Videos not showing up in Boonex Spy

Hello,

Youtube videos added by my users are not showing up in Boonex Spy and, by extension, in the IBDW SpyWall. Can anyone tell me why the Boonex Spy would not be spying the videos? Is there a file or setting I can investigate? I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Boonex Spy module and the IBDW SpyWall module, but that did not fix the issue.

Thanks!

Hello!

Please, re-post your topic here - http://www.boonex.com/forums/forum/Dolphin-7.0-0.htm

BoonEx technical department  check that forum area more often than Presale forum 

Thanks

Regards, Lyubov

Done: http://www.boonex.com/forums/#topic/Videos-not-showing-up-in-Boonex-Spy-2012-04-30.htm

This topic was moved to the correct location and the duplicate was hidden.

Is on ONLY YouTube videos that are not showing in the Spy? Can you upload a regular video from your computer and it show up in Spy?

I had the other methods disabled, as I only want YouTube videos to be added, for now at least. I just activated the other upload methods, and the 2-second WMV file that I uploaded just hangs at "processing".

I checked with the host, and apparently the shared server I am on does not allow Shell_Exec and POPEN in their PHP configurations. So unfortunately, I suppose I won't be able to use other video types as test subjects.

Youtube videos do embed successfully though... they just are not viewable in Spy and SpyWall.

The issue may be with the fact that SHELL_EXEC and POPEN are disabled on your host. Those functions are needed for videos as you can see here:

http://www.boonex.com/forums/topic/Troubleshooting-Crons-Videos-Migrations-RMS.htm

You said they do embed successfully, just not able to 'view' them in Spy or Spywall. Can you view them anyway else? If I am not mistaken, its POPEN thats needed for embedding properly. But I have been wrong once before :)

Yes, I am able to view the Youtube embeds by going to the Video Albums page. They play just fine on that page. So the main issue is the fact that Spy is not noticing them and listing them as a new update from that user.

Do those sound like POPEN issues? Or perhaps just a bit of broken code in a particular module file or something along those lines?

I went ahead and set up a clean test install of 7.0.8 on a sub directory (/testinstall). I installed a few of the basic modules, including Wall, Spy, and Videos. I went to my admin profile page, selected "Video" on the "Post To Wall" area, and uploaded the short video. It immediately showed the thumbnail on my profile's wall and also in m/spy (neither of which occur on my live site)... so the issue does not seem to be hosting-related... which I suppose brings us back to a code issue. (FYI, the 2-second video is still "being processed", so I suppose that is an issue with the hosting setup in terms of allowing users to upload their own videos; but as I mentioned, this is not an issue for me as I do not want them to upload their own videos at all).

Thoughts?

For videos that you upload, you will need SHELL_EXEC. This function is needed to execute ffmpeg.exe and convert the video, so if it's disabled, that video will never process.

Since you found that a new install does NOT have the same problem on a fresh install, then I would say 'yes' start looking at code changes. I will go ahead and tell you that I have SpyWall and have no issues what so ever with video playing in it. May be some other 'mod' that you may have installed and/or any 'custom coding' of the core files.

OK, I will start comparing the files in WinMerge. Any ideas on where I might start, in terms of files that would be the most likely to cause this issue in only this one media type?

The trick will be remembering what 3rd party modules you have installed and which ones required changes (edits) to core Dolphin files. You should always have a list of mods and file changes you have made, like maybe in a excel spreadsheet or something. Especially because if you upgrade dolphin, it may overwrite any core files changes you have made and break your site until you re-add the custom codes.

SpyWall does not change any core files, so you can wipe that one off the suspect list. Other areas of interest may be:

/modules/boonex/spy/classes

/modules/boonex/video/classes

Just for starters....

OK, I will start there.

Here's another strange thing that is happening... if I upload a photo (I have PhotoDeluxe installed), it does not show up in Spy or on SpyWall, and it does show up in my galleries. However, if I visit the photo gallery and tag the photo, it then shows up in Spy and SpyWall. So for some reason, Spy does not acknowledge the new photo unless I take the extra step of tagging it. Wondering if there is some kind of functionality/setting change that could fix that, and whether fixing that item would also fix the Video issue...

