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I want to post this email from one of our customers, it seems important because he solved the problem that sometimes with Firefox the ostube script just shows a black block instead of a video block on home page:

Chris I’ve fixed this issue!

The following is a little long winded, as I was taking notes as I was
testing things. At least it’s detailed.

Being as my “no startpage video” problem apparently isn’t to do with
the server, isn’t to do with templates and I can’t think of where else in the site to look, I
looked into what the cookies are doing. Note, this is ALL in the firefox browser, v3.0.
When I load the main page, http://www.climbclips.com/index.php , I get no video.

I opened the cookie data with tools/edit cookies in firefox. There are
5 entries. The first 4 are name things like __utmb, __utmc etc.. I didn’t find these interesting.
Mainly because I have no idea what they do, and they didn’t appear to change. What I did find
interesting was the cookie/s called PHPSESSID. The stuff below explains their behavior.

For the index page, on a fresh load which contains the video problem,
there is one PHPSESSID cookie, shown here:

SITE: www.climbclips.com
COOKIE NAME: PHPSESSID
CONTENT: a7776bb99e33bdceece8e0c2245cbba9
HOST: www.climbclips.com
PATH: /
SEND FOR: Any type of connection
Expires: at end of session

browse to another page, such as a video page (

http://climbclips.com/mediadetails.php?key=ec0cc59c8c7af133c215&title=Tahoe+Time)

In addition to the cookie above, which appears unchanged, there is a new cookie:

SITE: climbclips.com
COOKIE NAME: PHPSESSID
CONTENT: c0c13326fe81f2e2d84eb44da4fc8ae2
HOST: climbclips.com
PATH: /
SEND FOR: Any type of connection
Expires: at end of session

Almost the same as the first cookie, except for the “SITE” is
climbclips.com (without the www.), as well as the “host” is climbclips.com (without the www.)
The “content” string is different as well.

Now, I navigate back to the main page, index.php
The video plays correctly. No new cookie entry’s are added or changed.

I delete the PHPSESSID cookie with “site”: climbclips.com

Reload the page.

The video plays correct. Check the cookie, the deleted cookie has
re-appeared. (The same but with a new “content” string)

Ok. I delete ALL the cookies and refresh the page.

The video plays correct. The PHPSESSID cookie with the “site” and
“host”: climbclips.com has re-appeared. The PHPSESSID cookie with the “site” and “host”
www.climbclips.com has NOT re-appeared.

Now. I close the browser window. Open a new window at google. Clear
all the cookies for climbclips.com, load www.climbclips.com, no video.

Check the cookies, there is only one PHPSESSID cookie. It’s the
original one with the “site” of www.climbclips.com and “host” of www.climbclips.com. (The key here is
the addition of the “www”)

Ok, so now I go to other OsTube installations that work to see what
their cookies are up to.

Here’s one which is on the same server:
http://allspeedway.tv/

The video works. (it works everywhere but my site)

There is only one PHPSESSID cookie for the main page. The “site” name
and “host” read as “allspeeday.tv” No www. (Though, the site URL itself did not contain a
“www” prefix, the URL was

just, http://allspeedway.tv/
So I add a www to the url making it http://www.allspeedway.tv/
Load the page and NO VIDEO!
Check the cookies and there is a new PHPSESSID, this time with “site”
and “host” reading as

www.allspeedway.tv

Same behavior as my site.

Ok, so I go back over to my site and take out the www, loading
http://climbclips.com/
It works and video loads on the front page.

So I don’t fully understand the meaning of the WWW url prefix, why
it’s used or not used etc.. But I clearly see a connection between it, PHPSESSID cookies and the video loading in firefox.

On a whim, I decided to check the Admin settings for OSTube. I log in
to the admin panel, go to

Configuration and sure enough “URL of your site: http://climbclips.com”
I add a www to make it http://www.climbclips.com.

Clear the cookies, open a new browser, FIXED! The video loads.
What an insane way to figure this out. The problem was, the
irregularity of the issue across different pages and browsers made it very hard to troubleshoot.
At least from my perspective.

So, that’s it. Double check the “Url of your site” line in the ADMIN.
I didn’t think to check that, as you guys set that up…right? Anyway,
water under the bridge.
Thanks for all your help and now we both know.

-Tobias

Tobias Carrier is the proud owner of ClimbClips.com

PHPmotion is a video sharing software application that allows the user to create a web site similar to YouTube.

It is written in PHP language and it is the latest of this kind of scripts popping up on the net due to the enthusiasm that video sharing sites have, with some internet analysis predicting that by 2015 this kind of sites will have replaced the television.

PHPmotion like other video sharing software uses ffmpeg, a collection of software libraries that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video in numerous formats.

The software is proving popular and as of September 2007 it has been downloaded over 4000 times, it is a free software but the developers charge for removing a “powered by” link at the bottom and also for installation of the script or to load the necessary libraries on a server to make it compatible with phpmotion. At the moment few web hosting companies are compatible with PHPmotion.
FFmpeg Hosting

Web hosting related sites can be web hosting providers, web hosting news and web hosting directories. Web hosting providers are normally divided in Widows hosting and UNIX hosting. Most use Paypal as the default payment gateway. Paypal Hosting is quite common.

If you need to find a good web hosting try a web hosting directory and why not check if you find any sites with hosting news about the host provider. Don’t make the mistake of going to the cheapest hosting on the net, you will find thousands of hosting providers selling unlimited space and bandwidth for a few dollars, paid yearly, don’t even try, there is no such a thing as unlimited, does your hard disk have unlimited space? It doesn’t! So how come they are selling it? Because they are dishonest, in a short time you will find your site down, offline, and when you try to find the host provider site, you will realize they disappeared also!

So check on web hosting directories for reviews and try to find news about the web host provider you looking at, before you spend your money.

Good luck.