I've had a few emails recently saying that the international links don't work. This is difficult for me to debug, as I can't pretend to be outside the UK any more, so I need a hand!

There's a suspicion that the Beeb's IP geolocation has gone awry, so if we could test it here it might be useful.

John-Reed has specified a programme that doesn't work for him, and he's in the USA. The problem proggie's international link is:
A Charles Paris Mystery, A Reconstructed Corpse, Radio 4 FM

Would somebody outside the UK please click this, see if it plays, and post whether or not it works back here? Ta.

Tony's in Canada, and he can't reach the iPlayer, let alone the Beebotron - he mostly listens to R4 or R4 Extra. Is there anyone in Canada (Maggie, are you still around?) who could post back whether Canada can get to the iPlayer or Beebotron? Ta2

Abid also had problems, but regrettably didn't tell me what country he was in or what programmes he had problems with. Abid, feel free to contribute to this thread with a bit more info and we'll see what we can do! Ta3

Ta4 the replies in advance, K

Kronalias Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
..
> Would somebody outside the UK please click this,
> see if it plays, and post whether or not it works
> back here? Ta.
>
I'm glad you asked. I'm in Canada. None of beebotron's wma links have been working for me for a few days now. I've tried multiple R4, R4x and R3 programs - they don't work. This has been going on for close to a week.
I don't usually use the iplayer but I just tried it and it does work.
Hoping bbc gets this working again; for me the Beebotron links are the best way to access bbc radio.
gb.

Thanks gb!

I'm not sure if these will work for you, but the Beebotron's What Was On links are manufactured in a slightly different way. Try 'em here:
http://beebotron.org/public3/public_wwo3/wwo3_index.html

When you open any of the Listen Again pages you'll see A and B links. A is for people inside the UK, and B is for the rest of the world.

Would you mind having a prod at one of the B links for one of your favourite progs and reporting back here on whether it worked or not?

Best, K

PS: In case it helps at all, here's output from trying (in Canada) the Charles Paris link above with mplayer; ie:

mplayer -playlist [www.bbc.co.uk] 2>&1 | tee beebo.log

mplayer: Symbol `ff_codec_bmp_tags' has different size in shared object, consider re-linking
Resolving www.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET6...

Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: www.bbc.co.uk
Resolving www.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET...
Connecting to server www.bbc.co.uk[212.58.244.67]: 80...

STREAM_ASF, URL: [www.bbc.co.uk]
Resolving www.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET6...

Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: www.bbc.co.uk
Resolving www.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET...
Connecting to server www.bbc.co.uk[212.58.244.67]: 80...

size_confirm mismatch!: 22611 28271
Error while parsing chunk header
Failed, exiting.
Resolving www.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET6...

Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: www.bbc.co.uk
Resolving www.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET...
Connecting to server www.bbc.co.uk[212.58.244.67]: 80...

Cache size set to 320 KBytes
Stream not seekable!
MPlayer SVN-r33713-4.6.1 (C) 2000-2011 MPlayer Team
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma.
STREAM_ASF, URL: mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma
Resolving wm-acl.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET6...

Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: wm-acl.bbc.co.uk
Resolving wm-acl.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET...
Connecting to server wm-acl.bbc.co.uk[212.58.227.108]: 1755...

connection timeout
Resolving wm-acl.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET6...

Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: wm-acl.bbc.co.uk
Resolving wm-acl.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET...
Connecting to server wm-acl.bbc.co.uk[212.58.227.108]: 80...

connection timeout
Failed, exiting.
Resolving wm-acl.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET6...

Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: wm-acl.bbc.co.uk
Resolving wm-acl.bbc.co.uk for AF_INET...
Connecting to server wm-acl.bbc.co.uk[212.58.227.107]: 80...

connection timeout
No stream found to handle url mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma


Exiting... (End of file)

> Would you mind having a prod at one of the B links
> for one of your favourite progs and reporting back
> here on whether it worked or not?

Yes - I tried a couple of the radio 4 B links and they both worked!

