Commercial detection causes unresponsive RPi4 server

Channels DVR Server Troubleshooting
#1

recently when my pi4 based server ive run over a year is detecting commercials or processing a recording the entire system becomes unresponsive. App cannot reach server, website usually pulls up but just has a spinning circle so i cant view any data
even ssh terminal is extremely slow and doesn't respond
rebooting resolves the issues, tried a powered usb hub but it wouldnt boot at all

using a raspberry pi4 2gb with a 5tb wd 2.5 usb drive thats roughly 30% full
when i'm able to get in via ssh my temps dont look bad 39-49c

tried latest version and latest pre-release.

any ideas on troubleshooting this? i'd like to avoid a full re-install if possible but if thats the fix i'll do it.

#2

What did you set comskip thread count to?

comskip thread count
comskip thread count954×232 650 KB

Can you view the CPU load averages and RAM usage when the issue occurs?
cpu load averages

#3

1 cpu, usually when the issue starts I get frozen out of all interfaces
The few times I got the page to load I had at least 70% ram free and loads were about 2

#4

I'll let someone who actually uses an RPi for Channels respond, but my guess is a disk I/O issue.
If your 5TB WD drive is only being powered from the RPi, that may be the issue.

#5

Thanks that’s my thought which is why I tried the hub but wouldn’t boot. If it is then I don’t see anything other than reinstalling on a powered drive

#6

From Raspberry Pi Documentation - Raspberry Pi Hardware
Spinning hard disk drives nearly always require a powered USB hub. Even if it appears to work, you are likely to encounter intermittent failures without a powered USB HUB.

#7

so i got a power usb hub to work, similar issues with minimal improvements. recording 3 shows as a test not detecting commercials and the dashboard and apps wont load. even cli is bogged down, has to be hardware i think

#8

Are you recording OTA, atsc3, TVE?

#9

OTA and TVE.
I found its happening during recording processing or if multiple items record at once, in some cases the recordings end up corrupted.

1 Like
#10

I added a powered usb hub for my wd usb drive didn’t seem to help, and upgraded to latest os but I’ve noticed a few things since
1 reboot speeds the system up for a few days then slow again
2 problem is while recording , slight lag when ota recording
3 problem is worse with tve, if I’m recording ota I can still tune to ota and Pluto but tuning to tve doesn’t seem to work

Issues only seem recently maybe past few weeks

#11

Do you have a spare drive you could throw the rpi image on and give it a test? I agree it sounds like disk io issues maybe something with the drive itself or the external drive’s usb board. If still doing it then likely the pi itself,

#12

I’ve got a older powered 3tb and then another of these wd that I’d have to free up.
Did send my diag logs to support, trying everything to save this before having to start from scratch
If it turns out to be the pi I will just move to my synology pi’s are impossible to find now