The iPlayer’s broken

If you can’t download programmes at the moment, please don’t tell me! It’s also affecting iPhone and iPod Touch users, so it doesn’t seem to be a Beeb counter-attack.

It appears that something went awry over at the transcoding barn where the programmes get converted into iPlayer versions. There’s a thread about it on the iPlayer message board.

It sounds like everything is back up and working again now. If you can’t download any new programmes, I’m interested in hearing about it.

2008-10-29 12:07 UTC. Comments: 20.

Comments

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  1. Frankie Roberto

    Wrote at 2008-10-29 14:23 UTC using Firefox 3.0.3 on Mac OS X:

    Looks like it’s fixed now.

  2. DC

    Wrote at 2008-10-29 21:13 UTC using Firefox 3.0.3 on Windows XP:

    “If you can’t download programmes at the moment, please don’t tell me! ”

    Take the number of messages as a positive measure of how much your downloader is used.

    Great little utility!

  3. Alex

    Wrote at 2008-10-30 18:18 UTC using Safari 525.20 on Mac OS X:

    Thanks for featring my thread on the iplayer messageboards.

  4. Bob

    Wrote at 2008-11-02 08:13 UTC using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP:

    Hi Paul

    I appears that the same thing has happened with BBC 7 at least (not tried Radio 4 yet) as all programmes (I’ve tried 12)are coming back with the “An MP4 URL exists but the download fails” message and the web page request you install Real to play the programme.

    Another automatic encode failure?

    Looks like I’ll have to revert to Streambox VCR for a while.

    :-)

    Bob

  5. Bob

    Wrote at 2008-11-03 07:23 UTC using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP:

    Hi All,

    Overnight (Sunday) BBC7 seems to have caught up with itself with all Sat and Sun programmes appearing – will check the outstanding Thurs and Fri programmes too and report if still problems.

    Bob

  6. Geoff Os

    Wrote at 2008-11-05 19:02 UTC using Firefox 2.0.0.14 on Windows XP:

    Trying to get last weeks episode of heroes with the PID :b00f3mq4 and I still get the “An MP4 URL exists but the download fails” message

  7. danrus

    Wrote at 2008-11-05 19:06 UTC using Firefox 3.0.1 on Windows Vista:

    Top Gear isn’t responding either…

  8. Peter

    Wrote at 2008-11-06 14:13 UTC using Firefox 2.0.0.14 on Mac OS X:

    Greetings All,
    Likewise. I just installed ver 2.0 on this Mac so I’m not sure if I’m part of the general problem or if it’s a local issue.
    Any info on Error Code 70? Is that what you guys are getting also?

    There was an error last attempt.
    Resuming Download 1 – b007v9rc.
    Using proxy XXX.XXX.XXX.XX:XX
    Resuming download at 0 bytes.
    India with Sanjeev Bhaskar – Bombay Dreams.mov
    An MP4 URL was found, but the download failed.
    Error Code 70
    0 / 1 have been completed.
    0 show(s) have failed.

    I’m in Spain but have a tunnel to London hence a UK IP (Working for the ISP is useful :-) ) so have tried with and without the built-in proxy, same error code, with a variety of PIDs.

  9. Bob

    Wrote at 2008-11-08 08:53 UTC using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP:

    Geoff Os – You will never be able to download Heroes only stream (due to it being available on iTunes for sale).

    danrus – Top Gear has worked for me this week, and seems to be working at the moment. Do try again.

    Peter – was the Sanjeev Bhaskar programme shown more than a week ago? It seems that though the Beeb are now telling us that all episodes are available during the lifetime of the series, download/iPhone versions only seem to be available for the week after broadcast. Well that’s what I find. Therefore I tend to have a least a couple of catch-up sessions a week to get the next few day’s viewing (the recent encoding backlog didn’t help!) to not miss anything.

    Bob

  10. danrus

    Wrote at 2008-11-08 19:56 UTC using Firefox 3.0.1 on Windows Vista:

    Thanks Bob

  11. Peter

    Wrote at 2008-11-09 16:03 UTC using Firefox 3.0.3 on Mac OS X:

    Bob, thanks for that info…... I’m delighted to report that all is now working as it should be. This is very sweet indeed.

    Paul; Well done, sir! I’m using the GUI version on OSX on a ‘spanish’ macpro which the beeb is quite happy to identify as an English iPhone. Delicious! You are top of my Christmas Card List.

