About ready to abandon Channels

Still relatively new, I’ve been running channels since February. For the last month or so, system is unwatchable if recording 2+ shows simultaneously — video pauses, tuner is unreachable, or web UI can’t see the DVR. It’s been suggested that HD is bad, but all works perfectly when server is idle and CHKDSK finds no errors.

I’m running on RPi4 4MB with WD HDD 4TB. RPi is tethered to router. All sources are TVE (YTTV and Philo).

Would SSD be capable of recording five shows at once? (It’s a wife thing.) Is the RPi able to handle the load? Is there anything else I can try? My wife wants to go back to separate apps for our sources if the problem isn’t fixed.

If you’re looking to record 2 things while also watching live, it sounds like you’ve sort of out grown using it on the pi.

While I’d expect it should be ok, if you’re at all invested in Channels as something you’ll use a ton, by multiple people, it’s worth throwing a bit more hardware at it.

The pi can work great, but it is just a single board computer after all.

If you have a regular computer you can install it on, it’d probably be worth giving it a go.

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Many others have had similar issues after using WD drive with the RPI for a few months. Some ended up switching to SSDs and the problems went away.

If you're able to SSH into the PI and run this command, paste the output shown and it may help debug what's happening.

hdparm -W /dev/sda

cc @hancox @adamandaj @kylander

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So I understand, do I copy and paste this command in the SSH box in the web UI? And should I do that now or when the problem is present?

I was able to do much more than this on the pi image. I only upgraded to get more transcoding horsepower, but that doesn't sound like what's happening here.

@Suds is this the dedicated pi image, or BYO? Which WD HDD? Hooked into the USB3 port on pi? @tmm1 's script will yield some answers here - it's also entirely possible a "newer" controller is causing issues.

Yes, it’s the dedicated pi image. I don’t need to access outside the home, so no transcoding issues there. Yes, connected to one of the blue RPi 3.0 ports. Drive is Western Digital HD Elements. I’m not beholden to the drive, so if that’s the bottleneck, I’d happily switch out.

Yeah, I had the mybook, not the elements. Wouldn't be a stickler normally on things like this, but the controller in play, in addition to uasp support, can be dealbreakers for some use cases.

This link will make your head hurt, but it also shows how finnicky these setups can be.
As to SSH'ing, unless this changed since i last did it, you need to enable ssh explicity in the gui, and then use a client like putty to get in.

So the hard drive doesn’t have its own power supply? USB powered hard drives aren’t suggested. This could be an issue.

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Indeed - i didn't realize that it looks like all of the elements drives (even the ones in the old "book" chassis) are self-powered. This is a very prime suspect.

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Samsung T7 ssd drive on the 2 pis i have setup. Pis OC to 2ghz.
have had 3 shows recording and watching another channel just fine.

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I can record and watch multiple things simultaneously with my Pi. But I have my USB drives plugged into a powered hub, not directly into the Pi. I started that way, but had too many problems. Powered hub solved them. Remote transcoding is the only thing I've found limiting with a pi.

Edited to add my hard drives are not SSDs.

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Cool. What make/model of drives?

Adding my two cents. A few years ago I bought a cheap tiny dell PC from ebay to run all my home media (channels and plenty more through docker) and its been working really well. If you want to beef up your system you dont need to spend a fortune

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Sort-of doesn't matter. The key is the powered hub taking over drive-powering duties from the Pi, which struggles with this (and has forever).

If you have a USB hub around, it's worth trying. If not, it's a cheap(er) possible solution to your issue. More expensive options would be to move to a self-powered model (eg WD My Book or something confirmed to use uasp), or a powered-enclosure SSD.

Original is a 4 TB WB Elements portable and the newer one is a 5 TB Seagate One Touch portable drive. Both plugged into a cheap Atolla USB 3 powered hub off Amazon. Not too thrilled with the hub and am considering replacing it. But our HOA is changing to a new bulk provider that I'm not sure what my future TVE situation will be so holding off any changes until that's settled in the next month or 2. I may go @ssimpson route and replace with a cheap Windows box for better transcoding.

I think Channels is the best TV option. I've been using it for a couple years and just love it.

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There is also some indication that these drives are not very good. WD is making them so cheap by using SMR, and not being upfront about how it works, so its very hard to know what the expected performance should be and how to tune for it.

I definitely recommend using a dedicated power source, but even that may not be enough to fix performance issues with some of these WD drives.

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I've uploaded a new beta OS image. To update, click and hold the OS > Check for Update button.

Afterwards, click Support > Troubleshooting > Submit and I will receive the diagnostics.

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Updated OS and will submit diagnostics when problem surfaces. Thanks.

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Submitted diagnostic logs. Recording two shows while watching a recording. Comskip was hanging up and FF was extremely slow to respond. Appreciate your help.