Recording playback problem while recording

[FrAllard 8]

I have a really strange problem, it's been happening since a week or so. I didn't change anything major and it was working perfectly before.

Here is my problem. When I recording a show and I want to do a playback before the end of the recording, it works up until the first commercial. As soon as I get to the first commercial, the playback freeze and crash.

If I wait for the recording to finish, everything play smoothly from begining to end.

Has anyone had a similar problem? Please tell me what would be needed yo help you help me.

I just tested and I can basically recreate the problem at will.

I'm running embyserver in Docker, the host is Ubuntu Server and the tuners are all HDHomeRun.

[Carlo 4330]

Hi, you mentioned you didn't change anything major.  Did you change anything minor?

What country are you in? UK by any chance?

Are you skipping or fast forwarding at the commercial or does this happen during normal playback when it hits the commercial?

Chances are it's nothing on your side but the station or your provider changed something.  There is a lot going on with Live TV.  For example your watching a show and it has video, 2 audio channels and a subtitle stream.  You get to a commercial which now only has one audio track (could even be different) in a different format and no subtitle. So Emby has to try and adjust this on the fly which is much harder than it sounds.  It's easy to do when you are just a "play software" but when you have to store this for RW/FF, DVR you have different needs. Some "little" change could cause a problem.  That's what we need to identify so we can take a look at it for you.

What I will ask is for you to reproduce this and then give us all the info we will need such as clients tests, date/time, channel as well as the logs which could include the client logs as well.  Take a read through this linked post paying attention to the logs (server and client) so you can reproduce and get us the info we need.

 

Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue.

Thanks!

 

[vfast 5]

Yes I too have this issue. I am playing the recording on Nvidia Sheild.

Also recently cant seem to start recording on the right time. I'm sure the two aren't related but only seems to have recently occured. I am doing more testing of the schedule.

[Carlo 4330]

Do you let the system sleep?  That is a known issue for DVR so we recommend for now, not allowing the server machine to sleep.
It's something we are working to change but for now if sleeping, try not to do that. 

What OS/server and what client are you using?
Same thing as above, we need the log files for this plus as much info you can give us.

Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue.

Thanks!

 

[FrAllard 8]

No the server never sleep.

Server is running in docker under ubuntu and the affected clients are nVidia Shield and Web. I can try the Windows App but I suspect it's gonna do the same thing. 

I will also be doing the tests you asked me to do and submit the log files. I'll do that at night when there is no activity on my server (only 3 active users).

Oh and here are some answer to your questions on your first reply.

- Minor changes? Constantly, I can't tell you which one was done when the problem began, no hardware changes though. Docker update embyserver container automatically every night if needed. Oh I added a new tuner a 4 port HDHomeRun, before I "only" had 2x 2 ports, now I have 2x 2 ports and 1x 4 ports. I checked which tuner was used when I recreated the problem and it was one of the original ones that worked perfectly since the begining of my Emby adventure.

- Country? I'm in Canada

- Skipping or fast forward? I always skip commercials, but I'm not sure if the problem would occur if I let it play, will try. One thing I can tell you is, if I stop the playback (after it freeze) and start again and try to resume it freeze. If I try to restart the playback from the begining it also freeze and after many retries it does begin the playback from the begining, but then I cannot skip at all and the timeline is weird.

 

[Carlo 4330]

Thanks for the detailed answers to my questions.
Look forward to having a chance to look at the logs to see if anything stands out in them.

I would really be interested if this happens if you don't try to skip the commercial but let it play.  A good test for this might be have two different clients playing back the same channel.  Do the FF on one but leave the other play.  Then switch around and do the same test the opposite way with both clients.  That type of info could be useful depending on results.

[FrAllard 8]

No the server never sleep.

Server is running in docker under ubuntu and the affected clients are nVidia Shield and Web. I can try the Windows App but I suspect it's gonna do the same thing. 

I will also be doing the tests you asked me to do and submit the log files. I'll do that at night when there is no activity on my server (only 3 active users).

Oh and here are some answer to your questions on your first reply.

- Minor changes? Constantly, I can't tell you which one was done when the problem began, no hardware changes though. Docker update embyserver container automatically every night if needed. Oh I added a new tuner a 4 port HDHomeRun, before I "only" had 2x 2 ports, now I have 2x 2 ports and 1x 4 ports. I checked which tuner was used when I recreated the problem and it was one of the original ones that worked perfectly since the begining of my Emby adventure.

- Country? I'm in Canada

- Skipping or fast forward? I always skip commercials, but I'm not sure if the problem would occur if I let it play, will try. One thing I can tell you is, if I stop the playback (after it freeze) and start again and try to resume it freeze. If I try to restart the playback from the begining it also freeze and after many retries it does begin the playback from the begining, but then I cannot skip at all and the timeline is weird.