    The Catch22 is that to find out if there’s an iphone version available I have to boot Windows on something, as if you’re on the iPlayer site using a Mac there’s no download dropdown to look at, being as there’s no OSX/Linux version of the DL manager yet. (A deafening silence from the beeb on that topic). They won’t show me the download options as they assume I can’t d’l on this o/s… I appreciate the irony here!

  12. John

    Wrote at 2008-11-13 15:56 UTC using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP:

    Hi there. Tried using your Windows BBC IPlayer download. Got the mov file down ok but cannot play it with any Window player. I noticed some comments on your Projects page to this effect but could not see a Windows solution yet. Applogies if you are still working on resolving this, or if fixed, I would approeciate the details.
    Thanks in advance.
    John

  13. Bob

    Wrote at 2008-11-14 05:47 UTC using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP:

    Peter – Have a look at the beebhack wiki – http://beebhack.wikia.com/wiki/Beebhack – for lots of useful info and info on solutions for many platforms.

    On a Mac I mainly use get_iplayer in the terminal window as I like it’s keyword search (great for programmes with daily episodes or catch-up sessions) and I’ve learnt it’s syntax. I’m told it works on Linux as well but I try to fall back on Linux only when no other platform offers a solution (and with people like Paul around that’s rare these days).

    John – silly question, but have you tried Quicktime? The are media centre fixes for Vista but as you are using XP, QT is an option as is iTunes. Other players will also play the downloads – dependant on the version of Nero you may own the h.264 codec might be included or available at cost.

    However, good old VLC plays just about everything, is free, and will work wonders on older or lower spec systems where other players demand too many resources.

    Bob

  14. Mike

    Wrote at 2008-11-16 07:40 UTC using Safari 525.26.12 on Mac OS X:

    Hi there, I cannot download many programs, all say ‘An MP4 URL was found, but the download failed.’
    Why is this, and if the mp4 url ‘was’ found, then can it not at least paste said url into terminal for me to copy and download manually, if it won’t download itself.
    Apart from the recent errors, all been good so far. Very easy to use. Thanks!!!

  15. Paul Battley

    Wrote at 2008-11-16 22:33 UTC using Firefox 3.0.3 on Linux:

    Mike, that error means that the programme isn’t available at all. I realise it’s confusing, so I’ll be changing it with the next release.

  16. Bob

    Wrote at 2008-11-20 07:26 UTC using Chrome 0.3.154.9 on Windows XP:

    Hi All,

    Not had chance to check Radio 4 yet, but (almost) random BBC7 shows are not being encoded and are just available as Real Media. It started Monday am.

    It doesn’t appear to be consistent across the days for the same programme.

    Is the iPlayer forum the best way of reporting these problems or has someone found a better way yet?

    Bob

  17. Bob

    Wrote at 2008-11-20 11:01 UTC using Chrome 0.3.154.9 on Windows XP:

    FYI – I can’t find any Radio 4 programmes affected – Only BBC7 seems to be “hit” by this.

    The messageboard looks like getting feedback from the Beeb is rare, so I’ve used the email link through “Contact Us” and will report on what I get back.

    I’ll flag if this appears to be fixed.

    Bob

    ps – I’m actually using Chrome beta and not Safari as the above suggests… :-)

  18. Ryan Cullen

    Wrote at 2008-11-26 10:13 UTC using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP:

    Just playing about with the beebhack website (looking at trying to test the Nokia stream) however I’m getting 404s when trying to access the programme meta-data
    eg http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/metafiles/episode/b00fpxp6.xml (Buzzcocks from last week).
    Whilst at work I can’t do much testing but am I using the correct URL format?

  19. John

    Wrote at 2008-11-27 21:11 UTC using Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP:

    Hi there. I have now been successfully using iPlayer Download for the last couple of weeks. However, tonight I get the following message when trying to download ANY BBC iPlayer video or radio programme.
    “Page not found for this programme. This probably means that the programme does not exist.”
    I retried downloads that had completed successfully earlier today and get the same message. I have re-booted my pc but still the same problem. Have the Beep made a change or are they having problems???
    Any one else got this problem?
    John

  20. Big Lad

    Wrote at 2008-12-16 23:27 UTC using Firefox 3.0.4 on Windows XP:

    I have the same problem John.

    “Page not found for this programme. This probably means that the programme does not exist.”

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