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• Unveiling GA4 Issues : 8 Questions from a Marketer That GA4 Can’t Answer

  8 janvier 2024, par Alex

  It’s hard to believe, but Universal Analytics had a lifespan of 11 years, from its announcement in March 2012. Despite occasional criticism, this service established standards for the entire web analytics industry. Many metrics and reports became benchmarks for a whole generation of marketers. It truly was an era.

  For instance, a lot of marketers got used to starting each workday by inspecting dashboards and standard traffic reports in the Universal Analytics web interface. There were so, so many of those days. They became so accustomed to Universal Analytics that they would enter reports, manipulate numbers, and play with metrics almost on autopilot, without much thought.

  However, six months have passed since the sunset of Universal Analytics – precisely on July 1, 2023, when Google stopped processing requests for resources using the previous version of Google Analytics. The time when data about visitors and their interactions with the website were more clearly structured within the UA paradigm is now in the past. GA4 has brought a plethora of opportunities to marketers, but along with those opportunities came a series of complexities.

  GA4 issues

  Since its initial announcement in 2020, GA4 has been plagued with errors and inconsistencies. It still has poor and sometimes illogical documentation, numerous restrictions, and peculiar interface solutions. But more importantly, the barrier to entry into web analytics has significantly increased.

  If you diligently follow GA4 updates, read the documentation, and possess skills in working with data (SQL and basic statistics), you probably won’t feel any problems – you know how to set up a convenient and efficient environment for your product and marketing data. But what if you’re not that proficient ? That’s when issues arise.

  In this article, we try to address a series of straightforward questions that less experienced users – marketers, project managers, SEO specialists, and others – want answers to. They have no time to delve into the intricacies of GA4 but seek access to the fundamentals crucial for their functionality.

  Previously, in Universal Analytics, they could quickly and conveniently address their issues. Now, the situation has become, to put it mildly, more complex. We’ve identified 8 such questions for which the current version of GA4 either fails to provide answers or implies that answers would require significant enhancements. So, let’s dive into them one by one.

  Question 1 : What are the most popular traffic sources on my website ?

  Seemingly a straightforward question. What does GA4 tell us ? It responds with a question : “Which traffic source parameter are you interested in ?”

  

  Wait, what ?

  People just want to know which resources bring them the most traffic. Is that really an issue ?

  Unfortunately, yes. In GA4, there are not one, not two, but three traffic source parameters :

  1. Session source.
  2. First User Source – the source of the first session for each user.
  3. Just the source – determined at the event or conversion level.

  If you wanted to open a report and draw conclusions quickly, we have bad news for you. Before you start ranking your traffic sources by popularity, you need to do some mental work on which parameter and in what context you will look. And even when you decide, you’ll need to make a choice in the selection of standard reports : work with the User Acquisition Report or Traffic Acquisition.

  Yes, there is a difference between them : the first uses the First User Source parameter, and the second uses the session source. And you need to figure that out too.

  Question 2 : What is my conversion rate ?

  This question concerns everyone, and it should be simple, implying a straightforward answer. But no.

  

  In GA4, there are three conversion metrics (yes, three) :

  1. Session conversion – the percentage of sessions with a conversion.
  2. User conversion – the percentage of users who completed a conversion.
  3. First-time Purchaser Conversion – the share of active users who made their first purchase.

  If the last metric doesn’t interest us much, GA4 users can still choose something from the remaining two. But what’s next ? Which parameters to use for comparison ? Session source or user source ? What if you want to see the conversion rate for a specific event ? And how do you do this in analyses rather than in standard reports ?

  In the end, instead of an answer to a simple question, marketers get a bunch of new questions.

  Question 3. Can I trust user and session metrics ?

  Unfortunately, no. This may boggle the mind of those not well-versed in the mechanics of calculating user and session metrics, but it’s the plain truth : the numbers in GA4 and those in reality may and will differ.

  

  The reason is that GA4 uses the HyperLogLog++ statistical algorithm to count unique values. Without delving into details, it’s a mechanism for approximate estimation of a metric with a certain level of error.

  This error level is quite well-documented. For instance, for the Total Users metric, the error level is 1.63% (for a 95% confidence interval). In simple terms, this means that 100,000 users in the GA4 interface equate to 100,000 1.63% in reality.

