If you are using FLVs on an IIS server (ex. Windows 2003 Server), make sure the MIME type settings for FLV is “flv-application/octet-stream”. If not, you may find yourself in a world of pain.
I recently had the glorious task of debugging someone else’s project for a client that shall remane nameless. The syptoms were when switching between videos using NetStream in Flash 7, the videos would stop loading/playing “only in IE”. The NetStream was closed between every source change.
The first thing I did was analyze the http headers and I noticed:
- The return MIME type was “application/octet-stream”. This is incorrect.
- The http request for the FLV would not close if you switced video sources before the FLV had fisnished loading. Flash in IE would then lock up after two open requests.
- Unlike IE, Firefox would close the request for the FLV and wuold continue with no hiccups
This would lead you to beleive that there was a problem between Flash and IE. However, I moved the FLVs to another server(apahce) and there were no problem at all in IE or FF. So, the problem was specfically between IE and IIS. I did some searching and found this post with the same exact issue and also found this Adobe TechNote which outlines the proper settings for IIS.
After we changed the MIME type to “flv-application/octet-stream” all was good in the world and the people rejoiced.