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If your P1i plays youtube, etc. pls post details


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Posted by benjijk
I haven't been able to get my p1i to play any streaming media via WiFi/WLAN. If yours works, please specify what firmware version yours is running, generic world 1, 2, etc. Mine turns out to be a French firmware version. I have a feeling that it might be related to firmware versions, or there might be something missing in the different versions. Please help find a way to narrow it down.

Thanks

BenjiJK§


Posted by pnf1973
If you are having difficulties with youtube please see the following thread

http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=156870&start=16

where it was discussed at length. Its primarily a firewall problem, I found I could not open youtube video from wlan but could over 3g.

Its not a firmware issue.

Posted by _LAU_
I've browsed TinyTube for several hours using my home wifi connection, and although it doesn't stream the movies, it downloads them (I always choose the Hi resolution).
It works great because Opera handles the downloads on background while you keep brownsing, and interrupts asking if you want to see the movie when they finish downloading.

Please Note:
Opea doesn't delete the files from the disk when you ask it to delete. You must use a file explorer to delete them from the Movies folder.

Posted by Nipsen
Another thing.. if the page you're streaming from uses redirects, you need to have the media- player opened in the background if you want to capture the links.

Posted by benjijk
Well the reason I started this post is cos I've tried most of the options posted on the other thread and none have worked. I don't have firewalls, tried forwarding rtp and rtsp ports, none worked. I'm sure there are other users in the same boat. Hence the reason now to see if certain regional firmware p1's work better than others.

If it was simply a network/router/firewall issue then why does my phone not work on any network? I've tried many access points at public places like starbucks and friends places also using routers with no firewalls. What are the chances that the phone doesn't play streaming media on any of these networks? Also why is it that some phones work out the box while others don't no matter what settings you modify? There has to be some reason inherent in the phone.

(everyone also pls keep in mind that I'm referring to playing streaming video over WLAN and not your data plans, 3G or UMTS.)

Thanks

BenjiJK§

Posted by pnf1973
Its simply because nearly all wlan routers have a built in firewall, and if the wlan access point doesn't its because the adsl/internet router does.

If you can access and stream youtube over 3g then your p1 is fine. It is simply a configuration problem somewhere in your wlan connection.

No publicly available wlan will run without a firewall, i'm afraid, and the mobile youtube setup is such that it requires a high number of open ports to work. As a result it simply fails if you have any kind of firewall on the connection.

Opera and the Media viewer app do not care what sort of connection they are using - that lies outside the apps themselves - so if they work over 3g they WILL work over wlan. You simply have to diagnose the wlan connection i'm afraid. Given that you are running on a smart phone rather than a pc its next to impossible to actually do this, it's really a case of trial and error. There just aren't the tools available to tell where you wlan is going wrong.

The fact that you can browse to youtube using wlan suggests that everything is connecting and working, its just that a firewall is stripping the contect that gets fed back. Now, on my router it was reporting the streamed content as a denial of service attack, and I had to specifically disable the option that checked for a DoS attack on the router.

Posted by Nipsen
Well, I haven't tested the latest firmware yet, so I don't know if something improved - but there are problems with the media- streaming over wlan. I.e, the media- player hangs, and so on, on longer clips for no apparent reason. And then it ends up magically working perfectly fine on your local provider's wap- gateway over 3g. So, it's very likely that the phone- implementation is causing problems.

But in general - if you can't connect at all, then the problem is with the firewall and router settings.

...hold on. Does the p1 use upnp for the media- layer? Anyone have the opportunity to check that?

Posted by benjijk
Good, one person that's thinking along the same lines. I am not using 3g cos I can't afford their ridiculous rates.

but I did try enabling upnp and that didn't work. So I'm not sure what it is. I don't understand why people dwell on all this talk about firewalls when my laptop, desktop and a friend's palm treo 700p can access the same content over the same router and modem.

