getting "m3u simultaneous stream limit has been reached"?

[EmYaj 20]

I have two TV Tuner sources that are both identical.  They both have 1 connection and they are both from the same providers but are two separate accounts which gives me a total of 2 maximum connections.

I have 1 guide source.  "Enable for all tuner devices" is enabled on the guide.

Emby does not seem to be utilizing the second TV Source when the first one is in use.  When 1 stream is being played, when a second stream is started I get the "m3u simultaneous stream limit has been reached" error. 

How can I set up Emby to use both TV Sources?

Some examples of the error can be found in the log at 2024-05-23 14:59

embyserver(20).txt

Edited May 23, 2024 by EmYaj

[Luke 38811]

Hi, you should be seeing two of each channel right?

[EmYaj 20]

11 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, you should be seeing two of each channel right?

No I'm not. I was wondering about that actually.  It was something I thought to look at right away when I added the second TV source because I wasn't sure how Emby would handle two sources but when I saw that it was still the same channel list without duplicates I just assumed that Emby was going to handle load-balancing the two TV sources somehow.   In an ideal world Emby would automatically attempt pulling a stream from the second source if the first one produced an error.

Based on your question I'm guessing that's not actually how it works...   so what might cause me to not have double channels if that is what is expected?

Edited May 23, 2024 by EmYaj

[EmYaj 20]

On 5/23/2024 at 2:21 PM, Luke said:

Hi, you should be seeing two of each channel right?

Any chance you guys have had a chance to look at this?   I havent been able to figure out how to get two tv sources working

[EmYaj 20]

@LukeForgive me as I'm still pretty new to Emby and not too sure how the support typically works on here.  Just want to make sure this has not been forgotten or missed - Is there anything else I can provide to help with troubleshooting this issue?  I've been trying to figure it out with various configurations but always run in to the same issue - Emby only seems to use one TV Tuner source

Edited May 30, 2024 by EmYaj

[Luke 38811]

Hi, this is something we are working on improving. Thanks for reporting.

[EmYaj 20]

Great, Thanks for the update Luke

[EmYaj 20]

On 6/1/2024 at 11:40 PM, Luke said:

Hi, this is something we are working on improving. Thanks for reporting.

@Lukeis there a particular plugin I can watch the revision history updates in the catalog for to see this fix come through at some point?  Would I see this particular issue mentioned as being fixed or will it most likely just be a generic note for the update?  It's a bit of a pain to test so it'd just be nice to know in advance before I keep messing with it.

[Luke 38811]

Plugin update infos are already available in the catalog just fyi.

[EmYaj 20]

5 hours ago, Luke said:

Plugin update infos are already available in the catalog just fyi.

Which plugin handles the issue discussed above?  (Using the next tuner source if max streams are hit on first source). 

[Luke 38811]

That is the core server.

[scourgebg 2]

Hi all,

I have similar issue and workaround for me was to add the sources one by one. When adding the first source I set custom tags on every single channel (in Server - Live TV - Channels), then i add the second source and Emby place channels from the second source below channels from the first source. Then I set some tags for the second source channels.

This way I point through "Parental control" (Server - Users) channels from 1 source to 1 user. It is not the ideal situation but I mention it as a workaround ...

Best regards

[Luke 38811]

OK thanks for the info. Yes more control over this is planned for future updates. Thanks.

[EmYaj 20]

looking forward to it. i ended up setting up a second emby server container so i could use the second livetv source lol

[scourgebg 2]

Yeah that is a workaround  

For me, the better way would be as I said in the previous post to use "parental control" and point m3u to user ... It is working flawlessly in my situation for some time.
Anyway we all looking forward for future updates on this :-).

Best regards

[EmYaj 20]

On 7/2/2024 at 3:40 AM, scourgebg said:

Yeah that is a workaround  

For me, the better way would be as I said in the previous post to use "parental control" and point m3u to user ... It is working flawlessly in my situation for some time.
Anyway we all looking forward for future updates on this :-).

Best regards

If I had fewer than 4000 channels this would be a more viable option   Your workaround is very clever.  thankfully the way emby's premier licenses work I was able to use the same one for both servers so it's not too bad really - also really looking forward to better failover handling !

