LiveTV playback problem with Firefox

[fc7 123]

I'm running Emby 3.2.7 and I'm not able to playback Live TV using Firefox as a client.

In the server logs I see that transcoding start correctly but the browser will only display a black screen with no playback controls at all (just a scroll bar on the right that you can use to scroll only to see the same black screen all along).

 

I have a HDHR and a TVH server. In Emby I configured both sources, the HDHR directly and also TVH, for testing.

Playback of TV channels using TVH or HDHR will never work but I discovered that playback of radio channels using HDHR directly as the source will work, while using TVH will not. I think everything was working fine with 3.2.4 but I cannot confirm that 100%.

 

I tried Firefox from both, Linux and Windows with the same results.

 

Live TV playback using the iOS app works flawlessly for both sources (TVH and HDHR) so this seems to be a Firefox specific issue.

 

Any ideas?

 

System details:

 

Emby: 3.2.7

Mono: 4.6.2.7

OS: CentOS 7.3

 

Client details:

 

Firefox 51 and 52 on Linux and Windows.

[fc7 123]

PS: playback of other content (music, shows, movies) works fine. Is just Live TV playback that fails with Firefox.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Luke 39638]

I've tested and it seems to be fine here. Since you have an HDHR I would strongly recommend using the built-in support as I am not personally testing TV Head End. That doesn't mean that any area in particular is at fault, it just means another variable is being added to the mix that will make the whole process more challenging.

[fc7 123]

Thanks for checking Luke. I'm using TVH because it supports OTA EPG. There are no good XMLTV sources/providers for Spain.

 

On the other hand as I mentioned the built-in support using the HDHR directly also fail for playback of tv channels in Firefox. I will further investigate on my side and report back any findings.

 

 

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[fc7 123]

Ok. Got news.

I restarted Emby because of a different reason, a library scan that got stuck (never happened before) while everything else except the Live TV playback from Firefox was working.

After restarting Emby, now the library scan ended up fine in a couple of minutes (as usual) and suddenly, TV channel playback is working again from TVH and directly from HDHR. I don't have an explanation.....

 

On the other hand playback of radio channels still fails from TVH but as before it works directly from the HDHR.

Getting a trace from Firefox I found that the URL called when playing from TVH is like this one:

 

https://emby01:8920/audio/b40015cdfdd64a4f915c0cec95e20c4e/stream.aac?DeviceId=f40f42d042bf90d631f01205e8690118&MediaSourceId=6&AudioCodec=aac&AudioBitrate=192000&PlaySessionId=a34cabc22bca449eaa48f944c4d8c171&api_key=c97a2bcd265f4ad29d102eaf79b14585&LiveStreamId=a17c75760a04e99b68cf766e11316e1c_41c95b6de5174f82acbc56fe82d0a2f8_6&CopyTimestamps=false&EnableSubtitlesInManifest=false&RequireAvc=false

 

Note the "audio" and "stream.acc" part.

While playing using the built-in support the url is different:

 

https://emby01:8920/videos/36222f325f9ac3878dd78ee7f9e77fb3/master.m3u8?DeviceId=f40f42d042bf90d631f01205e8690118&MediaSourceId=c95d37304b7c4ec1b6af6edf1b392890_native_74982b2500d4196938088e812da57584&VideoCodec=h264&AudioCodec=aac&AudioStreamIndex=0&VideoBitrate=3744001&AudioBitrate=256000&Level=51&Profile=high&PlaySessionId=b1782e0a88524f1f916e9063c740075c&api_key=c97a2bcd265f4ad29d102eaf79b14585&LiveStreamId=a17c75760a04e99b68cf766e11316e1c_09efa0d56b934a82adec00a87b837fb0_c95d37304b7c4ec1b6af6edf1b392890_native_74982b2500d4196938088e812da57584&CopyTimestamps=false&TranscodingMaxAudioChannels=6&EnableSubtitlesInManifest=false&RequireAvc=true

