Latest divx update has messed up my site!
Hi
I run a pretty large video site and a part of it is more or less devoted to divx videos. I just updated after being prompted by Firefox and now none of the videos stream properly. The ones that attempt too have cracking audio and no video. This is a bit nasty to say the least. The part of my site that is affected is here: http://bluesplayer.co.uk/daocvideos. Now what? Do I need different embed code or is this latest release a bad one?
Bit miffed to say the least
Bluesplayer
I can not tell you how many hours i have on trying to play divx videos the last 2 days. After so much tweaking, i have found out the problem is with one of the windows updates , probably from 12/15. I tried restore points, but nothing helped.
After totally reinstalling windows 7, it worked fine until all the past updates were installed and now the same crap.
Problem is when i try to play anything in IE, chrome or firefox it freezes the browsers and i also noticed the player on my desktop won't come up either.
I have already tried the 'all in one' fixer with no help.
I'm absolutely amazed that i can not find a lot of people complaining about this.
Could someone PLEASE steer me in the right direction.
Thank you SO much in advance.
I can't check your embed code since you changed it over to WMP temporarily, but I tried making an embed for some of your video links (like this one, embedded below) and they all worked for me.
I'll check with DigitAL56k about the files you sent him
It appears that some videos do work ok but quite a lot don't. This is one using the embed code above: http://bluesplayer.co.uk/test/divx.htm that doesn't work. Here is the same file with WMP that does work: http://bluesplayer.co.uk/daocvideos/index.php?action=playgame&gameid=1022. I have added the code I was using on the divx.htm file above.
I checked out the file you linked to and we are pretty sure the audio is the issue. It has MPEG-2 Layer 3 audio, not MPEG-1 Layer 3. MPEG-1 Layer 3 only supports 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz sample rates and your clip is 22khz. We don't technically support MPEG-2 audio, but it appears that the old Web Player could handle it.
You can check your clips out with Mediainfo. It will say something like "MPEG Audio (MP3) (version 2) (Layer 3)" if it is the MPEG-2 variant.
I think Web Player's AVI parser is the part having trouble with the file, not the audio decoder oddly enough, since the file plays fine with DWP when remuxed into an MKV using mkvmerge. Check out this link if you are interested in how to easily remux your AVIs into MKV. It is a simple lossless quality drag-and-drop process, and the MKV container is much better for streaming than AVI.
I just wanted to update you on this. It looks like it may just be a problem with how your AVI was muxed. I got it to work fine when I remuxed it using virtualdub; direct stream copy of the audio and video track. So if you are ok going the muxing route, you don't have to go to .MKV.
Hi
I don't mind the mkv conversion as that isn't really my problem. I converted some files over using the mkv converter and was amazed how fast it was. No, the problem is the sheer amount of downloads and reuploads I have to do to redo all my files. I have a vps but I am not very savvy with regard to installing programs on it at root level. All I have used it for uptil now is for storing my files. I didn't have to do much thinking with regard to this as I just used putty to upload my files and then link to them. They stream fine as long as there isn't any other problem such as bandwidth etc. For me to redo all my files to a new format will mean downloading them all, converting them all and the worse part - uploading them again. The upload speed I have with my broadband is only 44KBs max so to upload all these new files literally takes me about 2-3 days! Ontop of that my broadband is such that I have to do uploading between the hours of 12 - 8am otherwise I will go over my cap limit, so in theory it will take me about a week at least! The only other route for me is to backup all my files and then install the mkv converter on my vps and try to convert them onsite. As I mentioned I am not very confident about using the vps at root level and could well make a mess of the server! So as you can see I am in a bit of a predicament if I want to use the new divx player. For now the WMP works ok so I might have to stick with that. For any new files I will convert them to mkv and install a new part of my site so that I can select the new divx player when I install the file. I will probably upgrade the files to mkv a few at a time - nearly 600 of them - ouch!
No real worries though as my site is still operational which is the main thing. The new mkv converter might well be a big bonus for me as it seems to be able to convert wmv files too. I will miss the old player though with dimming etc. Now the player will seem just like any other player. Does make me think of why should I bother to convert files to divx in the first place?
Thanks for looking into this further.
I can't make any promises, but I do have our engineers looking into the issues we have found with that clip you posted, and we are pretty sure we know why it failed. It would help us if you could post some other links that you know don't work with 2.0 as well.
