LiveTV of some channels does not work

[Christophe5214 3]

Hi Emby Team,

We're a French household living in Germany, with 2 rather recent LG TVs (> 2022) and multiple other devices (Windows PCs, Android phones and tablets). All very much updated to the latest client versions, and the server running the last beta(4.9.0.30).

A few specific French IPTV channels stop working after 2 seconds, but only on the LG TVs ! They all work absolutely fine on all the other devices (ie: Windows and Android)

I will upload the "usual" log files as soon as possible, but wanted to post already in case there is a "known" reason for this issue.

Thanks for the help

[Christophe5214 3]

Here are the log files.

I restarted my emby server, started the TV, loaded the Emby client, started one of the IPTV stream, waited for it to "stop", waited some more, and finally closed the stream, going back to the list of liveTV channels.

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-directstream-f3611056-2729-421d-b01c-224548f635a9_1.txt

[Christophe5214 3]

Additional information: I remember this was working absolutely fine, 1-2 years ago.

[Luke 40065]

Hi, we’ll take a look at it. Thanks.

[Christophe5214 3]

In the meantime, to clarify whether it is a case of streaming geo-blocking, I've tried setting up another emby server on a windows machine (first with beta emby server, then with "normal" emby server), connected via VPN to France: same results. The LG TVs simply can't read the streams for more than 2 seconds.

Would be helpful to have your opinion...

[Neminem 886]

This might be the issue.

2024-09-22 15:00:00.976 Info SessionManager: Playback stopped reported by app Emby for LG 1.0.44 on LG Smart TV (OLED83G48LW.BEUYLJP) playing TF1 (720p) [Geo-blocked]. Stopped at 3152 ms. PlaySessionId: 5113848ecaa0413cbc6d24588fcec5c7

Is the client using a VPN connection to France ?

 

[Christophe5214 3]

nope, the client is not using any VPN connection to France.

Geo-blocking was also my first guess 2 months ago, but again, other devices on the same network, but running Android or Windows (either the theater client, or inside firefox) are working absolutely fine.

Geo blocking was also the reason why I tried today with another newly setup server on a windows PC, which was specifically connected via VPN to France, and it didn't change anything.

The geo-blocking hypothesis does not hold... but what else could it be ??!?!

[Christophe5214 3]

Is there something done differently on the LG TVs that somehow "allows" the geo-blocking (ie: the identification of the country is not possible when the device is Android or Windows, but is possible when the device is a LG TV) !?!?!?

[Christophe5214 3]

Also, forgot to mention it, but I also setup the TVs with "France" as Country. Changed nothing

[Christophe5214 3]

To finally kill the Geo-blocking topic, I setup my router (fritzbox) tonight to route all traffic of the house via VPN to France. My public IP was confirmed as being in France, and yet, still these streams didn't work for more than 2seconds on the LG TVs, although they worked fine (you guessed it) on all other devices.

I'm well aware you have (plenty) other topics to investigate and many other people to support, but please, if you can, have a look at this one. I've got in-laws who can't watch their favorite TV shows when they are visiting

Thanks again

[Christophe5214 3]

Some interesting developments...

So far, I always had Emby configured to use the m3u file where the French TV channels are defined.

Yesterday, I tried "something else"....

I've additionally installed a "M3U Proxy" on my server, configuring it to use the same m3u file as the one Emby was using so far, and then configuring Emby to get the channels / streams from the proxy.

The same TV channels streams that, so far, refused to last more than 2 sec on the LG TVs now work on the TVs with no issue at all.

Additional info:

The results depend on how the proxy buffering mechanism is configured.

If no buffer is configured, the streams don't work at all (ie: not even 2seconds) on the TVs

If the proxy is told to use its own buffers, the streams also don't work at all, the proxy complaining about some stream issue

If, finally, the proxy is told to use FFMpeg (with parameters "-hide_banner -loglevel error -i [URL] -c copy -f mpegts pipe:1"), it all works fine on the TVs.

[Luke 40065]

HI, that's interesting. Thanks for the update.

[Christophe5214 3]

Hi

In case this is helpful, I updated both my TVs with the latest Emby Cient (1.0.45) during the week end and it didn't change anything to the original issue.