Question
FMS 3.5 quits streaming
We have been using Adobe Flash Media Streaming Server
(version 3.0) since about August 2008, and after some initial
firewall related problems got it to work quite well, although not
very many viewers yet. In January 2009 we upgraded to version 3.5
as it includes a custom-built version of the Apache webserver,
something we found required as some of our clients are behind such
heavy firewalls that no streaming at all can be obtained, only
progressive downloads. We yet haven't had time to update our own
Flash playing software to utilize this feature but will soon.
In case it matters, our server is a Dell PE2950 w/ dual 2.33 GHz Quad-Core Xeon E5410, 4 GB RAM and CentOS 5.X (kernel 2.6.18).
Anyway, since the upgrade in January we've encountered (approximately) weekly stops in production. Often it happened during a weekend when nobody was in the office to check functionality. First time I thought it was a temporary failure so I just restarted the FMS server process. Second time I got curious as there was an older, standalone installation of Apache on the same server, although never started. My thought was that maybe some script was trying to start it up, causing a conflict with the FMS + Apache combo, resulting in the whole process getting into limbo. I removed the separate Apache install and crossed my fingers.
Now it has happened once or twice again, as late as Saturday afternoon. As we're using a few different versions of Flash players, both custom-developed and more standard ones, I checked that none was able to access the streaming server. I also observed the default HTTP page wouldn't load. However I logged in with ssh to the server and saw all the processes still appearing to run fine. I ran /var/init.d/fms restart and soon after the streaming and everything else was back to normal.
I have checked the logs: access, admin, core, edge, master but saw no reference of anything that could have gone bad. Neither a bad call from a user client nor something else. If the fmscore or fmsedge processes had crashed hard and no longer had been found, at least I would have something to look into.
Does anyone have an idea what my problem might be? As I wrote it worked fine with version 3.0 for several months and pretty much the same player applications. I might roll back to the older version but would rather not to. I could also set up a script that restarts the Flash Media Server once every night, in case there is some cache that gets full. I could also disable the Apache web server that comes with the software. However I'm afraid it may take a couple of days or possibly a week until I observe if something has happened. Perhaps I could simulate 10X the number of client calls, if that would be an issue.
In case it matters, our server is a Dell PE2950 w/ dual 2.33 GHz Quad-Core Xeon E5410, 4 GB RAM and CentOS 5.X (kernel 2.6.18).
Anyway, since the upgrade in January we've encountered (approximately) weekly stops in production. Often it happened during a weekend when nobody was in the office to check functionality. First time I thought it was a temporary failure so I just restarted the FMS server process. Second time I got curious as there was an older, standalone installation of Apache on the same server, although never started. My thought was that maybe some script was trying to start it up, causing a conflict with the FMS + Apache combo, resulting in the whole process getting into limbo. I removed the separate Apache install and crossed my fingers.
Now it has happened once or twice again, as late as Saturday afternoon. As we're using a few different versions of Flash players, both custom-developed and more standard ones, I checked that none was able to access the streaming server. I also observed the default HTTP page wouldn't load. However I logged in with ssh to the server and saw all the processes still appearing to run fine. I ran /var/init.d/fms restart and soon after the streaming and everything else was back to normal.
I have checked the logs: access, admin, core, edge, master but saw no reference of anything that could have gone bad. Neither a bad call from a user client nor something else. If the fmscore or fmsedge processes had crashed hard and no longer had been found, at least I would have something to look into.
Does anyone have an idea what my problem might be? As I wrote it worked fine with version 3.0 for several months and pretty much the same player applications. I might roll back to the older version but would rather not to. I could also set up a script that restarts the Flash Media Server once every night, in case there is some cache that gets full. I could also disable the Apache web server that comes with the software. However I'm afraid it may take a couple of days or possibly a week until I observe if something has happened. Perhaps I could simulate 10X the number of client calls, if that would be an issue.
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