Trouble Streaming from APP using both Cellular WiFi

lwd69

Cathlete
Hi Cathe admin,

I am an On Demand/Live subscriber. I am having a lot of trouble using the App to watch videos. Many videos fail to load after pressing play, and I get a message in a little white box that says: "Something went wrong. Please try again." This happens repeatedly, but especially problematic over WiFi and now, even over 4G cellular service. I've tried turning my phone on and off. Some videos seem to play without trouble, but more often than not, I cannot use the App to watch. Sometimes, I am able to play a video by logging into On Demand from the Internet (using cellular data) .Please help!

ETA: I do not live in the U.S.
 
I have been getting it a lot more than usual too. Not with the blender, but with
Trying to view workouts in OnDemand.
 
Hi Cathe admin,

I am an On Demand/Live subscriber. I am having a lot of trouble using the App to watch videos. Many videos fail to load after pressing play, and I get a message in a little white box that says: "Something went wrong. Please try again." This happens repeatedly, but especially problematic over WiFi and now, even over 4G cellular service. I've tried turning my phone on and off. Some videos seem to play without trouble, but more often than not, I cannot use the App to watch. Sometimes, I am able to play a video by logging into On Demand from the Internet (using cellular data) .Please help!

ETA: I do not live in the U.S.

Hi lwd69,

The first thing you want to do if you're having trouble with an app is to "force close the app" and try again. If this doesn't solve the issue, you should next do a speed test on https://www.speedtest.net/ and report back here with the result. I need to know your internet download speed and your "ping". You should also try playing an OnDemand video through the browser and see if this produces a different result. Lastly, are you iOS or Android?
 
Last edited:
Hi Admin,

Speedtest is not relevant here because I've tried playing the video from the APP in multiple venues. I use an iPhone (iOS). I have deleted the APP and logged in again, I have forced close many, many times, and I have turned my phone off and on. Nothing works.
 
If I can't get the video to play thru app, if I go to Chromebook and go thru website
To get to it, it will play. Only have seen this in the app and only just recently,
Usually playing blender video works ok thru app.
 
Hi Admin,

Speedtest is not relevant here because I've tried playing the video from the APP in multiple venues. I use an iPhone (iOS). I have deleted the APP and logged in again, I have forced close many, many times, and I have turned my phone off and on. Nothing works.

Hi lwd69, I'm not sure what you mean by "Speedtest is not relevant here because I've tried playing the video from the APP in multiple venues"? There are only two ways to ways to access our OnDemand videos on your phone #1 internet and #2 cellular data. A speed test is always important and information that we need to help you.

At best 4G is only 10 mbps and maybe a lot less in your area. But I'm curious and it is important to know what your internet download speed and ping are in your home. Without this information, it's impossible to really help you. We have not made any changes lately to our iOS app and it's working fine for us here. We also have not had any other reports that I know of like yours. If the app was having an issue we would be flooded with customer service calls.

If you can run a speed test and get back to me with your speed and ping it will help me help you. I also need to know what version of an iPhone you're using? Hope to hear back from you soon.
 
Hi. I use the APP primarily in my gym. I'll do a speediest there, and at home.

I'm in S. Africa, so maybe that's the problem. I don't know. ..
 
Just got this from the speed test app:
download - 42.6 Mbps
upload 46.2 Mbps
Pint 5 ms
Jitter 1.4ms

Does that help?
 
Your download speed is ok and I assume "pint 5ms" is a typo and should be "ping 5ms"? If so both of these parameters are fine. However, I noticed you said that you're at a gym when you use the app and this is probably your problem. In a gym, you have a lot of people who all have phones who are constantly accessing the internet. If you were at the gym with 50 other people their internet speed would be divided among each of you and that means you would be lucky to get 3 or 4 Mbps on your phone. Hence, you would have a lot of problems playing an HD video.

Also, Gyms typically do not have the greatest wireless, nor do they have an onsite IT department to make sure it always works ok. We own a gym here in the USA and for a gym, we have a pretty good wireless system with an internet speed is 1000 Mbps. Still, because of the traffic in our Gym you would have a problem at times even here watching an HD video. This is also true because we limit the bandwidth available to our members and have a maximum file size restriction too. Most businesses do something similar and your Gym probably does too.

The only thing you can try is in the App settings make sure you have the lowest quality setting selected. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of the Gyms wifi and the Gym traffic.

But does the app work ok at home?
 
Hi and thanks for responding,

The thing is - I have this problem regardless of whether I am using the App at home or at the gym, and whether I am using wireless internet OR my prepaid cellular data (4G). And because I agree that the gym Wifi may be heavily used, I turn my Wifi off at the gym.... I have the same problem. (video doesn't load and I get the error message) on both my iPhone and my iPad. :( Some videos load more easily than others.
 
Hi lwd69,
Three more questions for you:
#1 What model of an iPhone do you have?
#2 In the app what quality setting do you have the OnDemand app set for (you can view this in the app settings)?
#3 What happens when you play Cathe OnDemand in your browser instead of the app?
 
Hi lwd69,
Three more questions for you:
#1 What model of an iPhone do you have?
#2 In the app what quality setting do you have the OnDemand app set for (you can view this in the app settings)?
#3 What happens when you play Cathe OnDemand in your browser instead of the app?

Hi,

I am currently using an iPhone SE (just downgraded from a dysfunctional iPhone 7 but will upgrade to X when I am back in the U.S.) I am using an iPad mini that is about 1.5 years old.

Quality setting is lowest.

Currently, using the browser works for the most part for the main videos, sometimes it pauses/buffers.
 
Hi lwd69,

I would think an iPhone SE would still be ok as it has a fairly modern processor, but we only test on 7 and up iPhones so I can't say for sure. I really don't have an answer for you since I can't duplicate your issue, but if you would like to try the following I can reach out to Akamai (the server company) and see if their server in or near South Africa is having any issues. I would need you to do the following:

  1. 1. Do the following test only on your home system
2. Find a video that will not play on your phone using the app on wireless and...
i. What exactly happened when you tried to play the video and what is the video title you tried?​
ii. Try playing the same video using cellar data using the app on your phone. What happened?​
iii. Try playing the same video using your browser on your computer if possible. What happened?​
iv. Try playing the same video on your phone using your browser. What happened?​
I'm sorry to ask so many questions, but since we can't duplicate this here and you're in South Africa we need as much information as possible so we can forward to Akamai to investigate further.​
 

Our Newsletter

Get awesome content delivered straight to your inbox.

Top