Everything works except video processing...

Ok - here is another wonderful thread regarding Video Processing problems...  First, the details:

Dolphin v7.0.4 running under Windows2003 R2 Server - IIS/php 5.2.6 - Ionic IIRF UrlRewriter (handling rewrites perfectly).

We have done the following:

Proper setup of URLRewriting, ffmpeg (getting output in the Host Settings tab) - all variables are within Dolphin Requirements, and the cron job is running.  I added a line of code to BxDolCronVideo.php that echos output every time it is run (and we're getting that output via text-file trapping of the cron-job).  But no matter what we've tried, the videos keep failing, with the video data remaining in the flash/modules/video/files folder with NO extension (just a numeric filename).

RMS running as a service (had to use a new 'wrapper' as the included one didn't work properly) - and yes, I know RMS does not handle the video processing for video uploads.

We have everything working - audio uploads, photos, the whole nine yards.  Just stuck on the damned video uploads.

Does anyone have suggestions on which direction I can go on this?  I'm not a highly experienced php coder, but I can muck around in the code well enough to fix simple things (such as my post about the broken "remember me" feature)...  Anyone have suggestions on this or am I on my own with a paid license for this software?

YES, I know that dolphin is supposed to run under Apache/php/Linux but IMO there is no reason this can't work as I have managed to patch every other issue that has been related to running this on a Windows based server.  I currently lease the server (and others) to clients and do not plan on spending the resources for a single server on just this site -- there shouldn't be a need for it, so please don't start off with telling me that I need to switch to Linux to host the app.

Thanks for your time!

I really hope they find another way of doing video control. The trouble users are going through for video is making it not even worth it.

I spent days getting mine going just to find out that to upload a 8mb video would take a server well over my specs.

Agreed, the video processing is a nightmare...  Worst is that I want dolphin to handle it's own.  Thing is I could write a comparable script that would handle the cron processing of the video in a language I know and be done with it, but then I'm going 'outside the box' that I paid for, ya know?

After all is said and done it usually turns out to be a mis configured cron job...

http://www.boonex.com/unity/blog/entry/Troubleshooting_Dolphin_Videos_Migrations_RMS

Are you getting email about cron jobs? Could you post your cron without revealing your site address?

i.e.

MAILTO=root@localhost
* * * * * cd /var/www/periodic; /usr/bin/php -q cron.php

tell that to Arvixe, my host who inspected everything on my server and told me it was a issue with the dolphin script.

They origionally figured out WHY it wasn't even processing, and that was a setting (ffmpeg) wrong on the server, so that issue was dealt with.

But still since then the video gets chopped, and takes about 45 minutes to process a three minute record.

I threatened to move all my sites to a top hosting and they have sworn back its NOT thier end problem.

so... another thread,,, another sad story.

I really hope to see a fix soon...

When the periodic maintenance runs, I get the emails -- on Windows, there is no 'cron' per-say -- the cron.php is executed via a batch file that is run by the Scheduled Tasks manager (basically Windows cron).  What I have done is added a simple 'echo' statement into the top of the cron.php script that echos a line of output every time it is run to stdout, which I am trapping into a text file so that I can see it is running.

At this point, what I'm going to do is go through the script and add more echos to stdout for the different steps, so that I can see what is happening inside the cron.

Essentially, I visited the FAQ page here on the forums (as well as about 20 other topics with 'fixes') for this issue and have tried multiple 'fixes' that have the same result.

Overall, I know I'm close on this and will post my results when I get it sorted out.

I had a friend use ARVIXE and he was on a shared server for a dolphin site that really had not traffic.  They had another client on their server that had a failure in their script and it was consuming the /tmp partition to 99% and crashing our dolphin site because MySQL couldn't get enough temp space to work.  They kept telling us there was nothing they could do, but let me tell you -- when our site hit an overusage, they had no problems shutting us down.  I wouldn't recommend them to anyone...

As an update, I am going through and debugging the entire video processing script against our Windows Server.  The cron job is definitely executing - here is some of the debug output so far (path altered somewhat)...

I'll keep posting as I make progress until I find out what exactly is happening...  (I HATE DEBUGGING CODE I PAID FOR...)

