It all started with a recording which would not play!

[jcjefferies]

I am trying to fault find a problem where all recordings on a particular mux won’t play. The problem recordings are around the size expected but Media Info Lite reports no audio or video content.

In the logs:-
2015-08-20 19:55:58.91 [DEBUG][4] locked=0, present=0, strength=0, quality=0 (took 0ms to check)
File size is 0

However all recordings good and bad have the same entries in the logs.

This is from my Vista server installed several months ago but a Windows 8 server disk being setup to replace it gives the same result as does a clean Vista test install using no setup files copied over. This is using three different tuners. Although I have noticed the “0” file size message before I thought the tuner & signal check had worked recently.

Without the signal info it is difficult to tell if it is caused by a drop in signal level.

Chris

[sub]

The problem recordings are around the size expected but Media Info Lite reports no audio or video content.

If you can supply a short sample recording, I'll check what's wrong with it.

[Graham]

I am trying to fault find a problem where all recordings on a particular mux won’t play.

Did you see this ... http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post489448

[jcjefferies]

Thanks Graham it is obviously connected as it is the same Mux but on Ridge Hill and my first failed recording on Quest failed around the same time early July. Its taken this long because I don't make many recordings on that mux at the moment and watch most recordings in the bedroom and forget to investigate the next day. Also I don't have a working Windows client to run alternative playback software like VLC or Media Info and my server dosnt have a sound card so never installed any decoders.

Was a solution found as nothing was mentioned in the thread? My clean install test server works ok on this mux but as it is using a different aerial lead I was looking at it as a signal level problem. I think both servers are using the same version of NPVR but to make sure I downloaded the latest version and installed on my real server but still the problem mux does not record.

I have copied the config files from my server to the test server and that still works..

Also what about the tuner and signal test in logs reporting all zeros. All three installations are reporting the same even for good recordings.

Chris

[Graham]

Was a solution found

Recordings are all more or less okay but have some bollox at the start that means that that they don't begin to play nicely. Pressing skip immediately after the playback starts seems to jump the bollox and the rest of the recording plays back normally.

[jcjefferies]

After installing decoders on the server I can watch live TV on channels on the problem mux. When I play back problem recordings the screen is blank but if I stop after a few seconds and Resume the recording plays ok. I remember having a similar problem when I had a Windows NextPVR client and sometimes had to stop then resume to watch some recordings but the problem disappeared after moving to the X-NEWA web client under OpenElec.

However the X-NEWA web client will not even start to play the problem recordings so no possibility of resuming or skipping forward. Kodi wont play the file either as a video file. However VLC and MPC-HC seem to play the recordings without a problem.

I did look at trying to delete the first few seconds of the files using video editing software I have but it dosnt support TS files. Can anyone recommend any free software to do this.

I was thinking of getting a DVB-S2 card which may overcome this problem but some channels such as Quest are not on satellite. However "Quest+1" is on a different DVB-T mux which does not have this problem so have disabled the "Quest" channel.

However on 25th Aug ITV are moving some channels around so there may be different channels on the problem SDN/COM4 mux!

Chris

[fred250]

Hi Chris,

This problem sounds very similar to the one I'm experiencing on some channels where the video stream inside the ts-file changes between programs due to local news or local commercials.

A remux with FFmpeg sorts my problem.
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post483852

/Fred

[mvallevand]

I did look at trying to delete the first few seconds of the files using video editing software I have but it dosnt support TS files. Can anyone recommend any free software to do this.

Could you upload a sample somewhere? Also does zero padding on that channel help?

Also for x-newa if you have a resume point in NextPVR's client does the n-newa and then resume playback ok?

Martin

[Graham]

Could you upload a sample somewhere?

Here is a ten minute manual recording. The recording was made with zero start and ending padding. An attempt to view this displays a blank screen with no video or audio. After a few moments NextPVR returns to the recording list.

Pressing skip (short or long) immediately after starting the playback does a skip and the video then plays normally. Playback using "resume" plays back normally. In conclusion, the recording process causes a glitch at the start of the file that causes media playback to barff. Everything is cool once we are past the start of the file. Playing the file in Windows Media Player has the same symptoms (as expected). And finally, Media Player Classic plays the file without any problem (also, as expected).

http://we.tl/53OhhIT6OY

Thanks.

[martint123]

Most odd. for me VLC won't touch it, which is unusual.
Videoredo plays it fine and running quickfix generates a normal playable file, but doesn't report any errors while fixing it. I'll leave it for the more knowledgeable folk!