New setup for live TV - stream freezes after a few seconds

[fredweston 0]

Hi,

I have just set up a brand new 4.6.2.0 server on Win10 2004.  I have a Hauppauge WinTV USB tuner connected to my clear QAM cable feed.  Emby sees the tuner just fine and I can tune to broadcasts using my browser, however the stream freezes after a few seconds.  I can go back to the dashboard and click on another channel and it'll repeat - streams for a few seconds then freezes.

I've verified that I can tune and watch TV with no issues using the WinTV application on the server PC, so it seems the tuner is working fine and the problem has something to do with Emby.

The PC has plenty of resources available (CPU/MEM/GPU).

I'm able to stream regular video files from Emby to my browser with no issues, it is just live TV that is problematic.

What can I do to troubleshoot this issue?

logs.zip

Edited June 8, 2021 by fredweston

[Abobader 3464]

Hello fredweston,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, Looking at your ffmpeg log file the transcoder is not happy with the stream it's getting as it's full of errors and warnings.

Have you tried different channels?
How about trying to record a show or movie?  Have you tried that yet?

 

[fredweston 0]

1 hour ago, cayars said:

Hi, Looking at your ffmpeg log file the transcoder is not happy with the stream it's getting as it's full of errors and warnings.

Have you tried different channels?
How about trying to record a show or movie?  Have you tried that yet?

 

I've tried watching a few different channels but haven't tried recording anything yet.  I'm actually not even sure how to do that but I'll research it now and give it a try.

I am fairly certain the QAM feed itself is good because A) watching TV using the WinTV app on the server PC works without any trouble, and  the tuner is connected to the same cable as another PC-based DVR with WinTV cards in it and that system has been working fine for many years.

I will try making a recording, but aside from that any thoughts as to what could be causing those errors and warnings?

[Carlo 4561]

Could you try again with a different channel and then upload the ffmpeg log for that one.  It would be good to see a couple different channels..

[fredweston 0]

1 hour ago, cayars said:

Could you try again with a different channel and then upload the ffmpeg log for that one.  It would be good to see a couple different channels..

I just tried 3-4 different channels, here are the logs.

The first 2-3 channels all exhibited the same general behavior, stream starts out fine, then permanently freezes between 5-20 seconds in.  The last channel I tried was ESPN and I was able to watch that for about 1:30 without the stream permanently freezing up, but there was heavy artifacting and it would temporarily freeze up every few seconds and then resume playing.

So, that does seem to indicate that at least part of the issue might be channel specific.

As far as the recordings I tried, I made all of those on Golf Channel which is the main channel I watch.  The recordings did better than watching live.  I was able to watch 24 seconds of the recording before it froze up.  When it froze, I skipped forward 10 seconds and it played fine until 1:18 where it froze again.  There was artifacting in the recorded clip, but it doesn't seem like it was as prevalent as live streams.

Hopefully some of this info is helpful.

ffmpeg.zip

[Carlo 4561]

Thanks for the 2 new ffmpeg logs. They both show similar results to what we saw before.

I don't think there is anything I can do to assist you but think one of the devs will need to look at your logs @Luke @softworkz to see what they might think.

[softworkz 5072]

I can only say that the stream is corrupted in some way as it arrives at ffmpeg, but I don't know why.

[arrbee99 1817]

Just had a skim through. Wondering whether it might be worth trying an alternative, like NextPVR. If it works ok in that you could use it to feed Emby. If its corrupted probably won't work either, but you never know.

[fredweston 0]

16 hours ago, softworkz said:

I can only say that the stream is corrupted in some way as it arrives at ffmpeg, but I don't know why.

I seemingly know the QAM feed and tuner are both good since I can watch TV without issue using the WinTV application.

I'm not sure if the stream is captured in some different way when using ffmpeg vs whatever the WinTV app itself uses.

Can you suggest any further troubleshooting steps?

[Luke 42081]

Hi, are you still running into this?

[fredweston 0]

4 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, are you still running into this?

Yes, I haven't done any additional testing or made configuration changes while waiting for additional feedback.

 

[Luke 42081]

On 6/14/2021 at 6:35 PM, fredweston said:

Yes, I haven't done any additional testing or made configuration changes while waiting for additional feedback.

 

hi @fredweston would you mind trying to play with our online web app and see how that compares?

http://app.emby.media

Thanks.

[fredweston 0]

12 minutes ago, Luke said:

hi @fredweston would you mind trying to play with our online web app and see how that compares?

http://app.emby.media

Thanks.

I tried that.  Interestingly, when I use the web app, or try streaming to a device like a Roku, I get the artifacting but the stream never hard locks up like it does when I view direct from the server using the web UI.

[Luke 42081]

Great, then that's a good sign that the issue will be resolved in the upcoming 4.6.3 server update. Thanks for the feedback.

[fredweston 0]

10 hours ago, Luke said:

Great, then that's a good sign that the issue will be resolved in the upcoming 4.6.3 server update. Thanks for the feedback.

Is there a projected release date for 4.6.3 becoming GA?

[Luke 42081]