FireStick Recorded TV not transcoding correctly.

[RobsterUK 23]

Hi,

Sorry to have to post this as I do try to figure things out on my own but i'm not sure what to look at for this.
Fire TV Stick 4K version - would not transcode recorded TV correctly.

I get sound but the picture freezes after only a few seconds. The sound continues to play but the picture stays the same.

I've attached the transcode log & server log
The only thing I can see that indicates why it's failing is
"Could not find codec parameters for stream 2 (Unknown: none ([17][0][0][0] / 0x0011)): unknown codec
Consider increasing the value for the 'analyzeduration' and 'probesize' options"

But that doesn't mean anything to me. Or it may be a red herring.

Any advice would be appreciated,
Thanks.

ffmpeg-directstream-70a5ead9-7de0-4305-994c-9668e9fe8502_1.txt

embyserver-63730800000.txt

Edited July 20, 2020 by RobsterUK
attach server log

[ebr 16172]

Hi.  Can you please cause the issue and then immediately send a log from the app?

Thanks.

[RobsterUK 23]

Hi,

I have sent the logs.

However I did the test twice. Each time the same thing happened. When I pressed the back arrow on the remote the app crashed. I only sent the logs after the second time. I hope the logs don't reset everytime it runs.

I was playing a Recorded TV program "Hungarian Grand Prix  Qualifying Highlights.ts"
Log sent at 09.08 UTC -5.
Logged in User: 1.Rob

[Carlo 4561]

Are you having this problem with multiple files or just this one file?

[RobsterUK 23]

There's the exisiting issue with this file.

Another file i tried to play and it did start. But when I tried to skip FFWD the adverts, it crashed and exited the app.
Haven't had time to see if it played.

I will record some other programmes and do some more playback testing this evening.

[ebr 16172]

Unfortunately, your log does not contain the error.  Exactly where did you play these recordings from?

[RobsterUK 23]

3 hours ago, ebr said:

Unfortunately, your log does not contain the error.  Exactly where did you play these recordings from?

I guess after the app crashes the logs are wiped, that's unfortunate, as every time I test this file it does the same thing.

Server is running on an Xpenology box, connected to a GB switch which is connected to a Meraki MR-18 300Mbps WAP.
I moved closer to the WAP and it does the same thing.

This file plays OK on a windows PC with Emby Theatre (wired connection). It plays OK on Emby for Android Mobile on a Nexus 5X (in same room as Fire Stick, accessing same WAP). Both direct play. Not these files but recordings last weekend played back OK on an LG TV using the Emby app.

I had mono-sgen using 1.2GB RAM on the server so restarted Emby Server and tried again. Same thing.
Attached the on-screen info when video pauses but audio still playing.

Have done some more testing and it seems to be only related to channels in HD. Recorded some test programs from this evening and the same thing is happening.
SD recordings are playing fine.

In fact one show will not even play. It displays the spinning circle as though it is buffering, but the screen stays black & no audio. Pressing back arrow crashes the app.

I also tried choosing a HD channel to watch live. It started playing for longer but again the image froze and the audio continued. Pressing the back arrow to try and exit the stream put me back to the guide, then I was prompted to log in again. So not sure if the app actually closed this time, or just logged me out.

Logs sent from app at 18:20 UTC-5 but not sure if it will contain anything relevant.

I did get one file to play for 3min 30 seconds. This was adverts for about 3 minutes, seemingly within 30 seconds of the program resuming it crashed. I replayed the file and after 1minutes 30 paused it and sent the logs. Maybe this will show something?

Logs sent again at 18:38 UTC-5

As a note. Firestick is a replacement device to try and resolve a 'resume from black screen' issue with another of my TV's. Is fully updated and latest version of Emby is installed. This is the only app that has been installed.
HD HomeRun is connected via GB switch to Xpenology NAS, other Emby installations have no issues in watching live TV both SD & HD channels. HD recordings play OK on other installations.
Firestick will play files from my movie library OK.

Any other logs I can provide to attempt to troubleshoot this?

Sorry for the lengthy post but trying to cover everything I can think of.

 

[ebr 16172]

If you disable the option under Live TV settings to Allow Video Stream Copy will the channel play?

[RobsterUK 23]

I did that and tried 2 HD channels from the guide.

They did play however the first seemed to stutter every 8-9 seconds and the second stuttered every 13-14 seconds. Presumably this is a server trannscoding issue. I did check the server CPU and it was maxed during this transcoding.
Also the channel changing was very sluggish and the first channel did take quiet a few seconds to display. Which I understand we are testing at this stage - but wanted to make a note of it.

