Not Receiving RTP Stream

[TuxBobble]

I posted earlier with another problem but now that that is resolved, I have another.

At the moment, I am trying to receive an RTP (multicast) stream of some sort on a Fedora Core 12 VLC client. I am attempting to use an h.264 transcode for compression, but when I receive the stream on the other end, it simply does not load. I never get any buffering activity, and I never see or hear anything. (the player window does not change size to accommodate the stream, or anything like that)

This SEEMS to me like an RTP or stream issue. I am using Windows VLC to stream the video out, and trying to receive it on VLC in Fedora. I don't think codecs should be an issue, but I could very well be wrong--either way, I think if it were a codec issue, it would more likely be a video OR audio problem, not a complete a/v problem, the way this issue has presented itself.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate them. This is on a computer I won't have access to until Monday, so I am aware of a few more tests I need to run (i.e. streaming non-RTP, streaming RTP with different codecs, streaming unicast, etc.) but since I suspect the RTP stream itself being an issue, I really don't know where to begin with it.

Thanks a lot

P.S.-I have most recently built off the git repository, so I'm sitting on one of the 1.2.0 revisions, but I plan on reverting to 1.1.0-pre1 to ensure that's not the issue. 1.0.5 also did not work, just from using yum install, which is why I compiled from source in the first place.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

VLC is not receiving any data. Either your network, URL, or firewall is misconfigured.

[TuxBobble]

Thanks for the reply. I had overlooked this because I am a "lower-rung" employee (entry level) and was assured it was set up properly by my boss, the director of IT. I don't have access to these things or I'd check it myself.

I should have known to trust VLC's reliability over his, haha...

EDIT (AGAIN): I actually just tested the RTP stream by running a Linux screen capture stream, in Fedora, and used a Windows machine as the client, to receive the stream. The stream was not great quality, but it did work, so I am doubting at this time that the network is the issue. However, I could still be wrong. So it seems that FC12's VLC can stream OUT, but cannot ACCEPT a stream in (even from itself). I'm quite puzzled at the moment.

EDIT: I just tested a local stream, as well It still did not buffer properly, but again I am not sure where to go from here in terms of network settings. For the record, I've been using it with a multicast address. (239.255.12.43--I found it in a tutorial so I've just kept using the same one since out of habit) I also tried using a localhost (127.0.0.1) stream, also with no success. I was able to "display stream locally" on the streamer, but I have yet to be able to get the stream to appear on the client on the same machine. It could be that the computer simply can't handle VLC streaming out AND in at the same time since it's older hardware, but I would expect to see some sort of buffering, even if the screen dimensions never adjust, or anything like that.

If anyone has any further insight, please let me know.
Thanks again.

[TuxBobble]

So as not to confuse my post even more, I have found that it does seem to be a network issue, but I cannot understand it at this point. I am not sure if it is an issue with VLC, or an issue with Fedora, but running Wireshark I can detect IGMP packets from the Windows machine trying to join the group, when beginning to receive the stream. However, when I do the same with Fedora, there is no IGMP group join packet query or request.

This means that either Fedora or VLC is having some issue with the outgoing connection from FC12 to the multicast address for a group request. If anyone has any ideas, I'm just about fresh out, lol...

[TuxBobble]

Not really intended as self-bumping, but to separate it from other posts:

I have found that if I revert the IGMP version Fedora uses to v2 (default v3) I am able to detect them in Wireshark. However, I still don't RECEIVE anything, after the request to join the multicast group. Does anyone have any ideas on why this might be? I tried strictly capturing the stream rather than live playback, and that yielded a 0-byte file, so it seems that client VLC does not recognize the RTP stream across the network, or routers are not forwarding to it...But I don't know why a router would ignore this computer when it recognizes all the Windows computers on the network...