I am not able to skip ahead in bunny.net videos

If you are serving videos through Bunny.net and users cannot skip ahead in the timeline, there are two things to check. Work through both steps below to resolve the issue.

Step 1 – Enable Cache File Slicing

Go to your Bunny.net pull zone settings and open the Cache tab. Enable Optimize for Video (also called Cache File Slicing).

Without cache slicing, Bunny.net downloads the entire video file from origin into a single cache file before serving it. Until the file is fully cached, users can only watch from the beginning – skipping ahead is not possible.

Cache slicing splits larger files into small chunks and downloads each chunk separately. This allows any part of the video to be requested at any time, regardless of cache state, so users can skip freely.

Step 2 – Re-Encode Using a Web-Optimized Preset

If skipping is still not working after enabling cache slicing, the issue is likely with how your video file was encoded.

Some video files are encoded with the metadata header at the end of the file. This means the browser must download the entire file before it can understand the video structure, making it impossible to skip ahead.

To fix this, re-encode your video using a web-optimized or fast start preset. This moves the metadata header to the beginning of the file so the browser can read it immediately and allow scrubbing without downloading the full file first.

Most video encoding tools include this option. In HandBrake, it is called Web Optimized. In FFmpeg, use the -movflags faststart flag.

Conclusion

After re-encoding, re-upload the video and test again. Skipping should now work as expected. If you have gone through both steps and are still having issues, feel free to reach out to our support team. We’re happy to help.