  Furthermore – but this is no surprise to anyone – GA4 samples data. This means that with too large a sample size or when using a large number of parameters, the application will assess your metrics based on a partial sample – let’s say 5, 10, or 30% of the entire population.

  It’s a reasonable assumption, but it can (and probably will) surprise marketers – the metrics will deviate from reality. All end-users can do (excluding delving into raw data methodologies) is to take this error level into account in their conclusions.

  Question 4. How do I calculate First Click attribution ?

  You can’t. Unfortunately, as of late, GA4 offers only three attribution models available in the Attribution tab : Last Click, Last Click For Google Ads, and Data Driven. First Click attribution is essential for understanding where and when demand is generated. In the previous version of Google Analytics (and until recently, in the current one), users could quickly apply First Click and other attribution models, compare them, and gain insights. Now, this capability is gone.

  

  Certainly, you can look at the conversion distribution considering the First User Source parameter – this will be some proxy for First Click attribution. However, comparing it with others in the Model Comparison tab won’t be possible. In the context of the GA4 interface, it makes sense to forget about non-standard attribution models.

  Question 5. How do I account for intra-session traffic ?

  Intra-session traffic essentially refers to a change in traffic sources within a session. Imagine a scenario where a user comes to your site organically from Google and, within a minute, comes from an email campaign. In the previous version of Google Analytics, a new session with the traffic source “e-mail” would be created in such a case. But now, the situation has changed.

  A session now only ends in the case of a timeout – say, 30 minutes without interaction. This means a session will always have a source from which it started. If a user changes the source within a session (clicks on an ad, from email campaigns, and so on), you won’t know anything about it until they convert. This is a significant blow to intra-session traffic since their contribution to traffic remains virtually unnoticed. 

  Question 6. How can I account for users who have not consented to the use of third-party cookies ?
  

  You can’t. Google Consent Mode settings imply several options when a user rejects the use of 3rd party cookies. In GA4 and BigQuery, depersonalized cookieless pings will be sent. These pings do not contain specific client_id, session_id, or other custom dimensions. As a result, you won’t be able to consider them as users or link the actions of such users together.

  Question 7. How can I compare data in explorations with the previous year ?

  The maximum data retention period for a free GA4 account is 14 months. This means that if the date range is wider, you can only use standard reports. You won’t be able to compare or view cohorts or funnels for periods more than 14 months ago. This makes the product functionality less rich because various report formats in explorations are very convenient for comparing specific metrics in easily digestible reports.

  

  Of course, you always have the option to connect BigQuery and store raw data without limitations, but this process usually requires the involvement of an advanced analyst. And precisely this option is unavailable to most marketers in small teams.

  Question 8. Is the data for yesterday accurate ?

  Unknown. Google declares that data processing in GA4 takes up to 48 hours. And although this process is faster, most users still have room for frustration. And they can be understood.

  

  What does “data processing takes 24-48 hours” mean ? When will the data in reports be complete ? For yesterday ? Or the day before yesterday ? Or for all days that were more than two days ago ? Unclear. What should marketers tell their managers when they were asked if all the data is in this report ? Well, probably all of it… or maybe not… Let’s wait for 48 hours…

  Undoubtedly, computational resources and time are needed for data preprocessing and aggregation. It’s okay that data for today will not be up-to-date. And probably not for yesterday either. But people just want to know when they can trust their data. Are they asking for too much : just a note that this report contains all the data sent and processed by Google Analytics ?

  What should you do ?

  Credit should be given to the Google team – they have done a lot to enable users to answer these questions in one form or another. For example, you can use data streaming in BigQuery and work with raw data. The entry threshold for this functionality has been significantly lowered. In fact, if you are dissatisfied with the GA4 interface, you can organize your export to BigQuery and create your own reports without (almost) any restrictions.

  Another strong option is the widespread launch of GTM Server Side. This allows you to quite freely modify the event model and essentially enrich each hit with various parameters, doing this in a first-party context. This, of course, reduces the harmful impact of most of the limitations described in this text.

  But this is not a solution.

  The users in question – marketers, managers, developers – they do not want or do not have the time for a deep dive into the issue. And they want simple answers to simple (it seemed) questions. And for now, unfortunately, GA4 is more of a professional tool for analysts than a convenient instrument for generating insights for not very advanced users.

  Why is this such a serious issue ?

