Hello,
I have recently started getting major buffering and pixelation when watching live tv in xbmc. Watching in wmc is fine and also recordings are fine so not sure what is going on. I have pasted a log of a session this morning. Basically I select bbc one nc&e to watch - major buffering/pixelation present. I then instant record it. Then try to watch another channel and get error messages saying no video.
http://pastebin.com/Dfqy01Nz
Anything obvious in there?
Hi Kitehigh,
Your log certainly shows lots of errors relating to the remux job of the live TV having issues getting data from the WTV file "long interval between writes" and "Last number of attempts for Guid header was large".
To me it looks like you tried to view BBC One NC&E, the channel tuned and remux job started quite quickly and normally (total backend time 2.4 seconds) then about 22 seconds later the remux job started complaining that it couldn't get data in the WTV file and had to try 1280 retries to find the next GUID header in the stream and didn't have any data to write for 7 seconds, then 2 seconds etc.
At this point then you kicked off an instant record, and continued watching, the remuxer keeps complaining and eventually after a couple of minutes you stop viewing the channel (instant recording continues on in the background, remux job stops and TS file is deleted).
Then you attempted to view the instant recording that was in progress (did this work at all or not?) which was very fast to identify the stream and start a new remux job (0.2 seconds) but ultimately 9 seconds later you stop viewing the in progress recording. At this point the remux job that had started for the viewing of the inprogress recording kept on running (was persisted) as that is the default for a recording (if a client watched a recording and stops, we keep the remuxer going unti lthe end of the recording incase another/the same client, wants to watch it again. This option can be changed if you wish. The remux continues to run on in the background and still complaining about the "took a long time to get new data".
Meanwhile you try and view BBC One followed by Channel 4, now using tuner device B (since A is tied up doing the instant recording) and in both channels the stream cant start properly as it takes too long to find any audio/video headers in the WTV file and times out at 10 seconds. This is interesting in itself since originally your setup had a very fast 2.4 second backend time, but once that got in trouble, new tuning attempts also are running into problems not getting data from their WTV files either.
Finally you delete the timer/stop the instant recording and the remux job that had been running since you attempted to view the inprogress recording (and complaining in the background the whole time on and off), now stops. The instant recording is saved to the recordings folder, and you shut down XBMC
Questions
- Do you still have the WTV file from the recording? If so can you try and play it and see if it's OK or if it has skips/coruption etc?
- Does this happen on every liveTV attempt or just sometimes/often? After this log was produced, did you try to view any channels again? Did they work or exhibit the same problem?
- You say it started happening recently, does that mean in the past it "worked perfectly"? Have there been any changes made on your system in recent times?
- If you make a recording (better yet, 2 simultaneous recordings) and watch them back later, do they play OK?
- Any possibility your hard drives are getting a work out eg by running things like MCEBuddy/comskip or other intensive scanning/processing tasks?
- Any possibility you have bad signal strength or tuner data coming through? The fact you said all is fine in WMC itself probably means no...
- It's unlikely to be the issue but may as well list your PC specs (CPU RAM HDD size and type) anyway for completeness?
- You didn't post a FULL ServerWMC log, so I couldn't see the startup info that shows what tuners/channels you have, whether you have set any ServerWMC options away from their default values etc. Could you post another log to pastebin that shows ServerWMC starting up? Again this is just to get a fuller picture about your setup and ServerWMC configuration
It did work perfectly a couple of weeks ago. Was away at weekend came back and it started playing up.
Below is a log from startup. ITV4 has problems as described, then tried BBC 1 HD which plays fine.
http://pastebin.com/MF1VGtdf
To answer some of the other questions:
Two simultaneous recordings work fine, again without live TV involved there is no problem.
If I instant record whilst the pixelation is happening this is present in the file when played in wmc.
No other HDD activity, no post processing or anything.
Signal should be ok - no problems in wmc, recordings all perfect etc.
All HD channels work ok, SD channels is a mixed bag to be honest, still trying to identify a pattern amongst which SD channels wrok etc.
PC specs:
G620T processor - perfmon shows no spikes or anything
Using integrated HD graphics
2 gb ram
OS on SDD
Recording to WD blue 200GB HDD
So, updated serverWMC this morning, all channels seemed to be ok.
