AppleTV Crashes on Launch

[Peter]

Hi,

After a 6 month break from playing with NPVR I recently reinstalled NextPVR on a new Mac mini with the latest OS Catalina 10.15.2, using dual HDHomeRun tuners. After a few hiccups installing the app (mainly code signing issues much discussed elsewhere in this sub forum) it is working pretty well. I got a free month subscription to iceTv for the TV guide and I installed ffmpeg and am able to watch live TV and record as well. This is great and thank you! So far so good.

There are a few small bugs which I will submit reports for in a few days.

However unfortunately I can’t get the AppleTV app to work at all. I downloaded it the morning and started it up but it crashed multiple times - searching for NPVR server… crash. The Mac terminal logs show:

[10] Unexpected error getting IP address: System.Net.Internals.SocketExceptionFactory+ExtendedSocketException (00000005, 0xFFFDFFFF): nodename nor servname provided, or not known
   at System.Net.Dns.InternalGetHostByName(String hostName)
   at System.Net.Dns.GetHostEntry(String hostNameOrAddress)
   at NShared.LocatorService.DetermineIPAddress()

each time I restart the ATV app.

I have rebooted the ATV and the NextPVR app on the Mac mini but the problem persists. I have enclosed the logs.

[mvallevand]

I would try two things first try running as sudo and then add your fake hostname server to the hosts file assuming that is the only "server" on the lan

Martin

[Peter]

OK, I tried running:

$ sudo ./NextPVRServer

and restarting the ATV app but it still crashes.
Could you explain how I 'add your fake hostname server to the hosts file assuming that is the only "server" on the lan' as this sounds complicated :-)

If it helps:
I am running a Plex server on the Mac mini, 
a raspberry pi is also serving up our recipes on our local lan and
I tried to serve up the recipes on the Mac mini using Appache but couldn't get it to work so it may still be running - not sure how to tell...

Peter

[mvallevand]

You have set the host name on this pc to server which might not be uinque on your network if it is search out etc/hosts on the Mac and how to edit it. Your error appears to be dns related.

Martin

[Peter]

I googled a bit about host files and did the following:

$ sudo nano /etc/hosts

I got:

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1  localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1            localhost


regards,

Peter

[mvallevand]

Ok but did you add server as your 192.168 address you used for your Apple

Martin

[sub]

What actually crashes? Does the 'NextPVRServer' application die, or does it simply output that red error message from above, and the Apple TV doesn't connect?

Looking at the logs and code, it doesn't look like that message is terminal.

You could try setting an environment variable with your IP address:

HOST_IP=192.168.1.52

to whatever your IP address is, then it doesn't matter if DetermineIPAddress() fails.

[Peter]

Yay - it works. I added:

 192.168.x.x.  Server

to my hosts file and the ATV app doesn't crash. The IP address was found from the System Preferences Network panel.

Time to experiment further

thanks and kind regards,

Peter

[Peter]

What actually crashes? Does the 'NextPVRServer' application die, or does it simply output that red error message from above, and the Apple TV doesn't connect?

Looking at the logs and code, it doesn't look like that message is terminal.

You could try setting an environment variable with your IP address:

HOST_IP=192.168.1.52

to whatever your IP address is, then it doesn't matter if DetermineIPAddress() fails.

The AppleTV app crashed immediately. The NextPVRServer application output the red text in the terminal window on my Mac.
It is all 'working' now and the ATV doesn't crash but I haven't tried to actually do anything with it yet. I am just trying a record session now.

Certainly not for the faint hearted :-)

cheers,

Peter

[sub]

It is all 'working' now and the ATV doesn't crash but I haven't tried to actually do anything with it yet. I am just trying a record session now.

Was it setting that HOST_IP address that got it past that?

Certainly not for the faint hearted :-)

In fairness, we've not seen another report of that, so something unique to you so far. At least you get decent support with this app, so you have a chance of working-around/fixing problems. (and every time we fix something, the next person doesn't have to suffer the same issue)