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SDR Frequently Asked Questions

For IPv6 related problems, please also see the IPv6 FAQ.

Basics

  1. How do I get started? 
  2. How do I find out more and command line options? 
  3. How do I report bugs, comments, and other feedback? 
  4. How do I contribute code?

Session Announcements

  1. How do I make a session announcement permanent?

PC specific problems

  1. I get the error message: couldn't duplicate output handle: bad file number. What's wrong? 
  2. Whenever I load SDR it complains that I have to set my homedir environment variable. How do I do this? 
  3. Why is only one Windows application able to use multicast?
  4. Nothing happens when I try to start SDR on a Windows95 machine.
  5. I cannot authenticate/encrypt sessions using PGP on Windows.

Answers 

Basics 

  1. How do I start SDR? 

    2. SDR can be started from the command line by typing: sdr (unix) or by double clicking on the SDR icon (windows).
    SDR will then load previously cached sessions and start listening for new or existing sessions not listed in the main window.

  2. How do I find out about command line options? 

    3. Documentation for SDR can be downloaded from the Software section of the UCL Multimedia web-page. 

  3. How to report bugs, comments, and other feedback? 

    4. All bugs, comments, and requests for features should be directed to sdr@cs.ucl.ac.uk. 

    When reporting problems please detail: 

    1. which version of SDR you are using. 
    2. which hardware platform and OS version. 
    3. The events leading up to the error.
    The more information you furnish, the more likely we are to be able to assist you. 
  4. How to contribute code? 

    5. All code contributions are welcomed. The preferred source code to use for code contributions is in the UCL CVS source code repository as this is the code that will consitute the next release. Please send patches and the version of the source code used to sdr@cs.ucl.ac.uk. 

Session Announcements

  1. How do I make a session announcement permanent?

    2. It is not possible to make a session announcment permanent but you can change the end time of the announcement to be sometime far into the future! To do this first find the sdr cache file of your announcement in your sdr/cache directory. The cache file will have a line that begins with "t=". The values that follow represent the start and end times for the announcements, expressed in ms since 1970 (UTC). Increase the second value as required.

PC specific problems

  1. I get the error message: couldn't duplicate output handle: bad file number. What's wrong?

    2. Create a batch file containing: start sdr.exe ...and then create a shortcut to the batch file.

  2. Whenever I load SDR it complains that I have to set my homedir environment variable. How do I do this?

    3. The homedir variable is required by most of the tools to locate your .RTPdefaults file. It should be set to the directory where you have installed the tools. For example if you have installed the tools in c:\program files\mbone then you should add this to your autoexec.bat:- set HOMEDIR=c:\program files\mbone

  3. Why is only one Windows application able to use multicast?

    4. Some network adapter drivers are not able to take direction from more than one application at a time. This is either a hardware or driver bug in the network adapter. This used to be a common problem when multicast was a novelty. Updating the driver for the adaptor may fix the problem, otherwise a new adapter is necessary.

    We have had a report that the Linksys PC100 Ethernet card will only take direction from one Windows application. The remedy was to replace it with a Linksys Cardbus 10/100.

  4. Nothing happens when I try to start SDR on a Windows95 machine.

    5. The latest version of SDR uses Winsock 2 (and above) that isn't included with the original version of Windows95.

    At the time of writing Winsock 2 is available here. If the link breaks, search the Microsoft site for Winsock 2.

  5. I cannot authenticate/encrypt sessions using PGP on Windows.

    6. There may be several reasons for PGP not working:

    • The HOMEDIR variable has not been set to a path that uses short directory filenames (ie less than 8 characters in length). For example the directory 'c:\program files\mbone tools' might be expressd as 'c:\progra~1\mbonet~1'.
    • There is a directory called 'pgp' - this will confuse SDR when trying to execute the pgp binary
    • The PATH and PGPPATH environment variables do not contain the path of the pgp binary.
    • The PGPSTATE environment variable is not set to 1