ServerWMC issues

[Deihmos 147]

fraenhawk, on 10 Jul 2014 - 08:44 AM, said:fraenhawk, on 10 Jul 2014 - 08:44 AM, said:

I'm just trying to see if I understand this because I've been contemplating ServerWMC.

 

The issue is that rather than use the LiveTV options in MBC to watch Live TV through ServerWMC, he's using the local WMCs to talk directly to the tuners. ServerWMC isn't polling the status of the tuners from the HDHR, instead just tracking what it knows it's doing with the tuners. If you're running ServerWMC is it recommended you only work through it and turn off all other access to the tuner? I know for people with tuners physically in the server it's a no brainer, but the HDHR puts a twist on things.

 

My current setup sounds similar to Deihmos. I have 3 HTPCs all running WMC/MBC that can talk to the HRHR - that's the point after all, networked tuner. Is there much benefit to running ServerWMC in a scenario where you have full HTPCs? Is the only benefit to be able to stream Live TV to non-HTPCs (web, tablets)? And if I've read correctly, I have a CableCard (Prime) so I would still need to directly access to watch DRM channels?

I  use it for viewing a TV outside the home like to watch the world cup games but I don't use it at home since all the pcs have WMC. The hdhomerun also has an app to view TV including DRM channels on tablets and smartphones if on the same network.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Deihmos

[Deihmos 147]

krustyreturns, on 10 Jul 2014 - 12:26 PM, said:krustyreturns, on 10 Jul 2014 - 12:26 PM, said:krustyreturns, on 10 Jul 2014 - 12:26 PM, said:

 

 

 

It breaks down though if all your networked computers have wmc - so instead of a central computer being a pvr server - they are all doing pvr.  Really wmc breaks down in this usage model too, independent of serverwmc.  If you set your recordings up across three different wmc computers, sharing networked tuners, the record scheduler on one computer has no idea if the tuner is really available for a recording in the future, because wmc has no way of polling the record scheduler on another computer.  Wmc was not meant to run that way.

 

 

Actually I have never experienced anything like that using WMC on multiple PCs and I have been using it for over 2 years. WMC seems to know when a tuner is in use and automatically selects the available tuner.

 

Thanks for all your help.  

Edited July 10, 2014 by Deihmos

[krustyreturns 191]

I didn't say that.  I said you can't rely on multiple wmc's to correctly schedule recordings in parallel, since they don't communicate with each other.

[Vicpa 552]

Hi krustyreturns

 

I am happy to test, don't have exactly the same, but can probably simulate the scenario. I have a more basic setup. HTPC running WMC and Serverwmc, MB3 server on another PC, hdhomerun.

 

If I understand correctly, you want to test when something other than MBS grabs a tuner for a live stream. I could do that using silicon dust's dlna support in Powerdvd on another machine or installing their client. That would grab a tuner.

 

If that is what you need and I can help in any way let me know.

[krustyreturns 191]

Thanks!

 

Its probably going to involve downloading experimental builds of serverwmc and sending me log outputs - so if that's okay with you....

 

Yes, I need something (hopefully it doesn't matter what) to grab a network tuner, the only requirement being that this 'something' has to be on a different machine than serverwmc.  If I had my druthers it would be another instance of wmc that grabs the tuner, but it sounds like you aren't set up for that, but that's okay.

 

For starters. when you get it set up, go to the serverwmc config file (see debug tab) and change this flag from false to true:

  <Debug_ListTunerClients>true</Debug_ListTunerClients>

 

Save then restart serverwmc.  Then start mbs, then grab the tuner on the second machine.  After it has the tuner, view the tuner status in mbs (I am assuming it won't show that the other machine grabbed the tuner).  Then send me the serverwmc log.

 

If this carries on very long we should probably take this offline, but let's see how it goes.  Thanks again.

[Vicpa 552]

Hi

 

Here you go

 

 

The above and attached is while I am streaming

 

 

 

No problem with testing, let me know what's next

 

 

ServerWMC.log

[krustyreturns 191]

Thanks, I need to work out what to do next.  I'll PM you with a test build.

