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FLV won't play and I don't know why

Head out to http://www.muscularchristianityonline.com/VideoTest.html. All you get is a blank screen. Now head out to http://www.bigshinyplanet.com/VideoTest.html and you'll see the video that refuses to play on the muscularchristianityonline domain.

Same server, same setting, same flash file and yet muscularchristianity doesn't play and I cannot figure out why. I've tried MIME types, renaming the file. Actually, there are several videos on the server and NONE of them play.

I'm desperate as I'm getting ready to throw in the towel and go with a different ISP. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

kukno

Hi,

I sniffed the download and found a difference. The data on the "good" server starts with "FLV", whereas the data on the "broken" server starts with some random data! See below.

Maybe there has been a problem with uploading the file to the server.


 
==> NO VIDEO PLAYING
==> http://www.muscularchristianityonline.com/VideoTest.html
 
Http: Response, HTTP/1.1, Status Code = 206, URL: /Intro.flv 
ProtocolVersion: HTTP/1.1
StatusCode: 206, Partial content
Reason: Partial Content
Date:  Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:27:59 GMT
Server:  Apache/2.0.63 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.0.63 OpenSSL/0.9.8b mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 PHP/5.2.5
Last-Modified:  Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:50:02 GMT
ETag:  "1b512bb-452851-3a850e80"
Accept-Ranges:  bytes
ContentLength:  3256088
Content-Range:  bytes 1276217-4532304/4532305
Keep-Alive:  timeout=15, max=100
Connection:  Keep-Alive
ContentType:  text/plain
HeaderEnd: CRLF
payload: HttpContentType =  text/plain
HTTPPayloadLine: Ç P¸mcÙJ¬ò÷kdõêíÉ09ø"ù|—EâË˜XƒOV}‹¾Ú¢†Ô0NõùOÊ0?P=t…ˆGÇý%·e#=]žSñ7xVŒHµ‰Æ2ZŒ‹ì;«d…Ó^F–Ì7zŽ£
 
 
 
==> VIDEO PLAYING !!
==> http://www.bigshinyplanet.com/VideoTest.html
 
Http: Response, HTTP/1.1, Status Code = 200, URL: /Intro.flv 
ProtocolVersion: HTTP/1.1
StatusCode: 200, Ok
Reason: OK
Date:  Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:33:15 GMT
Server:  Apache/2.0.63 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.0.63 OpenSSL/0.9.8b mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 PHP/5.2.5
Last-Modified:  Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:53:09 GMT
ETag:  "1b785b9-452851-45aa7340"
Accept-Ranges:  bytes
ContentLength:  4532305
Keep-Alive:  timeout=15, max=100
Connection:  Keep-Alive
ContentType:  text/plain
HeaderEnd: CRLF
payload: HttpContentType =  text/plain
HTTPPayloadLine: FLV    <===== DIFFENRENCE HERE. "FLV" tag here, which is missing on the other server.

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kukno

there is also a difference in the headers.

==> NOT WORKING SERVER:

Accept-Ranges: bytes
ContentLength: 3256088
Content-Range: bytes 1276217-4532304/4532305

This is missing on the "good" server. Maybe that makes a difference as well.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

kukno

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See answer

Bruce Gust

ASKER

kukno...

First off, thank you so much for your input. I can't tell you how frustrating this has been and I would love to know what you're using to do your "sniffing" so when this happens again (God forbid), I've got some resources available to me that allow me to pop the hood and see what's going on.

I can try uploading the file again. I've done that more than once, but I'll be happy to try again, especially since it's evident that something's not right on the score. The "headers" issue that you brought to the surface is something I'm not familiar with. What is that and how do I fix it?

Bruce Gust

ASKER

Omigosh! I've worked with other servers where that didn't make a difference, but in this case, it made ALL the difference!

Problem solved! Thanks so much!

Bruce Gust

ASKER

Life saver!

kukno

Sniffers I use:

Wireshark
http://www.wireshark.org/

Microsoft Network Monitor 3.2
http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?FamilyID=f4db40af-1e08-4a21-a26b-ec2f4dc4190d&displaylang=en