'All 4' app

[Anonymous]

As the ‘instigator’ of this particular thread, I feel I should butt in here to say that my problem with All 4 is now resolved.

For me, it turned out to be a ‘Smart DNS’ issue; I changed to a different Smart DNS service-provider and the problem instantly disappeared. I live outside the UK and use Smart DNS mainly for catch-up services.

I’m not saying this applies to everyone experiencing this issue, but I do hope this might be of help to someone at least.

[Anonymous]

I have never had success streaming All4 or any version of it on our 1000s. Mentioned many times in the past, it gets to the ad break okay then when it should return to the programme the picture goes green purple and totally blocky.

I use Chromecast now which I find 100% reliable.

[Anonymous]

grahamlthompson – 2 months ago  » 

rogermartin – 52 minutes ago  » 

Every time I try to watch a programme on 4OD I can only ever watch up to the first ad break, then I see the adds then the programme restarts as large pixelated blocks, which are impossible to remove.

I have 70 meg virginmedia broadband, hardwired to the box, so its not a broadband speed issue, the problem seems more likely to be in the 4OD app, does anyone know if this problem is being investigated.

If you post the programme you had an issue with I can see if it’s repeatable.

This happens with my All4 also.It is not caused by one particular programme, it happens on all All4 catch up programmes. First part plays perfectly, adverts play perfectly, then freeze and blocky pixelated mess. Virgin Media 70MB connected via ethernet cable, HB1000s. No problems with other catch up Apps.

[Anonymous]

I’ve been having the same problem for several months with the HB-1000S, using the 4OD service the adverts play perfectly but the real program content is a mess, a distorted and partially pixcelated picture that rearranges every few seconds and doesn’t seem to relate to the program I’m trying to watch, and there is no sound.. If I fast forward through the program to the next adverts, up they come perfectly, going back to a mess when the adverts are finished, With the BBC and ITV on-demand services I don’t have any problems at all. I have a 4g router which gives me speeds up to 80 mbps and I use a cat6 cable connection, so I’m fairly sure the connection speed is not the cause.

I’m based in France and use a smart dns service (unlocator.com, others are available) and following Corrigap’s post saying changing his smart DNS service had solved his problem, I started a trial with a different service, unblock-us.com, but using that I still have the same problem. There have been a couple of times (in many attempts) where I have been able to play a program successfully, having changed the DNS settings multiple times and rebooting everything, and I think I’ve solved it. But then, following the successful playback and without changing anything, a little later I try to play the same or another program and it doesn’t work again!

I don’t think it is a problem with the smart dns as I can watch 4OD programs on a smart TV using the same network with the same settings, and also on a laptop.

There’s one clue that might mean something to someone out there, the rubbish picture that is shown instead of the actual program picture seems to be made up of sections of the previous program that I have successfully played in on-demand mode, either a picture from the advert that preceded the program (on 4OD) or sometimes even a picture from a different on-demand service, e.g. BBC.

I’ve worked in IT for over 30 years (but nothing to do with video processing), and this looks like some sort of buffering or cache problem, the new video stream isn’t being picked up from the right place, or it isn’t being written there in the first place. But as I say, I’m not an expert, it’s just an educated guess.

Just thought I’d point out that perhaps this is a more common problem than some might think, for every person who goes to the bother of registering on this site to say they are having this same problem, there are probably quite a few who cannot be bothered, and there doesn’t seem to be any other relevent sites out there.

[Anonymous]

rogermartin – 2 months ago  » 

Every time I try to watch a programme on 4OD I can only ever watch up to the first ad break, then I see the adds then the programme restarts as large pixelated blocks, which are impossible to remove.

I have 70 meg virginmedia broadband, hardwired to the box, so its not a broadband speed issue, the problem seems more likely to be in the 4OD app, does anyone know if this problem is being investigated.

I came on here to say about the same issue, happens with every.single.program. Then if i try to quit then go back in, i have to rewatch ads, im not sitting around to watch 5 mins of ads before i can get back to my program.

anyone know a fix for this yet?

[Anonymous]

tbkbt – 31 minutes ago

I came on here to say about the same issue, happens with every.single.program. Then if i try to quit then go back in, i have to rewatch ads, im not sitting around to watch 5 mins of ads before i can get back to my program.

anyone know a fix for this yet?

You don’t mention which ISP or location. It would also help for those outside the UK if Corrigap confirmed the name of the new smart DNS that works.

I’ve recently watched a lot of ‘All4’ on a hb1000s and also fvp4000t and all without any problems on a 3Mbps plusnet internet connection.

There seems to be at least two different problems. The first being the smart adverts, a while ago I could not get past a ‘premier inn’ advert no matter what I did on a you view box, there was something embedded in the advert that caused trouble. This is no different to a web browser not working properly with a particular website where the website is trying to be too clever.