[ EDIT: SOD IT, CROSS POSTED WITH YOU GB! IGNORE THE REST OF THIS ONE.... ]

Not much joy there, then gb. Just on the off chance, you see that url at the end of your post:
mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma

If you drop off the -acl bit you get this:
mms://wm.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma

John-Reed reported that by deleting the -acl from the normal International links things worked, so there's just a minor chance that this might work for the What Was On links as well. Would you mind having a go and seeing whether you can get to:
mms://wm.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma

Ta K

PS: 'acl', from memory, is BBCspeak for Access Control Link - i.e. it points to a server that handles the IP geolocation to see whether the user is inside or outside the UK. So Auntie may be changing the way she serves content to overseas users. Or not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2144 Mar 28 2012 by Kronalias.

Here's what happened when I tried the link;

2012-03-28 13:56:07.620 Connecting to www.bbc.co.uk:1755
2012-03-28 13:56:13.347 Connecting to 212.58.244.68:1755
2012-03-28 13:57:13.355 Timeout
2012-03-28 13:57:13.370 Await 5 Seconds to Retry
2012-03-28 13:57:18.401 Connecting to www.bbc.co.uk:1755
2012-03-28 13:57:18.417 Connecting to 212.58.244.68:1755
2012-03-28 13:58:18.453 Timeout
2012-03-28 13:58:19.327 Await 5 Seconds to Retry
2012-03-28 13:58:24.568 Connecting to www.bbc.co.uk:1755
2012-03-28 13:58:24.584 Connecting to 212.58.244.68:1755

Last night I was able to get an episode of Twenty Minutes which didn't appear on RD, so not all the links don't work.

Here are my results:


This:
[www.bbc.co.uk]

Gives me:

URL: [www.bbc.co.uk]
Resolving [www.bbc.co.uk]...
Name resolved [212.58.244.68]
Connecting to [212.58.244.68]...
Connected to [212.58.244.68]
Sending request...
Request sent
Receiving response...
Response received
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:07:18 GMT
Server: Apache
Cache-Control: private, proxy-revalidate, s-maxage=0, max-age=900
X-MS-Backend: MAD
X-MS-Disclaimer: This code and data form part of the BBC iPlayer content protection system. Tampering with, removal of, misuse of, or unauthorised use of this code or data constitutes circumvention of the BBC's content protection measures and may result in legal action. BBC (C) 2012.
X-MS-KVStoreTotalTime: 0 (0)
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: video/x-ms-asf
The URL was opened successfully.
Verifying server data...
Connecting to [212.58.244.68]...
Connected to [212.58.244.68]
Sending request...
Request sent
Receiving response...
Response received
Background recording completed
Verifying playlist...
<ASX version="3.0">
  <ABSTRACT>[www.bbc.co.uk];
  <TITLE>BBC</TITLE>
  <AUTHOR>BBC</AUTHOR>
  <COPYRIGHT>(c) British Broadcasting Corporation</COPYRIGHT>
  <MoreInfo href="[www.bbc.co.uk];
  <Entry>
    <ref href="mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma"/>
    <ref href="mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms2/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma"/>
    <MoreInfo href="[www.bbc.co.uk];
    <Abstract>BBC </Abstract>
  </Entry>
</ASX>
Playlist successfully verified
URL: mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma
Connecting to server...
Locating...
Connecting to server...
Requested URL opened
Unexpected WMF SDK error 0xC00D2F06 in the "IWMReader::Open(mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma)" function: It was not possible to establish a connection to the media server in a timely manner. The media server may be down for maintenance, or it may be necessary to use a proxy server to access this media server.
Suspected content type: WMA/WMV.
URL: mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms2/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma
Connecting to server...
Locating...
Connecting to server...
Requested URL opened
Unexpected WMF SDK error 0xC00D2F06 in the "IWMReader::Open(mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms2/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma)" function: It was not possible to establish a connection to the media server in a timely manner. The media server may be down for maintenance, or it may be necessary to use a proxy server to access this media server.

Unexpected WMF SDK error 0xC00D2F06 in the "IWMReader::Open(mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms2/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma)" function: It was not possible to establish a connection to the media server in a timely manner. The media server may be down for maintenance, or it may be necessary to use a proxy server to access this media server.

This works:
mms://wm.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_friday_1130.wma


(FYI: Removing "acl" does not work for the Radio Wales programs I was having trouble with.)

Thanks all!

I've also had emails and PMs responding to this thread, and it seems as if people outside the UK are experiencing different problems, depending on what country they're in.

As in:
The US seems to be able to receive Beebobodged links that should only work in the UK.
Mediterranean areas seem to be able to receive all the 'B' links in the What Was On pages.
Some people seem to be able to receive the links with '-acl' in, whereas others can't.

This is a bit spooky as it's not like the Beeb to do anything like this, and it smacks of supplying content more selectively to individual countries than just using their normal criterion of 'Are you inside or outside the UK?'.

That is very weird, K. I tried to remove the "-acl" from the Wales programs I wanted and they worked fine. Go figure.

Thanks for the mention K,

I am from Bahrain,in the Middle East. I've been using beebotron Lite to listen to the Nikki Bedi overnight show on BBC London but the links stopped working unexpectedly some time last week. My initial fears led me to believe that the links may have been blocked by my ISP.Bahrain censors internet traffic and blocks web pages of distasteful/objectionable nature. This isn't entirely foolproof as some legitimate websites end up being blocked as well in the process.

But this is not the case here, as I found out while attempting to play out other links on the website.The links under " BBC listen again" work fine but local radio channels, like radio London aren't included under listen again. <sigh>

I don't know what else I can add to the very detailed information provided by the other members already. None of the links, regardless of what station they're for, work on Beebotron Lite. I'm copying the latest link form the Nikki Bedi show on BBC London that I've tried to no avail:

[www.bbc.co.uk]

Is it possible for BBC London links, to be manufactured and posted the same way as the other stations under BBC listen again until we have a resolution on the "Lite" links? Just a thought.

Thanks K

Welcome to the boards, Abid!

There are local links on Listen Again, but they're not working at the moment. But you may want them for future reference.

Go to Beebotron 3 Lite,
Click BBC Listen Again - International (not UK!) WMA Links to open the drop down list which includes the following:

Radio 1 Listen Again
1Xtra Listen Again
Radio 2 Listen Again
Radio 3 Listen Again
Radio 4 FM Listen Again
Radio 4 LW Listen Again
Radio 4 Extra Listen Again
Five Live Listen Again
6 Music Listen Again
Asian Network Listen Again

Radio Wales FM Listen Again
Radio Cymru Listen Again
Radio Scotland FM Listen Again
Radio Nan Gaidheal Listen Again
Not Yet Available - Radio Ulster Listen Again
Not Yet Available - Radio Foyle Listen Again

BBC Local Radio - Berkshire
BBC Local Radio - Bristol
BBC Local Radio - Cambridgeshire
BBC Local Radio - Cornwall
BBC Local Radio - Coventry
BBC Local Radio - Cumbria
BBC Local Radio - Derby
BBC Local Radio - Devon
BBC Local Radio - Essex
BBC Local Radio - Gloucestershire
BBC Local Radio - Guernsey
BBC Local Radio - Hereford and Worcester
BBC Local Radio - Humberside
BBC Local Radio - Jersey
BBC Local Radio - Kent
BBC Local Radio - Lancashire
BBC Local Radio - Leeds
BBC Local Radio - Leicester
BBC Local Radio - Lincolnshire
BBC Local Radio - London
BBC Local Radio - Manchester
BBC Local Radio - Merseyside
BBC Local Radio - Newcastle
BBC Local Radio - Norfolk
BBC Local Radio - Northampton
BBC Local Radio - Nottingham
BBC Local Radio - Oxford
BBC Local Radio - Sheffield
BBC Local Radio - Shropshire
BBC Local Radio - Solent
BBC Local Radio - Somerset
BBC Local Radio - Stoke
BBC Local Radio - Suffolk
BBC Local Radio - Surrey
BBC Local Radio - Sussex
BBC Local Radio - Tees
BBC Local Radio - Three Counties
BBC Local Radio - Wiltshire
BBC Local Radio - WM
BBC Local Radio - York

Genre - Children's
Genre - Comedy
Genre - Drama
Genre - Factual
Genre - Learning
Genre - Music
Genre - News
Genre - Religion & Ethics
Genre - Sport
Genre - Weather


If you want to try them click on BBC Local Radio - London it should open the Listen Again links for that station.

