Posts by LE23

Much of the legal free content which makes Kodi great is not really working right now -- for example:

1. Kodi routinely freezes when you enable/disable the PVR client or backend (e.g. TV headend)
2. FilmOn PVR client does not work (channels & EPG data appear in list, but dont play)
3. There is no PVR client for live YouTube channels
4. OTA channel scan on VDR client is broken
5. OTA (local) channels from PVR backends are no longer grouped together in the channel lineup when PVR IPTV simple client is enabled

Also note that OTA channels detected by TV headend server are still working in TV headend client even when all PVR backends have been disabled. (Could this explain why VDR configuration channel scan does not work under any circumstances?)

This version of Kodi (17.0) is still alpha quality. I understand there are no guarantees, but how can it even be considered a "Release Candidate" when primary features are broken? Many of these features did not work correctly even on stable branch. For this reason, the end user may be justifiably concerned that r17 will be feature-frozen too soon and some of the most serious bugs will be ignored yet again, until some distant future release.

If Team Kodi or LibreELEC would open an online retail store and sell a hardware package that is fully supported, I know lots of people who would love to buy it (so long as its not effing Wetek.) I will concede that some of the commercial platforms are even less user friendly with respect to the lack of support for a PVR client, EPG, and custom live channel list. However, a built-in setup wizard which automates the configuration of multiple OTA / IPTV PVR clients would place Kodi + LibreELEC on a whole different level where it could actually compete with the mainstream IPTV platforms, cable & satellite boxes. That would lead to widespread adoption by the masses, more developers, more sources of funding, better support from content producers, hardware vendors, et cetera. The world needs an open standard TV platform and Kodi has the potential to be that standard, if you can fix the most serious bugs and simplify configuration.

Quote from awaw14

It is possible. I see that with livestreamer addon I can do it, but I don't know how.

Posting these links for reference:

Utilize the already available Livestreamer addon for IPTV streams?
Utilize the already available Livestreamer addon for IPTV streams?

Overview — Livestreamer 1.12.2 documentation
Plugins — Livestreamer 1.12.2 documentation

I think we need a dedicated PVR client for Livestreamer, similar to IPTV simple client, so you can just make a playlist with your favorite live channels. Kodi PVR features have a steep learning curve: many new users do not realize that multiple PVR clients can be activated simultaneously, and do not understand the purpose of the different clients. This is why Kodi needs an automatic setup wizard that helps the user to choose and configure PVR clients.

This certainly is turning out to be a severe fault. Many streaming radio stations are affected.
Here is a list of several broken stations for testing (use the Kodi TuneIn app)

ti32

Quote from Ned Scott

Being in an ATSC country is like being a Mac user in a Windows world in the late 90s

Yes I learned that the hard way. When I first purchased this product, the Wetek Android OS (Wetek Theater) did not support scanning for ATSC OTA channels at all, despite the fact that I purchased the tuner as part of the package. They also shipped the wrong power supply for ATSC countries. This was a huge disappointment since the integrated ATSC tuner was the only reason I bought that particular model. But they refused to pay return shipping costs, so I just kept the device and decided to never buy anything else from Wetek because you never know if you will actually get the features they advertise.

About a year later, they fixed ATSC reception with an update, and now the OTA EPG is fixed too. So I know it works in Android, but this product does not have enough internal storage for both Android apps and Kodi apps. And Kodi is too slow under Android on this platform anyway. However, if Wetek OS and LibreELEC use the same tuner driver, then I expect that ATSC guide reception could be fixed in the PVR backend. I just need to figure out where to file a bug report (or where to track an existing bug report for this issue.) I would also like to know if anyone has one of the following dongles working in LibreELEC, either on-board, or through a separate tuner server, since they can receive any kind of broadcast on any band, regardless of the modulation standard, if you have an app to decode it.

Buy RTL-SDR Dongles (RTL2832U)

Quote from Ned Scott

I've been testing software for over a month to correct an ATSC EPG issue for work, and only recently did we have success with this particular bug.

Is this hardware/software combination anything that a home user could reasonably afford?

