Iplayer

Help and Support
1

I’ve signed up for a vpn, and set my internet exit point to uk. the vpn provider is a"top 5" according to the websites that rank them.

Ive set up my asus router with openvpn so all traffic from all devices (including smartphone) goes through the vpn connection. Browsing/messenger whatsapp all work fine.

Im using a july 18 build of osmc, which says its using kodi 17.6 running on rpi3. I use yatse on a smartphone to control osmc. 16gb on the sd card.

when I try and use the iplayer add-on in osmc i get:

lots of errors saying its for UK users only, or there has been an error.
on a couple of occasions it has started a video, but the video keeps pausing every few seconds and restarts after about half a second or so. i get sound for about two seconds and then it stops forever. picture quality is good. sound ouput is via the HDMI link

when i installed the iplayer app on my phone, still lots of errors but when it does work, the video runs smoothly with sound.

when I use chrome on my laptop, i get less errors of type “the content doesn’t seem to be working” and can watch some videos. in this case, the video is smooth with sound.
I rarely/never get UK users only messages on my laptop.

I have created an account on the b b c website

does a kind soul have ideas of what might be wrong?

fwiw the youtube add-on seems to be working ok. movies on my LAN play ok too

I didnt buy the mpg2 licence or wvc1 license. Should I?

as a bonus question, since I started using the vpn, my speedtest results show about 1 or 1.5 mbps less throughput than without the VPN.

does anybody with more experience think this is normal?

its a bit disconcerting as it means I’m down at about 3.5Mbps which Ive read is close to the limit for streaming HD video, but as I said earlier, iplayer quality on my laptop is OK, when it works.

2

Hi,

The same issue here, with private internet access; when using any of the uk servers.

I have to stop openvpn before I can use iplayer.

Thanks Tom.

3

One possibility is that it’s the VPN that’s the problem. Organisations like Netflix and the BBC compile lists of known VPN IP addresses, and if you try to access their content from any of those addresses, you get blocked.

And yes, you would expect your connection to run slower via the VPN than it does without it - there’s an additional encryption/decryption load for starters.

4

Its 100% this.

Through personal experience if you’re needing a VPN for ANY of these content providers, then always go for a smaller VPN provider as there’s less chance their server/s will be blocked.

Always get a trial of the VPN first, so you can test wether or not it’ll work before subscribing.

5

Yes, I can understand that the BBC might do this.

However, I use the same openvpn connection for my smartphone and laptop, as openvpn is set on my asus router.

On these two platforms, when I use the iplayer app and web interface respectively, if the video does actually open it runs perfectly. Sound and smooth video.

Its only on osmc with the iplayer add on which has jerky video and one second of sound. my osmc and laptop are both connected by wired ethernet at 100Mbps, via the same switches.

This makes me think its not an openvpn/performance/vpn problem. I suspect the iplayer add-on.

fwiw if I run speedtest on my laptop while the iplayer add-on is running on my Pi, I get about1.5 Mbps which makes me think it isn’t a bandwidth problem.

6

Vero or Pi?
Pi may struggle with VPN overhead depending on model.

Sam

7

its a pi3.

But why should the pi struggle when openvpn runs on the router and not on the pi.
Thus I would have thought the vpn was invisible to the pi, but I may be wrong.

Now the routeur could be struggling but why would everything work smoothly on my laptop and smartphone.

8

Lots of people (if not most) have their VPN on their PI and not on a router. Sam probably assumed this was the case.

9

I used to run a vpn on a router for the household and the way i got round this was to tell the router not to pass the bbc addresses through the vpn. So for example BBC iPlayer - BBC One did not pass through the vpn but just passed straight through the router with my normal isp ip address. This was with ASUS Merlin vpn software but I am sure you can do this with other flavours of software. Now I have a smart TV so vpn just runs on the pi3 as the TV takes care of the rest iplayer etc.

10

In my quest for learning something new , I checked if you could do this when using zomboided on the pi3 or any other Kodi box and yes you can by telling zomboided not to pass through the vpn when using the iplayer app.
To do this in zomboided - Set up addon filtering, go to the Settings/Add-on Filter tab.

11

I presume he’s not in the UK…hence the need for the VPN in the first place.

12

If you are in Blighty, but away, it’s better to use SSH for a proxy. I do this to watch UK TV when abroad.

13

I use a vpn and I am in the UK so a work around for those applications that wont work could be useful.
A lot of isp’s filter your traffic BT , Sky, Virgin etc so a vpn is useful if you use these services, i don’t use any of these providers, my isp never throttles or filters my connection but I still use a vpn as old habits die hard :).