With the Bitmovin Player, can I find out why my movie gets stuck buffering after 10 to 20 min?

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1

I’ve been having some trouble with a movie: it runs for 10-20 minutes then it gets stuck buffering. The server is defintely not over-crowded or anything. How can I find out where the error lies?

2

Hi @andrei.muntean ,

Thanks for asking this question. Below are a few tips to debug the issue(assuming that question is specific to Web player SDK)

  • If player throws any error or warning event(which should be shown in default Bitmovin UI), check ErrorCodes documentation for Bitmovin player to error details and hints about possible root causes.

  • Enable Bitmovin player logs using PlayerConfig.level configuration and check if any warning or errors show up there. Sample code to enable logs is as below. The logs will be available in console tab in browse’r dev tools. If nothing obvious is found which points to the error, please share the logs with Bitmovin.

var playerConfig = {
  key: 'YOUR-PLAYER-KEY',
  logs: {
      level: 'debug'
    },
}
  • Check network traffic between player and server. On browsers this can be done using Network tab in dev tools. Check for any HTTP errors or timeouts for manifest/media requests. Also check if the requests stop going out from browser to server when continuous stalling happen. You can also export the captured traffic as HAR file and share with Bitmovin.

Above are the initial steps that you can try to identify the issue and can share the captured logs and HAR file with Bitmovin as well. If logs and network capture do not help in narrowing down root cause, then please share a player page where the issue can be reproduced. Alternatively share the content URL and the player configuration that can be used to reproduce the issue.

EDIT : Forgot to mention, it is always a good idea to try playback on different browsers(Chrome, Safari, Firefox etc.) to see if the issue is specific to a browser and also check the stream on Bitmovin player on other platforms(Android, iOS etc.) or using another player like VLC etc. on desktop to rule out content related issues.