Got in this evening and other half says some channels stopped working. Having restarted pc, reset pvr database and reset serverWMC channel list a couple of times each still some channels don't play at all, example log below trying to start ITV HD..
http://pastebin.com/Xad7Wybi
It looks like swmc is not receiving any data from the channel you tuned to. First off, start WMC and make sure the channel still works there, just in case something got messed up between when everything worked and then when it stopped working. If wmc plays it fine, then go the the debug tab in swmc and turn off (just for this experiment) 'delete temporary files'. Then after a live tv stream fails, go to the tempswmc folder and see if the wtv that that is there (Live***.wtv) plays.
Ok, tried that. Channel plays fine in WMC. Start XBMC and attempt to watch same channel which fails. The Live..xx.wtv file is 512kb big and nothing plays when this is selected.
Log of this:
http://pastebin.com/YUXmRv4P
That file size is just a wtv file header and no data, and that's basically what the log shows - swmc is not finding any data at all on these channels. I assume you tried rebooting? I know that's lame, but at this point I do not know what is wrong - especially since it worked initially.
Well this morning I tried WMC again and initially it started to play ITV HD but then 30s in it froze up. Going back it wouldn't play the channel and Channel 4 HD just came up with a message 'service unavailable'.
If I set to record either of these channels in the WMC guide, then go to recorded TV to play the currently recording file they play back perfectly.
I am wondering if there is some conflict between WMC and serverWMC on my system but not sure why only I would see this problem.
Based on recordings working the tuners and signals must be ok? Just for some reason the live / temporary streams are failing..
The thing is that "live streams" in ServerWMC actually ARE recordings that we kick off then remux
It sounds like you have transient/random problems... Are recordings ALWAYS Ok? Perhaps it's only coincidence that they seem to be ok when you test for it
You wouldn't happen to have an alternate tuner device you could try? Or an alternate pc that could setup as a test server with the existing tuner?
@
kitehigh,
?? Did you really mean that WMC is failing to play the live stream too? See first sentence of last post.
If that's the case. The only real difference in wmc is recordings are started by the rec service and live TV streams are started by wmc (or swmc in our case). If wmc is failing to do live streams too, but recordings are working, I suggest reconfiguring TV again in wmc (i.e. 'set up TV signal' in wmc)
If you don't want to do that (or it doesn't work), as an experiment, please try starting a recording in wmc (or swmc - really doesn't matter). And play back the recording in xbmc WHILE it is recording.
Yes wmc was failing to play live tv... but then serverwmc had always been running...and this continued after a full channel re-scan (and sorting every channel to have the correct sources ticked!)
Again recordings could be started and watched in either wmc or xbmc, no conflict there,
I am now using QuickWMC to test WMC without starting up serverwmc to see if the problems persist or not.
I'll report back anything else I find, even though it's only me seeing this problem!
Well I thought I'd try again with the pvr.wmc seeing as there've been a couple of updates since my last post.. It's working much better now, however, still getting the occasional glitches when watching live.
It is always when there is some static graphic on screen, like a picture being shown rather than moving video or where a channel puts up static overlay graphics over moving video. Seems strange but there's a definite pattern to it. It just flickers for as long as the graphic/static image is displayed then continues playback fine.
I can be recording the program and even start a recording after the glitches occurred and when watching the recording back it's all perfect!
So, tried switching 'remux the playback of all wtv files' on, watched a recording back and hey presto at the same point as when watching live the glitches appeared. So the remux is not handling something quite right?
Are there any settings I can play with regarding the remuxing?
Log file attached - I was trying it out around 22:09:26 to 22:13
http://pastebin.com/jkxzCUp9
Curious why you bothered trying it again?
Your analysis sounds right to me, it sounds like there is something wrong with the remux on these video sequences, but there are no settings to play with for this. What would work better is, the next time you decide to try the software and you see this glitch, that before you stop the stream go into the recorded tv/tempswmc folder and save the wtv file you see there (i.e. make a copy of it, before it gets deleted). Then you can upload it so scarecrow or I can look at it.
Tried it again because I much prefer the idea of the PVR integrated with xbmc! You've put out some updates as well which I know weren't aimed at my previous issues but something may have changed that caused some quirk in my system. It is much better now, whether that's to do with serverWMC pvr.wmc or something else changed on my system I don't know. Its now much more stable in general, the only thing is occasional couple of seconds during remuxing of a live stream.
I'll try and get a good sample clip later on.