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Q: Lion Server Podcast / Videocast not playing back on iOS devices

Sorry, I posted this in the wrong forum. This is a repost.

 

Hello everyone!

 

I work at a small school that relies heavily on Apple desktops and servers. Apple computers have saved us a lot of headaches.We do a lot of language instructions for students using the podcast functions built-in the server Podcast Producer. Apple servers were always trusted to deliver service under pressure, but this time it looks like a few "bad apples" got through the Apple golden gates.

 

It looks like the Lion Server has come on-line without in-depth beta testing for 10.7.0 and 10.7.1 hasn't solved some issues as of today. Right after Lion 10.7 was released, we reported to Apple that after a podcast or videocast is created and transferred to theLion Server via the Podcast Publisher software and then when an iOS deviceaccesses a podcast or videocast by clicking on the "Podcast" icon onthe "Welcome to MAC OS X Lion Server" page, iOS devices can't playback the media! Did anyone test this before releasing Lion 10.7.0 and 10.7.1?

 

We got a report back from Apple stating that they have tested and were able to reproduces this issue. OK, how  did this get by them? Also, when the "Welcome to MAC OS X Lion Server" page is viewed on an iOS device, the icon for "Podcast" isn't displayed! Now, how did this get by beta testers? Once again techs at  Apple were able to reproduce this on their side! Too add, media couldn't beplayed back using Firefox 5.0.1, IE or Chrome. Wouldn't a beta tester think that something was wrong?

 


The 10.7.1 update hasn't corrected these issues and this maybe because it's not a priority for Apple. Do education institutions that rely on Apple products get priority?

 

Anyway, I hope the next time Apple allows educational institutions to test a "live" working setup before releasing a major release or update. The issues above should have been caught in the beta test.

 

Apple still has products that are reliable, but the Lion release needs more taming.

 

Wish everyone the best in taming this, so far, wild Lion.

Mac Mini Server, Mac OS X (10.6.7), OSX Server

Posted on Aug 17, 2011 3:01 PM

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Q: Lion Server Podcast / Videocast not playing back on iOS devices

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  • by Newtron40,Helpful

    Newtron40 Newtron40 Aug 20, 2011 12:10 AM in response to wdevn
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Aug 20, 2011 12:10 AM in response to wdevn

    At my daughter's private school of which I volunteer tech-wise, last year we put in two new apple servers for a whole new backend.  Podcast producer allowed our teachers to record classes, test reviews and such and the kids could access them from home or anywhere.  Whiteboards and document cameras along with digital microscopes were recorded along with classroom video.  It was great to see some of the teachers dive into this.

     

    The teachers were excited to use the Podcast publisher instead of capture because they could edit, make episodes and such.  Still easy to send to server. Works as long as you allow Anyone to view podcasts.  If you select "Authenticated Users" to view podcast, the playback window will load, but the video won't play.  Due to the fact that children might appear in a podcast (ours are primarily video), we must restrict it to authenticated users only.

     

    Apple Enterprise support senior engineering has acknowledged that they can reproduce the bug but no resolution to the problem.  We did order a new Mini server with fresh lion server for a test bed to which it does the same thing.  I am touching base every few days with support about this.

     

    It really doesn't make sense to migrate to a point "oh" major rewrite of any software for a production unit.  Apple may have some great engineers, but there was quite a bit in the press about holding hardware waiting for Lion release.  I think the Server end got neglected a bit to hurry Lion and the associated new hardware into the market.

     

    I experience the same issue that you're having from our mini testbed and our non-production Xserve.  I wonder if iOS5 will address this.  The old podcast was a quicktime stream that was sent to your iOS device (or computer).  I assume that the new stream is an HTML5 video that may not be compatible with the current issue of Safari on iOS.  Of course these are just guesses... but definitely things that make you go "hmmmmm"

     

    Sorry I'm no help... but my school is definitely in the same boat as yours if we migrate to Lion Server.  You can still run podcast producer on Lion with the same video feeds that you had in SLS. Have you tried that? 

     

    One other thing - if you need more disk space, you can soft link the podcastpublisher files to another hard drive.  We put ours on a 4TB raid but the files for the new Podcast are stored at /Library/Server/PodcastLibrary.  The GUI ability to do that ala Server admin in SLS went away in Lion. They should have put that capability into Server app.