I have sent the logs from the app at 11:57 UTC-5

[RobsterUK 23]

I did try a recorded program with the "Allow Video Stream Copy" setting on - it made no difference.

[ebr 16172]

4 hours ago, RobsterUK said:

I did try a recorded program with the "Allow Video Stream Copy" setting on - it made no difference.

That setting is in the Live TV settings because it only affects Live streams.

[ebr 16172]

4 hours ago, RobsterUK said:

I did that and tried 2 HD channels from the guide.

They did play however the first seemed to stutter every 8-9 seconds and the second stuttered every 13-14 seconds. Presumably this is a server trannscoding issue. I did check the server CPU and it was maxed during this transcoding.
Also the channel changing was very sluggish and the first channel did take quiet a few seconds to display. Which I understand we are testing at this stage - but wanted to make a note of it.

I have sent the logs from the app at 11:57 UTC-5

Yes, this sounds like the server not transcoding fast enough but the ffmpeg log would probably confirm that.

[RobsterUK 23]

@ebr thanks for confirming my thoughts above.
Where do we go from here though?

Live TV can be transcoded (although server hardware is not quite up to the task).
More importantly what else can I do about the HD recorded TV programs not playing.
I have adb enabled on the firestick, is there anyway to grab diagnosis logs from the stick using this entry?
As I'm not able to send the logs after a failed playback.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[ebr 16172]

If you have access to the logcat right after playback failure, that would be helpful.

[RobsterUK 23]

@ebr OK, I have captured the logcat output to a txt file. Took me a little while to figure it out so there is probably a lot of entries that aren't relevant.

I opened Emby app at 7-22 00:14:00.373

 

Request to play the media file is at 07-22 00:14:20.940

Hope there's something useful in there.

logfile.txt

Edited July 21, 2020 by RobsterUK
additional info

[ebr 16172]

Thanks.  What, exactly, happened in that session?

[RobsterUK 23]

Once logged in, played a recorded TV program.
Same thing happened, it played ok for about 15-20 seconds, then image froze and audio continued.
I pressed back arrow to exit to menu and app crashed. I get a black screen then app reloads and I get login screen.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[ebr 16172]

If you back out of playback before it freezes, is there any problem?

It looks like the player is just freezing up on this content.

[RobsterUK 23]

I have made some progress although it is not ideal.

I did play a file for only a few seconds and exited out of the player so I can send the logs before it freezes and subsequently crashes.
Logs sent at 09:03 UTC-5

I sideloaded VLC and set Emby app to use an external player for both video playback and live TV.

HD recordings and HD live channels both played sucesfully - one step forward.

However the on screen & remote FWD / RWD buttons do not function. I understand this is specific to VLC not Emby - but when watching recordings I would really like to be able to FWD through the ad breaks.
Also the usual Emby functions are not available - unable to view any program details / information or open 'Stats for nerds' these must only work when using the default player (exo player is it?) - backwards step.

So I can watch HD channels either live or recorded using VLC, but lose Emby functionality.
 

Is there any other external player than can mimic the Emby player functionality?

 

[ebr 16172]

For whatever reason, these streams require transcoding to play properly.  This is accomplished with the option to not allow stream copy that I pointed you to before.  However, it appears your server is not fast enough to do this.  Does your server have a GPU?  Have you tried enabling hardware transcoding on it?

[RobsterUK 23]

Unfortunately my server does not have the capacity to do hardware transcoding. I am in the process of saving up funds to do exactly this.

It is currently running on a Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 CPU.
It's an Xpenology build which Synology DSM does not support external GPU - so I am saving for a more modern CPU / motherboard / RAM with integrated GPU. This is a few weeks away - so unti then I guess I will have to use VLC to at least play the files.

[Luke 42077]

Hopefully in future updates the player in our app will be more resilient to handle this. Thanks.

[RobsterUK 23]

Ok, thanks Luke.

I have since found out that VLC android & firestick does not support FFWD on .TS files. It still works on mkv & MP4 ok, so the rest of my library is OK with VLC.
It's something to do with where the stream information is stored in the .TS file.

When I get a bit more time I will look into the new script plugin to see if I can get it to convert recorded TV shows to MP4 upon completion.
Only perform with that is Synology DSM runs an ash shell, not bash, so scripts are a little more tricky to write with my limited Linux skills.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk