Forum Discussion
Playon having issues with slow download speed?
"Why is the Bonus Zone performance as bad as during the day? "
I would imagine because people know it's less congested, so they are flocking to it and causing congestion. The bonus zone was less congested because fewer people used it. As soon as people started using it more, the congestion grew.
So there is good cell internet service in your area? And who are your neighbours petitioning?
It would be really helpful if HNS put a congestion meter on the system so we could manage our expectations. I know I am dreaming here, but for us to spend so much effort on trying to work solutions that have no hope of working really just pushes the dagger deeper in.
The closest cell signal from us is 7 miles away. We are in rural area (the kind of area that Hughesnet was supposed to help with). Our friends live in that cellular coverage area and I am helping them with a cellular internet solution...pretty easy really. Recently, I needed to respond to someone and drove the 7 miles only to not have cellular data capability. I drove further into town and still had issues. I ended up not being able to deal with it - not sure why the data pipeline was down except for maybe the consolidation going on with two of the majors which has caused issues here recently.
The neighbors are petitioning the local and state government. It is a safety issue because we live in a rural fire zone (you saw this on national news this year where whole towns got wiped out - that was here), we can not connect with fire or law enforcement and kids are not able to learn without decent internet. Seems like a worthy cause. Basic internet service, in this day and age and country, should be as available as a utility like water or electricity...in my opinion. We are not that far from a fairly large metropolitan area and a major highway corridor. No company is yet willing to step up and provide the services, and the company(ies) that do provide a service (like HNS and some cellular providers), render the service unreliable due to whatever reason. Not enough profit in it...until the governement steps in it seems.
Not sure if the idea of a congestion meter is feasible, but it sure sounds interesting. Good to hear people are becoming engaged and petitioning the local and state government, and I hope it works!
Thanks
I have to imagine that HNS can monitor each beam's traffic as part of their normal metrics. A simple chart showing the typical beam traffic pattern that is updated once in a while would make a huge difference in helping us manage what beam width we all are fighting to use. I would think. It would keep me from posting here as much...now that would be a benefit!
From Playon regarding their Desktop app failure to record/download on off peak hours:
"It is a timing issue. The latency is so much worse than what is considered normal that adding extra steps is going to make our product worse overall. It will cause all failed recordings to be delayed."
The second part of that statement relates a question I had about a possible work around.
What happens, primarily with Amazon content, but also with Netflix sometimes, is that the download starts off soooo slow that Amazon puts up an error code 7017 called streaming delay. They ask if you want to "stop" or "continue waiting". If you select "continue waiting" the video starts playing within 10 seconds and everything seems to work. I just can't get past the error code without manually selecting "continue waiting". If this happens during off peak recording/downloading and no one is present, then about 30 seconds after the error code pops up, the attemp fails, and the effort terminates.
I asked if they could recognize the error code and auto answer with a selection of "continue waiting". That was the second part of their reply above.
Ugh.
well, after several attempts, I decided to try downloading the Playon Cloud content NOT during Bonus Zone but during the day so that I could observe. A couple fo attempts stalled out, failed and restarted. I thought the file might be corrupted somehow, so I recorded it again and tried download it again. It still failed. Finally, I mus have hit the right window of opportunity with my internet service and, although it took about 20 minutes, I got the episode down.
I will continue to try the Playon Cloud, because 1) my internet service provider can not provide this streaming service, and 2) although it doesn't work perfectly over the last few attempts, it does provide a much needed solution, and 3) I have 358 more attempts available to me (bought and paid for). I will spend more time trying to determine the origins of our download issue. It could be a phone setting, or a bug in their software, or, heaven help me, my ISP.
Interesting. I guess it goes to show YMMV. I have no issues downloading POC content, as long as I download items individually and do it before 8 am.
Not a true/fair comparison...I have seen your download speeds! Much much much much much much much better than ours. We reside in the black hole on the west coast.
spydermike wrote:It could be a phone setting, or a bug in their software, or, heaven help me, my ISP.
Are you downloading the Cloud items to your phone or directly to your PC?
It's not a comparison but a statement -- YMMV due to a great number of variables, including geography.
Sorry, part of your statement was a comparison from my viewpoint: Me saying I am unable to download reliably vs. you - "I have no issues downloading POC content...".
I think it has been demonstrated through testing and data that my HNS experience and system performance is not nearly as good as yours - not by a long shot. Nothing personal here...just facts. If we got your performance at our location, then I wouldn't be posting here on a support forum.
Yes, I agree that it is most likely due to our overcrowded beam, our lack of access to Jupiter 2, being merely Gen4, and having decided to live in the HNS black hole (and whole knows what else that has not be determined). Believe me we definitely understand that.
GabeU wrote:Are you downloading the Cloud items to your phone or directly to your PC?
Initial attemtps were via phone. The final download was to PC through the emailed link. I need to use the phone so that the scheduled download feature (the most important one in my mind) can be utilized.
"Sorry, part of your statement was a comparison from my viewpoint: Me saying I am unable to download reliably vs. you - "I have no issues downloading POC content.."
