FMS 4.5 (HDS/HLS) not working

[Guest]

I watched two videos by Jody Bleyle:

1. http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/single-live-video-stream-http-flash-ios.html

2. http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/live-multi-bitrate-video-http-flash-ios.html

In Video 1, she shows how to stream a single file.  I've done everything to the letter on this video, however, when she uses the videoplayer to reference the livestream.f4m file, there is none.  I've actually checked the folder location (apploications/livepkgr/streams/_definst_/livestream and there are files in there (.f4f and .f4x), but no .f4m which is the file she references in the video player.

In Video 2, she shows how to create a multi-bitrate video stream.  Using the manifest packager and creating a .f4m and .m3u8 package and placing it in the webroot folder.  Here is the contents of my liveevent.f4m file:

<manifest xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/f4m/2.0">

  <baseURL>http://live.stefanientertainment.com/hds-live/livepkgr/_definst_/liveevent/</baseURL>

  <media href="livestream1" bitrate="150"/>

  <media href="livestream2" bitrate="500"/>

  <media href="livestream3" bitrate="1000"/>

</manifest>

When I bring up the sample video player and input the stream url "http://localhost/liveevent.f4m" and click "Play Stream" I get and error "The F4M document contains errors...Error parsing f4m file.

What the heck am I missing here?  This shouldn't be rocket science!

[SE_0208]

You won't find .f4m file on the disk for live events - so that's the reason you are not finding the .f4m file in the folder where you are searching for it.

What error do you get when you try to play single stream? Do you have crossdomain.xml in your webroot directory?

Flash Media Playback : http://www.osmf.org/configurator/fmp/

[Guest]

SE_0208,

Jody should have explained it as such in her video.  In video 1, she states the following:

Publish (FLME)

(server and app) rtmp://[fmsdomain]/livepkgr

(stream) livestream?adbe-live-event=liveevent

Play

(HDS) http://[fmsdomain]/hds-live/livepkgr/_definst_/liveevent/livestream.f4m

(HLS) http://[fmsdomain]/hls-live/livepkgr/_definst_/liveevent/livestream.m3u8

She says nothing about using the creating the .f4m or .m3u8 file using the Set-Level F4M/MDU8 File Generator (SLFG) or placing them in the liveevent folder as stated above.  So if I use the SLFG to generate these files, where do I put them? Also, the reference to "hds-live" and "his-live" are relative to what?  As you can see in the file path tree below, the structure is correct:

Also, there is a manifest file called "manifest.xml" under /applications/livepkgr/events/_definst_/liveevent folder. The contents are as follows:

<manifest xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/f4m/1.0">

  <media streamId="livestream1" bitrate="100" />

  <media streamId="livestream2" bitrate="200" />

  <media streamId="livestream3" bitrate="350" />

</manifest>

Answering your second question first "Do you have a crossdomain.xml in your webroot directory?" No I don't

On your first question "What error do you get when you try to play single stream?" I can use use FLME to to create an FMS URL: rtmp://live.stefanientertainment.com/live and a Stream: cameraFeed%i. Using the

Flash Media Playback : http://www.osmf.org/configurator/fmp/, , I can create the HTML embedded code, put it on my website and play a single stream or multi-bitrate stream all day long.

My issue is getting this stream to play on a iOS device (iPad/iPhone). I need to use the HLS/m3u8 format, To be honest, both of Jody's videos make a lot of assumptions, don't work and should not be tagged as "User Level: Beginning".  So can you provide me with an easy way to stream HLS/m3u8?

Thanks once again, Gio.

Don't mean to rant.  Just a little frustrated.  Trying to get a live feed up for this weekend.

[SE_0208 · Accepted solution]

Let's try to do it step by step (some steps are extra but lets do it so that we get it working at first time itself):-

Assumptions:

1. You have FMS 4.5

2. You have FMLE with MainConcept AAC Plug-in (HLS does not work with mp3 as audio codec)

Now

1. Stop your FMS.

2. Delete "streams" folder under "livepkgr"

3. Delete any .stream files created in "livepkgr/events/_definst_/liveevent"

4. Start your FMS again.

5. Now in FMLE your settings would be as below

Video: H.264 , Baseline 3.0 , Keyframe Frequency:4 , Frame rate: 29.97

Audio: AAC or HE-AAC | Bit rate: 40 | Sampling rate: 22.05 KHzs | Stereo

MBR set: 60/160/310

Server URI: rtmp://<serverip>/livepkgr

Streamname: livestream%i?adbe-live-event=liveevent

4. Publish the stream by hitting "Start" button

5. Go to livepkgr application folder and check if 3 .stream files are created under "livepkgr/events/_definst_/liveevent" and under "streams/_definst_" if "livestream1","livestream2" and "livestream3" folder are created. Inside "livestream1" you should see .control, .f4x , .f4f & .bootstrap files getting created - similarly for "livestream2" and "livestream3". This is to make sure your recording is working fine.