[krustyreturns 191]

@@Vicpa

 

Sorry for the long delay.  I just PM'd you with an experimental build to test.  

 

thanks,

--kr

[MrWebsmith 598]

I'm having an issue with live tv suddenly (last few days or so) on iOS only (web client in safari on ipad)

 

live tv is ok in chrome on android or chrome on pc...

 

 

which logs would help you best krusty?

 

 

issue: basically i get 1 static video frame (no audio) and its frozen..then at LOOONNNNGGGGGG random intervals it may change to another frame if i let it sit

 

playback on the other platforms is fine

 

as of yesterday im on build 1154 of your plugin/app

 

and im on DEV mb server

[krustyreturns 191]

@@MrWebsmith,

 

Frankly if its an ios-only problem I really doubt there is anything I can do about it.  My software treats all MBS clients the same  (since it only deals with MBS),  But I don't mind checking, the only log that does me any good is the serverwmc log.  To help me, please point out the time when the ios stream was started.

[MrWebsmith 598]

ok here goes... @@Luke not sure if the ios-only nature of this issue could tie-in with the recent tweaks you've made with the ios safari new web video player?? just grasping at anything at this point.. we use an ipad (web client) as a "kitchen tv" for news every morning/evening and this issue has recently popped up.

 

 

logs:

 

today's attempts were around 647am-71015m... nbc 10 (channel 510 i think...)

 

serverwmc log  - https://www.dropbox.com/s/0wpfft6d0xzodsv/ServerWMC.log

MBS (DEV) log for this morning - https://www.dropbox.com/s/vsg0mp8na9hsdxm/server-63540992700.txt

transcoding logs:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/39hs3jdswq7iu8q/transcode-7599d774-4ccf-4f64-a62e-9ccde047657c.txt

                             https://www.dropbox.com/s/2e62ojbgzojz4fm/transcode-64b22bd5-0081-4647-9b50-6ece9de0fc0d.txt

                             https://www.dropbox.com/s/2erh7ylwh6r5wgn/transcode-c3477e1a-7a85-4387-9e64-f31f80e272e7.txt

Edited July 15, 2014 by MrWebsmith

[MrWebsmith 598]

hmm wonder what else i can try.. rebooted the swmc machine (after 1154 update).. rebooted mbs server.. it loads the channel but i get stalled 1 frame.. it just sits..  i dont have my ipad with me at work today so whatever you guys think i should attempt ill do tonight and report back

 

meanwhile chrome on win7 pc and chrome on nexus 7 tablet both play normally

 

havent tried chrome on ipad yet... ill try that for more info

[krustyreturns 191]

fyi, serverwmc doesn't show a problem with the stream.

[Luke 37005]

i've tested recently with safari and it seemed ok. startup time is definitely slower because it's all on demand now so the live stream isn't requested from serverwmc until the last possible moment. but it was ok for me a couple days ago.

[EmoryS 0]

I am having this issue as well.  LiveTV works with my Android Tablet.  My iPhone it just loads one frame then hangs.  The crazy thing is it worked well a few weeks ago.  Not sure what update caused the problem.  Since it doesn't appear to be Media Browser related I won't post logs unless directed.  Just let me know.

 

Update:

 

I was able to figure this out.  I need to press pause and play again and the TV show loads normally.  It seems to "hang" on the first attempt and pausing and playing fixes it.

Edited August 5, 2014 by EmoryS

[MrWebsmith 598]

Emory: i just got back from a short trip, so im responding here to you..

