Background: We've started posting flash swf videos, and have discovered that they are stalling out. They simply stop playing part way through. Initially it was worse for people outside the building so I've done troubleshooting with the Router and Firewall. Now I can say that I have the problem no matter where we try to view it from.

Idenitifed Issue: It appears that the TCP connection is getting reset, probably by WEC/Typo3.

Any ideas?

Michael,

As I understand the way this all works, the flash FLV files are just files on a web server. When they are accessed, WEC/TYPO3 does not run at all. Apache just delivers the file. So the issue should be related to the Apache web server, the network in between, and the browser with the embedded Flash player that plays the video. Here are a few guesses:

1. There is a chance that the server is set to limit the time for a single download. On a slow network, this could take awhile and the session could timeout. The FLV download just goes as fast at it can, so faster networks would not see an issue.

2. The FLV could be corrupt. Then the error would happen at the same spot.

3. The network may be losing packets. HTTP, the protocol for the download does not have the best error checking. So network errors can break the connection. You see this more with long files because the network needs to keep operating longer without an error. This would be totally intermittent and would change with time.

We use WEC-TYPO3 to deliver video on our church website and it has worked well except when we corrupt an FLV file. That is usually caused by not getting it fully uploaded.

In Him,
Mark

Quick ?

Is this a windows or a linux server?
Each have different settings - might be easier for me to figure out that first.

It could be an httpd killer process running / mod-proxy or something all together different - if we know the environment we might be able to help you out.

Worse case - you can upload the file to us - and test on our system ... that will let us know if its the file - or your setup.

Kind Regards,

Glenn Kelley
Network Admin - VineHosting

This is a Windows Server. I should have mentioned that we also get connection reset errors simply when loading pages. This had never seemed like a big deal because we would just hit refresh. Long term I figured we'd have to look at it sometime.

The stalling with the SWF happens at various points, and sometimes the SWF will play in its entirely. A 30 MB MP4 file will also sometimes draw a connection reset error, and other times download in its entirity.