Archiving FAQ

How do I troubleshoot archiving problems?

Use Archive Inspector to troubleshoot archiving problems. You will need a session ID or archive ID to troubleshoot.  You can also download archives that are still available. Archives are stored for 72 hours before being deleted.

To analyze an archive with the archive inspector:

1. In the search box, enter the session ID or archive ID. Search results appear.
2. Select a session or an archive. Select a specific meeting if you have multiple instances of meetings using the same session ID.
3. Analyze Session:

• Blue indicates the archive is actively recording AND when a user is publishing.
• Gray indicates the archive is paused or stopped.
• If an archive is set to start automatically and users are not present in a session, the archive will be set in the grey state for the duration of the archive.
• Green indicates the archive has ended and has been uploaded.

How do I estimate the bitrate or file sizes produced by the video archiving system?

It depends on the length of the archive, frame rate, data types present (A/V), output file type, number of streams, etc. Unfortunately, because many factors affect the file size, we cannot estimate the size of an archive.  

How many times do we attempt/try to upload the archive file to S3 before it fails and falls back to Opentok cloud storage?

If the attempt to upload results in a permanent failure (the bucket is configured wrong, the bucket is unavailable, etc.), we will back up the archive in Opentok cloud storage immediately. If uploading to the specified bucket or container fails for another reason, we will retry uploading the archiving for a set period of time.

Archives on the OpenTok cloud are available for 72 hours from the time they are created. To prevent this fallback storage, log in to your TokBox Account, select the project, and set the option to disable the archive storage fallback.

Is it possible to customise the "Archiving on" text?

Not directly, but you can use a post processing application to do this: https://github.com/opentok/archiving-composer.

How do I know about current known issues with archiving?

You can check https://vonageapi.statuspage.io/ for issues currently affecting the opentok platform.

When we upload archive files to amazon S3 what value do we set for the content-type header?

You can set this up on your account portal page (https://tokbox.com/developer/guides/archiving/using-s3.html) or via the REST API (https://tokbox.com/developer/rest/#setting-an-amazon-s3-or-windows-azure-archiving-upload-target). If doing this VIA the REST API, set the Content-type header to “application/json”.

Can we increase the archive list limit in the Account Portal dashboard?

No. However, you can use our REST API to view archives: https://tokbox.com/developer/rest/#listing_archives

Can we get the composed and the individual streams uploaded to our S3 bucket?

Yes, this is supported through the Simultaneous Archives feature. More details can be found at Simultaneous Archives (Multi-Archive feature).

When I try to list archives for a project using REST API, I only get the archives with the status "EXPIRED" but not the ones with the status "DELETED", why are deleted ones not included?

Deleting an archive removes its record from the list of archives. It also removes the archive file for an "available" archive, making it unavailable for download.

What affects archive uploading time?

The times to process the archive and upload it to your bucket. Archiving processing time is usually less than a minute. The speed of uploading to your bucket depends on the archive size and storage availability.

What do I do if I don’t see an archive in my bucket?

If you have the archive ID, you can use the REST API to check the archive status: https://tokbox.com/developer/rest/#retrieve_archive_info. If the archive fails to upload, it will be available on the OpenTok cloud for 72 hours from when it was created.

If this is a reoccurring issue, you should check that your bucket accepts archive uploads.

Do you have a roadmap for supporting Google Drive, or cloud storage?

Not at this time.

Do we support all Amazon AWS Signature Version 4 buckets?

Yes.

Can we upload the archive to our own storage provider?

You can use your TokBox Account to specify your own Amazon S3 bucket / Other S3-complaint storage provider or Windows Azure container for completed archive files to be uploaded to. See Using an Amazon S3 bucket with OpenTok archiving and Using an Windows Azure container with OpenTok archiving.

If you do not set an Amazon S3 bucket / Other S3-complaint storage provider or Windows Azure container, or if uploading to the specified bucket or container fails, recorded archives are available for retrieval by download from the OpenTok cloud.

Can we turn off the archive storage fallback?

TokBox allows recorded sessions to be temporarily stored on TokBox-supplied cloud storage for up to 72 hours, however, this is not mandatory. The fallback feature is an optional backup and can be turned off anytime. As soon as the recording is finished, TokBox will attempt to upload the archive to a customer-designated AWS or Azure account. Immediately after completing the upload, the file is deleted from the server where it was recorded.

Please note that to aid in security considerations, when disabling TokBox cloud storage fallback, the archive file will be deleted from the server, irrespective of whether the upload succeeds. We, therefore, require customers to regularly check that the credentials shared with TokBox for upload permissions are current.

To turn off the fallback feature, log in to your TokBox Account, select the project, and set the option to disable the archive storage fallback. 

Why can’t I play the files from my individual stream archives?

Individual stream archive mode is intended for use with a post-processing tool, to produce customized content generated by your application. There are some considerations that developers should evaluate when choosing to use the feature.

Individual stream archive media is delivered as a ZIP archive containing files for each audio-video stream:

• In a standard OpenTok project, the media file is a .webm container. This is not a playable container.
• In a Safari OpenTok project, the media file is a .mkv (Matroska Multimedia Container) file (not .webm). Note: FFMPeg is the only application that now plays back .mkv files correctly. (VLC cannot playback Opus from MKV files. MPlayer has some issues with audio and video synchronization.)

Are subscriber streams included in the archive?

Yes, when an archive is created, the publisher and subscriber will be visible when viewing the archive.