 

yes i still get it.. i see you have a workaround and its not the same as mine... for me... full screen it so you get the subtitle icon next to the airplay one in the lower right.. turn on any subs stream..and it will unfreeze on mine.. then i toggle them on/off as needed to get it to unfreeze

 

i will try your pause/play trick again... i agree its annoying.. i posted some logs for krusty and luke and they werent able to find an issue.. im actually relieved that someone else is seeing this issue as well as i was starting to look into new tuner cards and i really dont have the money/need for one if its something else

[genro 4]

 

Serverwmc was written to allow xbmc clients running on a variety of platforms (r-pi, android, mac,linux etc), to use a central wmc enabled computer as a pvr server.  Later we extended it to let mbs do the same.  Even your windows computers that don't have wmc can do live-tv/pvr by using xbmc/mbs and serverwmc.

 

It breaks down though if all your networked computers have wmc - so instead of a central computer being a pvr server - they are all doing pvr.  Really wmc breaks down in this usage model too, independent of serverwmc.  If you set your recordings up across three different wmc computers, sharing networked tuners, the record scheduler on one computer has no idea if the tuner is really available for a recording in the future, because wmc has no way of polling the record scheduler on another computer.  Wmc was not meant to run that way.

 

In this distributed wmc mode, the only viable way to make that work using networked tuners (again not using serverwmc) is to designate one computer for doing recordings (a server, if you will), the other wmc's can play recorded content or watch live-streams, but they shouldn't also schedule recordings.  Which is tricky since the respective wmc's will all happily schedule a recording thinking all the tuners are their own.  

 

So ServerWMC enforces only one computer acting as a pvr, meaning that only one computer is responsible for recording upcoming episodes and handing out live streams.  Since serverwmc's only clients are xbmc or mbs that works naturally.  If you try to make all your other wmcs also schedule recordings - it breaks - just like wmc breaks.  As long as the active recordings are ONLY happening on the serverwmc machine, serverwmc will not disrupt recordings when it's client requests a live stream.

 

Now live streams are different, I agree that you should be able to watch live streams on your other wmc machines (which are talking directly to the network tuners) and serverwmc should be able to detect that this tuner is busy and leave that tuner alone.  Currently though, serverwmc does not detect this.  This was a known issue in the early stages of this project, but frankly I forgot about this limitation.  I guess because multiple wmcs aren't common anymore - our users all run xbmc or mbs on their networked machines.   We need to fix this issue with serverwmc, but in order to do that I need to work with a user who has this setup, since in my house its no longer possible (well not without breaking things anyway), same is true for the other developer.  Hopefully there is a way to fix this that is not specific to hdhr.

 

So in summary: serverwmc will never support multiple wmc machines handing parallel recording schedules with shared tuners.  However we would like to solve the issue of detecting that wmc, running on a remote machine, has grabbed a network tuner, but I need a volunteer to work with on that usage case (if there are any out there, let me know).  Sorry for the long post.

 

 

 

Hi Krusty, just curious but was this ever resolved and/or do you think you'd still be working on this? I still run multiple WMC clients and I know this use case would make serverwmc difficult to use for me if it's not respecting/detecting the usage of tuners from other WMC pc's

Edited August 15, 2014 by genro

[krustyreturns 191]

Yes, but with the same caveat of the last paragraph in the post you quoted from me above.  Also the solution is specific to hdhr network tuners only and serverwmc has to find the hdhr command line tool on the machine it is running on.

 

BTW thanks to @Vicpa for helping me work this through.

Edited August 16, 2014 by krustyreturns

[EmoryS 0]

Krusty,

 

I use multiple WMC clients.  Specifically, two XBox 360 and a HTPC using Media Browser WMC classic.  If you need my help, let me know.  I am familiar with software debugging and QA.  Not an expert by any means, but I have done enough regression testing and new functionality testing of online banking systems as a product manager to pick up a thing or two.  Just let me know.

[krustyreturns 191]

Thanks for the offer!   I'll keep that in mind when we need more testing.

[Luke 37005]

I don't even know what this thread is about anymore. Let's try to limit ourselves to one topic per thread.

[Kent 91]

Just want to weigh in that I have this same scenario as well, and will to test.  WMC/ServerWMC/MBServer running on one machine and a seperate WMC running a second machine, both pointing to an HDHomerun Prime (3 Tuners).