Students cant access 40D videos on youtube

[ihaveaproblem]

Hello,

 

I have a media studies teacher that wants to show 'Skins Season 1 Episode 1' to a class. Students can access YouTube and watch videos, however all the TV shows from 40D on YouTube don’t load.

The videos load for staff accounts. Does anyone know if there's a separate domain I need to unblock for students to be able to view these videos?

 

Thanks

[Dom_]

Isn't skins an 18?

[ihaveaproblem]

Yes it is, So does anyone have any idea's why 40D content cant be loaded for students?

[LosOjos]

I think the fact it's an 18 is a clue... I'd advise the teacher not to show them, it's inappropriate material for school age children, and the school could get in to a lot of trouble for it. Plus I'm pretty sure that the public screening of 4OD content is illegal anyway...

[GREED]

Not one to argue with LosOJos, I am unsure on the current ERA licence and scope, you might be able to show them, but not record (just to be clear).

 

This however does not get around the fact it is an 18 rating and has no place in a school.

[ihaveaproblem]

Thanks for the concerns regarding the age rating. Some of the students are 18+ (All of them might be, I'm not sure) as it's an A-Level group. I will check with the teacher before she goes teaching a lesson on it.

I don’t believe the fact that it's an 18 has anything to do with the content not loading though. All 40D content on YouTube will not load for students. 18+ or not 18+ content, it will not load for student accounts if it's 40D. The video keeps trying to load on an endless loop.

Regarding the public screening. I cant comment as i do not know the laws for this, but why would 40D put the content on YouTube if it cant be viewed?

 

So can anyone help me as to why NO 40D content will load for a student’s account but loads on a staff account?

 

thanks very much.

[GREED]

Your filtering could be blocking this. Are you saying all 4OD content is blocked, but other similar material is fine? Can staff load it ok?

 

The fact that it can be viewed is immaterial to the fact that the school should not be showing it to a public audience without the proper licence. ERA licence is the one to look for, and depending on what you pay will tell you what you can and cant show.

 

I can download TV programmes without a TV Licence, but I shouldn't legally (and won't).

[ihaveaproblem]

Thanks GREED.

 

Here's a link to the 40D youtube page YouTube - Kanal von 4oDDrama

Any video uploaded here can be viewed on a staff account. If you try to load one of the videos on a student account the page loads up and then the video attempts to load and never does load. ( I left it for 30 minutes just incase it was being deadly slow..)

 

I'm wondering what could be getting blocked to prevent students loading these videos? One theory i have is the 40D videos on youtube have 4 advertisement videos before the 'Main video' starts. Could it be these advertisement videos that are being blocked preventing the main video from loading?

[plexer]

What is your filtering is done at a school level or by lea?, does the filtering offer different levels of access to your teachers than your pupils, these things only you can find the answer to yourself.

 

Ben

[GREED]

It's possible but unlikely. This tells me that there is definately a block in place with student accounts. Web filtering, and often this includes ads, but not the ads in the video, but other ads on the page. My experience of web filter defaults is it clean sweeps pages. Could also be the player that is getting caught. This really needs to be compared to staff settings to find the answer.

 

Or... as Plexer said above while I was typing

Edited November 24, 2010 by GREED
modification

[ihaveaproblem]

plexer, we are using smoothwall for our internet filtering. It is set up to use different groups, eg StudentInternet, StaffInternet etc. Any AD user account that has the student internet filtering cant get the 40D content to load.

 

So yes, pupils get more restricted access than staff.

[round2it]

to find out what the browser is looking for try downloading fiddler2 it logs all broser traffic and it tells you if a location is blocked.

 

Fiddler Web Debugger - A free web debugging tool

 

i use it quite a bit here

 

hope it helps

screen shot

http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/images/sshot-1.png

[RTFM]

If you have smoothwall then can't you use the logs and a test account to track where the fault is coming up?

 

If it's a smoothwall block then you'll see it in the logs and then can make adjustments accordingly......

 

The other possibility is, do you have enforce safe search or something of that nature in Smoothwall for students? Our sixth form have access to YouTube but we enforce safe search, it might be possible that 4OD is blocked via the safe search due to the fact some of the content on their will be innappropriate?