If I've totally gotten the wrong end of the stick and you already know this, then disregard.

Glad you put your toe in the water anyway and hope to see you on the boards more often!

Thanks for the warm welcome, Janaru.

I am aware of the " listen again' links under Beebotron 3 Lite. These are the links I'm having trouble opening.

What I was actually referring to earlier are the selection of stations under, " BBC Listen again-What was on" section:

[beebotron.org]

The stations included under this section are:
-Radio 1
-Radio 2
-Radio 3
-Radio 4 FM
Radio 4 LW
-Radio 4 Extra
-Five Live
-6 Music
-1Xtra
-Radio Wales
-Radio Cymru
-Radio Scotland
-Radio Ulster
-Radio Foyle
-Asian Network
-BBC World Service

The "listen again" links for all the stations under this section work. I notice that there is a difference between the links under this section and those on Beebotron 3 Lite, which may be the reason that these are working. Kronalias mentioned in the post earlier that the links under "what was on" were manufactured in a different way also,leading me to inquire if it was possible to render the BBC London links under Beebotron 3 Lite in the same manner as the links under " what was on" ?

Realize that this is easier said than done though but I trust you'll do your best nonetheless.

Thanks,

Gotcha! I think I'm on your wavelength now.

I tried to change the original link for Nikki Bedi from:

mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/london/aod/nikki_thu.wma

to:

mms://wm.bbc.co.uk/wms/london/aod/nikki_thu.wma


Removing the "-acl" from the link (this is usually on the inside the UK links only). This was working for some of the other programs, but isn't working for this one, or any of the other London programs. You might try it and see what happens on your end.

No Janaru, I haven't had any luck opening the link without _acl either. Any other suggestions?

Not really. I'll keep messing around with it. I may get lucky. I've contacted the BBC about this so maybe they'll fix it soon. Let's hope!

I'll post if I get anywhere with this, Abid. Sorry, I wish I could be more help.

keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for some good news to arrive soon.

Thanks for your support in trying to get this matter sorted for me and everyone else out there, who have nowhere else to turn.

You're a life saver !!

K,

I'm in New Zealand and the B links are working for me whereas the regular links (http://beebotron.org/public3/radio4fm.html) are not.

Regards,

Kevin

Quote
Abid
Kronalias mentioned in the post earlier that the links under "what was on" were manufactured in a different way also,leading me to inquire if it was possible to render the BBC London links under Beebotron 3 Lite in the same manner as the links under " what was on" ?

Regrettably not. The What Was On pages use the Beebobodge to manufacture links, and if you have a look at the Beebobodge page you'll see that it only works for certain stations that adhere to a set format.

Unfortunately local radio doesn't follow this format - although there may be some other method of generating links that I don't know about. If anyone knows of one then please post here!

Sorry, K

[EDIT] PS: Ta Kevin! That really shouldn't be happening, but you never know with the Beeb... [/EDIT]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 1050 Mar 30 2012 by Kronalias.

Hello ,listen again link's not working in Spain at this time,5 day's so far.

A word of thank's to all who run the Beebo,good luck.

Hi Pete and welcome!

Have you tried the way other people seem to be getting to the feeds? Go to the What Was On pages HERE, click on a station and date and then try clicking the A link for the programme. If that doesn't work try clicking the B link.

Hi K,

Nothing seem's to work on the A and B link's,I have tried everything,I like the Beebo,very easy to use and has really been superb.

As you say, it may well be the beeb ,having a little play with the link's,just to let us know who can listen and who not,oh well,we will see.

Again, thank's for all your work.