    Screen Shot 2011-08-19 at 11.48.04 PM.jpg

    This is all we get if we try to play a podcast with Authenticated users selected in Server App

  • by wdevn,

    wdevn wdevn Aug 20, 2011 9:18 AM in response to Newtron40
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 20, 2011 9:18 AM in response to Newtron40

    Hello Newtron40!

     

    Thank you for replying to my post. I see you are very muchin the same situation as I am. We get the same error on our Mac Mini Server aswell. I hope Apple understands that a lot of educational institutions relyheavily on their client and server solutions. I hope Apple takes the time towork closely with the educators to help them integrate Apple software andhardware.

     

    It maybe true that Apple stretched their resources to makethe deadline for the Lion release. It feels like some things were neglected tothe point that somewhere someone became blind of the bugs that got through thegates. I still find it hard to believe that the issues we are both having were somehownot discovered in beta testing. Did anyone check to see, if at least, Apple’sown iOS devices would work properly with Lion? I know if I were a beta testerfor Apple, I would have discovered this issue very quickly.

     

    Maybe this is a case where Apple engineers aren’t aware ofwhat “real world customers” use or need. Maybe Apple needs “real world” customersto assist in the beta testing and reporting? Would that be too difficult to do?I hope this is not a situation where the Emperor is the only one who can seehis clothes. Things that make you go “hmmmmmmmmmmmm”.

     

    The QuickTime streaming media server in Snow Leopard workedvery well and our instructors relied on it heavily. So far we have over 5TB ofdata from our instructors to use on our small server! Students were able toconnect to our little silver box and learn something and this helped build astronger community for us. Now, we are running scared because of the problemswe are currently having with Lion. It’s great Apple is being innovative, but itlooks like the customers have turned into the sacrificial lamb for Lion. 

     

    We do have an external drive for media and use ServerAdmin to set media location. I think the Server.App and Server Admin should beone GUI. Knowing that Apple’s own engineers know about these issues are theygoing to fix them in the next release? Who knows?

     

    Anyway, Apple still has great solutions and they need tofind a solution for the simplest of problems we are having with the Lion server software.

     


    PS: Anyone at Apple listening?

  • by Newtron40,

    Newtron40 Newtron40 Aug 20, 2011 10:00 AM in response to wdevn
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Aug 20, 2011 10:00 AM in response to wdevn

    Do you still have podcast producer running on Lion for your podcasts? (aka the SLS way). 

  • by wdevn,

    wdevn wdevn Aug 20, 2011 10:50 AM in response to Newtron40
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 20, 2011 10:50 AM in response to Newtron40

    Not exactly the same, but about. iOS devices can play a thing... Only Safari can playback media.

  • by Newtron40,

    Newtron40 Newtron40 Aug 20, 2011 11:16 AM in response to wdevn
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Aug 20, 2011 11:16 AM in response to wdevn

    I'm not sure if we're on the same page here.  There are actually 2 applications for podcasting. There's Podcast in Server App and that links in with the wikis.  Then there's Podcast Producer (What Apple Enterprise called "legacy software") that is the same as it was in Snow Leopard Server.  Server admin controls Podcast Producer and requries Xgrid just like it did in SLS.  The new Podcast doesnt' require xGrid, which is the one we're having permission issues on.  I had to monkey with the xGrid to bring it back online, but we can still use Podcast capture and sent it to Podcast Producer just like we did in SLS.  The admin part of PCP was more for us tech guys that School staff. 

     

    The two don't mingle.  I wonder if they did that because of this issue?

  • by micahchien,

    micahchien micahchien Sep 21, 2011 12:18 AM in response to Newtron40
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 21, 2011 12:18 AM in response to Newtron40

    I have the exactly same issue here!  I have a clean installed lion server running on a mac pro with 4T raid. All the podcasts made by podcast publisher can not online playback on all iOS devices(including iOS 5 beta 7).  I have contact with apple care team several times. But, I got nothing help. This is really so frustrated. I wonder why this happen. As we know, lion server integrate podcast library into wiki server. after I did some testing, I find something interesting.  if we put audio/video files on wiki, all iOS devices also can not playback these files. this is the same issue with podcast library. So, I guess this problem could come from wiki server. And, another bad thing, if you want to submit podcast to itunes store, do not use podcast producer 2 built in lion server because, currently, iTunes store does not accept these feeds made by podcast porducer 2. I hope Apple can fix these big bugs ASAP.

