Channels DVR broke when adding Custom Channels

Channels DVR Server Troubleshooting
#1

Loving Channels DVR for over a year now. This morning I experienced an issue I don't know how to resolve. After having success with Hank's new nocords.xyz method of integrating Pluto TV channels, I tried to do the same with Stirr.

As soon as I did this, the web admin page didn't refresh, felt like something may have crashed? Maybe because I tried using the same name ("Stirr") before removing the old method first, or maybe because these two methods conflict with each other, I don't know. But anyway, I rebooted the iMac running as my Channels DVR, and I still can't get into it. I don't see the little "TV" menulet in my menu bar and when I go to my.channelsdvr.net this is all I see:

Screen Shot 2021-10-21 at 8.37.43 AM
Screen Shot 2021-10-21 at 8.37.43 AM1139×357 28.9 KB

Then I tried launching Channels DVR Installer, just to see what options were presented, and this is what I see:

Screen Shot 2021-10-21 at 8.52.01 AM

I am not sure how to proceed and would appreciate any advice.

#2

What does the Log show, on x.x.x.x:8089/log

#3

Checking the log it appears to be running, Channels DVR is refreshing lineups. The log is long, is there some specific string of text I should be looking for? I just can't get to the admin web UI. And the TV icon that's usually in the macOS menu is gone, which feels weird.

Wondering if I should uninstall and reinstall DVR? All of my Channels DVR data is on an external HDD. Obviously I don't want to lose any of my configuration.

#4

Try hitting Stop and then Start again in the installer.

If that doesn't work you'd need to uninstall, reinstall and restore backup.

#5

Well, that sure was an easy recovery. Start/stop didn't work so I uninstalled, reinstalled, restored from the most recent backup. I'm back up and running. Thanks!

1 Like
#6

Geeze Fofer, I can't find anything on my end that would have caused this -- the Stirr files are just like the Docker ones -- you can go to the URLs in a browser and download the playlist.m3u and epg.xml files and see what they look like -- should be nearly identical to the Docker versions. I just rebooted my DVR server and everything is working normally.

But looking at my server logs, it appears like your DVR server (I'm taking a guess at your IP address ends in .26) kept calling the playlist.m3u files for Pluto and Stirr 720 times between 10:54 ET and 12:16ET. So the server was in some sort of endless loop calling the links. I'm not sure why that would be, but something got hung somewhere.

Glad to see you're up and running again.

2 Likes
#7

Yikes! Yes, it was definitely strange. My log didn't make any of that obvious. It just mentioned all of my sources refreshing regularly.

Switching Pluto methods was easy, that went without a hitch. The only thing I did differently with the Stirr switchover, was that I tried to do it by adding it as new Custom Channels, titled as "STIRR" (as opposed to just changing the M3U and EPG url's in the original configuration, which was already named "Stirr.") My thinking at the time was that I wanted to see if it would result in different channel numbers which might screw up my Channel Collections? I'm still a bit shaky in my understanding how channel numbers get assigned in the first place so I thought I was treading carefully, and something along that route got me in trouble.

Regardless, I'm very grateful this was resolved without much hassle. I'm impressed by how easy and thorough the Restore Wizard was. Thanks for the quick replies. Lessons learned! Hopefully this thread can help someone else out in the future.