VOD HTTP Smooth streaming error/failure to load

Wowza Streaming Engine
1

Hi all,

We are trying to pplay video on-demand with rather large video files - ~16 hrs / 7.5GB via httpstreamer/MS smooth streaming.

We are running into a problem where our Silverlight player indicates an error condition - “Failed to download manifest: i”, we observe the same behavior with Wowza provided sample player as well.

I see that manifest eventually gets served (it’s about 1.1MB, takes about 35+ seconds to get it).

Is there anyway to speed up the generation of the manifest or maybe cache it on disk somehow?

Please advise.

Thanks.

2

Hello there and welcome to the Wowza support forum.

Are you testing playback with the Wowza provided Silverlight player? [install-dir]/examples/VideoOnDemandStreaming/SilverlightPlayer

Do you have the Silverlight plugin installed on the machine? And is it up to date?

Are you entering the correct URL for this player:

http://[wowza-address]:1935/vod/mp4:sample.mp4/Manifest

Does playback work with RTMP player?

What happens if you enter the Manifest URL directly in a browser. It should return XML data.

You might add this property to http streamers in the Application.xml

<HTTPStreamer>
<!-- Properties defined here will override any properties defined in conf/HTTPStreamers.xml for any HTTPStreamer loaded by this applications -->
<Properties>
<Property>
<Name>minPlaylistStartDuration</Name>
<Value>10000</Value>
<Type>Integer</Type>
</Property>
</Properties>
</HTTPStreamer>

This may fix the issue, the XXX can be tweaked up or down to suit your needs and is currently set to 10 seconds.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Salvadore

3

Can you please restart Wowza, replicate this error and then zip up your /conf and /log folders and send them to support@wowza.com to open a ticket?

Please also include a link to this thread as a reference.

Thank you.

Salvadore

4

Hi Salvadore,

Silverlight plugin is installed, url is correct, everything works with smaller files.

With larger files (~4GB , ~16 hours) it takes too long to get the manifest, Silverlight player has an implicit timeout of 30 seconds for getting the manifest data.

So the question is : can the manifest be somehow cached on Wowza server end or how to speed up manifest generation?

P.S.

Yes, we did try to tweak the setting in Application.xml, it didn’t seem to make a difference.

Thank you.

5

I emailed required information per instructions, please let me know if anything is missing or more information is required.

Thanks again,

Umid