[Live-devel] Implicit RTSP session timeout

[Ross Finlayson]

>On Sat, Aug 04, 2007 at 02:58:37AM -0700, Ross Finlayson wrote:
>>  However, I don't think a client could really do much that is useful
>>  should it see this parameter.  Client 'liveness' is indicated by RTCP
>>  "RR" packets, which the client sends frequently already.
>>
>>  In other words, I don't think there is a problem here that needs fixing.
>
>Well, the RR packets are sent through one of the UDP channels, which 
>leaves the
>TCP connection to timeout on its own after 120 seconds, causing the server in
>the other end to close the RTP streams. That's what I could deduce from the
>traces with wireshark.
>
>The server is not using live555, you can try it out at
>rtsp://stream2.asm.fi/tv512.sdp.
>
>Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Is the server side acting funny? Because
>that's where the TCP FIN comes from.

I ran the "openRTSP", "VLC" (v 0.8.6c) and QuickTime Player clients 
against this stream, and - in each case - saw no timeout of the 
stream, even after several (>2) minutes.

However, I see that your server is a Darwin Streaming server, which 
is known to time out its sessions if it does not receive RTCP "RR" 
packets from the client after about 2 minutes.  However, our 
RTSP/RTP/RTCP client implementation (used in "openRTSP" and "VLC") 
does send RTCP "RR" packets frequently (as does QuickTime Player). 
This suggests, therefore, that your problem is that you have a 
firewall - somewhere between your client and server - that is 
blocking RTCP/UDP packets that come from your client.  You will need 
to fix this (or else specify RTP-over-TCP streaming in your clients).
-- 

Ross Finlayson
Live Networks, Inc.
http://www.live555.com/