{"id":706,"date":"2008-07-03T10:39:53","date_gmt":"2008-07-03T09:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/706-bbc-iplayer-beta-firewall-issues.html"},"modified":"2008-07-03T10:39:53","modified_gmt":"2008-07-03T09:39:53","slug":"bbc-iplayer-beta-firewall-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/706-bbc-iplayer-beta-firewall-issues.html","title":{"rendered":"BBC iPlayer beta firewall issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was disappointed when my first efforts to use the BBC\u2019s streaming iPlayer beta<\/a> failed. Whatever content I chose, I got the message: This content isn\u2019t available at the moment.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Right-clicking the player lets you copy a further error message, which says:<\/p>\n

\n

Title: akamai:AkamaiServiceError.AKAMAI_API
Description: Connection attempt failed
Code: 18<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

At first I blamed beta unreliability; then when it continued I wondered if it could be a firewall issue. I use Microsoft\u2019s ISA Server. I looked at the log, and noticed that traffic on port 1935 was being blocked. I added a new protocol which I called iPlayer, for outbound TCP traffic on port 1935. I added this to the web access rule in ISA Server. Now it works.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great service. The quality is fine. For some reason I care deeply about audio quality when listening to music, but when it comes to most video content, I mind much less.<\/p>\n

Note: I don\u2019t know if this is the only firewall issue with iPlayer, or if the port may change in future. Others have fixed similar issues just by clearing cookies or their browser cache. All I can say is that this fixed the problem for me.<\/p>\n

I also think that the BBC\u2019s player could display a more helpful error message; and I\u2019d like to see technical information on what the requirements are. I couldn\u2019t find anything useful here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Technorati tags: iplayer<\/a>, isa server<\/a>, firewall<\/a>, bbc<\/a>, akamai<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was disappointed when my first efforts to use the BBC\u2019s streaming iPlayer beta failed. Whatever content I chose, I got the message: This content isn\u2019t available at the moment. Right-clicking the player lets you copy a further error message, which says: Title: akamai:AkamaiServiceError.AKAMAI_API Description: Connection attempt failed Code: 18 At first I blamed beta … Continue reading BBC iPlayer beta firewall issues<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}