The second problem seems to be DNS and at least two people recently have mentioned Virgin media and seperately also smart DNS services. The smart adverts are trying to access another source for content or feedback and this fails.

Nobody afaik has confirmed that the problem still exists following a proper reboot or that they can watch exactly the same programme and adverts on a different device such as a smart TV at that time. As previously stated, I’ve watched a significant amount of All4 recently without any problems. From my point of view there’s nothing to fix and without others sharing information and coming up with a common denominator I can’t see how this can be viewed other than as an intermittent fault

[Anonymous]

damian – 10 hours ago  » 

tbkbt – 31 minutes ago

I came on here to say about the same issue, happens with every.single.program. Then if i try to quit then go back in, i have to rewatch ads, im not sitting around to watch 5 mins of ads before i can get back to my program.

anyone know a fix for this yet?

You don’t mention which ISP or location. It would also help for those outside the UK if Corrigap confirmed the name of the new smart DNS that works.

My old smart DNS service provider was ‘Over Play’ and my new one is ‘Smart DNS Proxy’.

HTH

[Anonymous]

damian – 15 hours ago  » 

tbkbt – 31 minutes ago

I came on here to say about the same issue, happens with every.single.program. Then if i try to quit then go back in, i have to rewatch ads, im not sitting around to watch 5 mins of ads before i can get back to my program.

anyone know a fix for this yet?

You don’t mention which ISP or location. It would also help for those outside the UK if Corrigap confirmed the name of the new smart DNS that works.

I’ve recently watched a lot of ‘All4’ on a hb1000s and also fvp4000t and all without any problems on a 3Mbps plusnet internet connection.

There seems to be at least two different problems. The first being the smart adverts, a while ago I could not get past a ‘premier inn’ advert no matter what I did on a you view box, there was something embedded in the advert that caused trouble. This is no different to a web browser not working properly with a particular website where the website is trying to be too clever.

The second problem seems to be DNS and at least two people recently have mentioned Virgin media and seperately also smart DNS services. The smart adverts are trying to access another source for content or feedback and this fails.

Nobody afaik has confirmed that the problem still exists following a proper reboot or that they can watch exactly the same programme and adverts on a different device such as a smart TV at that time. As previously stated, I’ve watched a significant amount of All4 recently without any problems. From my point of view there’s nothing to fix and without others sharing information and coming up with a common denominator I can’t see how this can be viewed other than as an intermittent fault

I’m with virgin in scotland central belt, consistently 48mb down, i wouldnt watch it on any other device as i have a tv box for that, down own any tablets. its not really intermittent when it happens on every program, and has done for the last year(thats how long ive been trying. i usually just give up and torrent it, if they arent looking into fixing it im sure not going diging for them.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Corrigap and tbkbt,

that’s really useful information, the 3rd Virgin Media user with problems accessing All4.

Too early to draw any conclusions. Are there any members out there where All4 fails on the Humax, but exactly the same programme and adverts work on a smart TV?

[Anonymous]

damian – 2 days ago  » 

Thanks Corrigap and tbkbt,

that’s really useful information, the 3rd Virgin Media user with problems accessing All4.

Too early to draw any conclusions. Are there any members out there where All4 fails on the Humax, but exactly the same programme and adverts work on a smart TV?

I did say a few days ago that I have this problem with 4OD on the HB-1000S box but I can watch it on a smart TV and a laptop with no problem, connected to the same internet connections as the Humax. I have no problem watching the adverts, they work perfectly, but the actual programs are corrupted. My internet connection is courtesy of Bouygues Telecom in France, but as I can watch successfully on a smart TV I’m guessing the ISP is not the issue here.

[Anonymous]

wotu2 – 10 minutes ago  » 

damian – 2 days ago  » 

Thanks Corrigap and tbkbt,

that’s really useful information, the 3rd Virgin Media user with problems accessing All4.

Too early to draw any conclusions. Are there any members out there where All4 fails on the Humax, but exactly the same programme and adverts work on a smart TV?

I did say a few days ago that I have this problem with 4OD on the HB-1000S box but I can watch it on a smart TV and a laptop with no problem, connected to the same internet connections as the Humax. I have no problem watching the adverts, they work perfectly, but the actual programs are corrupted. My internet connection is courtesy of Bouygues Telecom in France, but as I can watch successfully on a smart TV I’m guessing the ISP is not the issue here.

That’s the whole point.

It’s not whether 4OD works on your TV or not, it’s whether exactly the same programme and adverts fail on the hb1000s, but work on the TV at the same time.

If this is the case then the hb1000s is struggling with your smart dns or ISP and the TV isn’t. Assuming the hb1000s is on the latest firmware, switching to a smart dns service that works for others with a hb1000s should also work for your hb1000s.

