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Diagnose CDN manifest delivery issues and errors for MediaTailor - AWS Elemental MediaTailor

Diagnose CDN manifest delivery issues and errors for MediaTailor

AWS Elemental MediaTailor content delivery network (CDN) manifest delivery problems can prevent proper ad insertion and playback. If viewers receive incorrect or inconsistent ads in multivariant playlists, media playlists, or MPDs:

  1. Check for cached manifests:

    • Verify TTL settings are set to 0 for all multivariant playlist, media playlist, and MPD paths

    • Confirm that your CDN isn't caching multivariant playlists, media playlists, or MPDs despite TTL settings

    • Check CDN logs for cache status - manifest requests should show Miss or RefreshHit, not Hit

  2. Verify CDN routing configuration:

    • Confirm manifest requests are being routed to MediaTailor endpoints, not cached or served from origin

    • Check that CDN behavior patterns correctly match manifest paths (*.m3u8, *.mpd)

    • Verify query parameters are being forwarded to MediaTailor for personalization

    • Test manifest URLs directly against MediaTailor to isolate CDN vs service issues

  3. Check header forwarding configuration:

    • Verify required headers are being forwarded (see Required headers for MediaTailor CDN integration)

    • Confirm User-Agent header is forwarded for device-specific ad targeting

    • Check that X-Forwarded-For header is forwarded for geo-targeting

    • Ensure Accept-Encoding header is forwarded for compression support

  4. Validate manifest content and structure:

    • Check that manifests contain expected ad insertion markers (EXT-X-CUE-OUT/IN for HLS)

    • Verify segment URLs in manifests use your CDN domain, not origin domains

    • Confirm ad segments are properly inserted and accessible

    • Test manifest syntax using validation tools (ffprobe for HLS, mp4box for DASH)

  5. Test different scenarios:

    • Test with different session IDs to verify personalization is working

    • Test from different geographic locations to verify geo-targeting

    • Test with different User-Agent strings to verify device targeting

    • Compare manifest responses with and without CDN to identify differences

Additional troubleshooting resources:

Success criteria: When resolved, players should start playback normally and ads should appear as expected. Manifest requests should return HTTP 200 status codes in CDN logs, and manifests should contain properly personalized ad content.