Corrupt file after Commercial Detection Failed

Channels DVR Server
#1

Hello, I am using Channels DVR version 2018.07.01.1750 running on a high power iMac with plenty of free hard drive space. It has been working great for many months.

Tonight, one of my recordings finished, and I went to watch the show, but the Channels app on my Apple TV would only go into that show for 1 second and then bounce back out to the menu. I checked the log file on my iMac, and saw:

2018/08/12 20:00:05 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 154 (TV/[Show Name]21 2018-08-12 2018-08-12-1900.mpg)
2018/08/12 20:00:05 [DVR] Commercial detection failed with exit status 255

When I try to play it via the Channels web config interface, I see a ton of this in the log file:

2018/08/12 20:30:54 [HLS] Starting transcoder for file154-ip192.168.1.105 at 0s from 192.168.1.105 (encoder=h264_videotoolbox, resolution=, deinterlacer=blend, bitrate=10000)
[mpegts @ 0x7fb5c4808000] Dropped corrupted packet (stream = 5)
[mpegts @ 0x7fb5c4808000] Dropped corrupted packet (stream = 0)
Last message repeated 5 times
[mpegts @ 0x7fb5c4808000] Dropped corrupted packet (stream = 5)
Last message repeated 1 times
[mpegts @ 0x7fb5c4808000] Dropped corrupted packet (stream = 0)
[mpegts @ 0x7fb5c4808000] Dropped corrupted packet (stream = 6)
[mpegts @ 0x7fb5c4808000] Dropped corrupted packet (stream = 0)
Last message repeated 2 times
…

Also I found it interesting that within the user interface, Channels tells me this show is 51 minutes long. It should be 60 minutes (or may be 59 minutes, etc., but 51 minutes seemed strange).

I’d like to salvage the file and play it if possible. But most importantly, of course, is to help ensure this problem doesn’t surface in the future. I restarted the Channels DVR service, and even restarted my iMac, just in case – but the file still won’t play. I’m assuming it is corrupt and there’s no fixing it in this instance.

Any ideas?

Thank you.

#2

Have you tried playing it in the Channels app? Or using VLC on your Mac?

Are there any errors in the log from earlier when the recording was happening?

#3

Thank you for the reply. I have tried playing it via the Channels app on my Apple TV – when I select that piece of media, it looks like it’s going to play, then kicks me back to the previous screen right away.

I tried VLC, and it doesn’t display any video – it plays about 1/2 second of audio and then stops. Weird…really seems like a corrupt file. I’m not sure there’s anything else we can do right now; I’ll keep an eye out for future occurrences.

Nothing weird in the log during the recording. Here’s the chunk:

2018/08/12 18:59:59 [DVR] Waiting 71.043426ms until next job 1534118400-5 [Show Name]
2018/08/12 19:00:00 [DVR] Starting job 1534118400-5 [Show Name] on ch=[14.1 11.1]
2018/08/12 19:00:00 [DVR] Waiting 17h59m59.83637286s until next job 1534183200-3 [Future Show Name]
2018/08/12 19:00:04 [TNR] Opened connection to 1054B1EF for ch14.1 [transcode=none]
2018/08/12 19:00:04 [DVR] Recording for job 1534118400-5 from 1054B1EF ch14.1 into “TV/[Show Name] 2018-08-12 2018-08-12-1900.mpg” for 59m59.836261985s
2018/08/12 20:00:04 [TNR] Closed connection to 1054B1EF for ch14.1
2018/08/12 20:00:04 [DVR] Finished job 1534118400-5 [Show Name]
2018/08/12 20:00:04 [DVR] Waiting 16h59m55.627024108s until next job 1534183200-3 [Future Show Name]
2018/08/12 20:00:04 [DVR] Processing file-154: TV/[Show Name] 2018-08-12 2018-08-12-1900.mpg
2018/08/12 20:00:05 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 154 (TV/[Show Name] 2018-08-12 2018-08-12-1900.mpg)
2018/08/12 20:00:05 [DVR] Commercial detection failed with exit status 255
2018/08/12 20:30:54 [HLS] Starting transcoder for file154-ip192.168.1.105 at 0s from 192.168.1.105 (encoder=h264_videotoolbox, resolution=, deinterlacer=blend, bitrate=10000)
[mpegts @ 0x7fb5c4808000] Dropped corrupted packet (stream = 5)
[mpegts @ 0x7fb5c4808000] Dropped corrupted packet (stream = 0)
Last message repeated 5 times

Thank you.

#4

Can you screenshot what appears when you find that recording within the show list on the web UI and select View Details

#5

Yes – but I can’t seem to upload it here. “Sorry, there was an error uploading that file. Please try again.” I tried .png (default) and converting it to .jpg. Weird.

Can I email it to you?

#6

Uploading...

#7

Ahh, there it worked. I dragged the .jpg into the editing window (instead of clicking the upload icon) – not sure if that mattered, but prior to that it failed multiple times. At any rate, the screen shot is above. Thank you.

#8

Can you upload it to google drive and email me a link to [email protected]

#9

Sure, will do. Thank you.

#10

Not quite sure what happened here, but it looks like the HDHR messed up tuning and grabbed a lot of extra channel streams which all got mixed together. Commercial detection does not alter the file at all, so it was corrupted even before commercial detection happened.

#11

OK, very strange. Thank you for looking. I’ll keep an eye out for future occurrences, if any.