Cant check the photodeluxe right now, but I can see where you can enable/disable options within the SpyWall configuration. If you go into the settings for Spywall, you will see a way to enable/disable videos, photos, etc. Make sure they are enabled.

Yep, they are enabled, and the Content Switch options are set to default to Youtube for Videos (and I have played around with those different settings with no change in the strange behavior).

I have asked before and havent heard yet, but do you have any 3rd party apps installed that may be conflicting? For example, there are several 'Spy' modules in the market like 'Super Spy' (no offense ESASE :)

 Here's what I've got:

Deano's block tools

Deano's tools for D7

D2Facebook

D2Twitter

IBDW 1Col

IBDW 3Col

IBDW Content Switch

IBDW MegaProfile

IBDW Photo Deluxe

IBDW SpyWall

Jobs Portal from mods4dolphin

Movies Zone from mods4dolphin

And I also have CometChat installed.

The only other big code change that I can recall making was the "change nickname to full name" change outlined here: http://www.boonex.com/forums/#topic/Change-your-site-s-nickname-to-fullname-.htm. However, I did revert those files to see if they were causing the Video issue, but reverting them (and clearing my cache) did not resolve the issue.

I have all of them except the jobs, movies, and cometchat. I dont think those are causing the issue. There is alot of changes regarding the 'Nicknames', are you sure you reverted all?

Also, just throwing this out there, in you SpyWall configuration, what do you have this set to:

Display into the news feed:

Yes, before I uploaded the changed files, I made an exact duplicate of the original files in the same folder structure so that I could "revert all" by simply dragging-dropping that "original files" folder.

Display Into News Feed is set to "the real name".

PS, I just wanted to say thank you for spending so much time helping me figure out this issue. I really appreciate it!

Your welcome but so far we havent accomplished much.. haha..

If you have revert the changes, then change that SpyWall setting to 'Nickname' and see if that works.

The only thing I can imagine is that internal alert handlers from Videos module aren't registered for Spy module. 

You said that you've already reinstalled spy, but please try to reinstall Spy module again - it should re-register all handlers from the scratch.

I uninstalled Videos again, as well as Wall, Movies, Groups, and Events, and then reinstalled them... and the video problem is now fixed!!!

The photodeluxe issue does still remain, but the Video thing was a major hurdle. I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling the photo-related stuff to see if that fixes that issue (namely, the fact that photos do not show up in the news feed until after they have been tagged via PhotoDeluxe). Any ideas on that issue are, of course, more than welcome.

Thanks for all of your help!

Cant say I have ever come across that before. I suppose uninstall/reinstall the Photos module(s) will fix the photos issues as well.

Definitely would like to know what could cause this to happen.

I already have a bunch of user photos uploaded to the site and tagged with their info. How can I uninstall Photos and IBDW Photo Deluxe and not lose all of that user info?

FYI, I did uninstall Photos on my localhost test copy, and it DID fix the spy issue for photos as well! In total, I had to uninstall these modules before I could uninstall Photos: Jobs, Wall, Events, Movies, Megaprofile, Groups, Photo Deluxe. Luckily I don't have any real jobs, groups, or events posted at this time, so no data loss there.

 Re-installing Spy module should have the same effect. So I suggest to reinstall Spy, in this case only  Spy content will be erased.

Very often the members have this type of issue.

I'd like to know what module alters the normal functioning of BoonEx Spy.
And especially I dont understand why.

For all those who have this problem, get Spy working after the reinstalling.

SpyWall is an interface that reads from the table of BoonEx Spy, so if Spy dont track the actions for photos and video, then also SpyWall dont display the posts about these contents.
Solving the problem of Spy (Uninstall / Reinstall as suggested by AlexT....but make sure to have all the original files of Boonex Spy otherwise please upload the enteire folder of this mod), SpyWall also will show these posts (as they are drawn by the module Spy).