Edited July 3, 2024 by EmYaj

[EmYaj 20]

1 minute ago, zaHrecsohbiw said:

I have the same problem. I have two Live TV sources, and each source has a different connection limit (2, and 3). However, at any point that I try to exceed 2 active connections, regardless of what source is in use, I get this error. 

Unfortunately no fix within Emby for this yet but if you read through the thread there are two different band-aid workaround solutions you can use in the mean time until the Emby devs have time to get us a fix.

Edited July 4, 2024 by EmYaj

[EmYaj 20]

Any chance this item from the changelog on 4.9.0.30 is related to the issue in this thread?

"M3U Live TV regression fix"

[Luke 38811]

Hi, not yet. This is on our to do list. Thanks.

[EmYaj 20]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Hi, not yet. This is on our to do list. Thanks.

Thanks Luke, all good I just don't want to miss it when it does get implemented

[Carlo 4478]

@EmYajcheck this out and see if it helps you.

We have pushed out a change to M3U functionality that can be very helpful and used by admins in a few different ways.

When setting up or editing an M3U tuner, you will see a new option to use.  "Auto-add tags to channels" shown above.
This will do exactly what it sounds like. Every channel loaded from the M3U source will be tagged with the entry you set in the config.
Each M3U source can have a different tag associated with the channels from that source.

USEFUL USES

Many IPTV providers limit the number of simultaneous streams in their service. If you need additional streams, you could purchase another plan adding a 2nd m3u tuner to your system, you end up with an unmanaged set of channels, having duplicate channel entries of every channel. Not only does it make using LiveTV harder to maneuver with double the data, it looks far less clean and becomes confusing to users.

With the new auto-tagging functionality, you can set a tag like IPTV1 and IPTV2 to each tuner.  Every channel will now be tagged according to what tuner it's associated with. With the help of Emby's Parental Controls you can add a tag assigned to a tuner's channels in parental control in the section that blocks items with these tags.

Setting Up Tags for TV Users

• Split Users: Set up half your TV users with one tag and the other half with another tag. Each group shares one tuner and only sees one set of channels.

• Multiple Subscriptions: Use 3, 4, or more IPTV subscriptions to spread the number of tuners/streams across your users.

Tagging for Different Uses

• Split Subscriptions: Have one IPTV subscription split among your users while keeping a second subscription for your use. This way, you can provide LiveTV and recording abilities to users, while reserving a subscription for your own private use.

• Curate Channels: If your m3u file doesn’t use grouping, move multiple channels at once to category-based m3u files (e.g., sports.m3u, news.m3u, kids.m3u, premium.m3u, network.m3u, local.m3u). Set these up in Emby LiveTV with each file having a tag to match the content.

• Multiple m3u Files: If you have multiple IPTV m3u files from different sources, tagging helps you know what source a channel is from by looking at the channel's tag.

These are just a few of the creative ways this new functionality could be used.

If you don't see the new tag option when adding or editing an M3U tuner, it may not have updated on your system yet. You can manually upgrade this easily by upgrading the M3UTUNER plugin to 1.0.32 or later in the Plugin Catalog.

[Jay1911 7]

36 minutes ago, Carlo said:

@EmYajcheck this out and see if it helps you.

We have pushed out a change to M3U functionality that can be very helpful and used by admins in a few different ways.

When setting up or editing an M3U tuner, you will see a new option to use.  "Auto-add tags to channels" shown above.
This will do exactly what it sounds like. Every channel loaded from the M3U source will be tagged with the entry you set in the config.
Each M3U source can have a different tag associated with the channels from that source.

USEFUL USES

Many IPTV providers limit the number of simultaneous streams in their service. If you need additional streams, you could purchase another plan adding a 2nd m3u tuner to your system, you end up with an unmanaged set of channels, having duplicate channel entries of every channel. Not only does it make using LiveTV harder to maneuver with double the data, it looks far less clean and becomes confusing to users.

With the new auto-tagging functionality, you can set a tag like IPTV1 and IPTV2 to each tuner.  Every channel will now be tagged according to what tuner it's associated with. With the help of Emby's Parental Controls you can add a tag assigned to a tuner's channels in parental control in the section that blocks items with these tags.

Setting Up Tags for TV Users

• Split Users: Set up half your TV users with one tag and the other half with another tag. Each group shares one tuner and only sees one set of channels.

• Multiple Subscriptions: Use 3, 4, or more IPTV subscriptions to spread the number of tuners/streams across your users.