5. Now go to your iPAD and in safari browser put below URI

http://<serveruri>/hls-live/livepkgr/_definst_/liveevent.m3u8

Even if you follow above steps and dont get working then we will have to see what is going wrong. Do let me know.

[Guest]

SE_0208,

I actually got it to work.  There is a mistake in the FMS 4.5.1 guide on page 10, step 3 where they tell you to delete the manifest.xml file. Interesting because that is the file that renders the .f4m file.. My issue now is I'm having some buffering issues which I will post in a new thread.  I hope you can shead some light on that issue as well.  Thanks for all your help!

Gio

[Guest]

SE_0208,

I rebuilt my FMS server since I was having buffering issues.  I did a clean installation and followed your instructions above to the letter.  All is correct up to step 5.  When I put the URI in Safari I get:

Not Found

The requested URL /his-live/livepkgr/_definst_/liveevent.m3u8 was not found on this server.

Apache /2.2.21 (Win32) DAV/2 Server at live.stefanientertainment.com Port 80

You mentioned the crossdomain.xml in the webroot folder.  That was not in the fresh installation.  Can you explain if I need that or not and what it's purpose is?

Thanks

[SE_0208]

Hi giostefani,

You dont need crossdomain.xml for HLS - its flash player security thing. So i dont think that's the issue.

When you say things are fine till step 5 - i just realised i have messed up my numbering - too many steps are numbered as 5 - can you let me know till what step its working fine,

[Guest]

The following step is NOT working.  Everrything prior to this is working fine.

5. Now go to your iPAD and in safari browser put below URI

http://<serveruri>/hls-live/livepkgr/_definst_/liveevent.m3u8

[Guest]

Also, do you need the crossdomain.xml for HDS?

[SE_0208]

Yes you do.

[David_Welch3]

I'm having the same issues the Gio has, I have made the steps above (Feb 25 post), and the directories are there and the livestreamX.bootstrap, livestreamX.control, livestreamX.meta and livestreamXSeg1.f4f and livestreamXSeg1.f4x files.

I have even copied a completely open crossdomain.xml into the root directory of the webroot folder (it's not clear in the posts that this was needed nor why).

I can open the home page (using the ip address) of the FMS from the iPad and it brings up the admin page, so there is no connectivity issue.  I'm using the latest FMS release 4.5.4 (upgraded from 4.5), development version.  I've also tried this on iPhone4 and iPhone5, no change.

Also, the logs have this:

Wed 02:42:23 PM: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flash Media Server 4.5\applications\livepkgr\events\_definst_\livestream1\Event.xml does not exist or is invalid.

Wed 02:42:23 PM: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flash Media Server 4.5\applications\livepkgr\events\_definst_\livestream2\Event.xml does not exist or is invalid.

Wed 02:42:23 PM: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flash Media Server 4.5\applications\livepkgr\events\_definst_\livestream3\Event.xml does not exist or is invalid.

I noticed that the file Event.xml did actually exist before following SE_0208 instructions, but in the "livestream" folder (no additional bit rate defs were provided in the Encoding Options, per the video).

This is extremely disappointing that this simple example won't work.  It pretty much shows that this product feature is not ready for "primetime".

[David_Welch3]

Found the issue, the URL needs to be changed when using a parameter, this wasn't noted in the post by XXXX.

The url isn't:

http://<serveruri>/hls-live/livepkgr/_definst_/liveevent/livestream.m3u8

it's:

http://<serveruri>/hls-live/livepkgr/_definst_/liveevent1.m3u8 as is stated previously?

or 2, or 3, depending upon which feed.

Hope this helps someone, spent quite a bit of time on this.  Seems the interface should tell you something or log something if you request ain invalid stream other than 404.

[hybernate]

SE_0208,

Your response was helpful to me as well, but now I have to dump all the files in the in the "streams" folder and restart the server every single time before I stream a video over HTTP, otherwise I won't be able to playback the video stream. 

There are other users who appear to have the same problem (see http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1030803).  Would you be able to guide us in the right direction?

cheers,

Martin

[Gio_Stefani]

Martin,

I took a look of other users that have the same program and one post said using Wirecast fixes that issue.  I disagree with that because if the broadcast stops due to network outage, etc., Wirecast doesn't restart the stream either and I have to delete the streams folder.  Just a note that all I doe is delete the streams folder and the streams file.  I don't have to restart the service.  There are some issues with FMS 4.5 and which flash player is used (i.e. Flowplayer, OSMF 2.0, etc).  My biggest issue at this point is replaying a live stream once it's complete.