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BLUF: iTunes fails to download MT/CT casts but works for others (unless it's previously failed on an MT/CT cast).

MT/CT - Fail
non-MT/CT - Download
MT/CT followed by non-MT/CT - All Fail
non-MT/CT followed by MT/CT - Download non-MT/CT but fails on first MT/CT

My iTunes is failing to download MT and CT podcasts. It seems to try for a short while then fail with error number 3259 (in Downloads view). In the Podcasts view the gray exclamation mark icon appears against the failed podcast. when clicked this produces a message box that says "Network Connection Timed Out". Anyone else had this?

If there are more than one podcasts to be downloaded as soon as the first MT/CT one fails it fails all the rest with the same error code but when the grey exclamation mark icon is clicked the message box says "Network Connection Could Not Be Made". This happens whether the subsequent podcasts are MT/CT or another providor.

When the podcast is not an MT/CT cast (unless, as noted above, it follows an MT/CT cast) it downloads OK. Indeed if a non-MT/CT cast is at the head of the list that will download OK, as will subsequent non-MT/CT casts. Once it hits an MT/CT cast that will fail, as will all subsequent casts.

Once it's failed the only way to download any non-MT/CT casts is to exit iTunes and restart.

I'm currently running version 8.0.2.20 of iTunes. The problem first appear in iTunes 7 so I upgraded to see if that would fix it. iTunes 7 had previously worked fine. My connection to the Internet is via a Bluecoat proxy server (from Whale Communications). I cannot rule out the proxy as the cause but have no control over it. This problem appears at all times of day.

Stephen

mauzenne's picture
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Stephen,

Interesting. What happens when you try to play the podcast from the website (flash player underneath each podcast)?

Mike

stephenbooth_uk's picture

Mike,

I hadn't tried that yet (incredibly busy at work right now, I'm downloading the casts, loading to my iPod (bought explicitly for the purpose) then listening during my commute). I can download the mp3 files by clicking the icon and selecting save and then manually loading the file into iTunes.

I just tried the Flash player and that just says Buffering and doesn't get round to playing the cast. I left it for 5 minutes, still Buffering.

It could be a combination of our proxy and iTunes not handing a failed download at all well. One possible factor, which occurred to me late last night, is that the other casts I listen to (which will download) tend to be a lot shorter, typically 5-10 minutes, and therefore smaller files. I'll talk to the guy who runs our proxy the next opportunity I get, see if that might be it. MT is one of the sites listed by our L&D section as a learning resource for managers (I pitched it to them early last year) so if they are blocking at least I've got some weight behind me to get it unblocked.

Thanks for looking into this.

Stephen

mauzenne's picture
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It's very possible that the network folks have blocked Libsyn (where we host our files). Unfortunately, this won't be the first time.

I'd love to hear what you find out.

Best Regards,
Mike

alanshutko's picture

I'm seeing the same thing here right now. I think it's a libsyn problem. It's claiming the file is zero bytes.

hera:~ ats$ curl -v http://media.libsyn.com/media/managertools/manager-tools-2007-03-26.mp3 > out
* About to connect() to media.libsyn.com port 80 (#0)
* Trying 216.246.5.5... connected
* Connected to media.libsyn.com (216.246.5.5) port 80 (#0)
> GET /media/managertools/manager-tools-2007-03-26.mp3 HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.18.0 (i386-apple-darwin9.2.0) libcurl/7.18.0 zlib/1.2.3
> Host: media.libsyn.com
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 302 Found
< X-Powered-By: PHP/5.1.4
< Location: http://cdn1.libsyn.com/managertools/manager-tools-2007-03-26.mp3?nvb=200...
< Content-type: text/html
< Content-Length: 0
< Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:38:18 GMT
< Server: lighttpd/1.4.15
<

mauzenne's picture
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Thanks, that helps. I'll forward that on to Libsyn and ask them to look into it.

Thanks again,
Mike

stephenbooth_uk's picture

I got a response from our guy who runs the proxy. He said that they're not blocking MT or Libsyn. MT and CT podcast downloads started working much more reliably once I got that mail. Must be coincidence.

I still have the odd issue, iTunes timing out, but that also affects some other casts, specifically the British Computer Society's recently launched Vodcasts (Video Podcasts). As the other casts that are impacted are the ones with similar file sizes to MT/CT I guessed that is the issue. If you're downloading files over a certain size our proxy caches them and virus checks them, causing a delay of a few seconds to several minutes depending on file size and how busy the server is. To get around this I applied a trick I learned some years ago for dealing with browser time out issues with our previous proxy (although that only appeared when downloading files in the hundreds of MB range) by letting the download start for a few seconds then pausing. The proxy continues the download and virus check in the background so when a few minutes later I retry the download the file is just pulled straight from the cache already downloaded and virus checked.

Stephen

mauzenne's picture
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Stephen,

Thanks for the update ... Happy to hear you figured it out!

Another example in a long list of network complications. :-(

Best Regards,
Mike