Help! Can only get stream to work once without service restart

[eds72]

I have been battling a problem off and on for a few days now that I need some help with.

First, I am running NextPVR 2.5.9 with all the current patches. I have a HDHomerun Prime and Comcast cablecard. I am able to use the QuickTV app that came with the prime and the NextPVR interface to tune live TV without issue.

However, I cannot seem to get streaming to work reliably. For the attached logs, I used VLC as my player but I have replicated the behavior using OpenElec XBMC client and also MX Player on Android. I can connect initially using http://<npvr machine>:8866/live?channel=xx and watch a stream without issue. However, after stopping the stream (using the 'stop' button in VLC), any attempt to open another stream - either the same channel or another - fails. With VLC/MXPlayer, it simply appears that nothing happens. With XBMC, it looks to be working for several minutes after which time XBMC will restart.

I've attached what I believe to be the relevant logs. I am no expert here, but NRecord.log looks to be the location with the most relevant information. In the log, I can see my request to tune Discovery HD (707) which worked flawlessly. Next, that is stopped and I attempt to tune ESPN HD (735) which then exhibits the problem behavior. I can see some differences in the log that lead me to believe there's a clue there, but I do not know where to go with it. Hopefully someone does.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[eds72]

OK a little more info.

I decided to monitor the HDHR status while attempting to connect from VLC via network stream.

When I tune the first channel, the HDHR config gui for Tuner0 changes as follows:

Signal Strength: 96%
Signal Quality: 100%
Symbol Quality: 100%
Network rate: fluctuates from 10-15 Mbps
Network Target: <ip of NPVR system>:36312

Video and audio are played flawlessly by VLC. I watch for a minute or two and then stop.

Next I try to open a stream in the exact same manner and channel (note: I've tried different channels too with the same result). Here is what the HDHR status shows very briefly before returning to idle:

Signal Strength: 96%
Signal Quality: 100%
Symbol Quality: 100%
Network rate: 0.000 Mbps
Network Target: <ip of NPVR system>:36313

As I said, these values show very briefly and then return to their idle values. Note that each subsequent attempt to tune a channel results in the same behavior expect that the port on the network target is incremented by 1.

Just to cover a few bases: All machines used for testing are on the same network (connected to the same switch in fact) and have any and all firewalls disabled. Examining the log files the most suspicious entry I see are a couple "Renew lease failed (0x1A0001)" entries for the failed attempts to tune channels.

This is driving me nuts, I am very hopeful someone can help steer me in the right direction.

[Reddwarf]

One thing you could try is to run the recording service in a command prompt and see if the console output gives you any info. Edit Config.xml and set the "outOfProcess" parameter to false, stop the NPVR recording service, open a command prompt and change to your program directory. Now type Nrecord RUN followed by enter (it is important that RUN is in capital letters). Do the same test and watch if any useful info/error messages appear in the command window.

[sub]

Could you restart the recording service, then reproduce the problem using VLC, then repost the logs? The earlier were just full of unrelated XBMC stuff (like downloading EPGs etc), making it very difficult to see the problem. Thanks.

[eds72]

No problem, here they are. Thanks for taking a look.

[sub]

I cant see an obvious reason in that log. It looks like it's not receiving data from the HDHR after the channel change. I'm wondering if some other software is listening on one of the pool of ports NextPVR is trying to use for communication with the HDHR.

Are you able to successfully change channels multiple times in the NextPVR front end?

[eds72]

Yes, I changed channels about a dozen times in NextPVR and it works great. I tuned both SD and HD (720 and 1080) channels.

I did a netstat on the system and don't see anything using ports near 36xxx.

[sub]

If you watch the live tv buffer directory, does the new file get created when you attempt to change channels? Does it get any data, or stay at zero bytes?

Does it make any difference if you're using VLC from the local machine vs another one on the network?

[eds72]

The file does get created, but never grows beyond 0kb. It is removed after maybe 20 seconds.

I tried VLC on the local system using both the address of the system on the LAN and also 127.0.0.1. Behavior is exactly the same as it was from a separate client.

[sub]

Can you see if this patch makes any difference?