Recent download issues

[Clive]

On 26/11/11 09:50, Carl Fletcher wrote:
> On 26/11/11 08:13, Andy Bircumshaw wrote:
>>
>> On 24 November 2011, at 09:51, Carl Fletcher wrote:
>>
>>> On 24/11/11 08:53, Jon Davies wrote:
>>>> On 24 November 2011 05:10, Carl Fletcher<kernelbasher at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> I'm getting errors like this:
>>>>>
>>>>> INFO: sampletype mp4a
>>>>> 467726.949 kB / 2546.96 sec (73.2%)
>>>>> ERROR: RTMP_ReadPacket, failed to read RTMP packet body. len: 70382
>>>>> 467775.627 kB / 2546.96 sec (73.2%)
>>>>> INFO: Connection timed out, trying to resume.
>>> ...
>>> using the same network, was having the same result.
>>>
>>> Couple of things I have to look at:
>>>
>>> 1. My router
>>> I have a feeling it's on it's last legs. But it's not causing
>>> problems for me with the BT sync, which usually happens with flaky
>>> routers.
>>>
>>> 2. My ISP
>>> Entanet have been really good for me for years. But I'm going to
>>> contact them.
>>> Partly because on another subject. I have noticed Linux .iso's via
>>> bittorrent will scream down then suddenly it drops off to Zero for a
>>> few seconds, then comes right back.
>>>
>>> flvstreamer just seems to deal better with the hang and picks up
>>> again (assuming it is a hang we are getting) But I see what you mean
>>> Jon.
>>
>> Running BitTorrent at the same time will contribute to problems like
>> this.
>>
>> Older routers have slow CPUs and relatively little RAM. Their NATting
>> tables tend to fill up when you run BitTorrent, because you have many
>> other seeds constantly connecting to you to make a new connection
>> (then often disappearing, leaving idle but open connections). New
>> routers can handle heavy BitTorrent traffic better. E.G. The original
>> WRT54G runs at 125Mhz and has 16MB RAM; modern routers have perhaps
>> 600Mhz CPUs and 128MB RAM.
>>
>> When running BitTorrent adjust the settings in the client to a lower
>> number of permitted connections (and other related options
>> proportionately). With only 15 connections permitted in deluge, I
>> still often manage to max out the 150kb/sec download limit I set (my
>> ADSL runs only about 2 - 3meg).
>>
>> I have also experienced the "failed to read RTMP packet body", and
>> this seems to fix it.
>>
>> TCP provides reliable data transmission, in that the o/s / networking
>> stack will keep retrying if there are any lost packets, and ensure
>> that the application receives all the data. UDP is "unreliable", and
>> packets may be dropped; the application must account for any losses
>> and retransmission itself. I suspect that RTMP is like the latter - if
>> we're streaming a video conference it doesn't matter if a few frames
>> are dropped, so much as that the received video should catch up to the
>> current state of the transmission; it doesn't matter what the speaker
>> said 2 minutes ago, we need the conference to resume as quickly as
>> possible with the minimum interruption.
>>
>> When I see errors like this, I just identify the PID of the rtmpdump
>> process (`lsof /path/to/downloads/*partial*`), then `kill $PID&& rm
>> /path/to/downloads/*partial*` - get_iplayer (running in a separate
>> terminal window or via crontab) will take a couple of seconds to
>> recognise the death of the rtmpdump process, and will try again; the
>> new download will be initiated from scratch.
>>
>> aB.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> get_iplayer mailing list
>> get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
>> http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/get_iplayer
>
> Funny Andy
> I really know better than to use BT when using get_iplayer.
>
> Thanks for the tips though. I made a note of them.
>
> For now, I'm still using flvstreamer. Strange eh.
> My Netgear DG834GT is one of the better old routers out there.
> But I'd be interested in any one else make replacement recommendations :-)
>
> _______________________________________________
> get_iplayer mailing list
> get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
> http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/get_iplayer
>
Andy,

Thanks for the explanation - I, too, have had problems under Windoze and 
now I think back, it was often related to what else I was doing or what 
else I had been doing and it was often cleared with a reboot. Now it 
starts to make some sense.

Clive