As for the remuxing that would be very frustrating to have to download all of those clips and then upload them back up. I didn't even think about that. Fortunately mkvmerge comes in a Linux version as well that you could use with PuTTY. That way you don't have to do the download/upload cycle.
I'm not very good with my Linux scripting unfortunately, so I can't post a script that will automatically go through your folders to remux. But I'm sure manually doing "mkvmerge.exe -o outputVideo.mkv inputVideo.divx" will be quicker than downloading a clip.
I will rig up a test site with the same video listing as my main divx site with your new player instead of the WMP. That way it will be a lot easier to locate the faulty files.
UPDATE: Here is the test site: http://bluesplayer.co.uk/daocvideos-testsite. The OLD divx player is on most files. There are loads of files that won't work on this site so feel free to try them. When I try some of them my computer locks up altogether using firefox. I have a great deal of other work to do so I will let you find the files that don't work - lots don't! Presumeably if they won't work for me they won't for you. Here is one that definitely doesn't work for me: http://bluesplayer.co.uk/daocvideos/index2.php?action=playgame&gameid=1023. You will probably find that most in this directory won't stream either: http://bluesplayer.co.uk/daocvideos/index.php?action=browse&cat=164
Have fun!
Are you going to make any adjustments so that all older files work with the new code? It is an immense job to recode all my video files as there are now close to 600 of them!
I will take a look at the MKV conversion process especially if the MKV container is much better for streaming purposes. If it is just drag and drop without any quality loss then I suppose it might be worth my while converting all the files over.
I'm going to check in with our engineers on what it will take to support these odd MPEG-2 Layer 3 audio files, but I can't make any promises. Technically these files are not within our profile, and would probably have issues playing back on a CE device. Since the change required to support these probably has to happen in the AVI parser (which is fairly low-level) it is probably a very risky change. I should know more early next week.
If you are going to do 600 clips a batch script is probably easier/quicker. The command below (all on one line) will remux every .DIVX in the current folder and its subfolders to an .MKV with the same filename. Most/many most of my files only took a few seconds or less to remux.
FOR /R .\ %%G IN (*.DIVX) DO c:\mkvtoolnix\mkvmerge.exe -o "%%~pG%%~nG.mkv" "%%G"
It is a lossless process, but I'd keep an archive copy of your AVI/DivX files somewhere since it is a bit more complicated to mux an MKV back into an AVI. Also, these MKV files obviously won't play on the old 1.x Web Player. Check out the performance difference for streaming though, it is quite noticeable.
Thanks for looking into this but I must mention the fact that a lot of my files were converted to divx using your own divx converter which I paid for. Paltry sum of money granted but never-the-less does that mean the converter is now obsolete too? I can't help thinking that any upgrade your are bringing out should be backwards compatible - I think that is what they call it - and all older files should work. I have access to my files so I can work around it but I have visited other sites too and lots of their videos no longer work for me. Really this is bad news and knocks my confidence in divx big time. Shouldn't you or your technicians looked into this prior to bringing out this new and what seems untested upgrade?
All of these files were created using DivX Converter? If so, can you tell me the version number you are using? It definitely should not be creating files with MPEG-2 Layer 3 Audio.
Bluesplayer,
Can you do this for me:
Use the "Run" entry on the Start menu to launch "msinfo32". Export your configuration to file.
Use the "Run" entry on the Start menu to launch "dxdiag". Click to "Save all information".
E-mail the two files to amayo (at) divxcorp [dotcom].
I sent the files!
The DivX add ons for IE cause two problems.
The first is JSON undefined JavaScript errors even on about:blank that I have set for my home page in IE.
The second is when I set my Display mixed content to Prompt (useful while web developing to correct incorrect http references to https ones), I keep getting the warning pop up about displaying the non-secure content even though I am on a web page where all coded references are correctly using https. The DivX add on is silently referencing an http source to an update address which is the problem.
DivX needs to fix the JSON undefined error and if they want to use a check for updates then change your code to check the currently visited web address and if it has https in it then use an https link otherwise use the http link.
Until then, I have disabled all DivX add ons.
Useful web developer tools:
http://www.httpdebugger.com/
http://www.httpwatch.com/