M3U IPTV Closing Connections Automatically

Channels DVR Server
#21

Similarly, I just got Channels set up yesterday with an IPTV service as well. I manually edited the m3u to keep the channels I want, and spoofed the channel numbers to match my local provider.

I don't know if it is the IPTV service or not, but I am also experiencing random disconnects whether watching live TV or recording content:

2022/06/29 12:01:37.385574 [TNR] Opened connection to M3U-IPTVTest for ch621 National Geographic
2022/06/29 12:01:37.385740 [DVR] Recording for job 1656518400-ch621 from M3U-IPTVTest ch621 into "TV/Drugs, Inc. The Fix/Drugs, Inc. The Fix S02E17 2019-07-24 Cannabis Craze 2022-06-29-1201.mpg" for 1h1m23.116906718s
2022/06/29 12:01:37.468434 [IDX] Generating video index for job 1656518400-ch621
2022/06/29 12:06:02.016089 [TNR] Closed connection to M3U-IPTVTest for ch621 National Geographic
2022/06/29 12:06:02.016125 [DVR] Job 1656518400-ch621 Drugs, Inc.: The Fix ended prematurely: 56m57.983880591s
2022/06/29 12:06:02.048212 [DVR] Starting job 1656518400-ch621 Drugs, Inc.: The Fix on ch=[621]
2022/06/29 12:06:02.347069 [TNR] Opened connection to M3U-IPTVTest for ch621 National Geographic
2022/06/29 12:06:02.347160 [DVR] Recording for job 1656518400-ch621 from M3U-IPTVTest ch621 into "TV/Drugs, Inc. The Fix/Drugs, Inc. The Fix S02E17 2019-07-24 Cannabis Craze 2022-06-29-1201.mpg" for 56m57.951689986s
2022/06/29 12:11:03.268069 [TNR] Closed connection to M3U-IPTVTest for ch621 National Geographic
2022/06/29 12:11:03.268116 [DVR] Job 1656518400-ch621 Drugs, Inc.: The Fix ended prematurely: 51m56.731890411s
2022/06/29 12:11:03.271934 [DVR] Starting job 1656518400-ch621 Drugs, Inc.: The Fix on ch=[621]
2022/06/29 12:11:04.009196 [TNR] Opened connection to M3U-IPTVTest for ch621 National Geographic
2022/06/29 12:11:04.009302 [DVR] Recording for job 1656518400-ch621 from M3U-IPTVTest ch621 into "TV/Drugs, Inc. The Fix/Drugs, Inc. The Fix S02E17 2019-07-24 Cannabis Craze 2022-06-29-1201.mpg" for 51m56.727981997s
2022/06/29 12:14:02.663703 [TNR] Closed connection to M3U-IPTVTest for ch621 National Geographic
2022/06/29 12:14:02.663763 [DVR] Job 1656518400-ch621 Drugs, Inc.: The Fix ended prematurely: 48m57.336244273s
2022/06/29 12:14:02.684200 [DVR] Starting job 1656518400-ch621 Drugs, Inc.: The Fix on ch=[621]
2022/06/29 12:14:02.897737 [TNR] Opened connection to M3U-IPTVTest for ch621 National Geographic
2022/06/29 12:14:02.897812 [DVR] Recording for job 1656518400-ch621 from M3U-IPTVTest ch621 into "TV/Drugs, Inc. The Fix/Drugs, Inc. The Fix S02E17 2019-07-24 Cannabis Craze 2022-06-29-1201.mpg" for 48m57.31570916s
2022/06/29 12:14:03.089045 [TNR] Closed connection to M3U-IPTVTest for ch710 MTV

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#22

You have tivimate? Iā€™d give that a try and use multi view to see if you can see concurrent streams. If it doesnā€™t, then youā€™re probably limited to 1 stream at a time and if a recording is happening on another stream it might be kicking you out.

Or perhaps if you have a provider they might actually say how many concurrent connections youā€™re allowed.