BenjiJK§

Posted by pnf1973

On 2007-11-02 13:23:00, benjijk wrote:
Good, one person that's thinking along the same lines. I am not using 3g cos I can't afford their ridiculous rates.



but I did try enabling upnp and that didn't work. So I'm not sure what it is. I don't understand why people dwell on all this talk about firewalls when my laptop, desktop and a friend's palm treo 700p can access the same content over the same router and modem.



BenjiJK§


Simply because this is where the problem lies! Your laptop and desktop will not be looking at the same youtube site, its this which is the issue. Yes, there ARE issues with the media player and the wlan in the p1, but these are problems after you actually connect and start downloading. Just because a site works on your desktop PC that doesn't mean it will work on the p1! I promise you, the cause of your problem lies in the router/firewall configuration.

Posted by Nipsen
But you can't connect at all? Is that on a direct link to a ram- file, or is it something else?

..I'm not sure what's going on either, but it's like it tries to connect out, does that perfectly fine if it's got a direct address - and then screws up when it has to establish an udp connection on a random port.. Which could explain why some sites tend to not load at all, and others work fine, at least for a while (before the media- player hangs).

Posted by Nipsen

On 2007-11-02 13:44:42, pnf1973 wrote:

Simply because this is where the problem lies!

..Has anyone checked if it works on a direct connection? Through a vpn- account, for example?

Posted by OffLineR
I installed Realplayer to use rtsp on my laptop. I browsed through m.youtube.com and everything worked perfectly.

I can watch rtsp over my laptop but I can't with my P1i.

Posted by Baumann
I have tried everything, does not work

Posted by Nipsen
@OffLineR:
Right. ..Might actually be that the p1's media player (and/or connection handler) won't try to establish new connections out when it starts to lose them. Which probably will work well on a wap- gateway, since it will renew the connections for the phone, and probably not need to negotiate the connections to keep them open. Which an ordinary router will have to, or it will just discard them after a while.

Which (if the shamanic debugging skills didn't fail me) explains why I managed to get streaming to work pretty good now after 1. setting my speedtouch- router on low firewall- settings (to allow all traffic out, which might allow the phone to keep it's connections), and 2. increased the timeout for tcp- connections (probably will have to do this via the cli- interface on most routers). (Tested this on a clip on m.youtube that only ran to 2min, but ran to the end of 8min (or so) after the tweaks.)

I'd really like to know why they've chosen this setup for the phone, though.. I guess it could have something to do with the security model - that the phone shouldn't be able to connect out on it's own. Perhaps it's got something to do with the way it idles connections? Maybe it won't use status packages in the usual way..?

I suppose it does save a lot of traffic, and problems, on the occasions where you don't want connections to open until it fills the stack, though..

Posted by pnf1973
I think the tcp stack is optimised for direct gprs/3g connections. Much slower connections than wlan that aren't firewalled and are designed with completely different latencies etc etc etc

Also remember that installing realplayer on a desktop is not the same as running the media player on the p1. The media player on the p1 will be - at best - a distant relation of the modern realplayer, which will be much better at dealing with the ummmm nuances of wlan. The third issue is what ever the network providers actually do to the internet connection you are using, could this be a qos issue? missing packets, excessive retries, long gaps and not enough buffering on the p1? proxies? who knows

Posted by Nipsen
Mm. Sceptical. I think there's just no altitude for "error" on the abstract connection level at all..

(...allright, that's it. I'm going to flash the phone, wish me luck. )

Posted by pnf1973

On 2007-11-02 21:12:32, Nipsen wrote:
Mm. Sceptical. I think there's just no altitude for "error" on the abstract connection level at all..

(...allright, that's it. I'm going to flash the phone, wish me luck. )


Good luck you won't need it, i'm sure

Posted by Nipsen
There. And I still have nails left.

Apart from the new wlan- icon.. the phone opens more connections without slowing the phone down, now. So whatever they did, it's.. at least better than before. Seems to me it won't just time out the active connections, either, so this is.. probably very good news? (I seriously wish SE could come up with some official changelog, though..)