I'm trying to recreate the problem but I seem unable to do so... I'll keep Emby in debug mode and when it happen I'll send files. Is there a more private way to send logs because in debug mode there is a lot of too much personal info showned, like my public url to access the server.

Would it be possible that bad reception would do that?

[Carlo 4330]

No need to turn on debug mode for logs.  You are best leaving this turned off and only use that for very specific situations when you are actively watching it looking for something specific.  Otherwise there is so much information written to the logs they become hard to read for general use.

[vfast 5]

I am in Australia and my Emby server is docker on Unraid. Media player is shield.

I get "too many errors giving up" when trying to play the show while recording. However it will play fine once recording is finished.

 

 

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-466b64f1-77b0-44c0-b70d-873306a915e5_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-466b64f1-77b0-44c0-b70d-873306a915e5_1 (1).txt

[Carlo 4330]

The transcode files show ffmpeg finding a couple issues with the stream but is able to keep going so I don't see anything that stands out.
I think we'll need logs from the ShieldTV to take a look at this from the client side.  You can follow this link for info on how to get that info.
How to Report a Problem

 

Can you try playing back Live TV while it's recording using Emby Theater for Desktop and let us know how this works?

Thanks

[FrAllard 8]

I got the issue, I too was on nVidia Shield I wasn't transcoding though it was DirectStream and it crashed (freezed) as soon as I tried to skip commercials.

There was no reception issue, this was a clear day and while I was watching the recorded live stream I didn't see any arthefact telling me that the reception was bad. I'm begining to think it's the Shield fault. I didn't have any problem before, but I had a FireTV. I have the nVidia Shield since 6 weeks maybe. I don't listen to many live show while it's recording so it might be because the Shield since the time I switched.

I'll have a look at the doc to extract log from the Shield player to help you find a solution.

I vrey gratefull that you're taking time to look into this! I'm a lifetime subscriber and I'm really considering an additional donation if you can solve that problem! My mother too has a Shield and she's using live tv a lot more than me.

Here are the log, I've obfuscated my server public url I hope this is okay! The log was takin right after the problem occured.

In the log it seems that the following entry is when I stopped the playing because it froze.

2021-11-25 18:50:30.299 Info SessionManager: Playback stopped reported by app AndroidTv 2.0.48g playing Le tricheur. Stopped at 576473 ms

 

ffmpeg-directstream-466858e1-f4eb-49a4-8343-b6c8b8e17e62_1.txt embyserver.txt

[Carlo 4330]

Do you still have the FireTV?  Does it do the same thing?
What do you see in stats for nerds when playing these back?

[vfast 5]

15 hours ago, cayars said:

The transcode files show ffmpeg finding a couple issues with the stream but is able to keep going so I don't see anything that stands out.
I think we'll need logs from the ShieldTV to take a look at this from the client side.  You can follow this link for info on how to get that info.
How to Report a Problem

 

Can you try playing back Live TV while it's recording using Emby Theater for Desktop and let us know how this works?

Thanks

I actually dont get a chance to get to the Cog wheel to report an issue. Playback never starts. I get the first frame and then spinning wheel. Then "Too Many Errors". It seems to be only related to this particular channel. Tested on another channel group and it's fine.

I can view the recorded program fine from my chrome browser.

[Carlo 4330]

This is only on the Shield?
If so have you tried installing the generic Android Client on the Shield TV and testing that?
It seems to play a lot of streams the ATV version doesn't play.

[vfast 5]

OK I got to the bottom of my issue. Seems the recording (news program) has Teletext encoded. Emby treats this captioning as subtitles. When playing back it seems these are on by default. If I turn this off before commencing play it works....

[Carlo 4330]

Nicely Done!

Glad you got this figured out.

[FrAllard 8]

It doesn't apply to me though, we don't have teletext here. Normal CC.

I just checked a recording and it did contain CC but CC were present during commercial too. Maybe the CC format change I don't know. I can send you a recording if you want.

I looked in the Play Store for the Generic Android client and cloud find it, I guess I'd have to side load it I'll take a look on how to do this later. 

Later this week I'll try both the Shield and the FireTV that I still have and see if I get the same behavior.

 

[FrAllard 8]

Ok tonight I was able to listen to a whole 2 hours of playback and I didn't get any problem and it usually was getting me problem. The signal quality tonight was perfect also.

What I did was disable the option for Closed Caption presentation in the Live TV options. When I saw the option and the experience of vfast regarding Closed Caption et TeleText then I gave it a try. I spent the whole evening catching up to commercials and pausing doing something else then come back skip commercials et listen Live then skip the whole next commercials and then catchup. Well the worse situation I think I could have put Emby under. The only bug you had and had since a lot of time even before the freeze, was audio off sync after skipping. Going back once solve the problem every time and I really don't mind doing that!

I'm very happy that we seems to have found a solution to the problem. 

I'll come back here if the problem comes back. 

[Carlo 4330]

Sounds good, thanks for the status update!