P.

Dear K

Any word from the BBC about any possible changes they may have made to their service for international audiences to lead to this issue?

Thanks to everyone who is participating in this thread.

My partial work around is to add an entry to my hosts file to redirect the url wm-acl.bbc.co.uk to the ip address 212.58.252.11. I am running Mac OS X 10.6.8, but the technique should work on any platform on which you have access to the hosts file. I followed instructions from [decoding.wordpress.com] which I found

The entry I added is:
"212.58.252.11 wm-acl.bbc.co.uk" (Double quote marks are added for clarity only, they are not part of the actual entry.



-- prior to edit change
ping wm.bbc.co.uk
PING wm.bbc.net.uk (212.58.252.11): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 212.58.252.11: icmp_seq=0 ttl=48 time=157.813 ms

ping wm-acl.bbc.co.uk
PING wm-acl.bbc.net.uk (212.58.227.107): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0

-- after edit change

ping wm-acl.bbc.co.uk
PING wm-acl.bbc.co.uk (212.58.252.11): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 212.58.252.11: icmp_seq=0 ttl=48 time=503.030 ms

-- Discussion

1. The problem that I am experiencing is a result of a change that has been made by the BBC.
2. The International program links are still active and contain correct information

3. From an entry on [beebotron.org] on 4/1/2012 - 13:00 MST/USA (This is BBC Listen Again - International (not UK!) WMA Links).

Archive on 4, Greece: An Unquiet History - Writer Maria Margaronis asks if the spectre of Greece's past haunts its current nightmares [6 days 2 hours]

The link points to http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/asx/b01dtdbt/iplayer_intl_stream_wma_lo_concrete[which contains the following text:
--- start
<ASX version="3.0">
<ABSTRACT>[www.bbc.co.uk];
<TITLE>BBC</TITLE>
<AUTHOR>BBC</AUTHOR>
<COPYRIGHT>(c) British Broadcasting Corporation</COPYRIGHT>
<MoreInfo href="[www.bbc.co.uk];
<Entry>
<ref href="mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_saturday_2000.wma"/>
<ref href="mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms2/radio4fmcoyopa/radio_4_fm_-_saturday_2000.wma"/>
<MoreInfo href="[www.bbc.co.uk];
<Abstract>BBC </Abstract>
</Entry>
</ASX>
--- end

The problem is that the contents of this file refer to to "wm-acl". This is the error, the correct string should be "wm".

The change that I made to my hosts file forces the address resolution to the correct ip address.

I hope someone finds this information helpful.

Regards,

John-Reed

Nice one, John-Reed!

Just a quickie about where the hosts file usually resides:

Windows XP/Vista/7 C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Mac OSX /private/etc/hosts
Linux (most distributions) /etc/hosts

Wow! This looks really promising....but I don't understand it at all. I'll have to go through this very carefully with my husband looking over my shoulder I think.

Thanks so much, John-Reed!

Hi, I contacted K last week about my sudden inability to access links on the /public3 page ( Radio 4 and 4 plus ) from Canada. I also found the the iplayer would hang after loading and would not play the file, indicating 0 file length in properties. I tried the the B links on beebotron.org and they work fine so I can manage, but I had been spoiled by the convenience of a complete schedule list to choose from. Thanks for your suggestions and for the service you provide.

Tony

Welcome to the boards, Tony!

I'm spoiled too! Ya' never realize just how much you rely on the Beebotron until something like this happens. Hopefully, the Beeb will fix it soon.

Jan

Dear Janaru,

I've just tried John Reeds solution and it works. Just add an extra entry in to the Hosts file and that's it. The links work like a charm. Thought I'd share for the benefit visitors to the boards.

ONLY ISSUE THOUGH, local radio stations, including BBC LONDON, still do not work. I'm hoping John-Reed will be able to suggest something similar for the local stations too.

Thanks John-Reed.

Ooh, great news, Abid!

Husband's been busy all morning, so I haven't had a chance to rope him into....I mean to ask him nicely to help me with this. Great to know it works!

Thanks again, John-Reed