I wrote "Interesting. I guess it goes to show YMMV. I have no issues downloading POC content, as long as I download items individually and do it before 8 am." No comparison with your statement. Everyone's experience with POC is different, varied.
"I think it has been demonstrated through testing and data that my HNS experience and system performance is not nearly as good as yours - not by a long shot."
Yes. Mileage. Varies.
Since you ultimately ended up having success with it, I would continue to use the computer for the downloading and use the phone only for setting up the recordings.
I hope you have better luck going forward.
maratsade wrote:"No comparison with your statement. Everyone's experience with POC is different, varied."
Wow. Okay. Hmmm.
Hey, one could pretty much replace "POC" in that statement above with just about anything and you would hit it out of the support forum park pretty much every time.
"Yes. Mileage. Varies. "
Your point in posting this helpful hint on my thread documenting our woes is...somehow...lost on me. Thanks for trying though.
GabeU wrote:Since you ultimately ended up having success with it, I would continue to use the computer for the downloading and use the phone only for setting up the recordings.
I hope you have better luck going forward.
Thanks, but the PC defeats the purpose of me having Playon. The desktop version doesn't work well with Amazon Priime due to latency. The cloud version, so far, doesn't download relaliably using their scheduled download. We want to download at bonus zone so as not to have the poor internet service we are experiencing impact us even further. I need to troubleshoot the phone download issue as try to understand what is happening.
spydermike wrote:
GabeU wrote:Since you ultimately ended up having success with it, I would continue to use the computer for the downloading and use the phone only for setting up the recordings.
I hope you have better luck going forward.
Thanks, but the PC defeats the purpose of me having Playon. The desktop version doesn't work well with Amazon Priime due to latency. The cloud version, so far, doesn't download relaliably using their scheduled download. We want to download at bonus zone so as not to have the poor internet service we are experiencing impact us even further. I need to troubleshoot the phone download issue as try to understand what is happening.
Sorry. I sometimes forget that many people don't have the ability to be up late enough to download things during the Bonus Zone. And even if they could, it's still a pain to have to do so.
No worries.
I am not ruling out that the issue with downloading to the phone is mine to resolve lcoally...I am looking to Playon support for some insight, but they haven't been responsive lately. I need to investigate further on my end. I am trying other shows/episodes tonight and each night until...I come to a conclusion.
I really think Playon seems like a viable soution for buffer free streaming if I can get it to reliably download during Bonus Zone. It makes up for one of the biggest deficiencies of our internet service provider. It is a shame that they can't help out with work arounds like this.
Hey, check this out. Just found it. I had no idea they had it!
Now that is very helpful! Thank you - downloading it now. I wonder why the Playon support didn't mention this?
spydermike wrote:Now that is very helpful! Thank you - downloading it now. I wonder why the Playon support didn't mention this?
Good question. I've never seen it on their website before either. It was only when I went to download a movie on the full list page that I happened to see a note about it.
I downloaded it and installed it, but I don't have anything right now to try it with. It's a little tricky to figure out because it doesn't let you choose which particular items to download, so I'm wondering if it downloads only those items that are recorded after it was installed and linked to your account.
If you do end up using it please do let us know how well it works.
Be careful. Just for the heck of it I set the time to start at 10PM, and it started trying to download things from a couple of days ago, and things which I had already downloaded manually, though which I have since deleted from my computer. I'm not sure why it chose the start spot it did, as I had streamed a few different items on the day it chose (the 28th), and it started with one in the middle of that day's items (I had streamed season 5 of The Sopranos, and it started with episode 7). When I terminated the app, Windows gave me notifications of failures of not only the one it was in the middle of downloading, but every item following that, so it had "scheduled" to download all of them from S5 - Ep7 to the end of the storage list.
So it looks like, at least in my case, I'll have to wait a week for the seven day cloud storage library to completely purge, and only then enable the downloader. This way it only downloads items I've streamed from that point forward. I wish there was a way to manually delete items from the cloud storage library so I could try anew.
Still, it was working, so that's good.
I've tried the downloader, but I have better results with manual downloads. I hope it works for others, though.
GabeU wrote:Hey, check this out. Just found it. I had no idea they had it!
https://www.playon.tv/cloud/app/downloader
I will be trying the downloader tonight. I am trying to deselect the download queue I already have (the one that doesn't seem to work). I don't see a way to cancel scheduled downloads in the cloud phone app. Any clues out there?
I figured out that you can use the phone app to delete items from the seven day cloud storage library. It's in "Recordings", then "Cloud". The option's not there now because I deleted everything, having already downloaded all of it, but it was on the upper right. I think it said "Manage".
Now that I don't have to worry about it downloading things already downloaded, like it started doing last night, I'm going to find something to record and try it out.
Yes, I have kept the cloud clear once I download. You can also select the show from the cloud list and then click the trashcan icon.
So what I have left is four episodes in the cloud that show (in the lower right hand corner of each) a blue download indicator. If I recall correctly, this indicates that these have been selected for downloading already. I would like to clear the scheduled download queue, but I can not find a way. I would like to get just one show lined up for download.
- This worked for me last night. All four episodes downloaded. Each episode is about an hour in SD downloaded in 3-4 minutes each. I have two longer movies scheduled for tonight.