Posted by benjijk
I'm not educated enough to get into technical stuff regarding WLAN, RTSP and RTP protocols, etc. I know enough to enable/disable the features on the router/modem, or forward required ports, etc. Sorry... didn't study networking.

The issue I'm facing with the media player is this: It accesses the content and starts buffering. After that (it says) it reaches a 100% and stops. Doesn't play the clip. What gives? That leads me to believe that its something inside my version of the media player software and not necessarily a WiFi/protocol issue. (Referring to what pnf1973 mentioned regarding firewalls, my friend's Palm Treo 700p played the same content over the same network and worked. What did it do differently? Has to be something within the device and not the network. That tells me that my network settings are configured correctly.) Maybe a missing codec? Cos I've observed this behaviour on computers as well, where it will begin to stream the clip into memory and then realize that you don't have the required codec installed. Maybe if there's some way to look at the codes in the media player software from someone who has it working and someone who doesn't, maybe a bug can be found.

Posted by Nipsen
I wish.. At least we can test it, and see if we get the same problem. ..What sort of file were you trying to stream?

..btw. I'm pretty sure the next to last firmware has some sort of serious problem with trying to renegotiate the open connections. So it's possible you'd run into problems like this on a network with.. er.. that you will have all these problems on any actual network (that isn't a virtual one, probably). But if you get this all the time, I think SE support would probably be happy to get an e-mail about it (with the links to the file and so on).

..Could you test the same file on a wap- connection?

Posted by benjijk

On 2007-11-03 12:58:48, Nipsen wrote:
I wish.. At least we can test it, and see if we get the same problem. ..What sort of file were you trying to stream?

..Could you test the same file on a wap- connection?


I don't have WAP, I'm not shelling out another #30 a month for super slow data on a phone. I hope phone companies eventually get that. But anyway, so I can't test on WAP. I did send out emails and correspond with tech support, however, the eventual answer that came out was they were trying to work on it too, but these are 3rd party sites, and hence SE can't guarantee that the product will work with 3rd party content. (How stupid!!!)

So as they hopefully are working on figuring out the problem, its upto users to find a solution. For some, the issue might be a router/network problem. For others, let's not rule out the possibility that it could be a problem with the phone.

I'm personally going to hold off updating the phone for two reasons, firstly I have to convert the phone to GW1, and secondly, the update doesn't fix much except for a little speed improvement. The green tint camera issue is still not fixed. Another post mentioned that even after the update, the GW1 firmware can't play youtube material. I'll wait. If SE doesn't take their products seriously, then I'm out eventually.

I simply hate the fact that consumers let companies get away with releasing faulty hardware that's not been properly tested, and are not all functioning as they should. And also release stuff with incomplete software/OS like UIQ3. They eventually get you into a habit of paying for updates to even basic functions that should've been there in the first place.

But anyway, let's keep this post on topic. Youtube over WLAN - not working!

BenjiJK§

Posted by Nipsen
..as much as I agree with you (even though I managed to get it working on my setup for m.youtube clips, and other streaming content, after fiddling a bit with the settings. And haven't had the connection kills I had on the previous firmware) - in some ways we just have to compromise on this. The software is much more difficult now than it used to be, so a larger amount of problems with that part of the mobile device is more or less inevitable. So some sort of fixing along the way is always going to be necessary.

Of course - when this wasn't ironed out after an uiq3 device with wlan had been on the market for over a year.. Still, we have to accept that with more complex software, there will be problems to solve along the way. So I think what we're looking for is a way to improve SE's customer relations and overall strategy when it comes to addressing various problems with their devices. And I mean - suggesting that any content not directly under SE's web- domain is provided by a third party, and so SE cannot guarantee the service works, that is not an acceptable excuse when the issue is a problem with a documented protocol implementation they're supposed to support. And the responses are apparently designed to deliberately piss the customers off, so some serious rethinking obviously needs to take place.

But it's probably important to keep in mind that this does not really take away the fact that some updates are inevitable, and that a unit will not be perfect when it is released. And that what we're lacking in this, are useful ways to communicate with SE. (Like where to direct bug- reports, how, to who and in what format. As well as what sort of fixes will be considered probable. What sort of service should be expected on different channels, on phone support or elsewhere, etc. And SE obviously is not very good at any of these things.)

