html5 video - MP4 plays when accessed directly, but not when read through PHP, on iOS

Question

I use a PHP script to validate video requests before serving them. This script works as expected on the desktop, with Safari and Chrome. But on iOS, I get a broken play button.

I'm sure the video is properly encoded for iPhone/iPad, because when I access it directly, it works as expected.

The relevant PHP code:

$file_name = 'test-video.mp4';
$file_size = (string)(filesize($file_name));
header('Content-Type: video/mp4');
header('Content-Length: '.$file_size);
readfile_chunked($file_name);
exit;

(readfile_chunked() is similar to readfile() but for very large files, found in the comments on the PHP manual page: http://php.net/manual/en/function.readfile.php. In any event, test-video.mp4 is only ~5 MB, which is less than the memory limit — and in this case I actually can substitute in the normal readfile() and produce the exact same behavior.)

The headers I get when I access test-video.mp4 directly are:

Accept-Ranges:bytes
Connection:Keep-Alive
Content-Length:5558749
Content-Type:video/mp4
Date:Sun, 27 Jun 2010 21:02:09 GMT
Etag:"1c04757-54d1dd-489944c5a6400"
Keep-Alive:timeout=10, max=30
Last-Modified:Tue, 22 Jun 2010 01:25:36 GMT
Server:Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS) mod_ssl/2.2.15 0.9.8l DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635

The headers from the PHP script are:

Connection:Keep-Alive
Content-Disposition:inline; filename="test-video.mp4"
Content-Length:5558749
Content-Type:video/mp4
Date:Sun, 27 Jun 2010 21:03:32 GMT
Keep-Alive:timeout=10, max=15
Server:Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS) mod_ssl/2.2.15 0.9.8l DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635
X-Powered-By:PHP/5.2.13

I've tried many different permutations of headers, even matching them exactly to those from a direct request, to no avail.

Has anyone had success serving HTML5 video through PHP, on iOS?

[Note: I would try using X-Sendfile, but the site is on a shared host with very limited access.]

EDIT: I was reading that iOS can be sensitive about file extensions, so I tried setting up a RewriteRule that rewrites MP4 requests back to my original PHP script, but that didn't help either.

Answer 1

Try:

$arquivo_caminho = 'pathfile'

    if (is_file($arquivo_caminho)){
        header("Content-type: video/mp4"); // change mimetype

        if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'])){ // do it for any device that supports byte-ranges not only iPhone
            rangeDownload($arquivo_caminho);
        } else {
            header("Content-length: " . filesize($arquivo_caminho));
            readfile($arquivo_caminho);
        } // fim do if
    } // fim do if

    function rangeDownload($file){
        $fp = @fopen($file, 'rb');

        $size   = filesize($file); // File size
        $length = $size;           // Content length
        $start  = 0;               // Start byte
        $end    = $size - 1;       // End byte
        // Now that we've gotten so far without errors we send the accept range header
        /* At the moment we only support single ranges.
         * Multiple ranges requires some more work to ensure it works correctly
         * and comply with the spesifications: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec19.html#sec19.2
         *
         * Multirange support annouces itself with:
         * header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');
         *
         * Multirange content must be sent with multipart/byteranges mediatype,
         * (mediatype = mimetype)
         * as well as a boundry header to indicate the various chunks of data.
         */
        header("Accept-Ranges: 0-$length");
        // header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');
        // multipart/byteranges
        // http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec19.html#sec19.2
        if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'])){
            $c_start = $start;
            $c_end   = $end;

            // Extract the range string
            list(, $range) = explode('=', $_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'], 2);
            // Make sure the client hasn't sent us a multibyte range
            if (strpos($range, ',') !== false){
                // (?) Shoud this be issued here, or should the first
                // range be used? Or should the header be ignored and
                // we output the whole content?
                header('HTTP/1.1 416 Requested Range Not Satisfiable');
                header("Content-Range: bytes $start-$end/$size");
                // (?) Echo some info to the client?
                exit;
            } // fim do if
            // If the range starts with an '-' we start from the beginning
            // If not, we forward the file pointer
            // And make sure to get the end byte if spesified
            if ($range{0} == '-'){
                // The n-number of the last bytes is requested
                $c_start = $size - substr($range, 1);
            } else {
                $range  = explode('-', $range);
                $c_start = $range[0];
                $c_end   = (isset($range[1]) && is_numeric($range[1])) ? $range[1] : $size;
            } // fim do if
            /* Check the range and make sure it's treated according to the specs.
             * http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html
             */
            // End bytes can not be larger than $end.
            $c_end = ($c_end > $end) ? $end : $c_end;
            // Validate the requested range and return an error if it's not correct.
            if ($c_start > $c_end || $c_start > $size - 1 || $c_end >= $size){
                header('HTTP/1.1 416 Requested Range Not Satisfiable');
                header("Content-Range: bytes $start-$end/$size");
                // (?) Echo some info to the client?
                exit;
            } // fim do if

            $start  = $c_start;
            $end    = $c_end;
            $length = $end - $start + 1; // Calculate new content length
            fseek($fp, $start);
            header('HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content');
        } // fim do if

        // Notify the client the byte range we'll be outputting
        header("Content-Range: bytes $start-$end/$size");
        header("Content-Length: $length");

        // Start buffered download
        $buffer = 1024 * 8;
        while(!feof($fp) && ($p = ftell($fp)) <= $end){
            if ($p + $buffer > $end){
                // In case we're only outputtin a chunk, make sure we don't
                // read past the length
                $buffer = $end - $p + 1;
            } // fim do if

            set_time_limit(0); // Reset time limit for big files
            echo fread($fp, $buffer);
            flush(); // Free up memory. Otherwise large files will trigger PHP's memory limit.
        } // fim do while

        fclose($fp);
    } // fim do function