  The thing is – and this is crucial – over the past 10 years, Google has managed to create a sort of GA-bubble for marketers. Many of them have become so accustomed to Google Analytics that when faced with another issue, they don’t venture to explore alternative solutions but attempt to solve it on their own. And almost always, this turns out to be expensive and inconvenient.

  However, with the latest updates to GA4, it is becoming increasingly evident that this application is struggling to address even the most basic questions from users. And these questions are not fantastically complex. Much of what was described in this article is not an unsolvable mystery and is successfully addressed by other analytics services.

  Let’s try to answer some of the questions described from the perspective of Matomo.

  Question 1 : What are the most popular traffic sources ? [Solved]

  In the Acquisition panel, you will find at least three easily identifiable reports – for traffic channels (All Channels), sources (Websites), and campaigns (Campaigns). 

  

  With these, you can quickly and easily answer the question about the most popular traffic sources, and if needed, delve into more detailed information, such as landing pages.

  Question 2 : What is my conversion rate ? [Solved]

  Under Goals in Matomo, you’ll easily find the overall conversion rate for your site. Below that you’ll have access to the conversion rate of each goal you’ve set in your Matomo instance.

  

  Question 3 : Can I trust user and session metrics ? [Solved]

  Yes. With Matomo, you’re guaranteed 100% accurate data. Matomo does not apply sampling, does not employ specific statistical algorithms, or any analogs of threshold values. Yes, it is possible, and it’s perfectly normal. If you see a metric in the visits or users field, it accurately represents reality by 100%.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Question 4 : How do I calculate First Click attribution ? [Solved]
  
  You can do this in the same section where the other 5 attribution models, available in Matomo, are calculated – in the Multi Attribution section.

  

  You can choose a specific conversion and, in a few clicks, calculate and compare up to 3 marketing attribution models. This means you don’t have to spend several days digging through documentation trying to understand how a particular model is calculated. Have a question – get an answer.

  Question 5 : How do I account for intra-session traffic ? [Solved]

  Matomo creates a new visit when a user changes a campaign. This means that you will accurately capture all relevant traffic if it is adequately tagged. No campaigns will be lost within a visit, as they will have a new utm_campaign parameter.

  This is a crucial point because when the Referrer changes, a new visit is not created, but the key lies in something else – accounting for all available traffic becomes your responsibility and depends on how you tag it.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Question 6 : How can I account for users who have not consented to the use of third-party cookies ? [Solved]

  Google Analytics requires users to accept a cookie consent banner with “analytics_storage=granted” to track them. If users reject cookie consent banners, however, then Google Analytics can’t track these visitors at all. They simply won’t show up in your traffic reports. 

  Matomo doesn’t require cookie consent banners (apart from in the United Kingdom and Germany) and can therefore continue to track visitors even after they have rejected a cookie consent screen. This is achieved through a config_id variable (the user identifier equivalent which is updating once a day). 

  

  This means that virtually all of your website traffic will be tracked regardless of whether users accept a cookie consent banner or not.

  Question 7 : How can I compare data in explorations with the previous year ? [Solved]
  

  There is no limitation on data retention for your aggregated reports in Matomo. The essence of Matomo experience lies in the reporting data, and consequently, retaining reports indefinitely is a viable option. So you can compare data for any timeframe. 7

  

• Unable to stream video file from MediaMTX media server to browser via WebRTC

  8 juin 2024, par thegreatjedi

  I took over a repository at work. It's a working demo comprising a web server which receives video and camera feeds from a media server (built from the rtsp-simple-server Docker image) via a RTSP relay server and streams the feeds to the client, all deployed via Docker Compose.

  


  I'm trying to switch over to use WebRTC instead. rtsp-simple-server has upgraded into MediaMTX since the time the demo was created 2 years ago. This is the relevant section of the updated Docker Compose configuration :

  


    media-server:
    image: bluenviron/mediamtx:latest-ffmpeg
    expose:
      - 8889
    init: true
    ports:
      - 8889:8889
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - type: bind
        source: ./demo/vids
        target: /vids
      - type: bind
        source: ./demo/mediamtx.yml
        target: /mediamtx.yml


  


  Relevant part of the MediaMTX custom configuration in mediamtx.yml :

  


