Downloads failing since Thursday 19th

[jhsrennie]

Starting from (I think Thursday 19th Feb) all my downloads are aborting. FLVStreamer (v2.1c1) keeps reporting "ERROR: RTMP_ReadPacket, failed to read RTMP packet body." and restarting the download. Eventually it gives up and aborts the download. Typically I'll get 20-30 minutes into a program before it aborts. If you rerun the download it resumes, but it's taking three attempts to download a one hour program.

I assume this is either a problem with my Internet provider or the BBC servers, since nothing has changed with my get_iplayer installation. I've tried modes flashvhigh1 and flashhigh1 and both abort. I even uninstalled and installed the latest version of get_iplayer this morning but the downloads still abort.

Is anyone else getting these problems? If not I guess it must be my ISP.

John Rennie

[Jahana]

I've had a similar problem in the past, but get_iplayer has always resumed the download itself.

Do you have the problem when you watch videos directly from the website?

[linuxcentre]

Maybe it's your security software - see the FAQ on this matter.

[jhsrennie]

I've had a similar problem in the past, but get_iplayer has always resumed the download itself.

FLVStreamer is resuming, but after mayber a dozen resumes it seems to give up.

However I've since found that modes flashvhigh2 and flashhigh2 are fine, so that's what I'm using now. Very strange.

JR

PS Aha! If I use "call get_iplayer --get 440 --mode flashvhigh1" (programme number 440 was just a test download) I get:

Code: Select all

FLVStreamer v2.1c1
(c) 2010 Andrej Stepanchuk, Howard Chu, The Flvstreamer Team; license: GPL
Connecting ...
ERROR: HandleCtrl: Ignoring SWFVerification request, no CRYPTO support!

If I use flashvhigh2 I do not get the SWFVerification error. So it's definitely something on the BBC servers. Hopefully the SWFVerification error will mean something to someone hereabouts.

PPS Aha again! A quick Google found viewtopic.php?f=3&t=132

Presumably the Beeb haven't enabled verification on flashvhigh2 and flashhigh2. If they do this is going to be a problem because the downloads are very erratic with verification enabled. Can I use rtmpdump instead of flvstreamer? If so presumably this is a command line argument?

[neuralnet]

I can confirm I have exactly the same problem, but only became evident today (22nd Feb). I was having RTMP errors downloading "flashvhigh1" and "flashhd" modes initally which prompted the upgrade, after I upgrading to v2.67 (combined package) I get the same errors.

ERROR: HandleCtrl: Ignoring SWFVerification request, no CRYPTO support!

ERROR: RTMP_ReadPacket, failed to read RTMP packet header
Download may be incomplete (downloaded about 1.40%), try resuming

Hopefully the BBC aren't locking down the streams.. but it wouldn't be a _total_ surprise if they were. Although I wouldn't be against having to use my TV licence number to unlock downloading programmes.

[linuxcentre]

I'm assuming that the aborted attempts at recording these streams is because there have been >20 attempts at auto-resuming. To work around this try adding this pref to flash recordings: --attempts=50 . If the recording has aborted and left a partial file just run the same get_iplayer command again and it will make more attempts.

Yes, looks like the BBC have started adding silly SWF Verification nonsense.

[neuralnet]

jhsrennie, I'm getting the same problems of Crypto Errors and streams restarting downloading multiple times using "flashvhigh2" also.. It seems we'll all be using RTMPDump before long.

[linuxcentre]

Hopefully the BBC aren't locking down the streams.. but it wouldn't be a _total_ surprise if they were. Although I wouldn't be against having to use my TV licence number to unlock downloading programmes.

Then the BBC will know exactly which household watches what - nice privacy invasion which will get so much push back from the public (except for those who don't value privacy I guess)

[linuxcentre]

jhsrennie, I'm getting the same problems of Crypto Errors and streams restarting downloading multiple times using "flashvhigh2" also.. It seems we'll all be using RTMPDump before long.

I don't think this is much of a problem - flvstreamer recovers just find AFAIK - it just take multiple attempts to get the sections of the programmes. See my post above re: --attempts=50

[neuralnet]

Then the BBC will know exactly which household watches what - nice privacy invasion which will get so much push back from the public (except for those who don't value privacy I guess)

/offtopic - Fair point, but there are ways and means of implementing any such technology that makes it possible to break the link between the Licence/IP and data requested. Seriously though, most people don't care or know how to protect their privacy..

/ontopic - Earlier today the pvr downloads were coming down in such tiny chunks it was discarding more data than it was downloading, plus the speed of downloads also seemed to be badly affected.. happily tho, the situation is now much better & it's almost back to 100% (barring a few disconnects). I'm guessing the BBC were testing new settings.. Is it any better for you jhsrennie?