DVR Recordings Truncated

[KenFlix21 0]

Hi, I'm new to Emby and recently purchased a lifetime Emby Premiere subscription. I could use some help with a DVR problem I'm experiencing.

Emby DVR recordings of 60 minute programs are being stopped/terminated/interrupted after about one minute of recording. 

The recorded files are viewable with no problem. This is happening with all recordings on any channel, whether recordings are scheduled or started mid-program. 

I'm using an HD Home Run Extend as the source tuner and Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 for the server.

Default recording path is on an external 14TB drive attached directly to the shield. I do have other Tv Show libraries on that drive that Emby accesses without a problem.

I also have a different media server on my mac that records fine to a drive attached to that mac using the same two channel tuner. I thought maybe both servers were trying to access the tuner at the same time but that isn't happening.  

Thoughts?

Thank you in advance, for any aid is appreciated.

[Luke 37051]

Hi there, can you please go over an example?

Thanks.

[KenFlix21 0]

Thanks for the reply. It helps to know someone is listening. I will document as required and get back to the thread. 

[Luke 37051]

12 minutes ago, KenFlix21 said:

Thanks for the reply. It helps to know someone is listening. I will document as required and get back to the thread. 

That would be great, thanks.

[KenFlix21 0]

I've got 12 screenshots uploaded showing the procedure I took to record an OTA Show. I chose a daytime soap from CBS (Young & Restless), one of the strongest reception signals in my area. It was set to air at 11 am local time and end at 12 Pm local time. Recording is pretty straight forward and started on schedule. I checked the recording after it was supposed to end and found only 3 minutes had recorded. I've tried this about half a dozen times with similar results. I uploaded the log from 12:01 pm. I'm not sure how to read it but maybe it says there's a transcoding problem?

13_ffmpeg-transcode-1c3bc410-4fbb-48a1-8385-63716b805659_1-12-01_pm_12-1-21.pdf

[KenFlix21 0]

Any suggestions?

[rbjtech 4254]

As a test, if you set the recording location to internal - or maybe a USB drive (as opposed to HDD) - does the problem persist ?

I'm thinking that the external drive is possibly powering down or going into some sort of power save mode, thus interrupting the recording.

Also, where is your transcoding temp directory set - is this the local (internal) memory ?

Lastly - again, just to test, turn on/off any hardware assisted acceleration on the HD HomeRun.  the ffmpeg is transcoding MPEG2 > h264 - but I thought that's what the Extend is supposed to do internally - ie you should receive h264, you should not have to convert it using software.

Do all the above one at a time to see if it has made any difference - if no difference, then put it back as it was before moving onto the next item..

 

[KenFlix21 0]

5 hours ago, rbjtech said:

As a test, if you set the recording location to internal - or maybe a USB drive (as opposed to HDD) - does the problem persist ?

Yes, tried that with no change but will attempt again.

I'm thinking that the external drive is possibly powering down or going into some sort of power save mode, thus interrupting the recording.

Considered that, though I had a different brand server running on that device previous and it recorded to that drive without issue.

Also, where is your transcoding temp directory set - is this the local (internal) memory ?

It was blank (set as default internal user added usb stick recommended by Nvidia). I changed it to the attached HDD to see if that has an affect. 

Lastly - again, just to test, turn on/off any hardware assisted acceleration on the HD HomeRun.  the ffmpeg is transcoding MPEG2 > h264 - but I thought that's what the Extend is supposed to do internally - ie you should receive h264, you should not have to convert it using software.

Tried that a couple of times.

Do all the above one at a time to see if it has made any difference - if no difference, then put it back as it was before moving onto the next item..

I appreciate the input. I'm a decent troubleshooter but no luck yet.

 

In my scheduled recordings screenshot it indicates the dvr was set to record football on Thursday night. What I wound up with was two separate recordings. The first is a one minute recording of the start of the game. The second was a random 40 second recording of the game with 9 minutes left in the 4th quarter. First time it has done that.

[rbjtech 4254]

Did you try any of the other suggestions ?

The key one is using the capabilities of the HDHR Extend to convert the MPEG2 to h264 as that will (I hope) stop the ffmpeg errors from happening which may be the issue here.

[KenFlix21 0]

7 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

Did you try any of the other suggestions ?

The key one is using the capabilities of the HDHR Extend to convert the MPEG2 to h264 as that will (I hope) stop the ffmpeg errors from happening which may be the issue here.