  ###############################################
# Path settings

# Settings in "paths" are applied to specific paths, and the map key
# is the name of the path.
# Any setting in "pathDefaults" can be overridden here.
# It's possible to use regular expressions by using a tilde as prefix,
# for example "~^(test1|test2)$" will match both "test1" and "test2",
# for example "~^prefix" will match all paths that start with "prefix".
paths:
  # example:
  # my_camera:
  #   source: rtsp://my_camera
  ~^demo\d+$:
    runOnDemand: ffmpeg -re -stream_loop -1 -i /vids/$MTX_PATH.mp4 -c:v libvpx -b:v 0 -crf 18 -qmin 18 -qmax 18 -f webm http://localhost:8889/$MTX_PATH/whip

  # Settings under path "all_others" are applied to all paths that
  # do not match another entry.
  all_others:


  


  I've absolutely no experience with WebRTC. This is my first time hearing of this protocol, let alone working with it. From what I understand, I need to convert my demo mp4 videos (which were successfully streaming via RTSP in the previous implementation) to a compatible video codec, so I've opted for VP8.

  


  Before trying to stream the videos into my web server, I tested the stream directly in the browser (tried with both the latest versions of Chrome and Edge). I went to http://localhost:8889/demo0 (which should convert demo0.mp4 to VP8 and then stream it over WebRTC). The video player loaded in the browser but no video data was received and nothing played. After several seconds, the screen displayed "Error : bad status code 400, retrying in some seconds". In the browser console, it showed :

  


  Failed to load resource : the server responded with a status of 400 (Bad Request)

  


  Inside the MediaMTX container's runtime logs, this is what's displayed :

  


  2024-04-02 14:53:08 ffmpeg version 6.1.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2023 the FFmpeg developers
2024-04-02 14:53:08   built with gcc 13.2.1 (Alpine 13.2.1_git20231014) 20231014
2024-04-02 14:53:08   configuration: --prefix=/usr --disable-librtmp --disable-lzma --disable-static --disable-stripping --enable-avfilter --enable-gpl --enable-ladspa --enable-libaom --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libdav1d --enable-libdrm --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libharfbuzz --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenmpt --enable-libopus --enable-libplacebo --enable-libpulse --enable-librav1e --enable-librist --enable-libsoxr --enable-libsrt --enable-libssh --enable-libtheora --enable-libv4l2 --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxcb --enable-libxml2 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzimg --enable-libzmq --enable-lto=auto --enable-lv2 --enable-openssl --enable-pic --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --enable-shared --enable-vaapi --enable-vdpau --enable-version3 --enable-vulkan --optflags=-O3 --enable-libjxl --enable-libsvtav1 --enable-libvpl
2024-04-02 14:53:08   libavutil      58. 29.100 / 58. 29.100
2024-04-02 14:53:08   libavcodec     60. 31.102 / 60. 31.102
2024-04-02 14:53:08   libavformat    60. 16.100 / 60. 16.100
2024-04-02 14:53:08   libavdevice    60.  3.100 / 60.  3.100
2024-04-02 14:53:08   libavfilter     9. 12.100 /  9. 12.100
2024-04-02 14:53:08   libswscale      7.  5.100 /  7.  5.100
2024-04-02 14:53:08   libswresample   5.  0.100 /  5.  0.100
2024-04-02 14:53:08   libpostproc    57.  3.100 / 57.  3.100
2024-04-02 14:53:08 Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '/vids/demo0.mp4':
2024-04-02 14:53:08   Metadata:
2024-04-02 14:53:08     major_brand     : isom
2024-04-02 14:53:08     minor_version   : 512
2024-04-02 14:53:08     compatible_brands: isomiso2mp41
2024-04-02 14:53:08     encoder         : Lavf58.76.100
2024-04-02 14:53:08   Duration: 00:00:03.47, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1675 kb/s
2024-04-02 14:53:08   Stream #0:0[0x1](und): Video: mpeg1video (mp4v / 0x7634706D), yuv420p(tv, progressive), 640x360 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 104857 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 90k tbn (default)
2024-04-02 14:53:08     Metadata:
2024-04-02 14:53:08       handler_name    : VideoHandler
2024-04-02 14:53:08       vendor_id       : [0][0][0][0]
2024-04-02 14:53:08     Side data:
2024-04-02 14:53:08       cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 0/0/0 buffer size: 49152 vbv_delay: N/A
2024-04-02 14:53:08 Stream mapping:
2024-04-02 14:53:08   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (mpeg1video (native) -> vp8 (libvpx))
2024-04-02 14:53:08 Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
2024-04-02 14:53:08 [libvpx @ 0x7faa8591b8c0] v1.13.1
2024-04-02 14:53:08 [libvpx @ 0x7faa8591b8c0] Bitrate not specified for constrained quality mode, using default of 256kbit/sec
2024-04-02 14:53:08 Output #0, webm, to 'http://localhost:8889/demo0/whip':
2024-04-02 14:53:08   Metadata:
2024-04-02 14:53:08     major_brand     : isom
2024-04-02 14:53:08     minor_version   : 512
2024-04-02 14:53:08     compatible_brands: isomiso2mp41
2024-04-02 14:53:08     encoder         : Lavf60.16.100
2024-04-02 14:53:08   Stream #0:0(und): Video: vp8, yuv420p(tv, progressive), 640x360 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 256 kb/s, 30 fps, 1k tbn (default)
2024-04-02 14:53:08     Metadata:
2024-04-02 14:53:08       handler_name    : VideoHandler
2024-04-02 14:53:08       vendor_id       : [0][0][0][0]
2024-04-02 14:53:08       encoder         : Lavc60.31.102 libvpx
2024-04-02 14:53:08     Side data:
2024-04-02 14:53:08       cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 0/0/0 buffer size: 0 vbv_delay: N/A
2024-04-02 14:53:18 2024/04/02 06:53:18 INF [path demo0] runOnDemand command stopped: timed out
2024-04-02 14:53:18 2024/04/02 06:53:18 INF [WebRTC] [session 0f460c76] closed: source of path 'demo0' has timed out
[out#0/webm @ 0x7faa859487c0] video:272kB audio:0kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 1.042856%
2024-04-02 14:53:18 frame=  315 fps= 32 q=18.0 Lsize=     275kB time=00:00:10.46 bitrate= 215.1kbits/s speed=1.05x    
2024-04-02 14:53:18 Exiting normally, received signal 2.


