# Seeing many "killUnidentifiedSessions" -- are viewers really being booted and why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\ **Tags:** server-administration\ **Created:** [January 2, 2014, 12:01pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/seeing-many-killunidentifiedsessions-are-viewers-really-being-booted-and-why/41756 "2014-01-02T12:01:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Boyd\_Badten](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@Boyd\_Badten](https://community.wowza.com/u/Boyd_Badten)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2014, 12:01pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/seeing-many-killunidentifiedsessions-are-viewers-really-being-booted-and-why/41756/1 "2014-01-02T12:01:26Z")
I’m getting tons of “killUnidentifiedSessions” messages on a new wowza server (v3.6.3) I just set up. What I’d like to know is if the server is really kicking these people off??? Please answer this question. I’m not getting kicked off when I’m testing and I can’t find my IP listed in the access log with this kill unidentified session message so I can’t tell if it’s kicking all these other people off or if so, why. All viewer access is via a single HLS connection on a single web page and using JW player. Ive been using this successfully for some months using an older version of Wowza server and so I can’t understand what “not enough data to determine protocol” might be indicating here. But I’m really alarmed if these people are constantly getting kicked off of our live service broadcast–if so, they will probably just decide it’s broken and quit trying–and we depend on interested people (donors) to exist. Here is a part of the JW Player string that calls a smil file: file: “[http://videostream2.heartscenter.org:1935/live/smil:victor.smil/playlist.m3u8](http://videostream2.heartscenter.org:1935/live/smil:victor.smil/playlist.m3u8)”, and here is the smil file: Any ideas on why this might represent “ambiguous or insufficient instructions as to protocol” for some people and not others? Seems to affect about 1/3 of viewers looking at access logs. And I really need to know if this is kicking people off and forcing them to reconnect–as the logs seem to show…thanks ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Lanham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c68b51/32.png) [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/seeing-many-killunidentifiedsessions-are-viewers-really-being-booted-and-why/41756/2 "2014-01-02T19:04:54Z")
Boyd, I don’t think this indicates that anyone was kicked off. Are you getting such reports? Zip up the /conf and /logs folders and send them to support@wowza.com. Include a link to this thread. Richard ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Lanham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c68b51/32.png) [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 10:46pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/seeing-many-killunidentifiedsessions-are-viewers-really-being-booted-and-why/41756/3 "2014-01-09T22:46:35Z")
Yes, sorry, we discussed finally today. It might be port scanning, or possibly related dropped connections, though looks more like port scanning, something in your network, but definitely not anything that would kick off active clients. It is INFO message, so just informational, not indicating any problem. Richard ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Lanham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c68b51/32.png) [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 10:48pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/seeing-many-killunidentifiedsessions-are-viewers-really-being-booted-and-why/41756/4 "2014-01-09T22:48:07Z")
Do you have anyone connecting from these IPs and ports? It doesn’t seem like it. Richard ---
**Author:** ![Boyd\_Badten](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@Boyd\_Badten](https://community.wowza.com/u/Boyd_Badten)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/seeing-many-killunidentifiedsessions-are-viewers-really-being-booted-and-why/41756/5 "2014-01-09T15:42:57Z")
Well, yes–I am getting reports from people (members) who are getting kicked off. Some told me that after more than a dozen disconnects that they got tired of it and just quit. This is of a live streaming, premium/paid event. They paid for it and gave up trying to connect. And it’s from some people who I know to have attended many other live events without complaining of this. Richard, did you inquire about this to your vacationing engineer buddy after he returned? Again, I see about 1/3 of my viewers (counting IP’s in the log) appearing to be kicked with this error message using Wowza 3.6.3. I can’t compare “kicked IP’s” to complaints–wish I could. But from your engineers standpoint, does it mean that a person is kicked off when this message happens “killUnidentifiedSessions”? Or is it just a warning of some kind? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Varun\_aggarwal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/45deac/32.png) [@Varun\_aggarwal](https://community.wowza.com/u/Varun_aggarwal)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 11:26am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/seeing-many-killunidentifiedsessions-are-viewers-really-being-booted-and-why/41756/6 "2014-10-28T11:26:07Z")
> Do you have anyone connecting from these IPs and ports? It doesn’t seem like it. > > Richard Hi Richard, I have already asked in the forum for this [Issues with recorded videos](http://community.wowza.com/t/-/44169) The logs files are showing the same issue mentioned here “killUnidentifiedSessions: Killing unidentified session:” , though it is an INFO but it is recording videos where the videos are not saved.