Yes, I tried all of your suggestions. If you expand the quote my replies will be in bold. I have since deleted the home run and re-added it. I’ve also restarted the server and changed the path for transcoding. No improvement. 

[rbjtech 4254]

9 hours ago, KenFlix21 said:

Yes, I tried all of your suggestions. If you expand the quote my replies will be in bold. I have since deleted the home run and re-added it. I’ve also restarted the server and changed the path for transcoding. No improvement. 

lol sorry, I didn't expand the text 

Can you watch (live) a programme for more than a few minutes ?

The reason I ask is there does appear to be the dreaded 'PES mismatch' in the FFMPEG log - suggesting the stream and/or ffmpeg has issues, but if you can watch it ok, you should be able to record it ok.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54700786/how-do-i-fix-the-pes-packet-size-mismatch-error-in-ffmpeg

This might be one for the Dev's to look at I'm afraid - as you have tried all the obvious things.  Sorry I couldn't help.

@Luke @ebr @cayars

[ebr 14910]

11 hours ago, KenFlix21 said:

If you expand the quote my replies will be in bold

Just FYI - select a piece of text in a post and a little option to quote that text in your reply will pop up.  Its a nifty feature of the forum.

[KenFlix21 0]

4 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Can you watch (live) a programme for more than a few minutes ?

Thank you, I do appreciate your input, that's what makes these support forums work. As for the stack overflow, that's above my pay grade. My expertise pretty much ends on or about uninstall/reinstall/reboot. 

I hadn't given Live TV a real test as I have no reason to stream live tv when I could watch it direct OTA. But you were correct, Live TV cuts out and crashes at about 3-4 minutes in. Dashboard shows a direct play error.  I figured there must be a setting somewhere that I can toggle to allow direct play. I found that setting in the Emby shield app, live TV settings. It was off so I checked it ON and tested again. Problem persisted, program cut off after about a minute and froze. This error then came up on screen: Too many errors giving up. 

[KenFlix21 0]

I looked at the Homerun log for today (12-4-21) and this is what I got; (remote closed)

20211204-00:59:59 Tuner: tuner0 tuning 8.1 AZ PBS (8vsb:183MHz-3)
20211204-01:00:00 Tuner: tuner0 streaming http to 192.168.1.6:62686
20211204-01:00:57 Tuner: tuner1 tuning 8.1 AZ PBS (8vsb:183MHz-3)
20211204-01:00:57 Tuner: tuner1 streaming http to 192.168.1.14:58352
20211204-01:02:38 Tuner: tuner1 http stream ended (remote closed)
20211204-02:00:00 Tuner: tuner0 http stream ended (remote closed)
20211204-15:28:37 Tuner: tuner0 tuning 15.1 ABC15 (8vsb:479MHz-1)
20211204-15:28:38 Tuner: tuner0 streaming http to 192.168.1.14:36438
20211204-15:33:05 Tuner: tuner0 http stream ended (remote closed)
20211204-15:36:20 Tuner: tuner0 tuning 15.1 ABC15 (8vsb:479MHz-1)
20211204-15:36:21 Tuner: tuner0 streaming http to 192.168.1.14:36574
20211204-15:38:05 Tuner: tuner0 http stream ended (remote closed)
20211204-15:39:06 Tuner: tuner0 tuning 15.1 ABC15 (8vsb:479MHz-1)
20211204-15:39:06 Tuner: tuner0 streaming http to 192.168.1.14:36590
20211204-15:39:12 Tuner: tuner0 http stream ended (remote closed)
20211204-15:39:23 Tuner: tuner0 tuning 15.2 ANTENNA (8vsb:479MHz-2)
20211204-15:39:24 Tuner: tuner0 streaming http to 192.168.1.14:36610
20211204-15:43:05 Tuner: tuner0 http stream ended (remote closed)
20211204-15:52:17 Tuner: tuner0 tuning 61.1 CW61AZ (8vsb:479MHz-4)
20211204-15:52:17 Tuner: tuner0 streaming http to 192.168.1.14:36776
20211204-15:53:05 Tuner: tuner0 http stream ended (remote closed)
20211204-16:11:48 Tuner: tuner0 tuning 7.2 MeTV (8vsb:605MHz-4)
20211204-16:11:48 Tuner: tuner0 streaming http to 192.168.1.14:36980
20211204-16:13:05 Tuner: tuner0 http stream ended (remote closed)

[rbjtech 4254]

ok - I think it's the stream which is causing ffmpeg to drop the conversation - from a quick scan of stack overflow, it appears ffmpeg has ongoing bugs that cannot handle these PES errors.