  


  I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean ? Why isn't the server able to stream this 3-second, 709kb video even once ? The browser connected to the server and the URL successfully, but no data was being transferred.

  


  Just in case, I decided to manually convert all of my mp4 files to webm using ffmpeg, and verified with Window's media player that the webm videos work. Then, I modified MediaMTX's configuration to stream the webm videos directly :

  


  paths:
  # example:
  # my_camera:
  #   source: rtsp://my_camera
  ~^demo\d+$:
    runOnDemand: ffmpeg -re -stream_loop -1 -i /vids/$MTX_PATH.webm -c copy -f webm http://localhost:8889/$MTX_PATH/whip


  


  However, the error persists :

  


  2024-04-02 15:03:58 ffmpeg version 6.1.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2023 the FFmpeg developers
2024-04-02 15:03:58   built with gcc 13.2.1 (Alpine 13.2.1_git20231014) 20231014
2024-04-02 15:03:58   configuration: --prefix=/usr --disable-librtmp --disable-lzma --disable-static --disable-stripping --enable-avfilter --enable-gpl --enable-ladspa --enable-libaom --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libdav1d --enable-libdrm --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libharfbuzz --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenmpt --enable-libopus --enable-libplacebo --enable-libpulse --enable-librav1e --enable-librist --enable-libsoxr --enable-libsrt --enable-libssh --enable-libtheora --enable-libv4l2 --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxcb --enable-libxml2 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzimg --enable-libzmq --enable-lto=auto --enable-lv2 --enable-openssl --enable-pic --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --enable-shared --enable-vaapi --enable-vdpau --enable-version3 --enable-vulkan --optflags=-O3 --enable-libjxl --enable-libsvtav1 --enable-libvpl
2024-04-02 15:03:58   libavutil      58. 29.100 / 58. 29.100
2024-04-02 15:03:58   libavcodec     60. 31.102 / 60. 31.102
2024-04-02 15:03:58   libavformat    60. 16.100 / 60. 16.100
2024-04-02 15:03:58   libavdevice    60.  3.100 / 60.  3.100
2024-04-02 15:03:58   libavfilter     9. 12.100 /  9. 12.100
2024-04-02 15:03:58   libswscale      7.  5.100 /  7.  5.100
2024-04-02 15:03:58   libswresample   5.  0.100 /  5.  0.100
2024-04-02 15:03:58   libpostproc    57.  3.100 / 57.  3.100
2024-04-02 15:03:58 Input #0, matroska,webm, from '/vids/demo0.webm':
2024-04-02 15:03:58   Metadata:
2024-04-02 15:03:58     COMPATIBLE_BRANDS: isomiso2mp41
2024-04-02 15:03:58     MAJOR_BRAND     : isom
2024-04-02 15:03:58     MINOR_VERSION   : 512
2024-04-02 15:03:58     ENCODER         : Lavf60.16.100
2024-04-02 15:03:58   Duration: 00:00:03.47, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 217 kb/s
2024-04-02 15:03:58   Stream #0:0: Video: vp8, yuv420p(tv, progressive), 640x360, SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 1k tbn (default)
2024-04-02 15:03:58     Metadata:
2024-04-02 15:03:58       HANDLER_NAME    : VideoHandler
2024-04-02 15:03:58       VENDOR_ID       : [0][0][0][0]
2024-04-02 15:03:58       ENCODER         : Lavc60.31.102 libvpx
2024-04-02 15:03:58       DURATION        : 00:00:03.466000000
2024-04-02 15:03:58 Output #0, webm, to 'http://localhost:8889/demo0/whip':
2024-04-02 15:03:58   Metadata:
