Several IPTV Channels Fail To Play

[yuljk]

Hi guys - I'm running the latest version of NextPVR running on Debian 11 with all updates applied on an ESXi 7 virtual machine with 2vCPU's, 4GB RAM and a 60GB HDD.

I have added my IPTV M3U8 playlist and EPG (source is Xeev for both)

I have found that several channels I receive a transcoder failure using either the web player or the Android client.

I cleaned my logs and have attached the log after attempting to play one of the problematic channels (ITV 4 FHD)

My ffmpeg version is as follows:-

Code:

ffmpeg version 4.3.4-0+deb11u1 Copyright (c) 2000-2021 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 10 (Debian 10.2.1-6)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-version=0+deb11u1 --toolchain=hardened --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --incdir=/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu --arch=amd64 --enable-gpl --disable-stripping --enable-avresample --disable-filter=resample --enable-gnutls --enable-ladspa --enable-libaom --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libbs2b --enable-libcaca --enable-libcdio --enable-libcodec2 --enable-libdav1d --enable-libflite --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm --enable-libjack --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libmysofa --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopenmpt --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-librabbitmq --enable-librsvg --enable-librubberband --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libsrt --enable-libssh --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx265 --enable-libxml2 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzmq --enable-libzvbi --enable-lv2 --enable-omx --enable-openal --enable-opencl --enable-opengl --enable-sdl2 --enable-pocketsphinx --enable-libmfx --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libdrm --enable-libiec61883 --enable-chromaprint --enable-frei0r --enable-libx264 --enable-shared
  libavutil      56. 51.100 / 56. 51.100
  libavcodec     58. 91.100 / 58. 91.100
  libavformat    58. 45.100 / 58. 45.100
  libavdevice    58. 10.100 / 58. 10.100
  libavfilter     7. 85.100 /  7. 85.100
  libavresample   4.  0.  0 /  4.  0.  0
  libswscale      5.  7.100 /  5.  7.100
  libswresample   3.  7.100 /  3.  7.100
  libpostproc    55.  7.100 / 55.  7.100

I am using the 'Default' streaming profile with the video encoder set to 'CPU' and 'Avoid transcoding where possible' is enabled.

I should note that the problematic channels play fine directly through alternative IPTV clients (Hypnotix on Linux and IPTV Simple Client on Kodi)

I have recently migrated away from TVHeadend due to some of the limitations of the HTSP client and the same channels worked there.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Kind Regards

[mvallevand]

The URL is being directed to ffmpeg possibly because NextPVR is not detecting the content type. You are going to need to PM sub the URL xteve is forwarding to NextPVR

Martin

[yuljk]

Thanks Martin - Yeah, I did notice that the content-type on the none-working channels was blank.

I have downloaded the playlist from Xeev and removed username/password information accordingly.  I'll PM that across now.

Thanks once again for your assistance - highly appreciated!

Kind Regards

Chris

[mvallevand]

That would actually need to go to sub the author of NextPVR and it would need user credentials so he could trace it.

Martin

[yuljk]

Ahh! - Apologies Martin.

I shall pass it onto sub.

Many thanks

[sub]

Hi yuljk. I got your PM and have taken a brief look.

I tried like a dozen of the channels. Most of the channels seemed to work first time. The first time I tried viewing ITV 4 FHD, it didn't work, but the second attempt did work. When you try this channel, do you see the "receiving data (2400030)" type message at the bottom of the page, and do you see the numbers increasing?

TLC FHD was not working, and a bug in the application could cause the underlying error to not be logged. I've fixed that. In this particular case, the error was:

A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond. [::ffff:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]:8080 (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080)

(address edited out)

ie, in this particular case, the server for that channel was unavailable at the time NextPVR tried. Typically these IPTV services have channels coming from a large selection of different data centers, and you can have a handful of channels down at a time while an individual data center is down. The fix I've made will at least make it clear when that is the case.

I'm wondering if that was what you saw with ITV 4 FHD?

Is it still the same channels you're having problems with?

[sub]

If you tick 'allow unauthenticated access' on the Settings->Access page, and try viewing a URL like the following in VLC, does it generally work? (ie, trying to determine if this is a transcoding thing, or stream access thing)

http://localhost:8866/live?channel=123

(where 123 is the channel number)

[yuljk]

If you tick 'allow unauthenticated access' on the Settings->Access page, and try viewing a URL like the following in VLC, does it generally work? (ie, trying to determine if this is a transcoding thing, or stream access thing)

http://localhost:8866/live?channel=123

(where 123 is the channel number)

Thanks for taking a look into this sub - I've just tried Sky Max FHD (channel 31) - I see the data counter going up, but nothing plays.

If I play the same channel from VLC it works fine.

P.S - Just tried ITV 4 FHD and it appears to be working fine now from NextPVR - so likely could have been a blip provider side.

[mvallevand]

With the stream name in this URL I thought it was likely server-side issue, but I was curious what http code it was returning or if it was a still frame.

2022-06-27 21:27:50.028 [DEBUG][4] ConnectToURL: http://.../.../offline1.ts?....

Martin.

[yuljk]

Not sure if this is pertinent - a quick glance over the nrecord.log when attempting to play Sky Max FHD (channel 31)

Code:

2022-06-28 23:32:53.251    [DEBUG][19]    [FFMPEG]: [mpegts @ 0x563c1e6774c0] decoding for stream 0 failed
2022-06-28 23:32:53.251    [DEBUG][19]    [FFMPEG]: [mpegts @ 0x563c1e6774c0] Could not find codec parameters for stream 0 (Video: h264 ([27][0][0][0] / 0x001B), none): unspecified size
2022-06-28 23:32:53.251    [DEBUG][19]    [FFMPEG]: Consider increasing the value for the 'analyzeduration' and 'probesize' options

I remember seeing this message on other none-working channels if memory serves correctly.

Playing fine in VLC from the NextPVR URL

Are you able to play Sky Max FHD from your end sub?

Many thanks!