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streaming bbc radio, connection drops out, have to manually reload.

  • 6 replies
  • 7 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by Silvabod

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W7 pc, 4GB ram, virus/malware free. 10 mb/s cable access. I stream BBC radio 4 in separate window. PROBLEM - connection drops out, never re-connects, have to manually reload. Changing BBC feed from nornal to low bandwidth makes no difference. No ISP bandwidth cap. No problems with other downloads (updates, jpegs etc). Is there a download manager - don't think it can be the BBC site.

W7 pc, 4GB ram, virus/malware free. 10 mb/s cable access. I stream BBC radio 4 in separate window. PROBLEM - connection drops out, never re-connects, have to manually reload. Changing BBC feed from nornal to low bandwidth makes no difference. No ISP bandwidth cap. No problems with other downloads (updates, jpegs etc). Is there a download manager - don't think it can be the BBC site.

All Replies (6)

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BBC at least in the past has often had problems with its Edge Servers and so listeners outside the UK would have problems that took a long while to be solved, the BBC's support system often failed to pass on info regarding problems. Specific countries/ISP s would have problems but as long as the UK service was unaffected the BBC tended not to notice.

I have not recently used BBC iPlayer online. The overseas low/high bandwidth on the iPlayer stream did not do anything other than restart the stream, overseas users only got the one low bandwidth, the option was an artefact.

AFAIK the BBC does still stream Flash and Windows

As you are using a Widows computer try both streams one may work still.

The BBC no longer has a support forum, but you could look at

As always worth trying clearing the browser cache, and the BBC related cookies.

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It is also worth trying to get BBC Radio Four using Radioplayer

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Thanks both - I'm currently using bbc radioplayer, will try the alterantes. Have recently updated flash (which I think is needed) - it's an automatic update, think it's now v11

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separate window, same profile?

or

separate window, separate profile?

The latter can be spawned adding

--no-remote

switch to your firefox shortcut. interweb search the switch for platform specific setup.


(that is woefully deficient ram for W7. quadruple that)

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The default of the pref network.http.max-connections has been increased from 30 to 256 in Firefox 6+ versions.

You can try to decrease the value of the pref network.http.max-connections from 255 to a more modest setting like 30 as used in Firefox 3 versions.


If you use extensions (Tools > Add-ons > Extension) like Adblock Plus or NoScript or Flash Block that can block content then make sure that such extensions aren't blocking content.

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Thank you all for your interest. I apologise, I mis-named the player - I was using BBC iplayer . Couldn't resolve the problem despite your help, so have switched to Windows Media Player, which has yet to drop the connection.