Skip to main content
Ben Nadel at cf.Objective() 2014 (Bloomington, MN) with: Dan Wilson
Ben Nadel at cf.Objective() 2014 (Bloomington, MN) with: Dan Wilson

FLV 404 Error On Windows 2003 Server

By
Published in — Comments (40)

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:

  1. On the Windows 2003 server, open the Internet Information Services Manager.
  2. Expand the Local Computer Server.
  3. Right-click the local computer server and select Properties.
  4. Select the MIME Types tab.
  5. Click New and enter the following information:
    • Associated Extension box: .FLV
    • MIME Type box:flv-application/octet-stream
  6. Click OK.
  7. Restart the World Wide Web Publishing service.

Short link: https://bennadel.com/866

Reader Comments

8 Comments

This tip is already in our ToDo list when we install a new server. :)

I know I spent a lot of time to find out the reason of this problem and this will be useful for others also.

15,841 Comments

What makes it so frustrating is that the SWF file works fine... it just looks like the FLV file is not loading into it properly. So of course, you think its just a path problem or something! Uggg :)

2 Comments

Jeez! Wasted an hour on this little doozy! How come FLVs worked on our old server? I'm sure we had to do this before.

THANKS!!!

21 Comments

Oooh, that was happened to me before, but I catch - after long time - it by trying to download the flv file useing its full path. I don't remember what was the error, but it has been solved doing the same steps you wrote.

thanks

1 Comments

Thank you so much

Spent houers looking at first code then crossdomain policy issues then searching for flash related help and then I tried to dl the flv file directly from browser which finally got me to put in windows in the search criteria and then I found your page so...............

But ain't this what development is allways all about

15,841 Comments

@Peter,

Always glad to help. It took me a while to find this out also - I hope that I cut down on your search time a bit :)

11 Comments

For what it's worth, you don't have to go through the trouble of restarting the WWW publishing service. Simply open up a command prompt (start > run > "cmd") and type "iisreset" and hit enter. I've found this to be faster and obviously easier, with the same result.

1 Comments

This was exactly what I was looking for! Fixed my ailing problem.

May have saved me a few hairs from being pulled out. Only half bald now!

1 Comments

I spent a good couple of hours on this today. What a pain. On my old server, everything was fine. I migrated the site to a new server, and suddenly, all the files with audio didn't work. Just got nothin'. When i noticed the audio files had FLV counterparts, and did a search for "FLV IIS". Viola! Thanks!

15,841 Comments

@Rick,

No problem at all; when I first ran into this, it struck me as somewhat odd that you even needed to register file extensions. I just assumed that all files would be served up, except for perhaps some black-listed ones.

1 Comments

Luckily I didn't get bit so bad by this one, as the very first thing I did was try to browse to the file. Typically anytime I dump a file onto a webserver, no matter what kind it is, I try to browse to it first. Then I can make sure I didn't put it somewhere that the web server isn't configured for.

Still glad though that I could find an answer so quickly.

15,841 Comments

@David,

Glad you got it worked out quickly :) When things don't work on a server, I tend to panic a bit. I'm slowly getting better.

1 Comments

Over 5 years later and this is still relevant.

I just went through this same problem pulling my hair out thinking my paths were incorrect, etc.

I just wanted to say Thank You Ben for posting great solutions!

Don't stop, you rock!

Carl

Oh my chickens, this post is old!
I believe in love. I believe in compassion. I believe in human rights. I believe that we can afford to give more of these gifts to the world around us because it costs us nothing to be decent and kind and understanding. And, I want you to know that when you land on this site, you are accepted for who you are, no matter how you identify, what truths you live, or whatever kind of goofy shit makes you feel alive! Rock on with your bad self!
— Ben Nadel