media File Name section. We also have a blog post that addresses this.

http://community.wowza.com/community/questions/6795/meaning-ofdefinstin-links-to-media-files.html

From the forum post.

When using a subfolder for content, or a folder other then the /content folder, you will need to name an application instance, or use definst to access the files.