Live TV freezing

[henryawagner 1]

Are there settings, adjustments to be made? I'm using a HD Homerun 4 tuner with premium channels. I'm finding that live TV will freeze fairly regularly after 5 -15 minutes. This isn't just the OTA channels but also the premium channels. Thanks for any help. Let me know if I can provide any other information to help troubleshoot the problem.

[Luke 37178]

Hi there, can we look at an example? Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. thanks !

[henryawagner 1]

Hi Luke,

I saved the logs right after the latest freeze. This freeze was for OTA but the same as when it happens on the premium channels. The logs are ZIPed and at https://www.dropbox.com/s/69t2rw9pti5w2z1/embyserver.zip?dl=0. I can't send screen captures because the Emby client is running on my Firestick. Let me know if you need anything else or you want me to try anything. I'll upload logs as the issue shows itself on a premium channel. 

[ebr 14948]

Hi.  It looks like an error is occurring so we are switching to transcoding and your server simply isn't fast enough to keep up when doing that.  What is the server hardware?

[henryawagner 1]

I hadn't checked in years. It's a Pentium. Ack! I have an i7 that up spinning up now. I'm sure that'll be better, lol.

[Luke 37178]

Let us know how you get on. Thanks.

[henryawagner 1]

I loaded up a Dell XPS Studio XPS 435MT. It's an i7 920 @2.67GHz with 3 GBs RAM, 64 bit W7. Nothing else is running on it. I'm still getting intermittent freezes on both the OTA and premium channels of my Silicon Dust tuner. I've kept an eye on the process monitor while playing the live tv on our firestick. I haven't seen any unusually high usage. The memory runs at about 70 - 80 percent. The CPU at about 10 - 20 percent. Should I wait for version 3.6 of Emby? Would I benefit from a memory or SSD upgrade? If so, which would do the most good?

[ebr 14948]

We'd have to see new logs to be able to provide much insight into the new system.

 

Thanks.

[bla8291 1]

I'm currently having this issue now that I've upgraded to 4.0. I found that it was the hardware acceleration causing the issue. I'm using a wimpy GT 710 graphics card, so that may be my problem.

[Luke 37178]

I'm currently having this issue now that I've upgraded to 4.0. I found that it was the hardware acceleration causing the issue. I'm using a wimpy GT 710 graphics card, so that may be my problem.

 

Can you please attach the ffmpeg log?  Thanks.

@@softworkz

[bla8291 1]

Tried on one channel, and I get to about 5 minutes in before it quit. On another channel, I couldn't even get a minute in. Logs are attached.

ffmpeg1.txt

ffmpeg2.txt

server.txt

[softworkz 3341]

What I can see is that playback was regularly stopped and this is not a transcoding issue:

2019-01-16 00:56:26.571 Info HttpServer: HTTP POST http://192.168.1.14:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing/Stopped. UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux aarch64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/70.0.3538.47 Safari/537.36 CrKey/1.36.141427
2019-01-16 00:56:26.573 Info HttpServer: HTTP GET http://192.168.1.14:8096/emby/Users/bbe6e2c5af42404398cd573a6cc48a7d/Items?SortBy=Random&IncludeItemTypes=Movie%2CSeries&ImageTypes=Backdrop&Recursive=true&MaxOfficialRating=PG-13&HasOfficialRating=true&Limit=1. UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux aarch64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/70.0.3538.47 Safari/537.36 CrKey/1.36.141427
2019-01-16 00:56:26.577 Info HttpServer: HTTP Response 200 to 192.168.1.204. Time: 4ms. http://192.168.1.14:8096/emby/Users/bbe6e2c5af42404398cd573a6cc48a7d/Items?SortBy=Random&IncludeItemTypes=Movie%2CSeries&ImageTypes=Backdrop&Recursive=true&MaxOfficialRating=PG-13&HasOfficialRating=true&Limit=1
2019-01-16 00:56:26.605 Info App: ProcessRun 'StreamTranscode 7f45fb': Stopping ffmpeg process with q command for C:\Users\BRANDT\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\transcoding-temp\c0b82faa43f46e14faf92542b6d97d320.ts
2019-01-16 00:56:26.862 Info HttpServer: SocketException: http://127.0.0.1:8096/LiveTv/LiveStreamFiles/7a2bd9af949c46a997f57f5173cc9838/stream.ts
2019-01-16 00:56:26.862 Info HttpServer: HTTP Response 200 to 127.0.0.1. Time: 336328ms. http://127.0.0.1:8096/LiveTv/LiveStreamFiles/7a2bd9af949c46a997f57f5173cc9838/stream.ts
2019-01-16 00:56:27.001 Info App: ProcessRun 'StreamTranscode 7f45fb' Process exited with code 0
2019-01-16 00:56:27.003 Info App: FFMpeg exited with code 0
2019-01-16 00:56:27.007 Info App: Deleting partial stream file(s) C:\Users\BRANDT\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\transcoding-temp\c0b82faa43f46e14faf92542b6d97d32.m3u8
2019-01-16 00:56:27.012 Info SessionManager: Playback stopped reported by app Emby for Chromecast 2.1.0 playing WFOR-TV. Stopped at 292223 ms
2019-01-16 00:56:27.015 Info MediaSourceManager: Live stream native_dcae7ee91da8349d9a3089106668280d_729c1afd6cb30811a9ede2bbe46d4558 consumer count is now 0
2019-01-16 00:56:27.015 Info MediaSourceManager: Closing live stream 06044cf0e6f93cdae5f285c9ecfaaeb4_01413a525b3a9622ce6fdf19f7dde354_native_dcae7ee91da8349d9a3089106668280d_729c1afd6cb30811a9ede2bbe46d4558
2019-01-16 00:56:27.015 Info App: Closing SharedHttpStream
2019-01-16 00:56:27.015 Info MediaSourceManager: Live stream 06044cf0e6f93cdae5f285c9ecfaaeb4_01413a525b3a9622ce6fdf19f7dde354_native_dcae7ee91da8349d9a3089106668280d_729c1afd6cb30811a9ede2bbe46d4558 closed successfully
2019-01-16 00:56:27.015 Info HttpServer: HTTP Response 204 to 192.168.1.204. Time: 444ms. http://192.168.1.14:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing/Stopped
2019-01-16 00:56:27.017 Info App: SharedHttpStream is done streaming.
2019-01-16 00:56:27.018 Info App: Deleting temp files C:\Users\BRANDT\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\transcoding-temp\7a2bd9af949c46a997f57f5173cc9838.ts