 

The other option is that the video is being blocked because of adverts, we had this problem and Smoothwall had to sort the issue;

 

----

 

In 'Domains & URLs':

 

googleads.g.doubleclick.net

s.ytimg.com

bbc.co.uk/emp/10player.swf?revision=18269_19216

 

 

In 'Regular Expression URL':

 

pagead[0-9]\.googlesyndication\.com/pagead/

 

 

We were having the problem in iplayer and youtube that it was just showing 'BLOCKED' over the video and wouldnt play. Create an allow policy for the students, in the filter link it to a new user defined category with the above information in and maybe give that a go?

 

The above might be barking up the wrong tree but its there anyway.

 

----

 

Again, the Smoothwall logs should be able to help quite a lot if you have a test account / machine you can play with to find exactly where the problem is coming from.........

Edited November 24, 2010 by RTFM

[penfold]

You also may not want to change the default studentinternet filter as this will apply to all students including those who are under age to view age restricted content. You may need to look at creating extra groups for students to provide different levels of filtering.

 

However, I think you need to look at your policies on what you are willing to allow access to and what should be filtered before playing around with anything. It's too late if you have a parent complaining at something their child accessed while in school.

[oxide54]

it is blocking the Adverts/

 

I tried blocking their adverts at home my modifying my hosts file to point their ad server at 127.0.0.1 but it did exactly what you said by going in and endless loop. its probably querying the address and being returned a blocking page and doesn't know what to do with it.

 

 

Huyton teacher banned for showing violent film Sin City to pupils - Liverpool Local News - News - Liverpool Echo

[ihaveaproblem]

penfold, We already have groups set up. I just gave an example of two. We have more groups for students than just the 1 i said. It's all of the student groups that cant load the content aswell, but i will only allow the content on the groups that require access for it.

 

Thanks for the suggestions all. I will give them a try and let you know how it goes.

[nile_c]

As other have said, your web filter logs on the smoothwall are only place where you will find out what is happening here. We're always happy to take a look at the logs if you would like to send them via PM/email/support ticket.

It's best to use a test account and limit the logs to this particular user or IP address and examine the DENIED entries. 'Advert' blocks are a likely cause, as 4OD videos play after an initial advert runs.

 

You've mentioned that students can access other Youtube content, how has that been implemented? Do you have allow rules for Youtube in place, or something else?

[TechMonkey]

Slightly OT it is possible to block the adverts but still get the content as at home this happens. I don't know why as I have done nothing special but I found out as I was surprised watching something on someone else's machine to see adverts!

[oxide54]

'Advert' blocks are a likely cause, as 4OD videos play after an initial advert runs.

 

and it will refuse to play the actual content if it can't play the vide.

[RTFM]

Ultimately if your having a problem with Smoothwall first port of call should be their support, they are very good and friendly. I usually try to fix it myself, if i cant just give them a tinkle!

 

As i said previously, the fix i posted on page 1 was the one they gave me and it worked for iplayer and youtube to stop the 'blocked' message when ad's were playing.

[oxide54]

Slightly OT it is possible to block the adverts but still get the content as at home this happens. I don't know why as I have done nothing special but I found out as I was surprised watching something on someone else's machine to see adverts!

 

please check your hosts file and post?

[nile_c]

Ok, I've had a bit of a look around. For 4OD to work there are a few more domains and URLs that are needed, in addition to the ones RTFM mentioned earlier.

 

The complete list that you will need to either 'Allow' or 'Skip URL blocking' on is:

realmedia.channel4.com

googleads.g.doubleclick.net

ad-emea.doubleclick.net/ad/

google.com/uds/api/ads/

pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/

 

Let us all know how you get on with these

[ihaveaproblem]

Thanks all for the help.

I managed to solve the problem. I looked at the smoothwall logs and saw two domains being blocked

 

2mdn.net

googlesyndication.com

 

I added them to the allow list and now the content plays for the required groups.

nile_c, thanks for your searching but I didn’t notice your post until I came back here to post my results, but thanks very much.

[nile_c]

Thanks all for the help.

I managed to solve the problem. I looked at the smoothwall logs and saw two domains being blocked

 

2mdn.net

googlesyndication.com

 

I added them to the allow list and now the content plays for the required groups.

nile_c, thanks for your searching but I didn’t notice your post until I came back here to post my results, but thanks very much.

 

Good to hear! Like a labrador, the filter logs are a faithful friend :-)

 

I enjoyed the puzzle anyway..

[TechMonkey]

please check your hosts file and post?

 

I think it may just be a combo of FireFox, AdBlock Plus, No Flash, & NoScript. Not edited hosts file at all.