I’ve also come across blocky and pixelated content, quite often live background TV that’s tuned into at that time mixed into what I want to watch. This happens when the box gets confused and a hard reboot fixes it.

If this is happening everytime with your hb1000s and specifically 4OD then the box is getting confused with the information provided from the smart dns and ISP. I’ve watched a ton of All4/4OD recently on a hb1000s with no problem whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

damian – 21 minutes ago  » 

wotu2 – 10 minutes ago  » 

damian – 2 days ago  » 

Thanks Corrigap and tbkbt,

that’s really useful information, the 3rd Virgin Media user with problems accessing All4.

Too early to draw any conclusions. Are there any members out there where All4 fails on the Humax, but exactly the same programme and adverts work on a smart TV?

I did say a few days ago that I have this problem with 4OD on the HB-1000S box but I can watch it on a smart TV and a laptop with no problem, connected to the same internet connections as the Humax. I have no problem watching the adverts, they work perfectly, but the actual programs are corrupted. My internet connection is courtesy of Bouygues Telecom in France, but as I can watch successfully on a smart TV I’m guessing the ISP is not the issue here.

…..it’s whether exactly the same programme and adverts fail on the hb1000s, but work on the TV at the same time

Sorry, I obviously didn’t make it clear, I can play a 4OD program and watch the adverts on the smart TV, but that same program does not play on the Humax, although the adverts play perfectly on the Humax.

I’ve just tried using the smart dns service that Corrigap changed to, ‘Smart DNS Proxy’, and find I can play the 4OD program on the Humax with that service, except it freezes every few seconds for just a second or so. Using the ‘Smart DNS Proxy’ DNS server on the smart TV, the same program plays back smoothly with no problem. I’ve just run a speed test (nperf.com) and I’m currently getting 56mbps download, 17mbps upload and ping latency of 46ms, should be no problem there.

So it would appear to be something to do with which smart DNS service is being used, Smart DNS Proxy seems to work better than unlocator and unblock-us, but still not perfect.

My HB-1000s is on software version UKSFAC 3.00.44, which I believe is the latest

[Anonymous]

wotu2 – 2 hours ago  » Sorry, I obviously didn’t make it clear, I can play a 4OD program and watch the adverts on the smart TV, but that same program does not play on the Humax, although the adverts play perfectly on the Humax.

Thanks for the update. I am pedantic, too many times at work where people have said ‘yeah yeah yeah I’ve tried all that and it still doesn’t work’ has obviously left its mark on me.

It’s really annoying that iplayer removed their speed diagnostic a long time ago as this would give real life connectivity data from/to the actual device.

Latency seems to be a prime suspect which will include routing if you imagine the local 4g mast, routing and how the data gets to the All4/4OD servers and back again.

I ran the same nperf.com test and it came back with 2.8Mbps 0.23Mbps and 31ms latency. My router tells me I have 8ms between it and the exchange equipment and that’s slower than the 5ms or less I used to have as I got them to put interleaving/bitswap on to help with the distance.

adsl will have a much lower latency, which is what I’m on, compared to fibre/vdsl and I’m sure 3/4g

What maybe of interest (it’s all pretty academic as 4OD works on your smart TV) is the latency average and jitter which came in at 51ms and 141ms on my connection

I haven’t sniffed any packets so I don’t know whether 4od.com is the same as their server content and this maybe different for different devices/software anyway and they don’t reply to ping; however traceroute to 4od.com which can’t be far away from the content servers times out after 9 hops with something like an average 60ms on my connection.

If you open up a dos window ‘cmd’ command prompt etc. on windows or similar and run:

tracert 4od.com

it’ll probably bring back interesting results regards number of hops and timing and may help in choosing a smart dns provider

[Anonymous]

Pedantry is not a problem, I fully understand the need to know that all options have been covered, and even an expert can overlook something.

I ran the tracert using my old smart dns provider, and also using Smart DNS Proxy, here are the results:

Tracert using unlocator.com DNS server (where 4OD doesn’t play)

Tracing route to 4od.com [185.28.202.30]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1

2 50 ms 40 ms 31 ms 10.134.191.24

3 46 ms 46 ms 46 ms 212.194.172.148

4 48 ms 50 ms 40 ms 212.194.170.82

5 56 ms 65 ms 60 ms 212.194.170.81

6 * 41 ms 58 ms 212.194.171.86

7 * * 36 ms 212.73.206.181

8 * * * Request timed out.

9 50 ms 48 ms 50 ms 4.68.73.66

10 58 ms 65 ms 50 ms 129.250.6.13

11 54 ms 58 ms 73 ms 129.250.4.40

12 43 ms 46 ms 76 ms 82.112.101.98

13 62 ms 60 ms 58 ms 83.98.99.2

14 * * * Request timed out.