 

https://emby01:8920/videos/36222f325f9ac3878dd78ee7f9e77fb3/live.m3u8?DeviceId=f40f42d042bf90d631f01205e8690118&MediaSourceId=c95d37304b7c4ec1b6af6edf1b392890_native_74982b2500d4196938088e812da57584&VideoCodec=h264&AudioCodec=aac&AudioStreamIndex=0&VideoBitrate=3744001&AudioBitrate=256000&Level=51&Profile=high&PlaySessionId=b1782e0a88524f1f916e9063c740075c&api_key=c97a2bcd265f4ad29d102eaf79b14585&LiveStreamId=a17c75760a04e99b68cf766e11316e1c_09efa0d56b934a82adec00a87b837fb0_c95d37304b7c4ec1b6af6edf1b392890_native_74982b2500d4196938088e812da57584&CopyTimestamps=false&TranscodingMaxAudioChannels=6&EnableSubtitlesInManifest=false&RequireAvc=true

 

Another difference is that while playing from TVH the stream seems to be detected as audio only and I get the bottom playback bar as when playing music, while playing from HDHR I get the full video player.

 

I suspect that the root cause of the problem may be related to the stream probing detecting different things from TVH or HDHR. I'm sure that the source stream is not AAC, but mpeg.

 

I will further check on this later and reply back.

[pünktchen 1345]

I also see only a black screen for live tv playback with MediaPortal in Firefox, while it's working in Chrome. With Firefox i get a remux log??? while with Chrome i get a transcoding log for the same program and channel.

 

[Luke 39638]

It's stream copying the video. you could try dropping the in-app bitrate to force a full transcode and see if that gets a better result.

[pünktchen 1345]

It's stream copying the video. you could try dropping the in-app bitrate to force a full transcode and see if that gets a better result.

 

You are right! It was set to auto in Firefox (i've always thought this is a user profile setting that is applied to all browsers )

Lowering the bitrate forces tronscoding. Problem solved

[fc7 123]

So in my case is always transcoding.

 

I'm attaching ffmpeg logs for exactly the same service (audio channel). One played from TVH the other directly from HDHR.

I do see some differences in the logs but not sure if it's relevant or not.

 

ffmpeg-transcode-ea2f58ef-1dc3-4349-aa6f-53242b7e609d.txt: TVH source

ffmpeg-transcode-88f5e7b2-2ecf-43a7-9a34-a65fb2554e81.txt: HDHR source

 

Maybe there is something that needs to be fixed in the TVH plugin?

I would appreciate any leads.

ffmpeg-transcode-88f5e7b2-2ecf-43a7-9a34-a65fb2554e81.txt

ffmpeg-transcode-ea2f58ef-1dc3-4349-aa6f-53242b7e609d.txt

Edited March 14, 2017 by fc7

[fc7 123]

*bump* Any ideas from the transcoding logs?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Luke 39638]

I would suggest using the native Emby support. I'm sure something in the TVH plugin needs to be changed but I do not have a TVH test setup to determine what that is.

 

Or use Chrome.

[fc7 123]

Thanks Luke.

Will check in the TVH plugin thread. Maybe @@Tolotos can come up with something if a change in the plugin is needed.

 

As I said before I need TVH to get OTA EPG data that is not currently supported by Emby native live tv.

 

 

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Edited March 21, 2017 by fc7

[Tolotos 61]

@@fc7 do you use without stream probing function?

In this case the URL from TVH-server is passed directly to emby without any parameters.

@@Luke is it possible the "default" behavior for Live-TV was changed? Maybe it works in the past but now we must set some additional parameters? 

[fc7 123]

@@Tolotos thanks for checkin in man. Indeed I disabled stream probing a few releases ago since Emby is doing it on its own. Yet I re-enable it in the plugin during testing this issue and the result is the same.

 

PS: playback was working fine until one or two Emby releases ago. I was using it daily to listen to radio channels for several hours.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited March 21, 2017 by fc7

[Luke 39638]

Well if you look at the media source from the top of the transcode logs, it has the list of MediaStreams, but the list only has one audio stream and no video streams:

