Streaming Flash issues (BBCi/4OD)

[gerardsweeney]

Hello, all..

 

I should start by saying that I'm not the network admin - I'm the desktop admin, so I'm really asking here to try to suggest things to our network folk who seem to be having trouble resolving this (so in other words, I may not be able to immediately answer questions about ports which are open etc - so please feel free to offer ANY suggestions, no matter how basic they seem heh).

 

 

For the last (xx) months, we have been having some fairly major issues with viewing streamed Flash/YouTube content.

 

It works, but it's often REALLY stuttery - or at least randomly misbehaves badly.

 

For example - watching a BBC stream (pre-recorded) of either audio or video, our users get:

 

Plays for a couple of minutes and then starts to echo - so you get something like "And I said to And I said to". Pause it, and it plays for another 10-30 seconds, and then pauses. Unpause, and it'll play for another few minutes before starting to do the echo thing again.

 

That's pretty much consistent with any BBC stream.

 

With 4OD, we just don't get anything. The window sits blank or I get the never-ending "flash loading" circle graphic. This happens going through either 4OD or via YouTube (I know they probably link to the same URLs but I figured I should say this for clarity).

 

YouTube seems to be fine, if that goes for anything?

 

The issue is on all PCs in all schools with different flavours of Flash/IE from ye olde ones on IE6 to brand new shiny version of Flash on IE8.

 

The High Schools are on a 100Mb connection to our data centre which has a 45Mb connection to the WWW - so it's presumably not bandwidth.

 

Any suggestions gratefully received before WWIII breaks out here!!!

[themightymrp]

We have a similar issue. One thing that seems to cause a lot of problems for us is the amount of updates that Adobe are shoving out for Flash Player. It doesn't seem to auto-upgrade as it used to and every time an update comes out, Youtube etc, stop working! It's been a nightmare constantly updating machines. It also doesn't help that our internet (supposedly 10mb) very rarely seems to come close to even 4mb!

 

As for 4OD, we don't even bother - getting it to even start streaming is cause for celebration

[gerardsweeney]

Heh - nice to know I'm not alone.

 

I don't think it's to do with the Adobe updates, though - like I said, it does the same thing with the VERY latest version of Flash on a PC with a patched-to-the-hilt IE8 PC.

Next up will be taking a laptop home with me to verify (again) that the same sites work fine on my home broadband over wireless (sound of that getting added to the to-do list)

[themightymrp]

Have you tried another browser? Firefox streams better for me when at home so it might be slightly better in school? You could always grab Firefox Portable and run it from a network share if installing it on lots of machines is too big a job.

[gerardsweeney]

It does the same for Firefox as IE - sorry, I should have added that to the original post