[Solved] Intermittently spinner in video and live tv stays visible - channel list empty after stop

denk · June 2, 2023 at 9:34 PM

Hi all together,

I have a weird and not reproduceable issue with tvheadend based live tv in the nightlies since a couple of weeks. I try to describe it as best as possible:

I start one of the tv channels, which are provided by my tvheadend server (hosted on another pi). Libreelec nightly is running on another rpi4. Sometimes, when the channel starts to play, the spinner is still visible and stays there spinning until I stop. After stopping the channels, the channel list is empty. The only way to get full functionality again, i.e. a populated channel list, is rebooting the pi. Attached is the log, when this happens. However, as it is not intentionally reproduceable for me, I have no full debug log. Does anyone have an idea, what the issue could be here?

If further information is necessary, please ask.

I would be very thankful for any hint or proposal.

petediscrete · June 2, 2023 at 9:52 PM

Quote from denk

Hi all together,
I have a weird and not reproduceable issue with tvheadend based live tv in the nightlies since a couple of weeks. I try to describe it as best as possible:
I start one of the tv channels, which are provided by my tvheadend server (hosted on another pi). Libreelec nightly is running on another rpi4. Sometimes, when the channel starts to play, the spinner is still visible and stays there spinning until I stop. After stopping the channels, the channel list is empty. The only way to get full functionality again, i.e. a populated channel list, is rebooting the pi. Attached is the log, when this happens. However, as it is not intentionally reproduceable for me, I have no full debug log. Does anyone have an idea, what the issue could be here?
If further information is necessary, please ask.
I would be very thankful for any hint or proposal.

Can’t see any log attached

denk · June 2, 2023 at 10:01 PM

Quote from petediscrete

Can’t see any log attached

Sorry, thanks for pointing out.

petediscrete · June 3, 2023 at 12:40 AM

Have you got the latest Alpha 7 YouTube addon installed. What’s the signal like from the backend TVH server.

denk · June 3, 2023 at 8:38 AM

Quote from petediscrete

Have you got the latest Alpha 7 YouTube addon installed. What’s the signal like from the backend TVH server.

I had installed the alpha 5 of the youtube plugin, and just updated to alpha 7. Do you think, the YouTube addon could be the culprit?

The signal of all the channels is around 70% to 90%.

denk · June 11, 2023 at 7:39 AM

Quote from denk

I had installed the alpha 5 of the youtube plugin, and just updated to alpha 7. Do you think, the YouTube addon could be the culprit?
The signal of all the channels is around 70% to 90%.

Since June 3rd, I have disabled the youtube addon alpha 7, and since then the issue didn't occur. So it seems, the youtube addon could indeed be the culprit here. As you petediscrete suspected this right away, could you explain some more detail, please? This should also be opened as an issue in the bugtracker of the youtube addon, I think - if it is or could really be the culprit.

denk · June 12, 2023 at 7:50 PM

It happened again, although the youtube addon is still disabled. Are there any other ideas or any other things I could check?

deepee · June 14, 2023 at 8:47 AM

I'm guessing you may have been updating your installation from the nightlies since you last had the issue?

I had loads of video issues with TVH (IPTV) and other addons due to a misconfigured ffmpeg patch in LibreELEC-RPi4.aarch64-12.0-nightly-20230612-8aca8fe.img.gz

I see from the changelog it's been fixed in LibreELEC-RPi4.aarch64-12.0-nightly-20230613-8aca8fe.img.gz

I haven't tested it yet but will try tonight...

deepee · June 14, 2023 at 12:43 PM

Tested but still with issues. Looks like the fix missed inclusion in LibreELEC-RPi4.aarch64-12.0-nightly-20230613 and hopefully will appear in the next nightly.

deepee · June 16, 2023 at 1:06 AM

For me, all video is working properly now since updating to LibreELEC-RPi4.aarch64-12.0-nightly-20230615-6541834

denk · June 22, 2023 at 5:32 PM

Tried several versions, including 15th of June and those afterwards and thought, yeah, doesn't happen anymore. Unfortunately, happened again, now with the build from today 22nd of June. 😕

denk · June 29, 2023 at 4:20 PM

I stumbled upon something, which could be the culprit here: I had set the option Delay in Playback on refresh rate change to 4 seconds. Ths leads to the following behaviour: When I start a channel, the spinner is shown, than the screen gets black (I think, the refresh rate changes), then the channel list is shown again with the spinner, then the screen gets black again and then the live tv is shown. And sometimes, in that last step, the spinner was still visible and stayed there - and when that happened, after stopping the channel, the channel list was empty.

Now I have disabled the setting Delay in Playback on refresh rate change and the behaviour changed: When I start a channel, the spinner is shown, than the screen gets black and then the live tv is shown - so far, the staying spinner did not happen again. I will test it in the following days and give an update here.

denk · July 2, 2023 at 9:37 PM

Unfortunately, it happened again. I really don't have any idea, why this happens and when it happens. Am I really the only one?

petediscrete · July 2, 2023 at 10:28 PM

Quote from denk

Unfortunately, it happened again. I really don't have any idea, why this happens and when it happens. Am I really the only one?

Sounds like you have a delay streaming between server and client. There’s a bottleneck somewhere along the line. Not sure what tuner you’re using but I’d start with the server. Ensure your signal levels in TVH are strong enough too.

Try using something like VLC to check the stream on the server for any issues. If needs be do a fresh install of TVH on your server.

If that all checks out ok remove every addon except TVH client in LE. Run some further checks when you’ve done that.

denk · August 6, 2023 at 8:21 PM

petediscrete Thanks for your tips. I am still checking all those things, however, so far nothing suspicious. In the meantime, I recorded the behaviour in a short video. As you can see, the spinner is still shown during playback, and after pressing stop, the channel list is empty. As I cannot provoke this issue, I have not recorded the populated channel list in the beginning of the video.

petediscrete · August 6, 2023 at 8:24 PM

Quote from denk

petediscrete Thanks for your tips. I am still checking all those things, however, so far nothing suspicious. In the meantime, I recorded the behaviour in a short video. As you can see, the spinner is still shown during playback, and after pressing stop, the channel list is empty. As I cannot provoke this issue, I have not recorded the populated channel list in the beginning of the video.

Have you any video add ons installed that may be causing the issue. Also check the frequency of your EPG update. That’s another element that can affect live TV performance.

**smp** · August 6, 2023 at 10:22 PM

I also see this issue from time to time. No idea how to reproduce, seems totally random.

denk · August 9, 2023 at 5:27 AM

Quote from petediscrete

Have you any video add ons installed that may be causing the issue. Also check the frequency of your EPG update. That’s another element that can affect live TV performance.

I have installed the following video addons:

plugin.video.amazon-test plugin.video.ardundzdf

plugin.video.discovery.hgtv

plugin.video.joyn

plugin.video.nasa

plugin.video.netflix

plugin.video.youtube

My EPG update interval is set to the default two hours since years, I've never changed that.

smp Thanks for your reply and confirmation. At least I am not the only one.