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

    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.

    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

    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%.

    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.

    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...

    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.

    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. 😕

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.