Freeze/Spinning circle watching NESN via TVe on same PC as DVR

Channels DVR Server
#1

I have not made the switch and dropped cable completely yet, so I don't watch alot of TV through Channels currently, but I do use it to watch recordings 4-5 times a week.

The problem I am having is when I watch live TVe streams on the PC that the DVR is running on. Mainly I am watching NESN. The stream will stop and I will get the spinning circle. Nothing I do gets the stream going again, unless I stop watching it and start it again with Watch Now. I am seeing the same behavior with Chrome and Firefox. If anyone has any ideas, they would be appreciated.

I am running Channels DVR Version: 2019.11.23.2304

These are the specs for my PC:
OS
Dell Inc. Precision 3630 Tower
windows Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
10.0.18363 Build 18363
CPU
8 cores / Intel(R) Xeon(R) E-2174G CPU @ 3.80GHz
RAM
15.84 GB
46.0% free

Settings:
Transcoder: Hardware (embedded Intel P630 graphics)
Deinterlacer: Bleand
Adaptive Streaming: On
Server Quality: 1080P @ 10mbps
Client Buffer: 30 seconds
All experimental settings unchecked

I have gigabit service from FIOS and I have all non-essential programs closed on the PC while streaming.

#2

Does switching to Software transcoder make a difference?

If you record instead can you watch the recording in progress?

#3

I have not tried either of these yet.

I was focused on the PC/Browser trying to alleviate the problem. I removed Symantec antivirus, created exceptions in Malwarebytes, cleared cache from the browsers, move Channels to my SSD, etc...

I don't recall seeing this issue when streaming TVe to my FireTV, so I assumed it was PC related.

I will give these setting changes a try and report back.

#4

As a test I would also recommend turning off Adaptive Streaming.

#5

The Adaptive Streaming setting does not impact Live TV at this time.

#6

I ran the stream for 90 minutes yesterday with transcoding set to software and I had no issues.
To verify this was the problem, I turned hardware transcoding back on and ran the same stream for another 2 hours, but no issues this time.

As a tes of the networkt, I decided to leave hardware transcoding on, started streaming NESN in the background on my PC, fired up Netflix 4k streams on 2 FireTVs, had one kid playing XBox live, one streaming and posting vidoes to youtube on her phone and the youngest streaming Disney videos and gmaes on the tablet. The NESN stream ran fine with no glitches for over 6 hours. This was all tested without making any additional changes to the PC or the network.

Is it possible it is the content I am streaming that is causing the issue? I normally only stream NESN when I am watching the Bruins games and that is when I saw the trouble.

There is a game tonight, is there any logging or anything I can enable to troubleshoot if this happens again tonight?

#7

I am watching the game now on NESN now. All settings are at their default. The picture froze 16 minutes in and I got the spinning circle. I stop and started the stream and it froze again after 2 minutes.

I changed the transcoding to softwware and restarted the stream. This time it ran for about 15 minutes and froze again.

When the picture freezes up, I can see the cache is still building, so I don't think it is network related.

Any other suggestions or troubleshooting steps I can take?

#8

What does the Log say when the freeze occurs?

#9

Here is the log from the first time it froze:

2019/12/09 19:34:16 [TNR] Opened connection to TVE-Verizon for ch6163 NESN
2019/12/09 19:34:17 [HLS] Probed live stream in 1.0746853s: h264 1920x1080 progressive 5543171bps
2019/12/09 19:34:17 [HLS] Starting transcoder for channel 6163 from 127.0.0.1 (encoder=remux, resolution=, deinterlacer=, bitrate=10000)
[hls @ 0000000001264000] Timestamps are unset in a packet for stream 0. This is deprecated and will stop working in the future. Fix your code to set the timestamps properly
[mpegts @ 00000000013068c0] Timestamps are unset in a packet for stream 0. This is deprecated and will stop working in the future. Fix your code to set the timestamps properly
2019/12/09 19:51:18 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session ch6163-dANY-ip127.0.0.1 @ 16m59.378277s
2019/12/09 19:51:18 [TNR] Closed connection to TVE-Verizon for ch6163 NESN

#10

Hmm unclear what's happening.

Does it stream reliably on http://nesngo.nesn.com/

#11

I haven't watched it on nesngo since I setup Channels, but it did work back in the day.

When it does freeze, if I hit Stop and Watch Now immediately, it works again for a while.

#12

Gotcha. Thanks for the logs.

Try changing the quality on the Settings tab to 720p 4mbps and see if that makes a difference.