Help! Lots of Problems Publishing Quicktime Movies

[Snanny]

Hi. I am having a lot of problems publishing web sites with Quicktime movies. I have no idea what is going wrong.

First, I created a Keynote presentation of five slides and exported it as a quicktime movie. I then used Rapidweaver to create a small site using a page that had the quicktime movie in it. The movie played fine within Rapidweaver. When I published it onto my web server (verizon), it played fine there too.

Then I updated the site in Rapidweaver and republished it on the verizon server. Now, the quicktime movie was not found on the server, even though Rapidweaver had uploaded the movie to the verizon server again. Over the next day, I changed the site, including the quicktime movie, a number of times. After uploading to verizon, sometimes the quicktime movie would play. But in most cases it would not play. It seemed like whether it worked or not was totally random.

In a few cases, the changes I made were almost nothing at all. For instance, I changed a little typing in the page that contained the quicktime movie. Then I uploaded the site again and the quicktime movie stopped playing on the verizon server.

I tried changing the quicktime movie to see if the movie I was using might be the problem. The second movie was not made in Keynote. However, I had the same problem with the second movie too.

Also, I am using the latest version of Rapidweaver (4.2.2) and the latest version of OS X 10.5.6.

I contacted Rapidweaver's support (at Realmac Software). They gave me some suggestions that didn't work. For instance, making sure the movie had the .mov extension.

The reason I am posting this message here instead of again sending it to Rapidweaver tech support is the following:

I was very frustrated and decided to try posting the site with IWeb 08 just to see if it would work. I created a similar two-page site in IWeb. The movie played fine within IWeb. Then I published it on the verizon web server. The site worked initially and the quicktime movie played properly. Then I made some minor changes and published the site again and verizon was unable to find the movie this time. So, the problem with publishing and playing quicktime movies is obviously not just with Rapidweaver.

I also uploaded the quicktime movie by itself to the verizon server. When I accessed it via my web browser, it worked. I did it with a second movie and it worked again. So somehow the movie is playing fine by itself but not in a web page.

I signed up with a free hosting service to get some web space on a different server from verizon to try to publish the web site there to see if the problem might be with the verizon server. My Iweb site did not work there either--the quicktime movie was not found. I uploaded the Rapidweaver site too and the quicktime movie didn't play there either.

I therefore have no idea what is going wrong. I have published flash movies on the sites with no problem. The problem seems to only be with the quicktime movies. Does anyone know what the problem might be?
Thanks

Snanny

 

[Snanny]

Help! Lots of Problems Publishing Quicktime Movies

I got a little more insight today about the problem I am having.

I saved my IWeb site on my Mac's desktop. I then uploaded the folder to my verizon server using Fetch.

I watched as Fetch said it successfully uploaded the quicktime movie to the verizon server.

After Fetch finished uploading all the files for the site, I looked in the Media folder on the verizon server where the quicktime file was supposedly uploaded. However, the movie was not there, even though Fetch had indicated that the file had been uploaded.

I double-checked by looking at the IWeb folder on my Desktop. The Media folder did contain the quicktime movie there.

So for some reason, the movie file was not really uploaded. The same thing must be happening with Rapidweaver.

I then used Fetch to upload just the quicktime movie to the Media folder on the verizon server. This time the movie was successfully uploaded into the Media folder and when I accessed the site via my web browser, the movie played fine.

The problem is thus occurring both when I use fetch for my IWeb site and also when I publish via Rapidweaver. Somehow I can upload the movie individually but not when it's been uploaded as part of a site. I just don't know yet what the common denominator is that is causing the problems.

Let me know if you have any more suggestions.

 

[telecomm]

Sounds like the common denominator is your Verizon server. Do you have a quota there? If the movie is putting you over quota maybe it's being deleted.

 

[SrWebDeveloper]

Yeah, that's my guess too - quota. Another very likely possibility is reduce the number of Fetch connections to 2 or 1, i.e. the Verizon connection is bad. If its residential DSL most consumer upload streams are only a fraction of the download rate and Fetch might be opening too many multiple connections and throttling when you upload all those files. But uploading a single file only opens one connection.

One more possibility, although rather unlikely, is ensure the movie is being transferred in binary format, not ASCII (plan text).

-jim

 

[Snanny]

Help! Lots of Problems Publishing Quicktime Movies

Hi. I am not sure that it's the verizon server. I signed up for a free account at 0catch.com just to see if the problem happened there as well. It did.

I wonder if somehow the problem is actually with my DSL.

 

[SrWebDeveloper]

Hi. I am not sure that it's the verizon server. I signed up for a free account at 0catch.com just to see if the problem happened there as well. It did.

I wonder if somehow the problem is actually with my DSL.

Ask for a line test and 24hr monitoring to see if the problem is with telco if you want to find out. But replace your ethernet cable (RJ45) and reboot the DSL modem at least once before calling them. All DSL uses the existing copper infrastruture lines often found in older buildings, plus there are still bridge taps and coils used in many of the telco CO's (no matter the carrier), so it is very prone to line noise problems compared to cable, dish and fiber.

(I used to work at Verio doing support issues like this for DSL/ADSL)

If fiOS is available in your area, make the switch, spend the $ - it's well worthwhile.

-jim