I was working on a streaming video file for a client this morning using Flash and a linked FLV video file. Everything worked nicely – the Flash media player is so badass – until I uploaded it to the production server. Suddenly, the movie didn't play at all. Nothing I did seemed to work; cleaning the cache didn't do anything; all the paths were right. It wasn't until I tried to access the FLV file directly and got a 404 File Not Found error that I realized something was fishy.
After some Google searching, I came across this Adobe Tech Note that says that:
When Flash Player movie files that stream external FLV files (Flash videos) are placed on a Microsoft Windows 2003 server and then viewed in a browser, the SWF file plays correctly, but the FLV video does not stream. These files work correctly if tested on other operating systems. The issue affects all FLV files played via Windows 2003 server, including files made with the Flash Video Kit for Dreamweaver MX 2004.
The good news is that there is any easy solution:
On the Windows 2003 server, open the Internet Information Services Manager.
Expand the Local Computer Server.
Right-click the local computer server and select Properties.
Select the MIME Types tab.
Click New and enter the following information:
Associated Extension box: .FLV
MIME Type box:flv-application/octet-stream
Click OK.
Restart the World Wide Web Publishing service.
