Firestick TV 4K, Kodi and NextPVR - buffering / crashes

[mvallevand]

Your sample file loads and plays fine in 18.6 and my FTV 4k. My development environment is a bit screwed up because my wife is using my spare HDMI monitor for work at home, so I don't know how to help you beyond that.

I saw the attempted play in the NextPVR logs so it doesn't appear to be a backend issue.

2020-05-27 08:34:28.658 [DEBUG][18] StreamNative@4
2020-05-27 08:34:28.659 [DEBUG][18] RollingFile.Open(D:\Recordings\Breakfast\Breakfast_20200527_06000900.ts) ..
2020-05-27 08:34:28.659 [DEBUG][18] About to stream recording: D:\Recordings\Breakfast\Breakfast_20200527_06000900.ts
2020-05-27 08:34:28.659 [DEBUG][18] Request had range request
2020-05-27 08:34:28.659 [DEBUG][18] Requested Range: bytes=0- (89046576 bytes)

but you didn't include a Kodi playing that file. Try and focus on that one file since if that will give the developers something to look at in your logs

Martin

[Jolltax]

Interestingly my Firestick seems to be able to play TS files as a file streaming without issue, its only when I open it as a 'recording' from within the TV function that it crashes.

Here is a log of Kodi 18.6 showing first playback by streaming as a file, secondly crashing as a TV Recording: http://paste.kodi.tv/esucerixaw

I am finding a number of people posting issues with playback of TS files on Firestick

https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=60055
https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=60288
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=323628

I also notice the files will play with hardware acceleration disabled but the cpu cores all go to 100% and it starts dropping frames badly, hmmm

[mvallevand]

If you mean is the FireTV a recommended client, not completely but it is cheap so people accept some issues. I think you will find people with negative posts somewhere about any client.

You log is quite good an might offer some help to developers. Like I posted it play for me so I can't offer much help.

Martin

[mvallevand]

Also I just checked my Kodi logs with NextPVR and they match what I see with your library playback

2020-05-27 12:32:33.224 T:5589 DEBUG: CDVDDemuxFFmpeg::AddStream ID: 6
2020-05-27 12:32:33.225 T:5589 DEBUG: CDVDDemuxFFmpeg::AddStream ID: 7
2020-05-27 12:32:33.225 T:5589 NOTICE: Opening stream: 0 source: 256
2020-05-27 12:32:33.225 T:5589 NOTICE: Creating video codec with codec id: 27

When you play Kodi is failing

2020-05-27 16:49:35.055 T:20285 DEBUG: CDVDDemuxFFmpeg::AddStream ID: 5
2020-05-27 16:49:35.055 T:20285 DEBUG: CDVDDemuxFFmpeg::AddStream ID: 6
2020-05-27 16:49:35.055 T:20285 DEBUG: CDVDDemuxFFmpeg::AddStream ID: 7
2020-05-27 16:49:35.055 T:20285 NOTICE: Opening stream: 0 source: 256
2020-05-27 16:49:35.055 T:20285 WARNING: OpenStream - Unsupported stream 0. Stream disabled.
2020-05-27 16:49:35.055 T:20285 NOTICE: Closing stream player 2

Martin

[Jolltax]

Thanks Martin, appreciate your help and advice. I really like the Firestick 4k, it seems like an excellent device so I will persevere, probably try the Kodi forums!

Regards

Jolltax

[mvallevand]

I like mine too, I hope you get it worked out. Also consider the Leia nightly since they are going to want feedback on that.

One setting that might be useful to try in Leia is PVR Settings->Playback->Fallback framerate

Martin

[mvallevand]

There is an 18.7.1 hotfix for Android, hopefully that will work for you.

Martin

[Jolltax]

In case anyone reads this thread in the future, this appears to be a long standing issue with firmware on the decoder chip which must be fixed by a vendor bios update.

https://github.com/amzn/exoplayer-amazon-port/issues/94

As mentioned in this thread the fix is alleged to be contained in a Firestick TV 4k firmware update due in 2Q20, so it seems it is not a Kodi issue.

Lots of people reporting the same issue and clearly Amazon well aware if the issue (especially experienced by people in the UK trying to watch HD Freeview TV streaming via Kodi like me but also some others)

In the mean-time it makes the Firestick 4K a poor choice for a subset of people - those wanting to use it nextPVR Kodi client for UK HD freeview based systems so I suggest you look elsewhere until it is fixed, a shame. Apparently one solution is to use a transcoder to transcode all the video, I have tried this and it does seem to work but is a bit messy and not very good as a user experienceas you lose the PVR interface functionality

I will post if it gets resolved any time soon

J

[mvallevand]

That's why I posted earlier that it wasn't really recommended. It is not only transcoding since UK HD will already be h264/aac I believe the issue is you need to deinterlace 1080i. Not sure if you have any 720p stations but if you do and they work then that pinpoints the problem.

For recording NextPVR does have an option to auto transcode recordings, I don't know what sub does with deinterlacing but he has "p" on all the resolutions so I have to assume that they are deinterlaced.

For live tv in Kodi Matrix there is also an option to transcode LiveTV on the fly if that is what you need.

Martin

[mvallevand]

I see there is even an 18.7.2 build it might be worth your while trying the nightly. I can't explain why your sample isn't crashing for me.

Martin