{"Protocol":"Http","Id":"0","Path":"http://localhost:9981/stream/channelid/1861883389?ticket=A3222AEA857FBB08ED8F33EBAF67B7198EC180AA","Type":"Default","Container":"mpegts","IsRemote":false,"ReadAtNativeFramerate":false,"SupportsTranscoding":true,"SupportsDirectStream":false,"SupportsDirectPlay":true,"IsInfiniteStream":false,"RequiresOpening":false,"RequiresClosing":true,"SupportsProbing":true,"LiveStreamId":"a17c75760a04e99b68cf766e11316e1c_41c95b6de5174f82acbc56fe82d0a2f8_0","MediaStreams":[{"Codec":"mp2","Language":"spa","TimeBase":"1/90000","CodecTimeBase":"1/48000","DisplayTitle":"Spa MP2 stereo","IsInterlaced":false,"ChannelLayout":"stereo","BitRate":128000,"Channels":2,"SampleRate":48000,"IsDefault":false,"IsForced":false,"Type":"Audio","Index":0,"IsExternal":false,"IsTextSubtitleStream":false,"SupportsExternalStream":false,"Level":0}],"PlayableStreamFileNames":[],"Formats":[],"Bitrate":128000,"RequiredHttpHeaders":{},"AnalyzeDurationMs":2000,"DefaultAudioStreamIndex":0}

So that would appear to be the root problem.

[Tolotos 61]

Hmm fc7 wants to listen to Radio channels - they doesn't have any video stream as far as I know. 

[fc7 123]

Indeed. And when it was working I wasn't getting the full video player but just the bottom playback bar as when playing any other audio (ie: mp3).

 

Also as I mentioned before if I use the native live tv support I get the full video player which at least for me it's kind of unexpected since I'm only playing radio (audio) channels.

 

If there is any test or log that I can provide to help just let me know.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[fc7 123]

Well if you look at the media source from the top of the transcode logs, it has the list of MediaStreams, but the list only has one audio stream and no video streams:

{"Protocol":"Http","Id":"0","Path":"http://localhost:9981/stream/channelid/1861883389?ticket=A3222AEA857FBB08ED8F33EBAF67B7198EC180AA","Type":"Default","Container":"mpegts","IsRemote":false,"ReadAtNativeFramerate":false,"SupportsTranscoding":true,"SupportsDirectStream":false,"SupportsDirectPlay":true,"IsInfiniteStream":false,"RequiresOpening":false,"RequiresClosing":true,"SupportsProbing":true,"LiveStreamId":"a17c75760a04e99b68cf766e11316e1c_41c95b6de5174f82acbc56fe82d0a2f8_0","MediaStreams":[{"Codec":"mp2","Language":"spa","TimeBase":"1/90000","CodecTimeBase":"1/48000","DisplayTitle":"Spa MP2 stereo","IsInterlaced":false,"ChannelLayout":"stereo","BitRate":128000,"Channels":2,"SampleRate":48000,"IsDefault":false,"IsForced":false,"Type":"Audio","Index":0,"IsExternal":false,"IsTextSubtitleStream":false,"SupportsExternalStream":false,"Level":0}],"PlayableStreamFileNames":[],"Formats":[],"Bitrate":128000,"RequiredHttpHeaders":{},"AnalyzeDurationMs":2000,"DefaultAudioStreamIndex":0}

 

So that would appear to be the root problem.

@Luke: what do you mean? Checked both logs and in both cases there is only one Mediastream detected which is audio only. Yet Emby if streaming from HDHR will "treat it" as video while if streaming from TVH it will correctly (??) "treat it" as audio but doesn't work. It doesn't make sense to me.

 

 

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[fc7 123]

I took the time to try every single version back to 3.2.4.

Emby 3.2.4 is working fine in the exact same scenario.

 

I can now confirm 100% for sure that the problem started with 3.2.5.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but there are only two commits between versions (https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby/compare/3.2.4...3.2.5).

@Luke: would you mind checking if the modifications done on two files (EncodedRecorder.cs, EncodingHelper.cs) could caused the current issue?

Edited March 23, 2017 by fc7

[fc7 123]

*bump* Any thoughts?

 

 

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[fc7 123]

Any chance this was reviewed? I point it out in my post above that I think is related to this problem. Was I correct? Should I look anywhere else?

 

@Tolotos: are you able to reproduce this problem?

 

 

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[fc7 123]

I updated Emby to 3.2.13 and the issue remains the same.

I found another user post that describes the same behavior "i get now sound and the playback time never leaves 0:00" but for all music/audio content it seems:

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/47008-no-music-play-back-webui/?view=getnewpost

 

In my case it's only happening while trying to play an audio-only channel from TVH. All other audio content like mp3 is playing just fine.

 

Do you think there may be a connection between both issues?

As mentioned before the problem started with 3.2.5 and it was working just fine until 3.2.4.