About: Mary May

THANKS Bruce!

“hacky” = ” kludgy”
Already had the BRs and tried the NBSP with little satisfaction. The float:left was the missing part of the answer that helped.

Much appreciated!

…and yet another example of why “PLEASE HELP!…” isn’t a good subject line for people who come along later. ;-{

THANKS Jason for the quick answer.

Maybe someone else can tell us how AirPlay works … such as, does it make additional requests, etc.

Thanks Cristián,
Some additional observations to pass along….

Many of our videos run 20 to 30 minutes long, and amount to 100-150MB file sizes. The 30 second expires= value is certainly OK for establishing a connection with S3, but is not at all useful for iPads which will want to do many, many byte-range requests during the duration of a long playing video. Apparently, each is treated as a new connection … and the (unknown as yet) software component that generates the requests appears to simply copy the existing signature and expires= values … until time runs out.

Thanks for the tip about Philly’s plugin. So far, we’re using only S3 and his plugin also wants CloudFront. Yet, it’s good to know about it.

Maybe I need to ask questions about this problem a different way…

Assumptions:
– iPad’s consume videos in multiple segments, via byte-range requests.
– Amazon S3 file service (remember, no CloudFront) expects a signed URL, which s2Member provides.
– s2Member affords another level of protection by time limiting the request using the Expires= header.

Now, how do signatures and expire values get generated after the first request from an iPad?

??? Does JWPlayer generate these subsequent requests? If so, what clock does it use? … the iPad’s clock?

??? Or, are these requests generated by s2Member? (I don’t see them in the server logs.)

Thanks Bruce!
Your sample is just what I needed. It’s interesting how much PHP web page work one can do without needing to know much about array handling.

.$user->user_firstname. gave me exactly what I was looking for.

Sure, I agree about the hazards of working with live sites, and for anything that involved actually altering values or database contents I would use a non-production site. Now, that I have enough to work with, I probably will anyway just to be able to force demotions and move things along faster.

Much appreciated!

Thanks Raam.

PERFECT Explanation Raam! Thank you.

The member didn’t mention seeing the message about email address already in use. I’m almost certain (alright, guessing) that he did not rejoin from a logged in user ID, tried to use the existing email address, ignored the failure and then logged in and found the account lacking privilege.

I’ll go check the account detail logging … and look for an errant unused new user ID. Then, implement the upgrade process you suggested.

THANKS!

Cristián: Yes, there was a change about the time IPN quit working. I added a plugin called “Easy Contact Forms,” which really isn’t easy, has a whole bunch of panels, messes with mailing stuff and messes with the users table (I think). The timing and the function overlaps are too good.

I can’t recall any other functional changes at that time. Content additions of course, but no other functions or plugins.

So, I deactivated and deleted Easy Contact Forms this morning. No joy! Still no IPN logging.

I deleted all s2member log files form the server just in case of corruption or permission problems. The api and rtn logs are being written again. No IPN.

Raam: Yes, ran the test tool and got PASSs on every test. I also verified the PayPal to s2Member AR and IPN URLs, the API credentials and the PDT credential. All good.

From the PayPal side, I can see every IPN sent and PayPal reports a “200” http return code for every one.
*** I asked PayPal to resend one of those IPNs. It did … took a while. Got a 200 return code.
Still no IPN log.
Still no confirmation mail!

** IMPORTANT**
While we can actually do without the IPN log, it’s the confirmation / registration emails to subscribers that are the most important consideration. (I’ve always assumed they’re tied to IPN, as Jason mentions in one of the videos. Maybe I’m wrong about that?) Those are actually a LOT more important than the IPN log, and we’re not seeing them. ****And, the subscribers who don’t follow through with the automatic return and registration are not seeing the emails and becoming cranky about not knowing how to “get into the site.”

Thanks for the suggestions so far.
What’s the next idea? Is it safe to reinstall s2 over the top of what we have?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by  Mary May.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by  Mary May.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by  Mary May.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by  Mary May.

Hamid,
(Bob Easton, Mary Mays “code monkey”)

When all you see is text “JW Player® appears here” instead of the player itself, that means the player .swf file was not found. Fix that first. Then, go for the content.

I like to make small simple steps. So, simplify your script using real URLs instead of variables. Get each of the pieces properly located. Then, figure out which variables to use / change.

hmmmmm….

We PAID for support and did not get the support we expected. Now, you want us to GIVE you the answer? Compensate us for about a dozen billable hours and we’ll consider telling you the solution.

BTW, these words are Bob Easton’s, not Mary May’s.

I, Bob Easton, am doing the technical work for Mary’s site. I’m the one who has been waiting days for PAID support to arrive with an answer. I’m the one who spent the long hours to find a way to work around the script that denies access to iPads. If you have concerns about this post, direct them my way, not Mary’s. (if you look around, you can find me at bob-easton.com)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by  Mary May.

Problem resolved on our own.

Test credentials revoked.

Yes Cristián, the files are in the s2member-files directory as mentioned in the very first sentence.

We have a dedicated server with more than enough storage and more than enough bandwidth, and NO desire to introduce the added cost of Amazon S3.

What can we change on a dedicated server to improve the situation?