After several rounds of sending logs and beta attempts. It was posited my problem was likely the Amazon Fire tablets inferior hardware against the large number of movies I had. I portioned off the kids movies into a separate docker'd server for only the tablets to look at. It happens this is now sprung back up for me on my Nvida Shield as well just this week. @tmm1
Same here - NVidia shield, and the ONN Pro. Also can't play most of my TV Shows. Select watch, get "How do you want to watch" option, thats it. Both run Android flavors. Live TV works, as does TV Everywhere. Runs OK on IOS.
I'm on Unraid, Channels Version 2025.06.01.2212. Shield Channels version v4.9.0.
Also tried with Fire TV. Same issue on all three Android Software platforms. Works on IOS and Windows.
Same issue. Various Android 4.9.0 clients (Onn, Firestick, Android Phone). Large library. No movies load. Most recorded shows don't load. The "Preparing your TV..." process obviously terminates earlier than normal (~40 secs vs 2.5 minutes) and most of recordings are missing. The recordings are all in the library, however, as verified through the web interface.
The last time I recall this happening (~1.5 years ago), "improvements" in library loading to reduce startup times were made to the DVR server which caused the problem and as I recall those "improvements" were backed out.
DVR Version 2025.06.11.0058. Problem started yesterday but neither my DVR Server or Clients have been updated recently.
Clearing cache, restarting clients does not fix the problem. Restarting the DVR server does not fix the problem.
Happens whether clients are direct connected via Ethernet (~350 Mbits/s) or wifi (100 Mbits/s).
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Same exact experience as forey3rd. Restarting apps, clearing cache, reinstall of app.. to no change.
I ran the database maintenance options.
Im on 2025.06.01.2212
I removed the largest group of ~10k TV shows from sources, which is taking a long time, but is bringing down the database number, 1 episode at time.
Next, I am going to try to recover from a backup database using the welcome screen instructions from Channels Support - How do I move Channels DVR Server to a new computer?
Removing 10k shows did the trick for me to recover my shield. Taking me from ~48k recording to 38k on the settings/general library database on web interface.
I have over 74k recordings and this just started yesterday. Removing recordings doesn't address the root cause but is an interesting data point to add. As I mentioned earlier, this is some issue between client and DVR server that apparently only exists for android.
I'm going to update to DVR Server 2025.07.19.0550 because I have FS1 / FS2 problems I hope to solve. Will report back if it fixes android client loading issues.
Updating the DVR server to 2025.07.19.0550 did not fix the problem. This may be due to some library element that is being transferred from Server to Client that causes the transfer process to abruptly terminate. "Preparing your TV" times are still much shorter than normal.
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Suspicion about something in the library data being transferred to the Android client causing early termination of the "Preparing Your TV" process seems to be on the right track.
What I did:
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Created a new channels instance with a new storage path (Note: I made sure the new DVR server doesn't have access to my old storage paths to keep existing recordings from being deleted.)
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Copied my latest recordings.db and settings.db to the new DVR instance and did a restore.
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Forced stop/cleared cache/rebooted client hardware/started my android client and pointed it to the new DVR instance
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Confirmed "too short" load times while "Preparing Your TV" and confirmed the problem existed in the new instance (i.e., no movies, most TV recordings missing)
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Went into the web interface DVR/ManageRecordings/Shows (No movies had recorded since the last good session) and sent to the Trash all shows recorded AFTER the last known "good" client session.
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Emptied the trash
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Forced stop/cleared cache/rebooted client hardware/started my android client and after a much longer "Preparing your TV " time...
VOILA!!! All the moves and shows recorded BEFORE the last known session returned to the client as normal.
This very strongly indicates that something in show information that is being passed to the Android client is causing the "Preparing Your TV" process to terminate early thus leaving the client with a incomplete version of your library.
I don't yet know the offending show(s)/information but I'll re-run the test to see if I can pinpoint what might be cause the loading process to crash.
We're looking into this.
Fix here:
I confirm it solves the problem on Firestick (Android), Onn Pro 4K (Android) and Phone (Android).
Originally wasn't able to figure out how to install the beta on Onn 4K Pro (Android) because the option to install the beta is not available in Settings/Support even with Developer Options enabled.
EDIT: Found the instructions for getting to the apk here: Pre-Release access for DVR subscribers
Downloaded and installed the apk (which appears to be a very old version) but from Settings/Support, Update Beta App can be used to update to the latest version.
Thanks for heads up, we fixed the link to go to the latest version.
I'm running 2025.07.20.0706 on the Unraid NAS and the issue is not solved on ONN or the NVidia players. I did the update from within the Channels app, not an Unraid container update. No Movies, and TV Episodes still showing none or one episode. Do I have to change to software on the players as well? Still on 4.9.0. Still runs fine on IOS. Running fancybits/channels-dvr:tve repository in the container.
Yes, it’s the updated app that resolves the issue.
Thanks - any idea when a working app will be available. My users certainly not capable of updating the client. All clients set for automatic updates. Any suggestions on how I could go about updating the clients?
v4.9.2 is under review by Google with the fix. Once they approve it your clients should auto update.
Thanks
Just updated to 4.9.2 on ONN. Gone from no movies to Multiple references to the same movie. Often times many of the references are "connection lost" messages.
Same issue on NVidia shield. Both on 4.9.2. TV Series seems ok! No issues with Emby or plex on the same server addressing the same content. Confirmed I have no duplicates.
After further testing, seeing the same issue on IOS after clicking on "All Movies". Server on Unraid, running Channels 2025.07.20.0706