Problem with latest RPi 4B board revision (1.4) produces errors

UPRHome · June 29, 2021 at 9:52 PM

I have a build setup using LE 9.2.7 (also tried 9.2.6) on a RPi 4B 2Gb device. For live TV use, and largely it's been using IPTV addons (but also happens when using PVR Simple Client), the device locks up/freezes and goes black screen when trying access a channel. This typically happens when the channel is loading/buffering. It is ONLY with the newest RPi 4B boards that have a hardware revision noted at b03114 (vers 1.4) - I've tried 9 different boards and its the exact same result each time.

I have a couple of older boards with b03111 (v1.1) and another couple of boards with b03112 (v 1.2) and they work fine.

Cross checking with the same set of three different SD cards, so I don't feel that is the culprit because the results checking back and forth between boards and SD cards is consistent.

Has anyone else experienced/experiencing a similar issue, or have any idea what I could try?

**chewitt** · June 30, 2021 at 3:27 PM Official Post

Please provide a full debug log.

How to post a log (wiki)

1. Enable debugging in Settings>System Settings>Logging
2. Restart Kodi
3. Replicate the problem
4. Generate a log URL (do not post/upload logs to the forum)

use "Settings > LibreELEC > System > Paste system logs" or run "pastekodi" over SSH, then post the URL link

UPRHome · June 30, 2021 at 7:07 PM

Sorry, Chewitt.

Wasn't sure which, so I posted both logs from within LibreELEC system:

http://ix.io/3rAf

http://ix.io/3rAd

Thx

UPRHome · July 15, 2021 at 7:33 PM

So here's what they said over at raspberrypi :

Issue with Latest Hardware Revision 1.4 for 4B boards - Raspberry Pi Forums

After trying on the "Official Raspberry OS", the device seems to work correctly. Obviously it's a vastly different OS, but I'm guessing there's no chance they're going to modify the LE distro for such a singular instance

**HiassofT** · July 15, 2021 at 9:06 PM

Can you please test with the latest LE10 beta version? LE 9.2 contains a rather old kernel and firmware.

so long,

Hias

UPRHome · July 15, 2021 at 9:46 PM

Quote from HiassofT

Can you please test with the latest LE10 beta version? LE 9.2 contains a rather old kernel and firmware.
so long,
Hias

Yes, I'm in the process of setting that up now. Unfortunately, it's a slower process getting it to approximate what I have setup using 9.2.7 due to the lack workable addons. Perhaps I can use the PVR Simple Client for the IPTV version, rather than a dedicated addon. Will report back once I have some results.

sihy · July 19, 2021 at 7:53 AM

I've had exactly the same problem, previously reported in this thread. The suspicion of a new board revision there was correct, it is a Rev 1.4.

FWIW I tried LE10 beta3 and that works perfectly on both an older Rpi4 and the newer Rev 1.4 Rpi4 (but obviously there is no de-interlacing yet so doesn't fit my particular use case).

Cheers, S

sihy · July 19, 2021 at 8:00 PM

Here you go. Just did a fresh install 9.2.8 with one addon - TVHeadend, tested very briefly.

~~Playing 1080i live it's OK (as I say only briefly tested).~~

Playing a recording of Channel 5 (Hellboy broadcast sometime within the last week 1080i h264 bt709 8-bit yuv420p): works until you attempt to skip forward, then the player freezes.

I can still ssh into the box - I've done so while the video player is still frozen (and blank) on the display - here is the full log.

link to logs

Obvs I don't hold out much hope for a fix (otherwise I'd have done this before!) as someone from the LE team has previously said LE9 is now a dead end, all resources to LE10.

Anyway, you never know, it might be useful.

PS

On further investigation I have the same problem with 720p h264 i.e. I'm getting the same issue with progressive as well as interlaced. 720p hevc on the other hand seems to play just fine, so it looks like it's the MMAL h264 decoder.

Cheers,

S

UPRHome · July 20, 2021 at 9:23 PM

Quote from sihy

Here you go. Just did a fresh install 9.2.8 with one addon - TVHeadend, tested very briefly.
Playing 1080i live it's OK (as I say only briefly tested).
Playing a recording of Channel 5 (Hellboy broadcast sometime within the last week 1080i h264 bt709 8-bit yuv420p): works until you attempt to skip forward, then the player freezes.
I can still ssh into the box - I've done so while the video player is still frozen (and blank) on the display - here is the full log.
link to logs
Obvs I don't hold out much hope for a fix (otherwise I'd have done this before!) as someone from the LE team has previously said LE9 is now a dead end, all resources to LE10.
Anyway, you never know, it might be useful.
PS
On further investigation I have the same problem with 720p h264 i.e. I'm getting the same issue with progressive as well as interlaced. 720p hevc on the other hand seems to play just fine, so it looks like it's the MMAL h264 decoder.
Cheers,
S

Display More

Thanks for your input, and yeah, I'm at the same thought that there will be no further development on LE9 and the only hope going forward will be for LE10

sihy · July 21, 2021 at 1:48 PM

No worries.

I don't know what your setup is but I'm using a workaround at the moment that might fit if you are using a similar setup.

I'm using a custom compiled LE9.2.6 for x86_64 (intel NUC) with patches for ffmpegx, tvheadend and the intel_vaapi driver to 2.4.1 (from memory) - I can give you the patches I use for this if you know how to compile LE and are using an intel based server. It enables me to use HEVC vaapi encoding (with bug fixes in the 2.4.1 driver) and TVH 4.3 with a recent commit earlier this year. This streams to 3 raspberry pi LE TVH clients.

A custom codec and stream profile can then be used in TVH which will transcode and de-interlace in hardware to 50 frames per second HEVC which is then used by the recalcitrant pi4. It uses hardly any resources on the NUC and the pi4 gets HEVC which the MMAL decoder will decode without any issues.

The drawback is the live TV buffer isn't as quick to move through (but pausing is obviously still 'normal'), and recordings using the pass profile still suffer as they won't be transcoded at the server when played. If you use the new profile to record then any new recordings would be HEVC and play OK tho.

Good luck, fingers crossed LE10 gets HW de-interlacing fairly soon.

ATB

Simon

Edit:

PS - Altho sometimes h264 will play provided no FF/RW is attempted even that can be temperamental despite my brief testing above where I said it worked OK.