How to troubleshoot video lag/dropouts

Is it the viewer or us?

How do I troubleshoot video skipping or lag with Live or Video On Demand?

Here's a list of steps we recommend in testing & troubleshooting streaming issues for viewers.
These are steps to use provided that the stream works fine for you, and that you need to
troubleshoot individually.


1. The most important step is to have them run a speed test to determine if they can even view
the stream successfully.  An easy to access website for this is http://speedtest.net.  Wait for
flash to load in the middle of the page, then click on "Begin Test".  If you are running a
450kbps stream, add in audio so you're pushing 485kbps, you have to make sure the viewer's
download speed is greater than 500kbps for a smooth viewing experience.  The speed test also
will show how much bandwidth they have at the time of testing. So if they are downloading
something on another computer or in the background, it would show their remaining download
speed.

Basic DSL download speed is only up to 768kbps, and depending on their line noise and distance,
it could be slower than that.  Even if someone is on a Cable broadband connection, it's easy to
forget if they're talking on digital phone, streaming Netflix, or downloading something else in
another room.  All these things could affect their stream speed.


2. Do a traceroute to determine if there's a router in between that's causing lag and packet
loss.  This is a general traceroute suggestion and will only give you to have a reference point to work from.


Here is how you can do a trace route from your PC (Windows XP, Vista):

1.    From the Start menu, select "Run."
2.    When the run box comes up, then type in cmd
3.    When you get the command prompt, enter tracert yourdomain.com
4.    Hit the "enter" key on your keyboard and wait.

For the Apple people in the crowd, you can follow these steps:

1.    Double-click the Hard Drive icon > Applications folder > Utilities folder > Network
       Utility program.
2.    Select the trace route tab and enter the domain name
3.    Press the "enter" key and wait.


3. If you know the location or IP address where the viewer is coming from, and the event is
still ongoing, you could contact us or Highwinds CDN to have them check to see if there's a
problem with a POP. They will be able to run a test on a particular streaming server (depending
on where the viewer is from, location of the server serving them is different), and see if
there is indeed a problem with the actual server that's serving the stream.

During the business hour you can contact us either via phone or email, and we will be able to
forward the IP on to YourHost CDN to check.  For offhours CDN can check this for you, you
will need get us your account ID.  Their contact information is as follows:

Emergency and after hours and weekends - (714) 842-8511 Option 1 then option 2 follow the Emergency voice prompts.

Email: cdn-support@yourhost.com