Experiencing lots of skipping

Channels DVR Server Troubleshooting
#1

I’m running Channels DVR on a Synology 220+ NAS and have a stable 70-75 mbps connection to the DVR server.

When playing back recordings, I’m seeing frequent skipping whereby the recording jumps ahead ~20-30 seconds during various spots in playback. This is happening on all clients (iPhone, FireTV, Apple TV). For instance, I was watching a soccer game and the game jumped from 17:29 to 17:56 suddenly. The picture would freeze for a second and then the jump occurs. I can’t tell if it’s jumping on the timeline or the recording itself was skipped during capture.

I’ve confirmed that the skipping always occurs at the same spot in the recording.This is on TVE recordings for what it’s worth. I don’t have an antenna so can’t check that source.

Any clues on what could be the culprit? When I used to run the DVR on my old 2015 iMac, I never had these issues.

It’s driving me nuts!

#2

Check the dvr log at the time of that recording and see if it was interrupted

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#3

Hi, I checked the logs and it doesn't look like the recording(s) were interrupted at all. Whenever a recording is interrupted, it's also marked with an exclamation point on the dvr listing in the Channels app, but that's not the case with these recordings in question.

This issue has occurred over multiple recordings now over multiple days.

EDIT: Not sure if this is related, but I'm also noticing very slight pixelation on occasion in those recordings. But interestingly, the pixelation is only on a portion (1/4 or so) of the screen, not on the whole screen. It's the sort of pixelation that occurs with some sort of MPEG processing, not low bandwidth streaming (i.e. not really a bitrate issue?). Who knows, perhaps the two issues aren't related at all.

Thanks in advance for the help.

#4

It’s possible this is a glitch in the channel itself (the feed from the content network). If there are no errors in the log during the recording and you have skips in the recording that would be my first guess. Do you have other recordings that work fine or is this a global issue?

#5

Other recordings work fine based on the spot checking I’ve done. I’ve also replayed the same recording within my YouTube TV account DVR and they don’t skip in those spots, so I don’t think it’s the source material.

#6

The source that the YTTV app uses and Channels uses are different, so that doesn’t really rule anything out. Channels pulls the video feeds from the network’s own websites, versus the streaming apps which have direct feeds of some kind.

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#7

It would help also to upgrade your dvr to prerelease

#8

@tmm1 I did a bit more diagnosing over the last couple of days and have determined that the problem is occurring only with the USA TVE stream (channel 6053). [looks like you were on to something @Macnbaish] I’ve been watching a lot of Olympics and all the other NBC channels have no problem with skipping, but USA does both with recorded playback and, strangely, live watching. The problem is even worse with watching a live stream of the channel because it has seemingly nothing to “skip to” and, instead, just freezes the stream/keeps buffering (and doesn’t playback after a big buffer has been loaded). Also re: the latter, the Channels app starts behaving erratically after watching a live stream of USA channel.

Anything else to try specifically re: USA @tmm1? I’m already running the pre-release version.

#9

Any update on what I could try re: USA @tmm1?

#10

I've been recording and watching a bunch of USA off TVE recently as well and haven't noticed any issues.

Perhaps something going on with the CDN near you.

If you're watching live and notice it, submit diagnostics from the DVR web UI and I can see if anything shows up in the logs to the stream

#11

Submitted diagnostics, @tmm1

31496502-0ba0-4149-a761-e7c0a7144be6

#12

At what time did the issue occur and what did you notice happening?

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