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FLV movies not playing in either video player

CaptainObvious Member
in General support
Hi there,

I just upgraded from 1.1.7 to 1.2 and was excited to see that I could upload FLV movies right from Admin. I did that, and when viewing the album, the generic audio/video thumbnail comes up. I click to get to the video, and the player comes up.

When I actually click to play the video, nothing happens. The player is reporting a video of 0:00 length.

I've tried this with both addins with the same results and in multiple browsers (IE, FF, Opera). I've even installed the latest Adobe Flash.

Is there something else I should be doing to get these to play?

Thanks!

http://www.bigwheelrally.com/gallery/photos/Movie_0004.flv.php

Comments

  • sbillard Member
    I notice that you have changed the name of the zenphoto albums folder. Is it possible that the permissions of this folder are such that browsers cannot read files from them? I see that clicking on images for the full sized image also fails, so maybe the two problems are related.
  • CaptainObvious Member
    All my albums have 777 permissions.

    I had an already established '/photos' directory set up before I installed ZenPhoto. Instead of moving everything into the ZenPhoto album folder, I tried to redirect ZenPhoto to look outside at the '/photos' folder.

    In my config, I have:
    'code'
    $conf['album_folder'] = '/photos/';
    $conf['external_album_folder'] = '/homepages/15/d12345678/htdocs/bigwheelrally/photos/';
    '\code'

    This lets me use ZenPhoto with my existing folders and images, but when I click on the image for full size, I see the directory is:
    http://www.bigwheelrally.com/homepages/15/d12345678/htdocs/bigwheelrally/photos/2008-07-12-bwr-27/2008-07-12_18-49-01.jpg

    When I change the external_album_folder to just '/photos/' I get the error:
    "Error: The 'albums' directory (/photos/) cannot be found."

    Seems like the full directory path is allowing ZenPhoto to operate, but crashing full size image links.

    Any ideas?
    Thanks!
  • sbillard Member
    If the `photos` folder is within the zenphoto folders, you should leave the `external_album_folder` NULL. Certainly you should not be setting both those items.

    If the photos folder is outside the zenphoto folders there is a good chance it is also outside of the folders your web browser can access. That would prevent the flv player from playing the movies.
  • CaptainObvious Member
    My site is www.bigwheelrally.com

    ZenPhoto is set up at:
    www.bigwheelrally.com/gallery

    and the photo albums are at:
    www.bigwheelrally.com/photos

    I've tried every combination of setting both album_folder and external_album_folder.

    It appears that you can set external_album_folder outside of the ZenPhoto install location, but then links to full size images won't work.

    Seems that for full size image links, ZenPhoto is using the external_album_folder location as a folder on the site.
    i.e. www.bigwheelrally.com\[external_album_folder]\albumname\picture.jpg

    Can you confirm this?
    Thanks

    p.s. what part do Path Overrides play in all this?
  • sbillard Member
    Links to objects outside of the web folders will fail because the WEB browser cannot access them. This will impact any Javascript which is feeding on the actual images. It will also effect full images if they are not being processed by zenphoto. (e.g. Unprotected.)

    There is really nothing we can do about this, it is as they say, a fact of life.

    Path overrides are not relevant to this. They are only for when zenphoto for some reason is unable to deternine the paths on its own.
  • CaptainObvious Member
    All the folders I'm talking about are INSIDE the publicly accessible web folders. You can verify this with the following links:

    ZenPhoto is set up at:
    www.bigwheelrally.com/gallery

    and the photo albums are at:
    www.bigwheelrally.com/photos/2008-07-12-bwr-27/2008-07-12_18-49-01.jpg

    My `photos` folder is not within ZenPhoto folders (but is within my accessible web folders), so I set `external_album_folder` to the proper location.

    The problem is that for image links, ZenPhoto is using the `external_album_folder` location as a subfolder.
    i.e. www.bigwheelrally.com\`external_album_folder`\albumname\picture.jpg

    But, `external_web_folder` is required to be the full server path to the albums folder (for example: '/homepages/15/d12345678/htdocs/bigwheelrally/photos/') according to the config file.

    So, links to full size images point to non existant folders:
    http://www.bigwheelrally.com/homepages/15/d12345678/htdocs/bigwheelrally/photos/2008-07-12-bwr-27/2008-07-12_18-49-01.jpg

    Ultimately, my question is: How can I point ZenPhoto to use another folder on my site as the albums and preserve full size image links and FLV playback?

    Thanks
  • sbillard Member
    For full sized images you have to set the image protection to protected. For the FLV images you will have to modify the theme to pass the player URLs to the other WEB site.
  • CaptainObvious Member
    Hi sbillard,

    I'm sorry, but I think we're misunderstanding each other as your recommendations don't seem to make sense to me.

    I'd like to back up and start over:
    1) I only have one publicy accessible web site (www.bigwheelrally.com).

    2) I already have a photo album folder in the root of my website ("/photos").

    3) I have installed ZenPhoto 1.2 in its own root folder, and have renamed that folder from "/zenphoto" to "/gallery".

    4) How do I configure ZenPhoto to have it use my existing folder that is not inside the ZenPhoto folder?

    Thanks
  • sbillard Member
    You have to change the statement in zp-config.php regarding the external album folder. That needs to be a server path to the folder where the album resides. Having done that, if you want full sized images to be viewable you will have to set the protection selection to protected. If you want flash players, etc. which are browser based to be able to process the images you will have to supply them with WEB URLs to the image using the WEB address of the other site.
  • CaptainObvious Member
    Hi again,

    Ok, I'm on track:

    1) "server path to the folder where the album resides" - I have set this in config.php as:
    `
    $conf['album_folder'] = '/photos/';
    $conf['external_album_folder'] = '/homepages/15/d12345678/htdocs/bigwheelrally/photos/';
    `
    2) "set the protection selection to protected" - Where does this need to be set? Is it in Admin, or is it a CHMOD on the folder itself? (I would have searched the forums for this, but the "search" box appears to have been disabled?)

    3) "supply them with WEB URLs to the image using the WEB address of the other site" - This one has me confused. I only have the one site, so I'm not sure what you mean by "other site".

    Thanks!
  • sbillard Member
    #2. This is an option on the image display tab.

    #3. You have said you have two sites: `www.bigwheelrally.com` and some other site unnamed where you have installed zenphoto. Your links for the FLV must reference www.bigwheelrally.com.
  • CaptainObvious Member
    #2. Got it. Sorry I didn't see that before. This resolved the full size images not being accessible. Thanks.

    #3. I've said that I only have the 1 site (www.bigwheelrally.com). ZenPhoto is installed in the /gallery subfolder of this site. The FLV is trying to link to the 'external_album_folder' that is set up in config.php, but it's not allowed.
    `

  • sbillard Member
    As I have been trying to tell you, you have to modify the theme to pass the correct URL to the FLV player.
  • acrylian Administrator, Developer
    I am not sure if that can be done on the theme alone. Probably you have to modify the flv player plugin. The flv player - if I recall correctly - uses relative paths for movies: http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?thread=11284#msg82454
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