[bla8291 1]

Every thread that comes up describing this same issue gets the same response by the developers. Nothing wrong with that, since that must be what the logs show. But I wouldn't be here if I had just stopped it normally. Has anyone ever tried to reproduce the issue? It only happens on Chromecast. In my case, one of two scenarios happen:

 

1. With hardware acceleration ON, I can play a channel for 8 seconds-5 minutes before the image goes black. The media controls show up on the TV screen as if I paused the feed, and it shows as paused on my phone. Pressing pause/play has no effect. The server dashboard still shows the channel as playing, but the progress time is either stopped, or incremements a little and returns to where the image stopped (0:08, 0:09, 0:10, 0:11, 0:08). I have no choice but to hit stop in order to restart the playback, which is probably what you're seeing in the logs. But I don't see this happening when I play a channel in a web browser, on my phone, or on my SHIELD (but if I cast to the SHIELD, I have the same issue).

 

2. With hardware acceleration OFF, I can play a channel indefinitely. However, that changes if I pause a channel. I don't know if the duration of the pause matters, but there have been several occasions where I pause the channel for a minute or 2, resume playback, and after about 5 minutes, the image goes black like in scenario 1.

Edited January 16, 2019 by bla8291

[bla8291 1]

Some additional info:

 

- If I change the audio language after the image freezes and goes black, the audio starts playing, but still no video.

 

- I changed the Chromecast streaming quality from Auto to 4 Mbps, and it played correctly without stopping. I'll have to play with this setting to see what's the max it can support.

 

- With the setting at 4 Mbps, I had to pause the video to take a phone call, and when I was done, I resumed playback, and the image went black after about 30 seconds.

[softworkz 3341]

Every thread that comes up describing this same issue gets the same response by the developers. Nothing wrong with that, since that must be what the logs show. But I wouldn't be here if I had just stopped it normally. Has anyone ever tried to reproduce the issue? It only happens on Chromecast. In my case, one of two scenarios happen:

 

We do not want to talk the problem away. It's just that we're multiple developers each having its specific areas of expertise. My reply above was primarily meant to inform the others that it's not a core transcoding issue.

[bla8291 1]

Ok I understand. I agree that it isn't a core transcoding issue, but there must be something about hardware acceleration that the Chromecast doesn't like. On software transcoding, I don't have to worry about this problem unless I pause the video, and don't have to adjust the streaming quality. But with hardware acceleration, I cannot exceed the 10 Mbps setting if I want to avoid playback issues, or just not use the Chromecast at all, which is not ideal. I don't know how much more feedback I can give since the logs are useless.

[softworkz 3341]

It might be related to the encoding profile and level that we're setting (high, 4.1), this is actually not correct for the output bitrate that we're producing. 

We've had a number of similar reports and we're already working on it.

 

But I'm still wondering where the stop command is coming from as it's not a crash or protocol error or something...

[bla8291 1]

Good to hear. The stop from the logs is actually me giving up on the stream, but why the image itself stops is unknown. It might be something specific to Chromecast.

[Carlo 4330]

Got a quick question.  Is this one of the V1/V2 Chromecasts? (bullet/thumb drive style)

Is it warm/hot to the touch?

If so it's probably the Chromecast starting to fail.  They start every so slowly doing weird things like pausing, blanking out the screen, etc.

 

Do you have another Chromecast to test with?

[bla8291 1]

It's a Chromecast Ultra. I also have an Nvidia Shield which can be used as a Chromecast. To rule out anything specific to the Ultra, I tried with the Shield, but got the same results.

[Carlo 4330]

It's obviously not a device problem then.

[Luke 37178]

And you say it's fine with hardware transcoding disabled?

[bla8291 1]

Correct.

[Luke 37178]

Ok, we'll see what @@softworkz thinks. Thanks.

[tayhutch 0]

So you guys ever figure this out or nah? Have Emby server installed on a PC (i7, 16GB DDR4, GTX 1070) and the app on my Samsung 4k TV but Live TV freezes constantly on both of them. Doesn't happen with any other IPTV app I use nor TiviMate from my Firestick so it's def something with Emby. 

After viewing this thread and others, really seems to be no point in giving my logs. Everyone else that did got an "investigation" (aka run around) that never lead to anything so not going to waste my time. Just wanted everyone aware that Live TV via m3u links still doesn't work on Emby but hopefully it will in the future. Hopefully Plex will introduce the feature again who knows.