     

     

    Apple !! We've had a big problem!!!

     

    Please come to help us!

  • by wdevn,

    wdevn wdevn Sep 21, 2011 9:02 AM in response to micahchien
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 21, 2011 9:02 AM in response to micahchien

    I have called Apple many times also and they were able to repete this issue on their side as well. However, no one at Apple has given a solution for the error. How could this kind of bug gotten by Apple? It is downright careless to not have someone check to make sure iOS devices can playback media for the Lion Server. Just poor management on Apple's side. Lately I see Apple releasing platforms without testing with people who use their platform in the real world! Apple programmers are in their own world and need to get out more!

     

    As for this date Apple still hasn't fix this bug....

  • by joshfromammon,

    joshfromammon joshfromammon Oct 26, 2011 7:58 AM in response to wdevn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2011 7:58 AM in response to wdevn

    Where is Lion Server saving/storing the podcast files.  You mentioned you have an external drive and used ServerAdmin to set the media location.  I have a 12T thunderbolt drive how to I put my podcast library on this external drive???

  • by wdevn,

    wdevn wdevn Oct 26, 2011 11:38 AM in response to joshfromammon
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2011 11:38 AM in response to joshfromammon

    Joshfromammon,

     

    The location of where the media files are stored can be found and set in the Server Admin program. If you need to set your media storage to another location, this is where you need to go.

     

    BTW, this is STILL broken in version 10.7.2. I have informed the tech team at Apple about this two weeks ago  again and the engineer hasn't gotten back to me yet. It is a frustrating thing not to be able to playback media correctly created on the Lion Server  for playback on Apples OWN iOS devices. It sounds like Apple only has one person working on the Lion Server's Podcast Producer or they simply don't care. Most likely they are overwhelmed with more important projects.

  • by newtron45,

    newtron45 newtron45 Oct 26, 2011 1:51 PM in response to wdevn
    Level 1 (13 points)
    iPad
    Oct 26, 2011 1:51 PM in response to wdevn

    If you're using podcast Producer (ala snow leopard server) on lion, the location is in the server admin app where you can specify the path where podcasts are stored.  If you're using podcast (lion Server app) it's stored in a different place.  (I'm not at my computer, I'll edit this when I get to it to show the path). From Apple: podcast (lion/wiki) isn't set up to direct the storage place, but you can copy the files and redirect via a symlink to an external drive and that has been confirmed to work.

     

    Will update shortly

  • by joshfromammon,

    joshfromammon joshfromammon Oct 26, 2011 1:53 PM in response to wdevn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2011 1:53 PM in response to wdevn

    I'm new to server so please forgive the stupid questions . . . . Server Admin?  Is that the round blue globle icon???  Server Admin lets you make changes to Podcast Producer, but I am not using podcast producer.  I'm new to podcast and server so I am setting this up for the first time for my schoold district.  I'm using a mac mini with Lion Server and podcast publisher.  Everything seems to be working except that its saving my podcast to the local drive and I want them saved to my Pegasus Thunderbolt array.  Is there a way to change that???

  • by joshfromammon,

    joshfromammon joshfromammon Oct 26, 2011 3:13 PM in response to joshfromammon
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2011 3:13 PM in response to joshfromammon

    I am NOT using podcast producer on lion.  I am using podcast on lion/wiki, and would like to save to an external drive.  If you could tell me how to set this up I would appreciate it very much.  Thank you.

  • by micahchien,

    micahchien micahchien Oct 26, 2011 4:05 PM in response to joshfromammon
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2011 4:05 PM in response to joshfromammon

    Hi, joshfromammon,

    Can your ios devices play back podcasts locating on lion wiki server? Currently, I don't think the defualt wiki library can be changed to other storage place by using any GUI apps coming from apple.

  • by newtron45,

    newtron45 newtron45 Oct 26, 2011 4:35 PM in response to micahchien
    Level 1 (13 points)
    iPad
    Oct 26, 2011 4:35 PM in response to micahchien

    The default location for podcast stuff  (this is for Podcast composer / Podcast in Server.app / Podcast in wikis)  not podcast producer is:   /Library/Server/PodcastLibrary

     

    You'll need to copy this file over (with permissions) to where you want to store it and then create a symlink (softlink) to the new location in /Library/Server/

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