Uploading On-Demand Content: Troubleshooting
There are a few reasons that a video file upload might not upload successfully. Some of the common ones are...
- Phone/iPad/Computer Storage- Sometimes when uploading videos from iPads or iPhones, you'll see that the video's get stuck in "processing" via a pop-up that your device shows you. This can happen when a video is saved in the cloud, and your device does not have the storage to first download it and then upload it to Somble
- "Processing" Endlessly- If you have enough storage, but you are still seeing your device show you that the video is "Processing" indefinitely, this means that your device is having trouble rendering the file to make it available to Somble. You can solve this by first going to the video and hitting "Save to Files" on your device - it will then briefly process on your device. The video should then be ready to be uploaded to Somble.
- Letting the browser go black or go to sleep- Typically if the video is large (3GB or higher) it can take a while to upload. With long uploads the computer can go to sleep due to inactivity causing the upload to be interrupted.
- Poor Wifi Connection- A poor wifi connection that has suboptimal upload speed could cause minor lapses in internet connectivity. You can test the quality of your Wifi with a google chrome test by typing"Test internet speed" in Google and running the test.
- Video Shot in 4k- Doing this makes videos extremely large, which in turn makes for a longer upload time. Best practice for filming would be HD, 60 fps, in landscape mode.
- File is larger than 30 GB- Heavily edited or extremely long and/or high quality videos can reach enormous sizes. Somble cannot support video's larger than 30 GB's.
- Mobile- Common failures stem from the phone screen going dark, browser being closed, or phone being locked while a video is uploading. All of these can cause the network connection to break while the video is uploading.
For some context on video size...
A 30 minute 4k video at 60fps is likely to be between 13-16 GBs
A 30 minute 4k video at 30fps is likely to be between 9-12 GBs
A 30 minute HD video at 60fps is likely to be between 4-6 GBs (recommended)
A 30 minute HD video at 30fps is likely to be between 3-4 GBs
While upload speeds vary wildly, you can expect upload times of >1 hour, and in some case many hours, for video's larger than 6 GBs
So what do I do about it?
- If you've already created content that is too large to be uploaded in a reasonable amount of time, there are several application and web-based tool's that you can use to decrease video size.
- Web: If you need to upload a larger video, we recommend charging your computer and checking back intermittently to make sure your screen is still alive. Our platform is automatically tasked with keeping your screen alive, although some browsers and browser settings do not support the functionality. If all else fails, a hack we have seen work is opening up a long Youtube video (8+ hours). Playing this on your browser as your content uploads will keep the screen from falling asleep and keep the connection alive.
- Mobile: When uploading, leave the screen alive and the browser open on the upload page to ensure the connection does not break. You can do this by [Settings -> Display & Brightness -> Auto Lock -> Never] before starting the upload process. While this isn't always necessary and videos can often be uploaded even when navigating to a different application, it's a good "best practice" to avoid frustrating network failures and ensure your video uploads.