Out Of The Blue -- No Live Stream

[wonderent]

Hello out there...

Will sure appreciate your help! Apologize for the length but wanted

you to know how I have tried to troubleshoot so far.

I am desperate to help my 85 yr old mother! For 3 full years,

she has had no problem accessing live streaming video from

the National Zoo pandacam. She has watched the youngest panda Tai

since his birth until now and checks 3-4 times a day to see what he's up to.

For the last 2-3 days, has been unable to get video.

The screen says "Ready" so she clicks on the play button

and nothing happens. [actually, you don't normally have to click on anything

-- it just automatically begins] The website comes up for her just fine,

but the video is blank. I tested it on my computer and I can get it fine,

so it's not the website.

I had her delete all temp internet files and cookies -- then restart.

That made no difference.

Thinking it could be her video card, I had her go to CNN and

click to watch one of their video recordings. She could watch that just fine,

so I know her video card can display.

I did not think there could be a difference in live streaming

and a recording, but just in case had her go to an espn live racing page,

and she could not get the live stream of a race track, yet I could on my computer.

Then I had her go to CNN's LIVE page

cnn.com/video/live/live.html?stream=stream1 and try to click on

one of their live streaming choices. She got this response:

CONNECTION ERROR: The video player cannot establish

a connection to the server. Please try again later.

Any ideas? She does not fool with any settings,

so nothing has changed about her computer. This has happened out of the blue.

[XP - IE6]

She has Cable Internet service. Is it possible that they are blocking live steaming?

Thank you so much for reading this.

Will keep my fingers crossed that someone has an idea! nancy

[Falcon1986]

If these videos are in Flash, try upgrading to the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player. Make sure that you uninstall any older version before doing this and that your browsers are closed.

[wonderent]

Falcon1986 --

Thanks so much for your time. We're a couple of hrs away, but I'll be going next week and will try this!

[wonderent]

If these videos are in Flash, try upgrading to the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player. Make sure that you uninstall any older version before doing this and that your browsers are closed.

Falcon, I just looked on my own computer, and I realize I don't know where to find the flash player.

Where would I look? Thanks

Edited July 4, 2008 by wonderent

[blim]

"CONNECTION ERROR: The video player cannot establish

a connection to the server. Please try again later."

THIS caught my attention, then seeing that you're a couple hours away. I think it might be that you and her connect through different servers. Perhaps her internet service is having server problems (do ISPs have their own local servers? Gurus??) and a call to them might get her Pandacam back running.

I don't know about all systems, browsers, etc, but when my Flash needed tweaking, a yellow bar like the popup blocker message plopped itself on the top of the webpage and told me to update my Flash or something to that effect (and I have no idea where my Flash Player lives, either.....Son got sick of seeing that yellow bar and fixed my Flash, it didn't bother me one bit! )

Liz

[wonderent]

I think it might be that you and her connect through different servers. Perhaps her internet service is having server problems (do ISPs have their own local servers? Gurus??) and a call to them might get her Pandacam back running.

Liz

Liz, what a treat to see your post. I wondered about calling her ISP. It is certainly worth a try. I'll call them tomorrow. If no luck there, I'll follow through with the flash. Thanks! nancy

[bar5]

Hi Nancy:

Here is link for Adobe Flash Player:

Adobe Flash Player

You will see where you can click to find out the current version she has, and will tell you if you should update and what version is current. Also there is a list of support questions that have been asked etc. They will be side by side; support on left and version check on the right. Hope this helps you.

Barb

[isteve]

Looks like the panda cam is WMV.

[jcl]

Looks like the panda cam is WMV.

The CNN stream above is supposed to be as well. It seems to use a proprietary plugin for playback but that might not be important.

[wonderent]

Thanks Barb -- I've checked on the flash.

Thanks jcl and isteve -- yes, it is definitely WMP -- pandacam says nothing about requirement of flash but CNN live video mentions it. Either way, I'll check. Still strange to me that this happened all of a sudden.

Edited July 5, 2008 by wonderent

[Pete_C]

Good troubleshooting guide for this error

http://www.nba.com/broadband/video_faq.html#7

OOps, dog wants me to let her out

Back now. Neat the way they come and get me , nudge nudge to the elbow and do the potty dance when they want out. Totally different from the biscuit dance, the you let the waterbowl run dry dance, .........

Another guide

http://www.srhdev.co.uk/dynamicstreams/hel...p?station=fm104

Looks like you may need to increase the time out settings in media player.

Yet another

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/help/helix/FAQs/Answer1.html

Although some of the suggestions apply to real player, I bet similar problems plague WMP.

Edited July 6, 2008 by Pete_C

[wonderent]

Pete, thank you so much for adding and for the fun dog comments too! Beautiful picture.

I will check all of these out before heading to my Mother's on Tues.