Subsonic Forum

OK, let's give the proposed Help format a shot, shall we?...

<-------------------------Subsonic Help Request---------------------->
Problem Description: I just upgraded from SS 4.1 up to 4.4. Upon doing so, Flash players are now broken for all users, in all browsers (IE, Chrome, and Firefox4). Chrome shows a whitespace where jplayer should be, FF simply shows nothing.
Troubleshooting Steps: I checked the Flash versions both in my browsers and other users'... they ranged from 10.1.x to the current 10.2.x, and none of them worked. Upgrading to latest Flash did not work either. Because it was broken across all browsers and Flash versions, I figured it must be something SS4.4-specific, so I back-rev'd to 4.1, and voila, Flash players works for everyone once again.
Playback Application and version: Just the straight Subsonic-in-browser, not dealing with mobile devices or apps. Chrome10, Firefox4, Firefox3, IE8, and IE6, on both Windows7 and Windows XP
Subsonic Version: current working version: 4.1 (build 1802) – 10 September 2010. The version that fails: 4.4 latest (don't have build since I don't want to break it again, but it's the latest one on the site as of Feb 6th)
Server Version: Apache Tomcat/6.0.29, java 1.6.0_22, Linux (31.8 MB / 49.6 MB)
Hardware Platform: Scientific Linux 5.5, kernel 2.6.18
Java Memory Limit: Unsure offhand. For good measure, I am not running the standalone, but rather the .WAR version within Tomcat6.
Problem Filename: n/a
Output from ffmpeg -i:

Code: Select all

FFmpeg version 0.6.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Dec  4 2010 15:37:20 with gcc 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-48)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib --shlibdir=/usr/lib --mandir=/usr/share/man --incdir=/usr/include --disable-avisynth --extra-cflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m32 -march=i386 -mtune=generic -fasynchronous-unwind-tables' --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-libdirac --enable-libfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-libfaadbin --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --enable-shared --enable-swscale --enable-vdpau --enable-version3 --enable-x11grab
  libavutil     50.15. 1 / 50.15. 1
  libavcodec    52.72. 2 / 52.72. 2
  libavformat   52.64. 2 / 52.64. 2
  libavdevice   52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
  libavfilter    1.19. 0 /  1.19. 0
  libswscale     0.11. 0 /  0.11. 0
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0


Last ten log file lines: Sadly none available at this time -- after back-rev'ing to SS4.1, the logfile started anew, and I'm not seeing any archived copies, which is rather disturbing. Doesn't subsonic roll over logfiles into archived ones, ie, "subsonic.log_1", "subsonic.log_2", etc.?
<-------------------------Subsonic Help Request---------------------->

Hopefully that format is helpful -- looking at the Preview, I do agree that Help Request format makes things clearer and more consistent. I am wondering if this has something to do with the jplayer in 4.4, and whether it is somehow a different version from what's in 4.1. Open to suggestions on what might need to be changed on the server end, as the clients don't appear to be at fault (they all have pretty recent Flash versions, yet SS4.4 flash player fails across all browsers and browser versions, uniformly).
Thanks!
Supra92

Additional info...

Scouted around the directories, and found that indeed SS4.1 and SS4.4 have different jwplayer versions. SS4.1 had jwplayer4.4 and jwplayer5.0 in the ../flash directory, while SS4.4 had jwplayer 5.4 in that same location.

I tried two things:

1. Went out to the Longtailvideo site and downloaded the latest jwplayer, version 5.5, tossed that into the ../flash dir, renamed the older jwplayer5.4, then restarted tomcat6. No dice -- same deal, no flash player visible in any browsers. (And, fwiw, I did rename the "player.swf" as it's called by default in the download to the SS naming standard of "jw-player-5.5.swf", for good measure...)

2. Nixed both newer jwplayers (5.4, and 5.5) from SS4.4's ../flash dir, and instead copied over jwplayer5.0 from the previous SS4.1 installation. Restarted tomcat6. PRESTO -- players now function perfectly in all browsers.


So... this is sort of a partial solution. On the one hand, I now have SS4.4 up and running, with flash players working in all browsers. On the other hand, there's got to be a reason why the latest jwplayers aren't working, especially since I haven't seen dozens of people here with the same issue.

Any ideas why jwplayer 5.4 and 5.5 simply don't work with my SS4.4 installation? Also, I've not yet gotten video to work, though I assume video does not occur "inline" with SS the way the flash player does... is that true, that SS opens up a popup window with the video player? I have three videos (.mp4 and .mpg) in a folder that I've added to the music folders, ensured SS is looking for .mpg and .mp4 in the extension types, and also ensured that the standard transcoding options are set up (they were by default). Yet when I click a video's play arrow button, absolutely nothing at all happens. Didn't know if jwplayer 5.4+ is a prerequisite for playing videos, or if it's an entirely unrelated thing...

Regards,
Supra92

The problem you are describing seems to the be that same problem that I'm having. I only have the latest version since this is the first time I've ever used this program. I'm trying to watch movies on my droid phone and the window opens where I should be able to watch the movie but it just sits there with a loading circle.

I might purchase the subsonic server if I could get this to work. Without this video function working there is no reason for me to pay for it!

So I guess I need to do some serious digging like you have in order to make a program work? And they want me to pay for it after a 30 day trial?

Closing out this last thread too. The failed jwplayer issue was caused by the same issue resulting in failures in 4.4's search engine and Cover Art functions: cache files in the tomcat6 work dir that needed to be cleared out.

Solution involved locating the tomcat6 work dir and deleting all those cached files. On my Scientific Linux 5.5 system with Tomcat6, that dir was located here:

/var/cache/tomcat6/work/Catalina/localhost/subsonic/org/apache/jsp/WEB_002dINF/jsp

Doing an rm -Rf in that directory cleared out all jsp files (and a wap dir). Restarted tomcat6, and all issues were resolved including the latest jwplayer (5.4) working as it should.

Cheers,
Supra92