Certain AVI files fail to play

[Andrew_Zimmern]

i have a few seasons of a show in my library in .avi, but they fail to play in channels. when i try to play them, they start to load then it just says transcoder finished. this is on the web player and appletv. they work in vlc/plex, and other .avi work in channels.

i saw some posts about missing metadata? i see a similar message in the transcoder logs.

[maddox]

You'll need to provide more details on these video files. Find the videos in your Channels DVR Server web admin and use the View Details option to get more info on them.

Paste them in here so we can get real details on their codecs.

[Andrew_Zimmern]

{
  "ID": "7022",
  "GroupID": "184363",
  "Path": "Dexters Laboratory\\S01\\Dexter's Lab - S01E02.avi",
  "CreatedAt": 1692087708,
  "FileSize": 183334912,
  "Duration": 1294.8936,
  "Completed": true,
  "Processed": true,
  "Airing": {
    "Source": "tms",
    "OriginalDate": "1996-05-05",
    "Time": 831254400,
    "Duration": 0,
    "Title": "Dexter's Laboratory",
    "EpisodeTitle": "Dexter Dodgeball; Dial M for Monkey: Rasslor; Dexter's Assistant",
    "Summary": "Dexter plays dodgeball; intergalactic wrestling champ; Dexter gives Dee Dee a smarter brain.",
    "FullSummary": "Dexter makes an armored suit for gym class; intergalactic wrestler challenges all comers; Dee Dee helps Dexter on a project.",
    "Image": "https://tmsimg.fancybits.co/assets/p10515883_b_h9_aa.jpg?w=720&h=540",
    "Categories": [
      "Episode",
      "Series"
    ],
    "Genres": [
      "Animated",
      "Children",
      "Comedy"
    ],
    "Tags": [
      "Stereo"
    ],
    "SeriesID": "184363",
    "ProgramID": "EP001765550034",
    "SeasonNumber": 1,
    "EpisodeNumber": 2,
    "Cast": [
      "Christine Cavanaugh",
      "Jeff Bennett",
      "Kath Soucie"
    ],
    "ReleaseYear": 1996,
    "ContentRating": "TV-G"
  },
  "UpdatedAt": 1694046004455,
  "Version": 6,
  "ImportPath": "E:\\TV",
  "ImportQuery": "Dexters Laboratory",
  "ImportGroup": "184363",
  "ImportedAt": 1694046003793
}

thanks

[Andrew_Zimmern]

So I've been seeing similar behavior with quite a few files actually. On appletv what happens is I click a specific file to play and instead of playing it, it stops then moves to the next episode. This continues until I stop it. If I try again it works.

I did a lot of purging/re-scanning when renaming files. Could something have gotten wonky? I don't see anything wrong with these files and they work everywhere else.

[maddox]

This sounds like a couple things are happening.

First, when you play a show in Channels, it queues up the next ones to watch automatically. When you finish one, it will start the next.

Second, it sounds like it's failing to start the video for some reason. When that happens, it ends abruptly and goes on to the next one, which then does the same thing.

I see you've submitted diagnostics. We'll look to see if we can see any errors.

[Andrew_Zimmern]

That definitely sounds like what's happening. On the web player the behavior is a bit different, and the first file that bombs will end with 'Transcoding Stopped' or something and just sit.

I tried removing some offending files from my TV directory, purging from channels and re-adding and it still happens.

It's almost like it's still convinced the files are in another location? What's stranger is I had this happen for a show where it kept moving to the next queued episode without playing. When I tried again it worked.

Are there any detailed logs I can look at, or a flag I need to turn on in order to do so? I saw some stuff related to DVR in the install directory but nothing for my library or general errors.

[tmm1]

You could look at the dvr logs under Support > Logs

[Andrew_Zimmern]

Decoder (codec msmpeg4v3) not found for input stream #0:0

Something with ffmpeg? This is for the show I posted before. I'll have to wait for the other shows to randomly have the issue again to see what that error is.

[tmm1]

Great, will fix in next build.