# Trouble playing SMIL files on Roku

**URL:** <https://community.wowza.com/t/trouble-playing-smil-files-on-roku/37366>\
**Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\
**Created:** [October 4, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/trouble-playing-smil-files-on-roku/37366 "2011-10-04T13:55:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Julie\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d9b06d/32.png) [@Julie\_M](https://community.wowza.com/u/Julie_M)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/trouble-playing-smil-files-on-roku/37366/1 "2011-10-04T13:55:24Z")

</div>

While trying to play different types of videos served by Wowza on Roku and Roku 2, we found that Roku (the original Roku, not Roku 2) cannot play SMIL files. Namely playlist.m3u8 files that start with slashes, such as:

```auto
#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=40000
/xyz/_definst_/customer/Extremists.m4v/playlist.m3u8?wowzasessionid=817723499&wowzaaudioonly
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=240000
/xyz/_definst_/customer/Extremists.m4v/playlist.m3u8?wowzasessionid=817723499
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=540000
/xyz/_definst_/customer/Extremists.m4v/playlist.m3u8?wowzasessionid=817723499
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=1040000
/xyz/_definst_/customer/Extremists.m4v/playlist.m3u8?wowzasessionid=817723499

```

It is pointed out on Roku’s forum that “Currently the Roku player does not support absolute pathnames in the m3u8 (paths that start with a slash).” See forum post: [http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=34546&p=221786](http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=34546&p=221786)

Roku is able to play direct videos, which has playlist.m3u8 files like this:

```auto
#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=527539
playlist.m3u8?wowzasessionid=1775248288
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=64000
playlist.m3u8?wowzaaudioonly&wowzasessionid=1775248288

```

Roku 2 is able to play SMIL files, but the original Roku cannot. We would like both Roku models to support SMIL files. Is it possible for someone from Wowza to take a look at this and confirm that it is the absolute pathnames that’s causing trouble for SMIL files on the original Roku?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Julie\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d9b06d/32.png) [@Julie\_M](https://community.wowza.com/u/Julie_M)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 5:22pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/trouble-playing-smil-files-on-roku/37366/2 "2011-10-04T17:22:38Z")

</div>

I wanted to follow up and say that we have gotten our Roku 1 to play SMIL files by changing the “cupertinoRelativePlaylistPlaylists” in Application.xml to “false”:

```auto
<Property>
	<Name>cupertinoRelativePlaylistPlaylists</Name>
	<Value>false</Value>
	<Type>Boolean</Type>
</Property>

```

This has been mentioned by Charlie here: [https://www.wowza.com/forums/showthread.php?14228-Change-Wowza-Server-3-now-uses-relative-iOS-playlist-URLs](https://www.wowza.com/forums/showthread.php?14228-Change-Wowza-Server-3-now-uses-relative-iOS-playlist-URLs)

Now both our Roku 1 and Roku 2 can play SMIL files fine.