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Can't Leave Website Until AWS Cloudfront Video is 100% Loaded

Hi there,

My name is Kyle Rappenecker. I'm currently building a Wordpress website that uses the JWPlayer plugin to play videos. The videos are being hosted on the AWS Cloudfront. I've added all the hosted videos to the website through the 'Add External Media' option. The videos will begin playing, but I can't leave the webpage or move to another page until the video is fully loaded from Amazon.

Here is a link to an example video that wont let you leave the page until the video is loaded: http://031e5e5.netsolhost.com/videos/free-video/

Any help or advice ASAP would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance!!

-Kyle Rappenecker

18 Community Answers

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Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

I am able to move to another page while this video is still downloading. It works fine.

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Thank you Ethan for the quick response. If you could take a look at this page as well: http://031e5e5.netsolhost.com/videos/premium-video/
this is where all the larger videos are located and where the issues occur most for me when I'm viewing the site in Firefox/IE.

Also, do you have any advice on how we can make the large mp4 video files load/play faster? I know we can't 'seek forward' on the videos because we aren't using the streaming AWS, we are just hosting the videos through the S3 Bucket. Some of the videos we would like to add in the future may be between 500-800mb. We would upload the videos to YouTube and embed in the JWPlayer, but the premium videos will be for paid members of the site.

Thank you for your help with all this, I really appreciate it.

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

In order to stream properly, an MP4 needs to have its index at the beginning of the file, rather than at at the end. If you encode them with HandBrake, just check "Web optimized," which will put the index where it belongs. If you just need to fix an existing MP4, run it through MP4 FastStart, which does only one thing - it moves the index to the front of the file. http://www.datagoround.com/lab/

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Thank you for the response! All of the mp4 videos that have been uploaded to AWS have been run through Handbrake with the 'web optimized' set on all of them (I also ran them through QTIndex Swapper just to make sure they were correct). The videos will start somewhat quickly after some loading time, but I can't seek forward, the larger videos take a long time to load, and I'm still getting stuck on and can't leave the video page because it continues to download the video from Amazon.

Thank you again for the response, any additional help would be appreciated. I have a client who really needs these videos to run great and I need help!!

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Like Ethan, I cannot duplicate the problem you're seeing. The videos on your page start playing within a few seconds, I can seek forward (into what's been buffered), and I don't get stuck on the page.

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Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Yeah, same.

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Thank you MisterNeutron. I wonder why I'm having these issues on my computer. Is there anything I can do to help make the large video files play/load faster? Some of the larger videos can't keep up with the loading/buffer and I'm trying to figure out a solution for us moving forward as we will be adding large videos on a weekly basis to the site.

Thanks again

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Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Have you had other people report this as well?

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

The only other instance was when I met with the client to view the website this week, we were having the same issues on his computer.

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Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

That is bizarre. I have never heard of this issue before.

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Ethan, did you have a chance to try the videos on this page as well: http://031e5e5.netsolhost.com/videos/premium-video/

Just wanted to make sure, as I'm still having the 'stuck page' issue no matter what I try.

Thanks again for the help.

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Still no problem. And I still don't even know what you mean by a "stuck page." I've never seen a web page that won't let you leave, and go to some other page. That would violate every principle of the web.

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

I can't leave the page because it keeps saying it's connecting to Amazon AWS while the video is loading. the only way I can leave the page is if I 'stop' the loading, however, I can't connect to any other pages on the site after I 'stop' the loading. I have to open a new tab and re-login to the website, etc.

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Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Same, can’t replicate. I have never seen something like this happen before.

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Were you able to find a solution to speed up your videos? Like you, I have large videos hosted on Amazon AWS through S3. The playback is choppy. The audio will play smoothly, but the video drops frames, making the picture stutter. Often the video stops entirely to buffer. When it does that, sometimes it just freezes and sometimes it shows the buffer animate gif. When I play the videos directly from Amazon through the same connection, the playback is smooth. The super slow loading only happens through JWPlayer, and is worse on Chrome and Safari than on other browsers. On Safari the entire page freezes up sometimes, and all I can do is wait it out or close the browser. I'll be posting a question about it to the forum later (after I've finished searching the forum for an answer first), but if you find anything at all to help your problem, please, please post your solution. Thanks!

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Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Do you have a link?

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JW Player

User  
0 rated :

I just upgraded from 6.7.4071 to 6.8.4616, and now my videos play much smoother once initially buffered. (Still keen to know any hints on speeding them up, though, since some of the videos on my site are over 500mb, and they do still drop frames, just much less so since upgrading.)

https://www.primeaxs.com
The Les Brown - Secret Knock video is a good example, at over one hour long and 761.01mb

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Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

It seems to be running fine here for me.

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