VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Don G.]

I believe I can now stop tearing my hair out, which is a good thing as with each passing year there is less and less to get a good grip on. Anyway, for those curious or otherwise interested, I do believe I have discovered the problem I had with uploading audio, as mentioned in this thread. I've been googling like a madman trying to find anything that could shed light on the issue, then I found another forum (non VO related...relax) where someone posted a similar problem.

To make a long story short, it looks like the culprit is the control panel used by my hosting company. Oddly enough, one of the reasons I chose it was because I liked the DirectAdmin control panel they use, rather than CPanel, which is what was used by other hosts of mine in the past. DirectAdmin is a little cleaner looking and intuitive to me. I don't know what the specific problem is with the control panel (I'll contact the help desk after the holiday), but I sure hope they can rectify it, because unless we can figure out a way around the audio issues, it looks like I may be using another host for my audio uploads.

To me this seems like an add problem, but it does explain why sometimes it seemed to be a Firefox issue, but not other times. And if anyone here uses the DirectAdmin control panel for their website, I'd be curious to know whether you've experienced similar problems. (Although I must admit, part of me doesn't even want to know, since that would mean I'd be back to square one.)

Thanks again to Lou and all of you who attempted to figure it out. And if any of you know a simple remedy, feel free to shout it out.

[louzucaro]

Don't forget when a control panel fails, you can usually just FTP the file up. Not as easy, maybe, as doing everything from one admin center, but it works and it's fast.
_________________
Lou Zucaro
http://www.voicehero.com

"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"

[Don G.]

You're right, Lou, In fact I prefer to upload via my ftp client (I use Cyberduck). I've found it much faster and much easier uploading that way rather than through the control panel's file manager, so I don't believe that part of it was the issue. There must be something about the way the file is delivered once it's called up from a url.

I don't know, but I'm going to submit a Help Desk ticket to my host Tuesday (I figured I'd let them enjoy the holiday).

[louzucaro]

On many of the CMSs I build for clients, the file upload components include error checking that also either explicity allows or disallows certain file types so that, for instance, somebody can't maliciously upload an EXE (even though they wouldn't be able to execute it, but you get the idea).

Could be the CMS they use on your site has default settings like that that somebody forgot to modify for your account's installation to allow media files to be uploaded.
_________________
Lou Zucaro
http://www.voicehero.com

"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"

[Don G.]

Hmmm...that's a thought. I'll have to try and find someone else who uses a different host which also uses DirectAdmin for a control panel. I'll hunt this thing down yet. Thanks.

[louzucaro]

Perhaps you can just ask your tech support to double-check and make sure media files aren't being blocked by the CMS.

When you try to upload them, do you get an error message or how is it "not working"?
_________________
Lou Zucaro
http://www.voicehero.com

"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"

[Don G.]

No, everything gets there fine, whether I use my ftp client or their Control Panel's file manager. No error messages at all. And I can play them fine from the control panel when they're uploaded into the appropriate folder I designate for them. It's only when they're streamed from a url that they become truncated.

And again, the exact same file uploaded to my other site (which uses CPanel as a control panel), exhibits no such issue on playback from the url. It's fine playing from there.

EDIT

I just noticed something in my first post in this thread. I mentioned a problem with uploading. Sorry about that. There has never been a problem with uploading. It's when the file is downloaded that the problem arises.

[louzucaro]

Hmm, it may just be that the "bad" host has too much traffic to properly serve the files, although as I said in the other thread, they play perfectly for me from both locations.
_________________
Lou Zucaro
http://www.voicehero.com

"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"