Quote from chewitt

The WebGrabPlus add-on (there is a thread for it in the forum here) was originally created to solve EPG for someone using ATSC

It was my understanding that WebGrabPlus gets EPG data from a web site, please correct if I'm wrong about this. That might be applicable to cable TV or IPTV channels. But OTA broadcast channels have the guide data embedded in the live stream already. Some of the PVR add-ons imply native support for OTA EPG but I never got it working. Still not clear if any of the PVR's were meant to support this natively.

Quote

I'm pretty confident there is no FM tuner in those boxes so not sure how you'd get that to work (USB device maybe). I certainly never heard anyone asking questions about FM on them before.

Some TV tuner chips are software defined and not really limited to TV channel reception. I expected the Wetek OEM tuner module might be capable of that, since FM radio in this region falls inside the TV band. When "Radio" appeared in the Estuary main menu after a recent update, I thought this tuner feature had been auto-detected, and presumed there was some intent to support it.

I purchased Wetek Play v1 on the basis of a claim to support the following in Linux:

1. ATSC VSB
2. OTA EPG
3. analog FM radio

After many months of trying, I cannot make features 2+3 work with any PVR client. Does anyone have all of these features working correctly on this hardware? If yes, which PVR add-on and which LibreELEC version was used? Any suggestions for other compatible hardware that has been tested successfully with all 3 of these features working together? Any luck with a different platform?*

* JeOS implementations for Kodi - Official Kodi Wiki

Play 1. (And no need to quote the entire message.)

Quote from sakos

The fault comes on both RPi and x86 ... Meanwhile tested with Kodi Krypton RC2 on Windows

works here on Play but it buffered for > 1 minute before starting
no errors in kodi log
starts instantly in VLC
192 kbps
maybe a compatibility bug which only affects a particular type of audio server

Another test:

1. Scan for channels on TV Headend: reception works but no EPG data
2. Disable all TV Headend modules
3. Enable VDR modules

Now I can receive TV channels, but no audio & no EPG! It appears that some channel configuration / muxes profile is shared between VDR and TV Headend ?

Quote from magicamun

istn't that too much dvr's? Shouldn't that be only one?

I have only demux0, dvr0, frontend0

Just noticed that I am not receiving update notifications for PVR clients & backends from LE repo. Manually updated to latest versions. Sometimes disabled items are enabled without permission during an update. Kodi often freezes or crashes when enable/disable/update PVR components.

Quote

and the system freezes.

When I use w_scan from terminal the scan completes successfully but ~/.kodi/addons/service.multimedia.vdr-addon/config/channels.conf is empty (0 bytes)

I never said it was illogical for high CPU usage to occur under these circumstances. However, I can promise you that people will be surprised to find that hardware acceleration was not utilized. It is also surprising that such a huge performance penalty would be allowed without notice. When several other services are active at the same time, the user interface will begin to stutter and become very sluggish. Dont you think the user would want to know that RSS feeds are the largest resource hog on the platform, so they can make an informed choice, instead of spending so much time on troubleshooting?

Quote

CPU-meters are available in the System Info page,

Which ruins the usefulness of the feature, because you get no real time feedback when you make changes. If people saw the CPU load triple when they enabled RSS feeds, they would probably switch it back off immediately.

When RSS feeds are enabled on low-spec hardware, CPU usage at idle increases from 25% to 60%

It appears that this method of scrolling does not utilize hardware acceleration. This is a shocking performance penalty which the user should be informed about when they enable this feature. It would be also be helpful in troubleshooting if we had a CPU meter on the Estuary menu bar (up near the clock.)

Quote from sakos

This severe fault is introduced in LE 7.90.009 and present in 010 as well. 008 and all previous versions work fine. The fault comes on both RPi and x86 HTPC.

I have a similar issue on Wetek Play, starting in 7.90.009 it will not play MP3 streams. But it does not crash, it only says "ERROR: CAudioDecoder: Unable to Init Codec while loading file ..."

Suggest you might disable all PVR modules to see if it makes a difference. It worked for me once, but the problem returned after the next boot.

Tested here with multiple USB keyboards. All are affected. Number keys generate letters instead. Looks like a bug.

When I disabled TV Headend, the Kodi user interface froze...