Then, my second question would be: is everything local or over a network? Making everything local seems to have resolved most of my issues.

#23

I'm on a 24 hour trial with a provider right now. I do have multiple streams, so I can rule that out. Everything is over my local network as well. I have gig fiber coming in, and everything is hardwired. Very annoying issue.

I had tried TV Everywhere with my ISP, which worked perfectly. However, I was disappointed that not all the channels I pay for have a TV Everywhere channel. Sounds like other providers have different TV Everywhere channels, but never all the ones I want. There is too much fragmentation in this stuff, I thought it would be a lot easier to cut the cord at this point.

#24

Local as only on your server and not a network share?

Much of my iptv issues resolved when I tried to only run it off my main server/comp unfortunately.
It sucks because I have 36tb of NAS space available and the iptv connection isnā€™t reliable when Iā€™m hooked into it.

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#25

Correct, not on a network share. I have a PC running Linux on my LAN that I use to run a Plex Media Server. Saw the potential with Channels DVR running on that and ventured down this rabbit hole.

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#26

You have any non-iptv sources and are they stable?

Iā€™d almost try the GitHub iptv collection and see if itā€™s simply your trial.
There was also one Canadian guy who was providing free and legal iptv lists. Really nice person. Iā€™ll try to find the link for you.

Also, what are you using to condense your list? Everything seems to be working fine with m3u4u.

Update: went looking for the guy who had legal sources (pulled from channel website sources) but can't seem to find him now. It's been a while. Sorry can't help you out but I'd definitely test some of those github sources first.

#27

I don't know what it is at this point, but I'm hoping it's just the IPTV provider. Maybe another one will fix it.

As far as condensing the channels list, I opened the .m3U in notepad, did a search for the channels I wanted (about 50 of them), and copied them over one by one into a new text document. Each channel starts with "#EXTINF:-1" and ends with the URL to that stream. I also added tvh-chnum="channel number here" to spoof each channel number and cleaned up the tvg-name and group-title to match my local cable provider. Worked perfectly for pulling in guide data through Channels DVR.

3 Likes
#28

Maybe I spoke too soon because Iā€™m getting drops suddenly again. Maybe coincides during busier times of day with signal stuttering. Iā€™m beginning to think Tivimate is able to pick up the streams after interruptions whereas Channels just cuts the connection altogether,

Might have to explore different, more stable sources.

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#29

Run your m34u through an xteve server. Set xteve to use ffmpeg as a stream buffer. Then have Channels pull the m3u/xml from the xteve server.

#30

Ack. I hated setting up xTeve as a workaround for Plex. Having to redo the guides constantly did my head in. Not sure if thereā€™s anything really gained buffer-wise.

UPDATE #3: I tried a different source as a test that uses HLS instead of MPEG and definitely allows for 4 concurrent connections. My previous list said it only allowed for one but I was able to stream multiple (not sure that makes any difference.) Itā€™s been the best performing so far. Thereā€™s occasional hiccups from the provider but extremely brief and it always reconnects.

So Iā€™m leaning away from the actual networking and localized dvr setup, and thinking it might be either:

  1. Iptv source stability (channels cutting out as a result.)
  2. Iptv source concurrent connections (more is better.l
  3. Perhaps it has more to do with IPTV stream typeS: HLS vs. MPEG. Having better luck so far with HLS.
#31

HLS is meant for internet streaming, so it will be more reliable.

I'm going to close this thread now, because as stated earlier we do not provide support for IPTV usage.

The takeaway here is that our software works great when you have a reliable local source for video, such as a tuner which exposes M3U.

When you get into this world of shady IPTV resellers, you're receiving a signal that's from an unknown and unspecified source, likely bouncing between dozens of servers all introducing their own latency. It's great if other software is able to better handle such streams- use that software. Our position is that garbage in = garbage out, and we not interested in optimizing our software for this use case.

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#32