Sunday, July 22, 2007

Are your mp3 streams not working?

My older mp3 stream on Mediamax have not been working since this move to the new system last month. They are still not working today.

However, since a few hours ago I have been able upload files and they appear soon after, if not immediately. Hurrah.

So I though I would try to sort out my dead mp3 files. The bad news is, the ones on the server seem unusable. Worse news is, that uploading the original file doesn't solve it. But I have found what seems to work. If you don't have a back up of your file though, you may be lost. And if you were using Mediamax to back up files then I feel for you! From the comments left here, it is looking like people have lost some important stuff. Let us hope Mediamax will recover it.

Okay, the mp3 problem. My files are still there in the 'hosted' folder. But when I try to access them through the Mediamax control panel it just sits there forever, waiting for the server. If I try to access them via the link on my blog it's as if there is nothing to download.

I still had a copy of some of the files in my 'filemanager' so replaced the 'hosted' file with that. Made no difference. Tried downloading the file and got an error message. So it looks like it's been corrupted.

I uploaded the file again and copied it into 'hosted'. Wouldn't play. Deleted the originals, uploaded again. Still wouldn't play. Plays fine on my computer.

Then I remembered seeing (in the blog I think) that if you upload a duplicate file, this is recognised and so instead of taking up space a link to the existing file is made. The tip I read said you have to make a change to the file if you want a separate file - not the name, but the contents.

So I cut a bit of silence from the file and uploaded again. Now it works. Almighty pain to have to modify each file, but as they are podcasts I can do that. If it was music, would be difficult, I imagine. I can't find the blog about this at present, but have found this one, which implies the same thing:

http://blog.mediamax.com/?p=25
---
...in addition to an industry-leading 250 GB of unique storage, we will also not count duplicate files stored on our servers against that 250 GB storage limit. So, if many Streamload customers are storing the same Britney Spears MP3s that you are storing (come on, admit it!) those MP3s won’t count against your storage quota.
---

And, I guess, if the file gets corrupted, it's corrupted for everybody.

Perhaps the deleted files will really be deleted during system cleanup and it will be possible to upload a file without having to change its contents. As it is, it's a pretty awful work around.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Luzo thanks for the ideas, unfortunately this doesn't help us with photos apart from resizing them I suppose. I am not going to resize 5Gb of photos though.

I was successful yesterday in uploading photos, the first 100 or so photos showed up in the File Manager but are not yet viewable (even though new Streamload Blog says it "may take a minute" ha ha ha.
The other hundred or so photos I uploaded are still not showing after 14 hours in the File Manager.

Anonymous said...

Please allow me to re-iterate what I have already posetd about Mediamax.

These issues haven’t just started because of the server move.

The service has not worked properly since August 06, when Mediamax changed from Streamload.

You are wasting your time having anything to do with them, and what ever you do, do not give them your credit card details.

There is no way to cancel your account except via their Customer Services (Ha ha!)
department, and we know what a joke that is.

They did not inform their paying customers about the server via any sort of newsletter, they just went ahead and did it.

They have not credited any accounts even though the service hasn’t worked for the three weeks since the move, quite the opposite, they have continued to charge.

This company is scum and I can’t wait for the day they go bust.

Streamload /Mediamax paying customer since 04 – Not any more!

Anonymous said...

Well the 200 photos I uploaded on two days ago, are still not listed in my file manager!!

The 6 photos photos I uploaded as a test 12 hours ago are in the file manager but not viewable!!

It is hit and miss whether your files show up and if they do show in file manager whether they will be usable.

Mediamax you are f**ked!! What a joke of a company.

Anonymous said...

Hi Guys,

Listen I have posted under anonymous a few time here, but I would like to make a suggestion.

Can we come up with something where we can get all the users who are complaining into one spot so we can try and activate something.

This is the internet and we have the power.

We need to shut this comapny down and fast.

They are robbing people blind.

Here are a list of current blogs/sites all with Mediamax customers who are getting done -

http://agilityvideoservice.com/streamload_mediamax_sucks_big_problems
http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6547072.html
http://www.briankenyon.com/?q=node/3
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1463
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/257/RipOff0257692.htm
http://www.petitiononline.com/15pop121/petition.html
http://mediamaxusers.blogspot.com/ - You are here!
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6616_102-0.html?forumID=37&threadID=206285&messageID=2400993
http://www.buridansass.com/index.php?/buridan/2006/08/
http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/onlinestorageandsharing/

I would be happy to help if anyone can come up with a plan, these people have taken money form people for too long.

You can get me via my site www.fragilewebdesign.com

Reagrds,
Dave.

Luzo Orbit said...

As I suspected, if you have an mp3 file hosted on MediaMax which is not streaming, uploading another version won't replace it, even if you use a different file name. The only solution is to edit the file and change something before uploading.

Not easily done with my podcasts. Impossible with most music files I would imagine.

This was the response I just received from MediaMax support.

---
Hello,

Thanks for writing. There's an issue with some bit for bit copies, that compunds this issue, a new upload of an existing file won't work unless you change the content of the file itself. Just changing the file name won't work, you need to edit something like the metadata to change the checksum of the file. A new upload should then result in a working file.

We are very sorry about this and are working to resolve it but please try the above workaround in the meantime.

Please do not hesistate to contact us with any queries and check our blog at http://mediamaxblog.blogspot.com for the latest updates.
Eugene
MediaMax Support
http://www.mediamax.com
MediaMax Username: Support
---