How do I know if a firewall is influencing my reception/transmission?

The fastest way to find out whether a firewall is preventing you from playing content is to ask your Network Manager or Internet Service Provider (ISP).

We've listed some signs of a firewall presence:

• I'm trying to play content
• I'm trying to serve content

Playing content from behind a firewall

RealPlayers behind a firewall may experience difficulty playing content from sites on the Internet if the firewall is not configured to allow RealPlayer traffic.

If you are behind a firewall, and are attempting to play content from the Internet, the firewall may be preventing you from playing content if you observe the following symptoms:

• You are accessing the Internet via an Internet Service Provider or a cable modem and have trouble connecting to RealAudio or RealVideo files on some or all Web sites.

• You are on a local area network which is attached to the Internet, and are unable to play RealAudio and RealVideo files from some or all remote Web sites.

• You receive one of the following errors:

  "Error 18: Invalid socket error"
  "Error 22: Requested server is not valid"
  "Error 108 : Invalid Auto Transport Configuration Setup"
  "Error 38 : File compression not supported. Cannot locate the requested RealAudio decoder" (on UNIX machines) when attemping to play content over the Internet

Any of these messages indicate that your network or ISP includes a firewall. For instructions on how to configure RealPlayer to work with the firewall, see the following pages:

• Configure RealPlayer 8
• Configure RealPlayer 7
• Configure RealPlayer G2
• Configure RealPlayer 4.0 & 5.0
• Configure RealAudio player 3.0

Serving content from behind a firewall

A firewall may be preventing you from serving content if you observe symptoms such as the following:

• Visitors receive the following message when attempting to play your clips:

  "Error 29: Server Disconnected"

If you are serving media from RealServer, and people report error messages when they try to connect to your RealServer, the RealServer may need to be moved from inside the firewall to the perimeter network.