News and Announcements

Starting on 3/19 Kaltura MediaSpace has been slower due to heavy use (RESOLVED)

Posted: 2020-03-19 14:20:56   Expiration: 2020-04-07 14:20:56

Disclaimer: This news item was originally posted on 2020-03-19 14:20:56. Its content may no longer be timely or accurate.

On Thursday March 19th, Kaltura MediaSpace began experiencing performance issues due to heavy use.

[UPDATE, 3/28/20, 2:16 p.m.] Kaltura is reporting that the changes they implemented this week have brought the system back to normal and will continue to monitor it moving forward.

Users are able to still access Kaltura MediaSpace, and upload media more slowly. In some cases users may see an error message like "Oops! Entry could not be created" or "Oops! Upload failed" if a video doesn't upload successfully. Media processing is taking longer than normal. Most media is processed overnight, but some is taking even longer. Kaltura has been notified and is working to resolve the situation. UW System's outage is posted. The full incident details are available on Kaltura's incdent information page. The general status of Kaltura services is available at status.kaltura.com.

Recommendations for creating and uploading media to Kaltura MediaSpace to help lighten the load on the system

These recommendations are more important while Kaltura MediaSpace is seeing unprecedented usage during the COVID-19 situation:

  • Upload a short (<5 second) sample video first so you know what to expect from the recording and upload process.
  • Break up your course content into 4-6 minute mini-lecture segments. Shorter videos keep your students attention and are faster to upload and process. See the Video Guidelines article for more info on recommended duration.
  • Upload material in the order you need it and upload early to allow time for file upload, processing, and potential errors.
    • Even when Kaltura MediaSpace is running smoothly other internet service providers are seeing degraded service which could limit your upload speed. Test your speed by going to fast.com, run the test and click the "Show more info" button to see your upload speed. 1 Mbps upload speed should be able to upload a 250 MB file in about 33 minutes.
  • Don’t upload all your course content at once. Space it out over a few days if possible.
  • If you are creating narrated slide lectures use Powerpoint for Office 365 slide show (Win, Mac). If you use Kaltura Capture only record one input - webcam or screen. Recording both inputs doubles the file size, the time it takes to upload and process your file. Consider recording a short intro video with your webcam and the rest of your lecture segments with just the screen.
  • Upload and processing times will lengthen when there are a lot of users uploading content (for example late March 2020 during the COVID-19 situation). It may take a half-hour to an hour to upload a 15 minute video and process overnight - sometimes longer. Keep an eye on the Learn@UW-Madison KnowledgeBase for notifications regarding performance impacts and outages.

-- Learn@UW-Madison: Dan LaValley