MeFi Music connection issues January 8, 2008 8:32 PM Subscribe
I can only listen to the first few seconds of any song on MeFi music. I hit play, the first 2-3% of the song loads, and then the music cuts out. This seems to be a problem on my end, and I'm hoping someone has suggestions.
I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.11/Ubuntu Linux 7.10
If I proxy into my work server, music loads smoothly, pings, traceroutes work fine, etc.
From home, though, I just can't get the music to load with any kind of reasonable speed. This doesn't appear to be a browser or flash specific problem either, as I see the same issue when I try to download the mp3, or even use wget. The first 200k or so of the mp3 downloads, then abruptly stops. If I wait 2 or 3 minutes, I sometimes get another few bits streaming in (at 2K/s or so), but after a second or two, the download cuts out again. If I'm willing to wait an hour or two, I can sometimes get the whole song, but that's not normal.
My DSL connection speed is fine on other sites, and ping times to metafilter look normal (34.3 ms). I'm going through a home router, but it's not doing any kind of packet shaping, and there's no other traffic on the network.
I'm stupmed. Anyone have suggestions on what might be causing this issue?
I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.11/Ubuntu Linux 7.10
If I proxy into my work server, music loads smoothly, pings, traceroutes work fine, etc.
From home, though, I just can't get the music to load with any kind of reasonable speed. This doesn't appear to be a browser or flash specific problem either, as I see the same issue when I try to download the mp3, or even use wget. The first 200k or so of the mp3 downloads, then abruptly stops. If I wait 2 or 3 minutes, I sometimes get another few bits streaming in (at 2K/s or so), but after a second or two, the download cuts out again. If I'm willing to wait an hour or two, I can sometimes get the whole song, but that's not normal.
My DSL connection speed is fine on other sites, and ping times to metafilter look normal (34.3 ms). I'm going through a home router, but it's not doing any kind of packet shaping, and there's no other traffic on the network.
I'm stupmed. Anyone have suggestions on what might be causing this issue?
Thanks, but the problem seems to be unrelated to flash. The direct MP3 download links suffer from the same problem. (either through firefox, or directly using wget)
posted by chrisamiller at 8:57 PM on January 8, 2008
posted by chrisamiller at 8:57 PM on January 8, 2008
It sounds like you might be having some router-related problems, but it's not an exact match with the problem mentioned in the earlier thread. Might be worth looking through that thread to see if some of the ideas there work.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:57 PM on January 8, 2008
posted by pb (staff) at 8:57 PM on January 8, 2008
No dice - I tweaked my MTU settings and had no luck. Then I bypassed the router and went straight through the DSL modem, and still nothing changed - same symptoms.
I'm not convinced that it's an MTU issue, as those seem to result in a complete inability to reach MeFi, and that's not what I'm seeing. According to the modem's diagnostic page, it's using an MTU of 1492, which should be fine. Additionally, I can shoot pings with a size of 1492 to metafilter.com with no problems, so I don't think MTU is the issue.
I did notice that running a traceroute to metafilter.com times out before reaching it's destination. Unfortunately, I see the same thing when I run it from the work proxy, where things d/l just fine, so I'm not sure it's a useful data point.
posted by chrisamiller at 9:41 PM on January 8, 2008
I'm not convinced that it's an MTU issue, as those seem to result in a complete inability to reach MeFi, and that's not what I'm seeing. According to the modem's diagnostic page, it's using an MTU of 1492, which should be fine. Additionally, I can shoot pings with a size of 1492 to metafilter.com with no problems, so I don't think MTU is the issue.
I did notice that running a traceroute to metafilter.com times out before reaching it's destination. Unfortunately, I see the same thing when I run it from the work proxy, where things d/l just fine, so I'm not sure it's a useful data point.
posted by chrisamiller at 9:41 PM on January 8, 2008
Who's your home ISP?
Do you get the same issue downloading other large files from metafilter? Try downloading one of the multi-megabyte threads like 9622 / Feminism / Givewell / etc.
Do you get the same issue downloading MP3 files from other sites?
posted by blasdelf at 11:11 PM on January 8, 2008
Do you get the same issue downloading other large files from metafilter? Try downloading one of the multi-megabyte threads like 9622 / Feminism / Givewell / etc.
Do you get the same issue downloading MP3 files from other sites?
posted by blasdelf at 11:11 PM on January 8, 2008
I have exactly the same problem as chrismiller, FWIW. OSX 10.5, Firefox 2.0.0.11. This happens on my home wireless, on my neighbour's wreless (heh) but also on my office ethernet. (Not that I try to download at the office, no sirree). Other downloads and large files (except the mondo-sized mefi pages like givewell) work more or less routinely.
posted by Rumple at 11:38 PM on January 8, 2008
posted by Rumple at 11:38 PM on January 8, 2008
Rumple, do you find that mondo-sized threads get truncated at a certain point?
posted by blasdelf at 2:16 AM on January 9, 2008
posted by blasdelf at 2:16 AM on January 9, 2008
blasdelf -- yes, but not always the same point. So the givewell thread, after it got to about 700 comments, would often stall out anywhere from 1/4 to 95% loaded. It would just end, sometimes in the middle of a comment. I don't thinnk its a file size issue -- I download large PDFs all the time with no problem. Matt explained elsewhere that the 2 meg file is a series of database calls or something, and it gets assembled, so clearly there is lots of scope for stalling (I know nothing about this shit). It is somewhat better on the faster connections than the sower, but we are talking broadband all around.
posted by Rumple at 10:52 AM on January 9, 2008
posted by Rumple at 10:52 AM on January 9, 2008
I wonder if a download manager like SpeedDownload would work for you. I think it can split files into smaller pieces, and resume broken downloads.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:01 AM on January 9, 2008
posted by pb (staff) at 11:01 AM on January 9, 2008
Are you using the binary nvidia driver? It and my sound driver seem to have issues, and flash freezing up after a few seconds (often on youtube) is something that happens to me pretty often. A session restart will clear it up for a while.
posted by Quonab at 2:30 PM on January 9, 2008
posted by Quonab at 2:30 PM on January 9, 2008
- Rumple, glad to hear it's not just me.
- I have ATT DSL. (et tu, Rumple?) Like I said, other sites work fine. MP3 blogs are great, youtube has no problems, etc.
- I'm out of town tonight, but I'll try the Givewell thread tomorrow and see if I have the same problem.
- Thanks for the suggestion, pb, but I'm not worried about resuming downloads (I can do that with wget). I was hoping to figure out what the underlying problem was. I'll keep you posted as I try different things.
posted by chrisamiller at 5:00 PM on January 9, 2008
- I have ATT DSL. (et tu, Rumple?) Like I said, other sites work fine. MP3 blogs are great, youtube has no problems, etc.
- I'm out of town tonight, but I'll try the Givewell thread tomorrow and see if I have the same problem.
- Thanks for the suggestion, pb, but I'm not worried about resuming downloads (I can do that with wget). I was hoping to figure out what the underlying problem was. I'll keep you posted as I try different things.
posted by chrisamiller at 5:00 PM on January 9, 2008
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posted by chrisamiller at 8:36 PM on January 8, 2008