Tagging for Different Uses

• Split Subscriptions: Have one IPTV subscription split among your users while keeping a second subscription for your use. This way, you can provide LiveTV and recording abilities to users, while reserving a subscription for your own private use.

• Curate Channels: If your m3u file doesn’t use grouping, move multiple channels at once to category-based m3u files (e.g., sports.m3u, news.m3u, kids.m3u, premium.m3u, network.m3u, local.m3u). Set these up in Emby LiveTV with each file having a tag to match the content.

• Multiple m3u Files: If you have multiple IPTV m3u files from different sources, tagging helps you know what source a channel is from by looking at the channel's tag.

These are just a few of the creative ways this new functionality could be used.

If you don't see the new tag option when adding or editing an M3U tuner, it may not have updated on your system yet. You can manually upgrade this easily by upgrading the M3UTUNER plugin to 1.0.32 or later in the Plugin Catalog.

Thanks Carlo! I will definitely mess with this to see if i can act as a bandaid to my issue.

Can you confirm if there are still plans in the future to handle the original issue?  To re-iterate, If I have two IPTV subscriptions from the same provider (as in they share the same exact EPG and channel list) with 2 max connections on each Tuner and I have for 10 total Emby users all with access to Live TV.  It would be very very helpful if Emby could "roll over" from one M3U Tuner to the next once the maximum # of connections is reached on the first one.

The concern I have is that even though the tagging method will certainly help, it means I would have to have some knowledge of each individual users TV habits and try to manually "load balance" the users where as if Emby would automatically choose the tuner with available connections the load-balancing would be handled automatically. 

Edited November 21, 2024 by Jay1911

[Carlo 4478]

I could get carried away talking about new features and changes in the new LiveTV.  I'm going to answer by saying we have so many new features and improvements already that it might already feel overwhelming to some people wanting to quickly set up a tuner and feed. It's not hard and quite logical, but with many new options there will be a small learning curve for some people. For others it will be like Christmas morning unwrapping gifts to see what's new and how much more control there is, with little thought given to differences in setup and use. Power users will love it and have little to no issues finding or using new functionality paced in it.  Typical users might find it a bit overwhelming at first glance, which is something we are already concerned about and want to simplify possible using a basic wizard like setup with the ability to turn on/off advanced features. I'm sure configuration and initial use observations will be the main focus at release to get feedback and make improvements based on it.

We probably already pushed the envelope a bit too far, that will require getting used to. Any additional new functionality should probably not go into the first release but allow people to get comfortable with what's already there. Then follow up with releases having additional functionality, so it won't be even more overwhelming at first glance or use.

I will tell you we already anticipated the functionality you wish to have and took this into consideration during the design phase to make it as easy as possible to add in a subsequent release. It already has the functionality to stack channels such as having 4 OTA devices combined as one set of channels using all 4 devices.  We also have the ability to stack channels from the same lineup. If you had a channel with both 1024 and 728 they could be combined and used as fallback if the primary or preceding entry isn't available. This could also be used to stack cable and OTA channels as well, with only one entry appearing on your system. What is not currently supported is stacking multiple subscriptions using different credentials together.  The framework supports this, as well as a large part of the code needed is already present, leaving only a couple things left to implement.

To be honest, I think it might be a good idea to hide a few advanced options during the initial release, so there won't be support requests for a few of the really advanced features. This way support can focus on helping anyone in need of assistance while adjusting to the new system. We could then enable additional advanced features and be able to support this as well without having help requests for advanced features competing with those who need help on the initial setup or configuration.

We just recently had a major release and started a new beta cycle for the next release. Current plans are once this beta becomes the general release the next version will focus on the new LiveTV.  If you have a big interest in this, it would be a good time to join the beta program setting up the beta as a separate instance. You can run multiple instances of Emby from different locations on hard disk using different ports.

Carlo

 

[EmYaj 20]

1 hour ago, Carlo said:

I could get carried away talking about new features and changes in the new LiveTV.  I'm going to answer by saying we have so many new features and improvements already that it might already feel overwhelming to some people wanting to quickly set up a tuner and feed. It's not hard and quite logical, but with many new options there will be a small learning curve for some people. For others it will be like Christmas morning unwrapping gifts to see what's new and how much more control there is, with little thought given to differences in setup and use. Power users will love it and have little to no issues finding or using new functionality paced in it.  Typical users might find it a bit overwhelming at first glance, which is something we are already concerned about and want to simplify possible using a basic wizard like setup with the ability to turn on/off advanced features. I'm sure configuration and initial use observations will be the main focus at release to get feedback and make improvements based on it.