ERROR: Unable to find plugin
ERROR: GetDirectory - Error getting plugin://
ERROR: CGUIMediaWindow::GetDirectory(plugin://) failed
NOTICE: PVRManager - stopping

...but Kodi is still running:

PID  USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
 2082 root      20   0  772636 190748  40700 S   6.3 21.7 111:59.73 kodi.bin

Reboot & enable VDR here...

Quote from CvH

did you activated into the vdr adonn wait for dvb device #1?

This was the current setting:
Wait for frontend initialization = enable
Number of adapters to wait for = 1

I tried the DEFAULTS button in VDR backend, now the error at boot is gone and PVR manager starts OK. I guess the VDR user preferences file was corrupted. But I dont know how it happened. So PVR manager is working now, but VDR Wirbelscan still does not work (freezes at start of scan). Kodi still works, I can use the back button to escape Wirbelscan. This is what happens when I scan for channels in VDR Config:

ERROR: GetDirectory - Error getting plugin://script.config.vdr/
ERROR: CGUIMediaWindow::GetDirectory(plugin://script.config.vdr/) failed

I can close Wirbelscan GUI (VDR configuration) but cannot abort the stuck scan without rebooting. So the problem is now "VDR configuration will not scan for channels."

Also, when I try to play MP3 audio streams, it fails. I see this in Kodi log:

CaudioDecoder: Unable to init codec while loading file

Quote from CvH

Could you try to scan -> let it crash -> dmesg | paste and post the url ?

Does not crash. That was zbigzbig20
LibreELEC

My problem is "PVR manager is starting up: 0 %"

Quote from CvH

pls delete service.tvheadend42\accesscontrol\..... from the userdata addon folder, then reboot your LE box

OK that works

Quote from CvH

just for sanity check, could you disable vdr (backend, vdr.vnsi ...) and install Tvheadend 4.2 and after that have a look if the adaptor appear in the webui ? (your-box-ip:9981)

The adapter appears correctly and channel reception is working now with TV Headend. But the OTA EPG grabber has never worked. This is why I wanted to use VDR instead. I have now updated to LE 7.90.010 but the problem with VDR still exists ("Unable to connect to restfull api")

Does anyone with a Wetek Play have OTA tuner + EPG working 100% correctly?

Quote from Grimson

If any of the add-ons you talk about are on this list: Official:Forum rules/Banned add-ons - Official Kodi Wiki (and at least 2 of them are) then you are advocating piracy add-ons, which means you are violating the forum rules.

You appear to be at least partially wrong, I checked that list and only see one item. I will happily obey the rules here, but it's hard to keep track of what is banned and what is not. I am only interested in content which is legitimately free. There are many TV series, live news channels and documentary films deliberately posted online by the content owner. YouTube live channels are but one example. So I would suggest that the forum server should employ a script which notifies the user of banned topics when posting, to avoid accidental violations. I am not convinced that censorship is a good idea, but will obey the rules to the best of my ability and apologise for the one single oversight.

To some extent I think this sort of censorship is becoming kind of absurd, since Google indexes pirate content but Google is not a banned topic, there is a strange double standard here. In any case, no pirate channel is going to be reliable, so you would not want such things to pollute your custom PVR channel list (where the family expects everything to just work!) I am more interested in finding ways to get legitimate free channels into the PVR lineup that you see when Kodi starts up. If an authentic free stream can be viewed in a web browser, and there is a static URL associated with that stream, it should be possible to add that stream to the PVR channel list, and right now this is not always easy or possible. Kodi will be much more popular when it overcomes this limitation, and the success of open platforms is what I really want to support more than anything else.

Quote from DaVu

Be aware, that we don't support piracy in any way.

We don't support it and we don't allow any discussion that's related to it. So please stop that now.

I do not use or advocate pirate channels, only legitimate free channels. Bittorrent corporation does not allow pirate channels in their directory - its only original broadcasters with strictly legal stuff. I see no pirate channels listed on SopCast either. Please understand that Bittorrent TV is totally different than Bittorrent file transfer. It's not a piracy service, read their web site! The purpose is to allow TV producers with a small budget to have their own channel without paying high prices for a server farm.

Does LIRC support the internal IR receiver on Wetek Play, or must I use a USB IR dongle?