2024-04-02 15:03:58     COMPATIBLE_BRANDS: isomiso2mp41
2024-04-02 15:03:58     MAJOR_BRAND     : isom
2024-04-02 15:03:58     MINOR_VERSION   : 512
2024-04-02 15:03:58     encoder         : Lavf60.16.100
2024-04-02 15:03:58   Stream #0:0: Video: vp8, yuv420p(tv, progressive), 640x360 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 1k tbn (default)
2024-04-02 15:03:58     Metadata:
2024-04-02 15:03:58       HANDLER_NAME    : VideoHandler
2024-04-02 15:03:58       VENDOR_ID       : [0][0][0][0]
2024-04-02 15:03:58       ENCODER         : Lavc60.31.102 libvpx
2024-04-02 15:03:58       DURATION        : 00:00:03.466000000
2024-04-02 15:03:58 Stream mapping:
2024-04-02 15:03:58   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
2024-04-02 15:03:58 Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
2024-04-02 15:04:08 2024/04/02 07:04:08 INF [path demo0] runOnDemand command stopped: timed out
2024-04-02 15:04:08 2024/04/02 07:04:08 INF [WebRTC] [session 829664cb] closed: source of path 'demo0' has timed out
[out#0/webm @ 0x7f04b00515c0] video:281kB audio:0kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 1.023511%
2024-04-02 15:04:08 size=     284kB time=00:00:10.49 bitrate= 221.3kbits/s speed=1.05x    
2024-04-02 15:04:08 Exiting normally, received signal 2.


  


  This is the same when I try to stream my other videos (demo1.mp4, demo2.mp4 etc.). What am I doing wrong ?

  


• Saying Goodbye To Old Machines

  1er décembre 2014, par Multimedia Mike — General, powerpc, via

  I recently sent a few old machines off for recycling. Both had relevance to the early days of the FATE testing effort. As is my custom, I photographed them (poorly, of course).

  First, there’s the PowerPC-based Mac Mini I procured thanks to a Craigslist ad in late 2006. I had plans to develop automated FFmpeg building and testing and was already looking ahead toward testing multiple CPU architectures. Again, this was 2006 and PowerPC wasn’t completely on the outs yet– although Apple’s MacTel transition was in full swing, the entire new generation of video game consoles was based on PowerPC.

  
  

  

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  I remember trying to find a Mac Mini PPC on Craigslist. Many were to be found, but all asked more than the price of even a new Mac Mini Intel, always because the seller was leaving all of last year’s applications and perhaps including a monitor, neither of which I needed. Fortunately, I found this bare Mac Mini. Also fortunate was the fact that it was far easier to install Linux on it than the first PowerPC machine I owned.

  After FATE operation transitioned away from me, I still kept the machine in service as an edge server and automated backup machine. That is, until the hard drive failed on reboot one day. Thus, when it was finally time to recycle the computer, I felt it necessary to disassemble the machine and remove the hard drive for possible salvage and then for destruction.
  

  If you’ve ever attempted to upgrade or otherwise service this style of Mac Mini, you will no doubt recognize the pictured paint scraper tool as standard kit. I have had that tool since I first endeavored to upgrade the RAM to 1 GB from the standard 1/2 GB. Performing such activities on a Mac Mini is tedious, but only if you care about putting it back together afterwards.

