First overnight recording via Emby fails after 6 minutes

[pnwtn]

Hi,

I use NextPVR 6.1.1 (221106) for Live TV on Emby (4.7.10.0) with the Next PVR Plugin (4.0.1.0) with a BGT3620 tuner card on Windows 11. I've been very happy with them as a replacement for my old Windows 8.1 Pro Media Center system. However, I sometimes record radio shows (Freeview UK) overnight and have found that they have stopped recording after 6 minutes (there's 5 minutes pre padding, so a minute past the start of the programme). Since I reported this to the Emby forum I've now realised that if I record several programmes overnight (earliest I've noticed is 11pm) it's only the first one that gets stopped early, and it seems that recordings made directly with NextPVR don't suffer from this issue at all. It's very reproducible on my system, the most recent being on 2022_12_16 at 23_00_00 (actually 5 minutes earlier, with the padding). My workaround is to record overnight programmes directly with NextPVR, so it's not too pressing an issue for me.

As it's reproducible, if there's any more information needed I should be able to gather it.

Regards,
Phil

[mvallevand]

I think it is just a bug that sub needs to address when NextPVR is waiting for data when the rolling file rolls while waiting. You can increase the buffer duration to a couple of hours and you won't see this problem often.

Direct recording in NextPVR are not the same as the Emby since they don't use the rolling file needed for live tv.

Code:

2022-12-16 23:02:01.016    [DEBUG][96]    Waiting for more data (pos: 10229268, len: 10229456, avail: 188, need:1316
2022-12-16 23:02:01.016    [DEBUG][96]    
<map><stream_length>10564848</stream_length><stream_duration>415891</stream_duration><complete>false</complete><live>true</live><files><file><filename>C:\Users\Public\Videos\live-BBC 6 Music-18420-18-2.ts</filename><offset>10229456</offset><start_ms>402735</start_ms><end_ms>402735</end_ms></file><file><filename>C:\Users\Public\Videos\live-BBC 6 Music-18420-18.ts</filename><offset>0</offset><start_ms>0</start_ms><end_ms>0</end_ms></file></files></map>
2022-12-16 23:02:01.561    [DEBUG][96]    Waiting for more data (pos: 10229268, len: 10229456, avail: 188, need:1316
2022-12-16 23:02:01.561    [DEBUG][96]    
<map><stream_length>10564848</stream_length><stream_duration>415891</stream_duration><complete>false</complete><live>true</live><files><file><filename>C:\Users\Public\Videos\live-BBC 6 Music-18420-18-2.ts</filename><offset>10229456</offset><start_ms>402735</start_ms><end_ms>402735</end_ms></file><file><filename>C:\Users\Public\Videos\live-BBC 6 Music-18420-18.ts</filename><offset>0</offset><start_ms>0</start_ms><end_ms>0</end_ms></file></files></map>
2022-12-16 23:02:01.995    [DEBUG][96]    Renewed lease... (1A0014)
2022-12-16 23:02:01.995    [DEBUG][96]    Renew lease ok (0x1A0014)
2022-12-16 23:02:01.995    [DEBUG][96]    reached end of rolling file. Dropping connection...(2) (available=188 of=1316)
2022-12-16 23:02:03.008    [DEBUG][96]    StopStream(1703956)...

Martin

[pnwtn]

Thanks, I'll increase the buffer duration.

Phil

[pnwtn]

Interesting. What happened with the setting at 120 minutes is that the first radio recording of the night still failed, but after 40 minutes instead of 6. However, a slightly earlier TV recording (an hour long) worked fine. Is the low bitrate of radio having an effect? The 40 minute radio recording is slightly less than 70 MB.

[mvallevand]

I am not sure of the case, sorry, you will need to make it 180 minutes to get one hour. (divide by 3). It is the low bit rate and bursty nature of radio streams combined with a buffer size issue which spams the logs plus a bug on the roll from one to the next.

Martin

[sub]

I've made a slight tweak for the next release, which will hopefully help with this.

[pnwtn]

Is there an upper limit for this setting? For me it's only when Emby is recording live TV that it will have any effect I assume, as that's all I use NextPVR for.

Phil

[mvallevand]

Only the disk space used you will need the Emby recording space plus the Live TV rolling file space times the number of simultaneous recordings. It will also depend on how Emby manages recordings since it is conceivable that for back to back "recordings" Emby in theory could use the same Live TV stream.

This time based rolling file has always been controversial for me since in concept I prefer a PVR that allows saving the watched scroll back buffer and would like it to be show based even if this a feature I would only use a couple of times a month.

Martin