Posted by nelshh

On 2007-11-02 23:25:50, Nipsen wrote:

(I seriously wish SE could come up with some official changelog, though..)


They never will, they don't want an officially released summary of what was wrong with the phone when people bought it

Posted by Nipsen
lol.

..but that's easy to fix. Instead of saying "logical error that broke the program- functionality on several different points" - you say "optimisation of core components". ..Seriously, though - what we need is a changelog of what appears to us on the user- end, not a list of all the technical changes. Right?

Posted by pnf1973


But anyway, let's keep this post on topic. Youtube over WLAN - not working!

BenjiJK§


I know this is frustrating, but after years of dealing with rubbish like this I myself am not surprised in the least. The issue with Youtube is simply one of software - of that there is no doubt - with both the media viewer app and with the WLAN layer on the phone itself. Simply pointing to another - non related - device and saying that works why doesn't mine is pointless. I long gave up wondering why computers, networks and the internet simply DO NOT WORK in a logical fashion most of the time. What works on one OS and one set of hardware simply does not work the same on another. I have seen this time and time again.

You simply have to keep trying various combinations of settings and hardware until you get to one that works. Seeing as you are still having a problem my first port of call would be to try a completely OPEN connection - no firewall, no encryption, no nothing and see if that works. It was only by setting up and IP address which was allowed ALL inbound connections and traffic and then using this for my P1 that I actually got ANYTHING to play from youtube, or indeed any content that required streaming via the Media Viewer app. Even IF you manage to get to this point you will undoubtly then get the problem of the stream stopping for no reason and the app simply exiting. This especially true on longer streaming audio, such as those from the BBC website.

Then there is the quality of the video you then get from the media viewer, the videos I have managed to stream from Youtube are, in a word, rubbish - worse than the lowest level of video recording for a MMS clip IMO. Its really not worth the worry or the trouble if I'm honest. YES is should work, NO i know it doesn't, I also know it doesn't work for any really good reason but for what you actually get I really REALLY wouldn't bother.

Nipsen and myself have discussed this problem at GREAT length, neither of us - even with the obviously huge level of experience from both sides - can come up with a sensible reason for the issue.

Posted by Nipsen
Hey! I'm a professional guesser, and don't you dare suggest anything else.


Posted by _LAU_
Hi
Anyone already managed to stream from m.youtube.com?
I've setup an ad-hoc connection (no router) with my PC and although the globe flashes a lot like if it was downloading, in the end nothing happens.
Was it supposed to work?
By the way, tinytube videos don't stream either.
The P1 player is useless...

Posted by petrutms
forget it. no uiq 3 phone will play youtube, m.youtube.com or any other tube. i`ve tried via wifi, 3g, bluetooth, anything. no luck. it sucks.

Posted by doministry
Well, my P990 plays perfectly all videos from m.youtube.com on 3G.
Never had problem with it. It's like 5 sec. buffering and here we go.

Posted by denosha
Seems that a lot of people don't believe that the P1i DOES play vids off mobile YouTube over a WLAN connection. I have no idea why it works for some and doesn't for others but it definitely works for me. I just took this vid to prove it:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=d2p2M_csjBQ

Posted by pnf1973

On 2007-11-04 23:36:00, _LAU_ wrote:
Hi

Anyone already managed to stream from m.youtube.com?

I've setup an ad-hoc connection (no router) with my PC and although the globe flashes a lot like if it was downloading, in the end nothing happens.

Was it supposed to work?

By the way, tinytube videos don't stream either.

The P1 player is useless...


Yeah, its SUPPOSED to, but in fact for it to work it would appear the P1 requires a completely open connection to the net. In your case it's almost certainly the internet connection sharing that is blocking the stream, you'd need to check which ports the streaming needs and add them to the allowed list in the sharing properties.

Posted by _LAU_
I'm using Vista and I've shared everything!

Sorry the screenshot, I'm running Vista in Portuguese...



*BUT* I just noticed I can add a new share!
Anyone can debug which Ports are needed?

Thanks!

[ This Message was edited by: _LAU_ on 2007-11-05 12:20 ]

Posted by pnf1973
@LAU

You need to add the ports for real player, see http://service.real.com/firewall/rplay.html

Simply click "add..."

Give it a name (realplayer streaming, for example) and enter the UDP port range that real specify 6970-32,000.

What I don't know is if you can enter ranges in there, if not you're stuffed

You might have to do this for the other ports that Real mention, not having done this myself I'm not sure if it will work or how well it'll work. Good Luck!

Posted by Nipsen
Allright.. so..: the realplayer opens a link via port 80. It then requests connections on various ports. And if those ports are blocked (UDP, various ports), then the clip won't play at all. If the player can connect out, it will receive information (depending on the site) in various ways, perhaps on the already opened connections (the UDP range). But most sites will try to assign you specific connections at other ports via secondary servers (..load- balancing), which the player listens for on tcp:554. If that port is blocked, the internally opened connections from the p1 (that are allowed through the firewall) are killed (externally), the non- existent error- correction kicks in and hangs the player, or stops the clip, with no debug- message.

...?

Posted by _LAU_
Hi

Finally I had some time to so some propper tests, but all failed.
I opened the ReaplPlayer ports as suggested, and also killed the Vista firewall. The result ... nothing. No streaming at all

But I recon that something must be missing because in Vista I can not open a port range like (from A to B) ---> at least using hte interface (screeshot post above), so the configuration was not complete.

If someone finds a way in Vista to share te internet connection in a RANGE, please post.

Thank you in advance


Posted by benjijk
Well, so I guess we're having no luck with video streaming. Is there a way we can all send a group post to SE to fix this issue? Let me know...


Posted by _LAU_
The problem is the routers/firewalls.
SE has nothing to do with the problem. Read the provious posts and you see many people managed to get it working.


Posted by pnf1973
I think i'm gonna have start a wlan page somewhere, how to get your p1 to work with your router.

1) take baseball bat
2) smash baseball bat into router
3) repeat step 2 until router is reduced to dust
4) go to nearest computer retailer
5) buy any wlan router priced above £250 ($500)
6) enjoy a properly working wlan experience



Posted by liaoip
Sorry if this sounds like an ignorant statement, but why is there so much problem making m.youtube work? Course, this is coming from a guy that hasn't had any of the problems described. I usually like eating at this Boba place called Lollicup and they have free WiFi there so all I do is connect and I'm on the web. I often go to m.youtube and just click on the movies, to watch them. Everything streams fine and I haven't had a problem at that location or anywhere else that I've gotten WiFi connection. So I can assuredly say that the P1i itself has no problems playing m.youtube movies. If your WiFI has restrictions, on the other hand, then that might be a different problem.

^^

Posted by benjijk

On 2007-11-20 16:06:24, pnf1973 wrote:
I think i'm gonna have start a wlan page somewhere, how to get your p1 to work with your router.

1) take baseball bat
2) smash baseball bat into router
3) repeat step 2 until router is reduced to dust
4) go to nearest computer retailer
5) buy any wlan router priced above £250 ($500)
6) enjoy a properly working wlan experience




Hey Pnf1973

love your sense of humor. only one issue however, your above said method works great at home. How do I make this same method work at a public hotspot or someone else's router?

Bottom line, the online media player of the p1 needs a little modification.

Posted by benjijk

On 2007-11-20 18:39:48, liaoip wrote:
Sorry if this sounds like an ignorant statement, but why is there so much problem making m.youtube work? Course, this is coming from a guy that hasn't had any of the problems described. I usually like eating at this Boba place called Lollicup and they have free WiFi there so all I do is connect and I'm on the web. I often go to m.youtube and just click on the movies, to watch them. Everything streams fine and I haven't had a problem at that location or anywhere else that I've gotten WiFi connection. So I can assuredly say that the P1i itself has no problems playing m.youtube movies. If your WiFI has restrictions, on the other hand, then that might be a different problem.

^^


Hi liaoip, are you in CA by any chance? If you are then we should meet up, and you can take me to the same lollicup joint so I can try it as well. I love Boba too, and I've been to other places like Boba Loca that also serves free internet along with their stuff, and m.youtube.com just doesn't stream on my phone. I started this thread and apart from the suggestion of pnf1973 of getting a baseball bat and destroying my current router, and getting a new 'expensive' one, no one has been able to figure out the settings to make streaming video work over WLAN. If you're using 3g/UMTS, have you tried disabling those features (maybe put the phone in flight mode) and playing the videos using just WLAN? Most users have no problem getting video to stream over 3g/UMTS, but many are having issues getting it to work over WLAN. If you can figure out a fix, please post.

Posted by pnf1973
@benjijk

Humour aside, the unsual cause for the streaming to fail lies with firewall software on the router. I had the same problem with my d-link, I had to set up a "DMZ" server as it called it, which had a fixed IP. This IP then has a completely open internet connection, which if i then manually assign my p1 that IP (rather than let it pick up an IP from DCHP) my p1 can then stream to its hearts content.

There is no easy answer to this, the actual solution will vary from router to router, but as a starting point you need to find a way to allow your p1 to have a completely firewall free internet connection.

Posted by bwian
When trying to use RTSP through a router that doesn't support RTSP it fails. No shit Sherlock!

Quit trying to configure the phone and make sure your router supports realtime streaming protocol if you want to get it working.

Posted by pnf1973
You don't need explicit support for rtsp if you can configure the router properly. But basically, yes, look for a router that supports the protocol properly. I know mine doesn't, which i why i had to mess about with fixed ip's and whatnot.

Posted by alanruncie
I dont think this problem is necessarily connected with routers as I am unable to get youtube mobile to stream even if using 3G.

The media player starts by saying buffering, jumps to 100% , still continues to apparently load, finishes by displaying the 2 musical notes icon...but just hangs if you try to play it..no video, no sound.

However other sites do stream both using 3G or WLAN through my router without any problem and curiously open up in realplayer which youtube does not.

Try going to the site http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/mobile

Its in German but at least you can test the P1i

I'm beginning to think its a codec problem with UIQ3

[ This Message was edited by: alanruncie on 2007-11-26 21:07 ]

Posted by pnf1973
Which is interesting. The link provided links to a RTSP stream that seems much more stable than youtube, at least for me.

I wonder what youtube are doing to these vids?

[edit] the "live" links play audio but not video it seems

[ This Message was edited by: pnf1973 on 2007-11-26 21:48 ]

Posted by alanruncie
Yes I noticed that with the live links too but at least it plays them. I can't even stream the audio links from the BBC which is why I think its either a codec or media player fault with the P1i.

It only seems to be a problem with streamed clips as if I download the 3gp clips they play no prob and its obviously not a prob with my router when I can get other sites to stream via WLAN or 3G.

It wouldn't be anything to do with branded firmware?

Im on the O2 version CXC16037 R9J005 but its been the same with the older firmwares too.

Posted by benjijk
@ alanruncie

thank you for the links. now that's the first time I saw the phone launch the realplayer application link to play streaming video. I don't get why some people just think that know everything about everything. There now we have supporting proof and evidence that it is indeed a phone/codec/media player issue which is what I stated from the beginning of the post. I'm not going to repeat myself yet again but let's all move on from here and forward something solid to SE so they'l issue a fix. i've tried playing streaming media including bbc audio/video streams, etc with the three different firmwares so I know for a fact that nothing has been fixed in that area even though the browser was updated on the last revision.

Posted by rajunl


Posted by pnf1973
I have managed to get the BBC audio streams to play, they have a tendency to just stop though - something internal to the media player by the look of it.

Maybe the issue here is with which application actually plays the stream - realplayer or media viewer - realplayer DOES seem more stable than the media viewer.


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