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errors running on xbmc as *back end*

Added by Tommy Kavanagh over 10 years ago

Hello,

I've been having a go for a week(or two) on and off with a little success but often its one step forward and two back :-/

But i'm not giving up on it just yet.

My setup is as follows;

xbmc tvheadend 3.4-dirty on Raspberry Pi
DVB-T USB adapter - Realtek RTL2832

Things i've tried.

Before settling on the Raspberry Pi, i've tried running tvheadend off a Dell D630 Laptop with various flavours of Ubuntu 12.04, 13.10, and Mint 15. Also tried Arch, but i'm more comfortable with a debian base so reverted to Ubuntu. That said, I couldn't find my way through multiple "continuity errors" and I reverted to a RPi with Raspbmc running on it.

On the Ubuntu installs, I tried the 'in repository' version of tvheadend, downloaded and compiled 3.2, 3.4, and 3.6 -- none of which I had any success with -- the issues were predominently 'continuity error' based at the time.

The thought did strike me was there an issue with the USB DVB-T tuner. However this works fine with the linux MeTv software and is detected fine (with more modern kernels in ubuntu, and on the RPi).

I've tried both wifi connections (which is the desireable connection type) and wired ethernet. Both exhibit the same errors,

The RPi appears to be the most stable thus far and has eliminated the continuity errors which plagued me previously on the Ubuntu/Dell D630.

But it is 'flaky' at best. It runs. It freezes. It might continue. Eventually, it breaks down and stops. I've run a typical start-up, select a program to stream, attempt to stream, and hold until the connection breaks down and logged the output which i've attached here.

Channels are detected, and EPG data received.

From my tvheadend Configuration Tab-> TV Adapters

Hardware
Device path:
/dev/dvb/adapter0
Device name:
Realtek RTL2832 (DVB-T)
Host connection:
USB (480 Mbit/s)
Frequency range:
174000 kHz - 862000 kHz, in steps of 166 kHz
Status
Currently tuned to:
RTENL 2: 570,000 kHz
Services:
41
Muxes:
2
Muxes awaiting initial scan:
0
Signal Strength:
0%
Bit Error Rate:
0/s
Uncorrected Bit Errors:
0/s

If you can spare a few minutes:

I would really appreciate if anyone more familiar with the error messages that tvheadend outputs could take a look at the logfile attached, and advise me what I could try to stablise the setup, or if it looks like I have done something wrong.

The Logfile Events

The logfile should show a normal startup of tvheadend
Then a channel 'TV3' was selected. This is an SD channel (the same problem exists on the HD channels too).
The picture/display played briefly, then froze, and started again, and eventually it broke down altogether.

The region is Ireland.

Anyhow, any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

tvheadend.log (4.09 KB) tvheadend.log Log file from tvheadend run

Replies (2)

RE: errors running on xbmc as *back end* - Added by Prof Yaffle over 10 years ago

Random thoughts from this corner...

1. Streaming is closely related to recording, so the settings for the latter define the former.

2. Permissions on your (undefined) default recording directory should be okay, but check those (/home/pi...)

3. You look like you're using mkv as a container; try ts. (Either gets used as an intermediary for streaming, I think - my empirical conclusion, anyway)

4. Trying to work this one out:

[ ERROR]:HTTP: 192.168.1.9: /%5BInvalid%20UTF-8%5D -- 1

which translates to

[ ERROR]:HTTP: 192.168.1.9: /(Invalid UTF-8) -- 1

So... is it related to the channel or provider name - the acute accent in "RTÉ", for example?

5. If it is, what does "remove unsafe characters..." in the Recording config do? Anything?

6. Can you isolate the errors to tvheadend by using VLC to stream instead?

7. Is there any change in XBMC if you use the pvr.tvh addon instead of pvr.hts (utterly random guess, no logic at all there!)?

8. Do the problems happen just when streaming, or when recording as well?

9. If you can record, can you then play back the recording through the tvheadend addon to XBMC?

10. Can you play the recording directly on an NFS/SMB share?

11. What does the tvheadend web interface show at this time if you switch debugging on (open the message box at the bottom of the UI and click the cog)?

12. Failing that, set DEBUG in /etc/default/tvheadend and have a look in syslog.

... there's not a huge amount of logic in there. so don't treat it as gospel, I'm just wondering if there's some way to focus attention ...

RE: errors running on xbmc as *back end* - Added by Tommy Kavanagh over 10 years ago

Many thanks for the reply. I'm beginning to work through the suggestions.

So;

a) I did a recording of about 7 mins of a program (about 100MB in resulting mkv file size). I downloaded the resulting file to the laptop which i'm using. Result = 7mins of clear video/audio. A little wavy line at the top of the display but by enlarge this was ok.

b) in downloading the 100MB file in (a) above I noticed it to be particularly slow to download from the RPi. I'd suspected Wifi or contention issues or something like that previously and this confirmed that this appeared to be an issue. Running IPERF i was getting fairly brutal throughput (measured in Kbits rather than Mbits). Anyhow to eliminate this as a "likely" source of a problem with streaming, I connected the RPi and the laptop to the switch and verified 90Mbit throughput (again, via IPERF).

c) I changed the container in the recorder settings from mkv to 'pass through' which was the only other option (not sure is this ts as suggested above?). This had a negative effect on the picture with far more frequent 'freezing' so I reset it back to mkv.

d) I've tried via vlc, in browser, on iPad, on iPhone, but all present the same issues/errors.

e) I gather the permissions are ok - it created the 7min 100MB recording fine.

f) Re: "remove unsafe characters..." in the Recording config -- didn't appear to have any effect.

That puts me about half way through your list :) I'll continue with more suggestions in the next day or so and i'll report back.

Thanks again for taking the time. Much appreciated.

Regards.

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