[Solved] No more video streams from TV sites

[Bald Brick]

I recently noticed that I could not watch any video streams or video clips from the BBC home pages.

So I checked the the site of our national TV company. Same result. I couldn't watch any archived programs. Same thing with one of our commercial TV stations. Programs that I had been able to watch only a week ago didn't work anymore, and this regardless of browser.

I tried using Opera, Chromium, Konqueror and Firefox. Firefox was the only one that tried to tell me what was wrong. It insisted that I had to enable JavaScript to watch a clip. But JavaScript was already enabled in all my browsers.

I can watch YouTube videos, live television from my TV card, and files in every imaginable video format on my hard disk. I just can't see any video on the home pages of any TV station.

So what has changed? And quite recently?

I did install the pae version of the 2.6.37.4 kernel when it appeared in the repository but I get the same result with three older kernels. I did play with the Phonon settings some days ago, but only with the sound settings. And of course the Nvidia drivers were updated recently -- but in most applications video works perfectly.

Then I just noticed that my webcam has stopped working in Skype, while it still works perfectly in apps like vxCam. I've no idea whether this could be a related problem.

So has this happened to anybody else?



And I forgot to mention that I'm running KDE 4.6.1.

[7272andy]

No idea wrt your webcam, but I do have all the BBC feeds live stream etc working perfectly here using the same pae kernel.

Could noscript be blocking something like bbcimg.co.uk

[Bald Brick]

No idea wrt your webcam, but I do have all the BBC feeds live stream etc working perfectly here using the same pae kernel.

Could noscript be blocking something like bbcimg.co.uk

Thanks, 7272andy,

Firefox is not my default browser, so it was only when I read your post that I remembered that NoScript blocks JavaScript and Flash by default. I unblocked the pages in question -- with the result that Firefox stopped telling me to enable JavaScript. But that didn't solve the main problem: I still couldn't watch any video on these sites.

And, as far as I know, NoScript only works on Mozilla-based browsers. It couldn't have influenced the other three browsers.

[7272andy]

Strange, I can't be much help here as I don't have the problem, BBC plays and streams flawlessly on the page for me in both Konquerer and Firefox (although Firefox won pop-out though it does run in full screen and Konquerer wont perform either effect)

[menotu]

Which version of Flash are you using Bald Brick ?

[Bald Brick]

Which version of Flash are you using Bald Brick ?

It seems to be 10.2.152.27. What it was when video streaming worked I do not know.

But on YouTube it works.

Do you mean I should downgrade to 10.1.102.65?

[7272andy]

Must admit that's the version I'm running due to problems and instability experienced with the new version

[Bald Brick]

Must admit that's the version I'm running due to problems and instability experienced with the new version

So I did downgrade. And that just made everything more confusing. The BBC and YLE streams that I tried to watch don't work even after the downgrade. On the other hand the videos on the commercial channel suddenly started working.

What makes this really stranger is that the BBC and YLE pages really seem to use Flash while I'm now viewing the commercial station with the MPlayer plugin. Why should MPlayer care about which version of Flash I use?

This doesn't make sense at all.

[menotu]

Do you mean I should downgrade to 10.1.102.65?

I was wondering whether you were testing the 10.3x version (in repo testing section) as that has a "local" control panel which can "control" certain aspects of the flash player. 

But I can now see you weren't and have tried the "downgrade" route

[7272andy]

Just tried YLE with no problem. Sorry  

There has to be something on your setup, have you tried creating a new login or using the Live CD?

[Bald Brick]

Do you mean I should downgrade to 10.1.102.65?

I was wondering whether you were testing the 10.3x version (in repo testing section) as that has a "local" control panel which can "control" certain aspects of the flash player. 

But I can now see you weren't and have tried the "downgrade" route

And now I have tried the "testing" route too. It didn't help either.

I suspect I've done something bad playing with the Phonon settings, even if I didn't touch the video ones.

[Bald Brick]

Just tried YLE with no problem. Sorry  

There has to be something on your setup, have you tried creating a new login or using the Live CD?

I'll try creating a new user after a couple of hours. (I'm watching a movie at the moment.)

Thanks.

[menotu]

And now I have tried the "testing" route too. It didn't help either.

I was half expecting that.

BTW, did you install kde4-flash-player-plugin-config when you installed flash 10.3 as it puts a Control Panel in KDE System Settings (above Configure Your Desktop >> Common Appearance & Behaviour)

I suspect I've done something bad playing with the Phonon settings, even if I didn't touch the video ones.

+1.

[Bald Brick]

Just tried YLE with no problem. Sorry  

There has to be something on your setup, have you tried creating a new login or using the Live CD?

I didn't have to create a new user; I have two, and I logged in as the other one. And for that other user video streaming worked both from the BBC sites and from the YLE site. Nevertheless I'm not going to mark this thread as "solved". I want to know why video from TV sites stopped working for my primary user. It may take months to find out.

But thanks for your help. And thanks to menotu too.

 

[Bald Brick]

I now get an error message in a small window when visiting one of the misbehaving sites as my primary user.

The first two lines can be translated as

An ActionScript Error has occurred.
Error: Error #2134  Cannot create SharedObject.

Here's the complete message:

Ett ActionScript-fel har uppstått:
Error: Error #2134: Det går inte att skapa SharedObject.
   at flash.net::SharedObject$/getLocal()
   at bbc.emp.model::SharedObjectProxy()
   at bbc.emp.commands.initialization::InitializeAppCommand/execute()
   at org.puremvc.as3.multicore.core::Controller/executeCommand()
   at Function/http://adobe.com/AS3/2006/builtin::apply()
   at org.puremvc.as3.multicore.patterns.observer::Observer/notifyObserver()
   at org.puremvc.as3.multicore.core::View/notifyObservers()
   at org.puremvc.as3.multicore.patterns.facade::Facade/notifyObservers()
   at org.puremvc.as3.multicore.patterns.facade::Facade/sendNotification()
   at bbc.emp::ApplicationFacade/startup()
   at EMP_Main/init()
   at bbc.emp.view.preloader::PreloaderFactory/init()
   at bbc.emp.view.preloader::PreloaderFactory/onEnterFrame()