  The next machine is a bit older. I put it together nearly a decade ago, early in 2005. This machine’s original duty was “download agent”– this would be more specifically called a BitTorrent machine in modern tech parlance. Back then, I placed it on someone else’s woefully underutilized home broadband connection (with their permission, of course) when I was too cheap to upgrade from dialup.

  
  

  

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  This is a small form factor system from VIA that was clearly designed with home theater PC (HTPC) use cases in mind. It has a VIA C3 x86-compatible CPU (according to my notes, Centaur VIA Samuel 2 stepping 03, flags : fpu de tsc msr cx8 mtrr pge mmx 3dnow) and 128 MB of RAM (initially ; I upgraded it to 512 MB some years later, just for the sake of doing it). And then there was the 120 GB PATA HD for all that downloaded goodness.

  
  

  

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  I have specific memories of a time when my main computer at home wasn’t working correctly for one reason or another. Instead, I logged into this machine remotely via SSH to make several optimizations and fixes on FFmpeg’s VP3/Theora video decoder, all from the terminal, without being able to see the decoded images with my own eyes (which is why I insist that even blind people could work on video codecs).

  By the time I got my own broadband, I had become inspired to attempt the automated build and test system for FFmpeg. This was the machine I used for prototyping early brainstorms of FATE. By the time I put a basic build/test system into place in early 2008, I had much faster computers that could build and test the project– obvious limitation of this machine is that it could take at least 1/2 hour to build the entire codebase, and that was the project from 8 years ago.

  So the machine got stuffed in a closet somewhere along the line. The next time I pulled it out was in 2010 when I wanted to toy with Dreamcast programming once more (the machine appears in one of the photos in this post). This was the only machine I still owned which still had an RS-232 serial port (I didn’t know much about USB serial converters yet), plus it still had a bunch of pre-compiled DC homebrew binaries (I was having trouble getting the toolchain to work right).

  The next time I dusted off this machine was late last year when I was trying some experiments with the Microsoft Xbox’s IDE drive (a photo in that post also shows the machine ; this thing shows up a lot on this blog). The VIA machine was the only machine I still owned which had 40-pin IDE connectors which was crucial to my experiment.

  At this point, I was trying to make the machine more useful which meant replacing the ancient Gentoo Linux distribution as well as simply interacting with it via a keyboard and mouse. I have a long Evernote entry documenting a comedy of errors revolving around this little box. The interaction troubles were due to the fact that I didn’t have any PS/2 keyboards left and I couldn’t make a USB keyboard work with it. Diego was able to explain that I needed to flip a bit in the BIOS to address this which worked. As for upgrading the OS, I tried numerous Linux distributions large and small, mostly focusing on the small. None worked. I eventually learned that, while I was trying to use i686 distributions, this machine did not actually qualify as an i686 CPU ; installations usually booted but failed because the default kernel required the cmov instruction. I was advised to try i386 distros instead. My notes don’t indicate whether I had any luck on this front before I gave up and moved on.

  I just made the connection that this VIA machine has two 40-pin IDE connectors which means that the thing was technically capable of supporting up to 4 IDE devices. Obviously, the computer couldn’t really accommodate that in terms of space or power. When I wanted to try installing a new OS, I needed take off the top and connect a rather bulky IDE CD-ROM drive. This computer’s casing was supposed to be able to support a slimline optical drive (perhaps like the type found in laptops), but I could never quite visualize how that was supposed to work, space-wise. When I disassembled the PowerPC Mac Mini, I realized I might be able to repurpose that machines optical drive for this computer. Obviously, I thought better of trying since both machines are off to the recycle pile.

  I would still like to work on the Xbox project a bit more, but I procured a different, unused, much more powerful yet still old computer that has a motherboard with 1 PATA connector in addition to 6 SATA connectors. If I ever get around to toying with Linux kernel development, this should be a much more appropriate platform to use.

  I thought about turning this machine into an old Windows XP (and lower, down to Windows 3.1) gaming platform ; the capabilities of the machine would probably be perfect for a huge portion of my Windows game collection. But I think the lack of an optical drive renders this idea intractable. External USB drives are likely out of the question since there is very little chance that this motherboard featured USB 2.0 (the specs don’t mention 2.0, so the USB ports are probably 1.1).

  So it is with fond memories that I send off both machines, sans hard drives, to the recycle pile. I’m still deciding on an appropriate course of action for failed hard drives, though.