We probably already pushed the envelope a bit too far, that will require getting used to. Any additional new functionality should probably not go into the first release but allow people to get comfortable with what's already there. Then follow up with releases having additional functionality, so it won't be even more overwhelming at first glance or use.

I will tell you we already anticipated the functionality you wish to have and took this into consideration during the design phase to make it as easy as possible to add in a subsequent release. It already has the functionality to stack channels such as having 4 OTA devices combined as one set of channels using all 4 devices.  We also have the ability to stack channels from the same lineup. If you had a channel with both 1024 and 728 they could be combined and used as fallback if the primary or preceding entry isn't available. This could also be used to stack cable and OTA channels as well, with only one entry appearing on your system. What is not currently supported is stacking multiple subscriptions using different credentials together.  The framework supports this, as well as a large part of the code needed is already present, leaving only a couple things left to implement.

To be honest, I think it might be a good idea to hide a few advanced options during the initial release, so there won't be support requests for a few of the really advanced features. This way support can focus on helping anyone in need of assistance while adjusting to the new system. We could then enable additional advanced features and be able to support this as well without having help requests for advanced features competing with those who need help on the initial setup or configuration.

We just recently had a major release and started a new beta cycle for the next release. Current plans are once this beta becomes the general release the next version will focus on the new LiveTV.  If you have a big interest in this, it would be a good time to join the beta program setting up the beta as a separate instance. You can run multiple instances of Emby from different locations on hard disk using different ports.

Carlo

 

Thats all very exciting to hear!  Thank you for the detailed answer.

[Jay1911 7]

On 11/20/2024 at 8:50 PM, Carlo said:

@EmYajcheck this out and see if it helps you.

We have pushed out a change to M3U functionality that can be very helpful and used by admins in a few different ways.

When setting up or editing an M3U tuner, you will see a new option to use.  "Auto-add tags to channels" shown above.
This will do exactly what it sounds like. Every channel loaded from the M3U source will be tagged with the entry you set in the config.
Each M3U source can have a different tag associated with the channels from that source.

USEFUL USES

Many IPTV providers limit the number of simultaneous streams in their service. If you need additional streams, you could purchase another plan adding a 2nd m3u tuner to your system, you end up with an unmanaged set of channels, having duplicate channel entries of every channel. Not only does it make using LiveTV harder to maneuver with double the data, it looks far less clean and becomes confusing to users.

With the new auto-tagging functionality, you can set a tag like IPTV1 and IPTV2 to each tuner.  Every channel will now be tagged according to what tuner it's associated with. With the help of Emby's Parental Controls you can add a tag assigned to a tuner's channels in parental control in the section that blocks items with these tags.

Setting Up Tags for TV Users

• Split Users: Set up half your TV users with one tag and the other half with another tag. Each group shares one tuner and only sees one set of channels.

• Multiple Subscriptions: Use 3, 4, or more IPTV subscriptions to spread the number of tuners/streams across your users.

Tagging for Different Uses

• Split Subscriptions: Have one IPTV subscription split among your users while keeping a second subscription for your use. This way, you can provide LiveTV and recording abilities to users, while reserving a subscription for your own private use.

• Curate Channels: If your m3u file doesn’t use grouping, move multiple channels at once to category-based m3u files (e.g., sports.m3u, news.m3u, kids.m3u, premium.m3u, network.m3u, local.m3u). Set these up in Emby LiveTV with each file having a tag to match the content.

• Multiple m3u Files: If you have multiple IPTV m3u files from different sources, tagging helps you know what source a channel is from by looking at the channel's tag.

These are just a few of the creative ways this new functionality could be used.

If you don't see the new tag option when adding or editing an M3U tuner, it may not have updated on your system yet. You can manually upgrade this easily by upgrading the M3UTUNER plugin to 1.0.32 or later in the Plugin Catalog.

Question about this, I set a channel tag on my m3u tv tuner and did a channel refresh but the channels still do not have the new tag on them.  Is there something else I need to do?