Server error 503 when running On-demand HTTP Dynamic Streaming tutorial

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to set up an HTTP Dynamic Streaming environment for VoD (not live streaming). I'm following the instructions in the HTTP Dynamic Streaming Quick Start guide (http://help.adobe.com/en_US/HTTPStreaming/1.0/Using/WS8d6ed60bd880807c48597a9e1265edd6cc0- 8000.html#WS8af793f9af34bea0def106e12873ad717a-8000)
I'm running everything on Windows 7. I installed Apache 2.2, as well as the HTTP Origin module and the f4fpackager. I also installed the Microsoft 2005 and 2008 Visual C++ redustibutable packages (I actually have 3 different versions of the 2008 redistributable package installed on my system).
I ran f4fpackager using the default settings (I only configured the input file and output path). The input file is an H.264 video several minutes long. The result is a single video file (CascadaSeg1.f4f), a single index file (CascadaSeg1.f4x) and the manifest (Cascada.f4m).
I am using the sample OSMF player linked to by the quick start guide. The player plays the sample links correctly.
When I try accessing the .f4m file I generated the video starts playing and then stops with a player message that the segment is unavailable. The network trace shows that the player asks for CascadaSeg1-Frag1, receives it, then asks for CascadaSeg1-Frag3 to which the server returns a "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable" error.
I raised Apache logging level to debug but didn't find anything useful (at least not to me :-) )
Reinstalling all components did not resolve the problem (as was suggested in a different similar discussion).
I can't even distinguish whether the problem is a packager problem or a server problem. I am trying to obtain Flash Media Server 3.8 but that will take a while, if at all.
Any ideas? Does anyone have a correctly packaged video file that I could put on my server to see if that plays correctly? Other suggestions?
All help is much appreciated.
Regards,
- Naomi

Answer 1

Thanks for the pointer. See below the output from the parser (I formatted the first rows for easier reading). I'm not sure exactly how to read it, but it seems the parser found no errors and indeed there is a Fragment 3 but no Fragment 2.
I see that between fragment 1 and 3 there is a large increase in time (twice the increase between other segments).
I don't know how to interpret afra_offset. The f4f file size is 59.1 MB - if afra_offset is a byte offset than the file is definitely large enough.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
- Naomi
f4x file parser utility
Ver 0.1
the length of the file is 1817
afra length 1817
Box name afra
version 0 flags 204
longIDs 1 longOffsets 1, globalEntries 1
timescale 1000
entry_count 0
Count time offset offset-hex
global_entry_count 56
Count      time          segment      fragment      afra_offset      offset_from_afra
0                0            1                1                    12486            0
1                9560       1                3                      348a0b          0
2                14360      1                4                      4514c9       0
3                19160      1                5                      564b63       0
4 23960 1 6  6bd55b  0
5 24000 1 7  ffffffff  0
6 28760 1 8  812320  0
7 33560 1 9  960f5f  0
8 38360 1 10  a84984  0
9 43160 1 11  be4bf7  0
10 47960 1 12  d42bf7  0
11 48000 1 13  ffffffff  0
12 52760 1 14  e7dd5b  0
13 57560 1 15  fd0f2f  0
14 62360 1 16  1117b57  0
15 67160 1 17  12476be  0
16 71960 1 18  136c36b  0
17 72000 1 19  ffffffff  0
18 76760 1 20  149a611  0
19 81560 1 21  15da701  0
20 86360 1 22  16fcc72  0
21 91160 1 23  1817c72  0
22 95960 1 24  192a704  0
23 96000 1 25  ffffffff  0
24 100760 1 26  1a5e901  0
25 105560 1 27  1bb3c74  0
26 110360 1 28  1ccffb6  0
27 115160 1 29  1df7b15  0
28 119960 1 30  1f2251d  0
29 120000 1 31  ffffffff  0
30 124760 1 32  208f76a  0
31 129560 1 33  21e2bdd  0
32 134360 1 34  23665a1  0
33 139160 1 35  24c19a0  0
34 143960 1 36  25e95cc  0
35 144000 1 37  ffffffff  0
36 148760 1 38  270706b  0
37 153560 1 39  27fd359  0
38 158360 1 40  297aa79  0
39 163160 1 41  2ac43c5  0
40 167960 1 42  2be412e  0
41 168000 1 43  ffffffff  0
42 172760 1 44  2d376fd  0
43 177560 1 45  2e632c6  0
44 182360 1 46  2f9e374  0
45 187160 1 47  30e25df  0
46 191960 1 48  325d15c  0
47 192000 1 49  ffffffff  0
48 196760 1 50  33f5173  0
49 201560 1 51  3557336  0
50 206360 1 52  3699a34  0
51 211160 1 53  37df5d3  0
52 215960 1 54  38bba3f  0
53 216000 1 55  ffffffff  0
54 220760 1 56  39e62c8  0
55 225560 1 57  3ae942d  0