Executing function processing inside BxDolCronVideo.php
function processing: iFilesCount=2, iFailedTimeout=86400, iCurrentTime=1295193600
Attempting to process file ID:9
function convertVideo called - sTempFile=C:\\\\Plesk\\\\VHOSTS\\\\xxxxxxx.xxx\\\\httpdocs/flash/modules/video/files/9, sSourceFile=C:\\\\Plesk\\\\VHOSTS\\\\xxxxxxx.xxx\\\\httpdocs/flash/modules/video/files/9
File exists for sTempFile and size is > 0
sTmpl=C:\tools\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe -y -i C:\\\\Plesk\\\\VHOSTS\\\\xxxxxxx.xxx\\\\httpdocs/flash/modules/video/files/9 -r 25 -b 512kb -sameq -s 480x360 -acodec libmp3lame -ar 44100 #output#
convertMainVideo called with following sTempFile=C:\\\\Plesk\\\\VHOSTS\\\\xxxxxxx.xxx\\\\httpdocs/flash/modules/video/files/9 and sResultFile=C:\\\\Plesk\\\\VHOSTS\\\\xxxxxxx.xxx\\\\httpdocs/flash/modules/video/files/9.flv
Calling convertVideoFile with sResultFile=C:\\\\Plesk\\\\VHOSTS\\\\xxxxxxx.xxx\\\\httpdocs/flash/modules/video/files/9.flv and sTmpl=C:\tools\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe -y -i C:\\\\Plesk\\\\VHOSTS\\\\xxxxxxx.xxx\\\\httpdocs/flash/modules/video/files/9 -r 25 -b 512kb -sameq -s 480x360 -acodec libmp3lame -ar 44100 C:\\\\Plesk\\\\VHOSTS\\\\xxxxxxx.xxx\\\\httpdocs/flash/modules/video/files/9.flv

OK -- progress - finally...

ffmpeg-win is choking when it receives the ffmpeg.exe command with 512kb -- it doesn't accept the -b 512kb

OK -- I have made progress -- there is issue with the templates and command strings when being 'assembled' for passing to ffmpeg.

I am still testing, but so far I finally have 1 successful video upload to my servers.  What I found is that sending 'kb' as part of the bitrate crashes ffmpeg under Windows.  By changing the output to just an integer for the video bitrate and integer+k for the audio rate I think I have success.  I'm still testing and will post again when I think I've got everything sorted out.

But progress is progress --

I was holding this back some - but with all the talk, I thought I would mention it.

We are working on a video transcoding service for Dolphin, where our service will transcode (process) your videos on one of our fast/optimized servers, and then either, at your choice:

a) send the video back to your site, where you store it, and serve it.

or

b) we host the video for you, and serve it to your users for you.

If the moderators disagree with this message, please delete it.  It is not a advertisement, it is just here to give some hope to those on servers with transcoding issues or where the transcoding is slow or low quality.

-Smoge

I would prefer they NOT delete this post, as I think it would be a valued asset to the Dolphin Community, especially for niche sites who can't afford their own servers dedicated wise but want to use the features the software offers.  You and I should talk more about this on the site as well - good show!

When it becomes a blatant advertisement and is uncalled for, I'll be sure to go on a moderating spree that will possibly end in the loss of many innocent posts on my conquest for freedom from misplaced advertisements and affiliate links.

I have finally solved the video processing issues on Windows 2003 Server...

Issues were encountered with the following:

Invalid parameters passed to ffmpeg via the header.inc.php script in flash/modules/inc/header.inc.php

Invalid parameters passed to ffmpeg via the functions.inc.php script in flash/modules/inc/header.inc.php

ffmpeg.exe build shipped with dolphin v7.0.4 (windows download of ffmpeg) is invalid and does not have libfaac working properly.

I will run a diff utility against the release versions of the above files as well as post a link to a working build of ffmpeg windows binary in a following post, as well as a how-to to get this working.  Currently, we are able to upload/convert files with success at this point.

I would be interested in your working solution as video processing is the only thing I haven't gotten to work right yet and my server configuration is about the same as yours.

--Angela