VLC 2.1.x - HTTP streaming no longer works?

[anybody]

Could it be that in both VLC 2.1-nightly and VLC 2.2-nightly HTTP streaming is COMPLETELY broken?

I was originally trying to use VLC to transcode live video from a Dreambox Satellite Receiver and stumbled upon the problem that VLC 2.1 complained that it cannot open the HTTP stream. It worked fine in 2.0.x

After some (unsuccessful) fooling around with options, i noticed that my problem was not dreambox related. I just can't stream anything. Take for example this random video I found using google:
http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/29C3/mp4-h ... n_h264.mp4

When I press CTRL-N in VLC and paste this as Network URL, the only thing I get in the VLC 2.1.x and VLC 2.2.x nightlies is:

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Your input can't be opened: VLC is unable to open the MRL 'http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/29C3/mp4-h264-HQ/29c3-5024-en-hackers_as_a_highrisk_population_h264.mp4'. Check the log for details.

The debug log is not particulary helpful either:

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[00000000038e69d0] main access error: read error: Resource temporarily unavailable [00000000038e69d0] access_http access error: failed to read answer [00000000038e69d0] main access error: read error: Resource temporarily unavailable [00000000038e69d0] access_http access error: failed to read answer [00000000038e69d0] main access error: read error: Resource temporarily unavailable [00000000038e69d0] access_mms access error: failed to read answer [0000000002150810] main input error: open of `http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/29C3/mp4-h264-HQ/29c3-5024-en-hackers_as_a_highrisk_population_h264.mp4' failed

If I paste the same URL in VLC 2.0.x everything works fine - just like my Dreambox HTTP streams.
I'm a little shocked that something as basic as http streaming doesn' t work in VLC 2.1 - isn't this release supposed to be pretty close to final now?

I don't think I'm doing something wrong - fresh VLC installs on two separate Windows (one Win7x64, one Win8x64). Same behaviour on both. Can someone fix this please


Update: I've had a friend of mine test this on MacOS (http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/mac ... 9-0315.zip) and it works for him. Bug seems to be Windows only perhaps?

[edwardw]

What does Wireshark say?

[anybody]

I hope a packet capure by "SmartSniff" is ok too?

VLC make three requests to the Server providing the file, all within less than 2/10th of a second:


Here is what is in those requests (at least the beginning, I'd better not quote 3x 14KB of binary MP4 data here):

Request #1:

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GET /CCC/29C3/mp4-h264-HQ/29c3-5024-en-hackers_as_a_highrisk_population_h264.mp4 HTTP/1.1 Host: mirror.fem-net.de User-Agent: VLC/2.1.0-pre3-20130729-0202 LibVLC/2.1.0-pre3-20130729-0202 Range: bytes=0- Connection: close Icy-MetaData: 1 HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content Server: nginx/0.7.67 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 23:23:01 GMT Content-Type: text/plain Content-Length: 302982900 Last-Modified: Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:00:16 GMT Connection: close Content-Range: bytes 0-302982899/302982900 ... ftypisom....isomiso2avc1mp41....free..sqmdat..........E....H..,. .#..x264 - core 125 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2012 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x1:0x111 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=0 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=3 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=18.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 vbv_maxrate=2000 vbv_bufsize=8192 crf_max=0.0 nal_hrd=none ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00......e...W.;.-...wF._/@.S.&qc....z..X.=Q.}.

Request #2:

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GET /CCC/29C3/mp4-h264-HQ/29c3-5024-en-hackers_as_a_highrisk_population_h264.mp4 HTTP/1.0 Host: mirror.fem-net.de User-Agent: VLC/2.1.0-pre3-20130729-0202 LibVLC/2.1.0-pre3-20130729-0202 Icy-MetaData: 1 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx/0.7.67 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 23:23:01 GMT Content-Type: text/plain Content-Length: 302982900 Last-Modified: Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:00:16 GMT Connection: close Accept-Ranges: bytes ... ftypisom....isomiso2avc1mp41....free..sqmdat..........E....H..,. .#..x264 - core 125 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2012 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x1:0x111 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=0 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=3 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=18.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 vbv_maxrate=2000 vbv_bufsize=8192 crf_max=0.0 nal_hrd=none ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00......e...W.;.-...wF._/@.S.&qc....z..X.=Q.}.

Request #3:

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GET /CCC/29C3/mp4-h264-HQ/29c3-5024-en-hackers_as_a_highrisk_population_h264.mp4 HTTP/1.0 Host: mirror.fem-net.de:80 Accept: */* User-Agent: NSPlayer/7.10.0.3059 Pragma: no-cache,rate=1.000000,stream-time=0,stream-offset=0:0,request-context=1,max-duration=0 Pragma: xClientGUID={0xbabac001-0x3bc3-0xc320-0xaebefd0835c9040e} Connection: Close HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx/0.7.67 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 23:23:02 GMT Content-Type: text/plain Content-Length: 302982900 Last-Modified: Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:00:16 GMT Connection: close Accept-Ranges: bytes ... ftypisom....isomiso2avc1mp41....free..sqmdat..........E....H..,. .#..x264 - core 125 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2012 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x1:0x111 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=0 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=3 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=18.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 vbv_maxrate=2000 vbv_bufsize=8192 crf_max=0.0 nal_hrd=none ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00......e...W.;.-...wF._/@.S.&qc....z..X.=Q.}.

[anybody]

I have since tried playing via HTTP on two additional Windows Machines in different networks (with the current 2.1 and 2.2 nightly) with exactly the same result. It happens everywhere and all the time.

HOWEVER, contrary what I initially expected, it works perfectly fine not only on MacOS but also on Linux (tried the nightly ubuntu PPA in 13.04) with the latest nightlies!
It's a Windows-Only bug! Playing files over HTTP just plain does not work - does not seem to be file related:
I've tried MP4, AVI, MP3 and the Transport Stream from the satellite receiver => they all don't work and fail immediately.

Another update:
I've found this - 3 hour old - bug which sound a bit like what I'm experiencing
Ticket #9081 - All HTTP networking broken on -pre2 on Windows

The bug mentions commit 7ad144 is responsible for this. Unfortunately I have no clue about git and even after really trying can't find out when 7ad144 was merged into the code
It would be really cool to know what the latest nightly build was that was not affected by this... But I can't figure that out...

And yet another update:
I've manually tried all recent nightlies available for download in the 2.1 and 2.2 branch and found that
vlc-2.2.0-git-20130721-0003 => last one to WORK
vlc-2.2.0-git-20130722-0003 => first one to FAIL

[edwardw]

The commit you are looking for is http://git.videolan.org/?p=vlc/vlc-2.1. ... f;h=7ad144

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Should be fixed now, no?

[nickap]

Hi - just wanted to add to this thread and say that I have had the same issue with the current download of 2.1.3 running on a 64-bit Windows system - this was a new PC, and VLC (older version - not sure of the version number) had been streaming HTTP without problems for months on the previous machine. So no luck after several attempts to get 2.1.3 to stream. Long story short, I saw anybody's post in this thread which included the following:
vlc-2.2.0-git-20130721-0003 => last one to WORK
vlc-2.2.0-git-20130722-0003 => first one to FAIL

I tried the latest nightly build of 2.2 (as of 2/24/14) and this did not work. However I downloaded and installed the "vlc-2.2.0-git-20130721-0003 => last one to WORK" build - this is now streaming HTTP with no problems.