Have you used the HD-Homerun app to stream ?  How does that behave ?

You can also use VLC to stream directly (use Media>Open Network Stream) - in this example below, this is channel 104 - replace hdhr.rbjtech.lan with your HDHR IP obviously  

http://hdhr.rbjtech.lan:5004/auto/v104

if all the above stream methods work - then I'm out of ideas and need the Emby Dev's to contribute but you may need to wait until ffmpeg fix the issues ..

ps - the above hdhr log looks pretty normal - there are no errors.

Edited December 4, 2021 by rbjtech

[KenFlix21 0]

I’ve haven’t used the home run app in a long time. Though I have used VLC more recently and currently the K-app streams great, very stable. The P-server app also streams well and records with commercial delete like a champ on the same homerun. 

Edited December 5, 2021 by KenFlix21

[Luke 37051]

@KenFlix21 are you still running into this? If so, can you please attach the emby server log from the time of the recording? Thanks.

[KenFlix21 0]

I scheduled a recording for 6-7 am this morning to check. The issue persists, as only 2.5 minutes recorded. There were six transcoding log files created at 7:40 am. This is the time I checked on the recording from my iphone. There's a transcoding log file created when I checked from my desktop at 8:13 am. And an embyserver.txt file created at 8:17 am. Oddly, there was a transcoding temp file created in the recordings section, not something I've seen before. I've attached the eight logs. I appreciate the inquiry.

. EDIT: Spelling

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-23fd310f-547b-4739-9238-95f725b6df30_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-3f6b5fd2-92bf-42ea-9c23-dabbb1223889_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-0975ee7c-9eea-4436-b549-53dc8dd4f28b_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-2393d417-d687-4e2b-9849-880da3aa459a_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-60600b4f-9c4a-4df3-ada5-ad879bee3cba_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-560458a0-afe6-4361-96ef-cdec74d704fd_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-a326c261-6b62-4734-bfdc-03ab1be7eba6_1.txt

Edited December 16, 2021 by KenFlix21
Spelling

[Luke 37051]

3 hours ago, KenFlix21 said:

I scheduled a recording for 6-7 am this morning to check. The issue persists, as only 2.5 minutes recorded. There were six transcoding log files created at 7:40 am. This is the time I checked on the recording from my iphone. There's a transcoding log file created when I checked from my desktop at 8:13 am. And an embyserver.txt file created at 8:17 am. Oddly, there was a transcoding temp file created in the recordings section, not something I've seen before. I've attached the eight logs. I appreciate the inquiry.

. EDIT: Spelling

embyserver.txt 763.46 kB · 0 downloads ffmpeg-transcode-23fd310f-547b-4739-9238-95f725b6df30_1.txt 44.07 kB · 0 downloads ffmpeg-transcode-3f6b5fd2-92bf-42ea-9c23-dabbb1223889_1.txt 4.03 kB · 0 downloads ffmpeg-transcode-0975ee7c-9eea-4436-b549-53dc8dd4f28b_1.txt 4.03 kB · 0 downloads ffmpeg-transcode-2393d417-d687-4e2b-9849-880da3aa459a_1.txt 4.01 kB · 0 downloads ffmpeg-transcode-60600b4f-9c4a-4df3-ada5-ad879bee3cba_1.txt 4.01 kB · 0 downloads ffmpeg-transcode-560458a0-afe6-4361-96ef-cdec74d704fd_1.txt 3.98 kB · 0 downloads ffmpeg-transcode-a326c261-6b62-4734-bfdc-03ab1be7eba6_1.txt 3.98 kB · 0 downloads

Just for testing purposes, if update the tuner settings in Emby Server to not use HDHR transcoding, how does that compare?

[KenFlix21 0]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Just for testing purposes, if update the tuner settings in Emby Server to not use HDHR transcoding, how does that compare?

I've tried that before but tried it again...same issue (about 2.5 minutes recorded). Is the dashboard supposed to show or monitor recording activity? Because it does not. I monitored the recording through the recording section and watched as the red line advanced all the way through. I played the file about 40 minutes after it was supposed to have finished but again, the file is only a couple/three minutes in length.