15 * * * Request timed out.

(the next 15 requests also timed out)

Using smart dns proxy server (where 4OD plays but pauses)

Tracing route to 4od.com [185.28.202.30]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1

2 61 ms 42 ms 57 ms 10.134.191.24

3 50 ms 57 ms 65 ms 212.194.172.148

4 40 ms 30 ms 40 ms la10.bsr01-zip.net.bbox.fr [212.194.170.82]

5 45 ms 66 ms 52 ms be17.cbr01-ntr.net.bbox.fr [212.194.170.81]

6 * * * Request timed out.

7 * * * Request timed out.

8 * * * Request timed out.

9 76 ms 42 ms 59 ms NTT-level3-100G.Paris1.Level3.net [4.68.73.66]

10 64 ms 68 ms 42 ms ae-2.r25.londen12.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.6.13]

11 45 ms 60 ms 65 ms ae-22.r00.londen10.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.40]

12 66 ms 65 ms 63 ms 82.112.101.98

13 60 ms 57 ms 59 ms tfm20-dist-3750e-b.ioko.net [83.98.99.2]

14 * * * Request timed out.

15 * * * Request timed out.

(the next 15 requests also timed out)

Hope that helps give some insight.

[Anonymous]

thanks,

this is the one I ran earlier. Both yours and mine get to the 83.98.99.x destination and then timeout.

13 62 ms 60 ms 58 ms 83.98.99.2

which I assume can’t be far away from 4OD. You’ll notice a clear difference in ease of hops. Each timeout is 4 seconds and both of yours struggle significantly before reaching Paris. There’s another command called ‘pathping’ which takes around 5 minutes and shows packet loss. I’ve included my output further down.

Quite why 4OD works on your TV and not 100% with the hb1000s I can’t explain, it is pretty complicated, smart adverts and 4od trying to be too clever amongst other things e.g. if I view all4/4OD on my tablet and then plug it into a larger screen all4/4od will stop working telling me it’s not allowed. So, nothing conclusive, but at least it’s easy to appreciate why it may not work given the complexity. I assume ‘CorriGap’ has a much cleaner route when traced and no idea with Virgin Media users, but at least we’ve provided something to compare with.

tracert 4od.com

1 333 ms 28 ms 27 ms fritz.box [192.168.1.1]

2 56 ms 59 ms 57 ms lo0.central10.psb-bng02.plus.net [195.166.130.253]

3 70 ms 60 ms 59 ms 411.be6.psb-ir02.plus.net [84.93.253.111]

4 58 ms 59 ms 74 ms 195.99.125.142

5 58 ms 59 ms 59 ms 62.172.103.27

6 73 ms 82 ms 58 ms t2c4-et-3-1-0-0.uk-lon1.eu.bt.net [166.49.211.244]

7 74 ms 58 ms 74 ms 82.112.101.73

8 77 ms 106 ms 87 ms 82.112.101.98

9 63 ms 60 ms 58 ms tfm20-dist-3750e-b.ioko.net [83.98.99.18]

10 * * * Request timed out.

pathping 4od.com

Tracing route to 4od.com [185.28.202.30]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

0 nzxt [192.168.1.123]

1 fritz.box [192.168.1.1]

2 lo0.central10.psb-bng02.plus.net [195.166.130.253]

3 411.be6.psb-ir02.plus.net [84.93.253.111]

4 195.99.125.142

5 62.172.103.27

6 t2c4-et-3-1-0-0.uk-lon1.eu.bt.net [166.49.211.244]

7 82.112.101.73

8 82.112.101.98

9 tfm20-dist-3750e-b.ioko.net [83.98.99.18]

10 * * *

Computing statistics for 225 seconds…

Source to Here This Node/Link

Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address

0 nzxt [192.168.1.123]

0/ 100 = 0% |

1 75ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% fritz.box [192.168.1.1]

0/ 100 = 0% |

2 119ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% lo0.central10.psb-bng02.plus.net [195.166.130.253]

0/ 100 = 0% |

3 116ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 411.be6.psb-ir02.plus.net [84.93.253.111]

0/ 100 = 0% |

4 113ms 99/ 100 = 99% 99/ 100 = 99% 195.99.125.142

0/ 100 = 0% |

5 70ms 99/ 100 = 99% 99/ 100 = 99% 62.172.103.27

0/ 100 = 0% |

6 103ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% t2c4-et-3-1-0-0.uk-lon1.eu.bt.net [166.49.211.244]

0/ 100 = 0% |

7 125ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 82.112.101.73

0/ 100 = 0% |

8 136ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 82.112.101.98

0/ 100 = 0% |

9 123ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% tfm20-dist-3750e-b.ioko.net [83.98.99.18]

Trace complete.

[Author]

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