PHP Stream to html5 Video, Page Navigation not working - php

Question

i have troubles with Streaming .mp4 Videos from PHP to a HTML5 Video Tag. The Video Streams fine and also moving forward and backward works. BUT: If i click on any Link in my Menu, the Site will not change. The loading Icon Appears on the Tab and the Dev Tools show that there is a request. But the request "waits" until the Video Stream End. So if the Video ended, the new Page will load, but not before.
Any ideas on this?
PS: Adding session_write_close(); before streaming the File solves the Problem. But it looks a bit too hacky for me...
<video style="width:100%;" preload="metadata" controls="">
<source src="/uploads/getfile?image_path=5%2FOKzAAFlSub-VLsnFWvkPWXBLluwOV-Q5DIuqJkPpDubahlAosK.mp4&type=20" type="video/mp4">
Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>
PHP Code:
$file = Yii::getAlias('#app') . '/../files/uploads/' .$image_path;
$fp = #fopen($file, 'rb');
$size = filesize($file); // File size
$length = $size; // Content length
$start = 0; // Start byte
$end = $size - 1; // End byte
header('Content-type: video/mp4');
header("Accept-Ranges: 0-$length");
header("Accept-Ranges: bytes");
if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'])) {
$c_start = $start;
$c_end = $end;
list(, $range) = explode('=', $_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'], 2);
if (strpos($range, ',') !== false) {
header('HTTP/1.1 416 Requested Range Not Satisfiable');
header("Content-Range: bytes $start-$end/$size");
exit;
}
if ($range == '-') {
$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;
}
$c_end = ($c_end > $end) ? $end : $c_end;
if ($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");
exit;
}
$start = $c_start;
$end = $c_end;
$length = $end - $start + 1;
fseek($fp, $start);
header('HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content');
}
header("Content-Range: bytes $start-$end/$size");
header("Content-Length: ".$length);
$buffer = 1024 * 8;
while(!feof($fp) && ($p = ftell($fp)) <= $end) {
if ($p + $buffer > $end) {
$buffer = $end - $p + 1;
}
set_time_limit(0);
echo fread($fp, $buffer);
ob_flush();
}
fclose($fp);
exit();

Answer 1

Adding session_write_close(); before streaming the File solves the Problem. But it looks a bit too hacky for me...
There isn’t much “hacky” about this.
A long-running script that keeps a session open will block access to that same session for all other scripts that get started later on (as with your menu link click.)
To avoid that, you close the session in the long-running script as soon as you are done with it, so that the lock on the session data file can be released.
What is quite “hacky” though, is streaming video data via a script in the first place. That is what you should avoid doing in the first place, if at all possible. It is not a good idea in terms of memory usage and script runtimes.

Answer 2

It is better to use already exist PHP package to support partial download. Here is one of them from pear:
http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.http.http-download.php
It support several types of download (partial, stream , ..). Here is a sample code:
$dl = &new HTTP_Download();
$dl->setData($data);
$dl->setLastModified($unix_timestamp);
$dl->setContentType('application/x-gzip');
$dl->setContentDisposition(HTTP_DOWNLOAD_ATTACHMENT, 'latest.tgz');
$dl->send();