Many remote viewing and other issues!

Channels DVR Server
#1

I keep getting the following error lately (repeated numerous times, usually in a row):

[M3U8] Generator: err=cannot create temp file: open /storage/A8E26A9EE26A710C/NVIDIA_SHIELD/Streaming/m3u8/1951/stream.m3u8166144222: no such file or directory

Plus I am having a lot of issues where my Remote Server viewing just drops off after working for hours, saying something like...."Port 8089 is open but we are unable to contact the remote server" or some such. I usually have to disable and re-enable the remote server service in the Settings Menu, do a check for an update and do the update, or just disable and re-enable the DVR itself to get it to work again, at least for a little bit until it all happens again. I tried looking in the Log and I don't see anything in there around the time or before I saw the disconnected remote DVR error last night when I tried it. This is what is making me think a router or ethernet cable issue.

I have tried using both Automatic and Manual port forwarding but they both seem to end up doing the same thing eventually. Could this be a firewall issue in the remote router? I am afraid to turn it off to try it. Maybe an issue with the ethernet cable connecting the Shield where the server resides to the router? I was thinking to try using wifi from the Shield, at least as an experiment, but that requires my daughter who's there to configure it, and she isn't exactly the most knowledgeable person in IT affairs, haha!

It is getting very frustrating because I want to use this remote server as my primary viewing experience and it is failing miserably with the WAF, so it will never get implemented full time until this is resolved, which will then allow me to ditch TiVo and Spectrum Cable once and for all!

#2

This sounds like a flaky USB drive. It might help to use one with a dedicated power supply.

You should ensure that the SHIELD and the HDHR have static dhcp reservations on the router so their IPs don't change. Then add a port forwarding rule manually and leave the DVR on manual mode.

1 Like
#3

OK I will see if I can even swap out the external HDD connected to the Shield, but that will be tough to do remotely. Hopefully that's not the issue and it was just a temp thing that happened. I never saw that before and that HDD has been connected for a couple months now.

I already set the Shield and HDHR Prime to have their own static IPs and the Port Forwarding is setup manually already for port 8089. Any other ideas or thoughts to check?

#4

It seems to be working right now. Only thing I can think that would cause it to break is some sort of VPN used on the SHIELD. Or if your public IP was changing then it might take a couple hours to propagate.

#5

I do have a VPN setup using OpenVPN between two Asus routers, one there (server) and one here (client), but this isn't going through that at all. The static IPs are on a different subnet for the Channels DVR and I am accessing it remotely here, not through the VPN.

I don't believe the Public IP is changing, because if it did then my VPN wouldn't work anymore, plus I am seeing that it's the same when I check it.

Do you think it could be an intermittently bad ethernet cable from Shield to Router? A Firewall issue?

#6

Hard to say without troubleshooting. When it's not working you can check to see if the public IP pings, if you can connect on port 8089 on the public IP, and also if you can ping the SHIELD private IP over VPN and connect to port 8089 via private IP.

1 Like
#7

I’ll give that a shot later when I can. I have seen other issues lately with many weird errors in the log, which I’ll try to capture and post as well.

Is the Shield just not powerful enough to use as a server, especially remotely? It seems to have an issue with playing back from a recording that is still in progress as well as recording multiple events while trying to play or watch something.

#8

The SHIELD is pretty powerful, but maybe you're overloading it. I would suspect the disk first, unless you're doing multiple remote transcoding sessions concurrently.

#9

The disc seems to work perfectly fine for sometimes hours on end, then it seems like late in the evening for me here, maybe 11pm (4am where the server is) it seems to always shut down the DVR and somewhere in that process I lose remote access unless I go into the server settings and mess with various options as I mentioned previously.

There aren’t multiple remote transcodings happening. I am the only one on the system for now since I have been testing this to eventually replace my TiVo system with Spectrum here, plus as a source when Vue shuts down soon.

Another totally strange issue I see has been at almost exactly 1 minute into a network recorded show (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) the image pixelates and breaks up then jumps ahead a minute or two and loses the content between this period. It happened when I had the server located here locally and now is also doing it again with the server remotely. No amount of rewinding or restarting fixes it and the exact same issue occurs every time without fail. It happens every single time with my Season Pass recordings on sitcoms, etc.

I do seem to recall when the server was here that I tried playing the file directly on my PC from the Shield using a video file player and it worked fine with that, pointing to Channels as the culprit.

#10

Here’s the latest logs if they help provide any clues as to my issue(s):

2019/12/14 22:21:28 [HLS] Stopping inactive session ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb
2019/12/14 22:21:28 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb
2019/12/14 22:21:51 http: TLS handshake error from 98.151.xxx.xxx:50576: read tcp 192.168.3.182:8089-> 98.151.xxx.xxx:50576: read: connection reset by peer
2019/12/14 22:21:56 [HLS] Couldn't generate stream playlist for ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb: stat /storage/A8E26A9EE26A710C/NVIDIA_SHIELD/Streaming/ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb/stream.m3u8: no such file or directory
2019/12/14 22:22:53 [HLS] Stopping inactive session ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb
2019/12/14 22:22:53 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb
2019/12/14 22:23:19 [HLS] Couldn't generate stream playlist for ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb: stat /storage/A8E26A9EE26A710C/NVIDIA_SHIELD/Streaming/ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb/stream.m3u8: no such file or directory
2019/12/14 22:23:51 http: TLS handshake error from 98.151.xxx.xxx:50604: read tcp 192.168.3.182:8089-> 98.151.xxx.xxx:50604: read: connection reset by peer
2019/12/14 22:23:53 [HLS] Stopping inactive session ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb
2019/12/14 22:23:53 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb
2019/12/14 22:24:19 [HLS] Couldn't generate stream playlist for ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb: stat /storage/A8E26A9EE26A710C/NVIDIA_SHIELD/Streaming/ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb/stream.m3u8: no such file or directory
2019/12/14 22:26:26 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb
2019/12/14 22:26:59 [HLS] Couldn't generate stream playlist for ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb: stat /storage/A8E26A9EE26A710C/NVIDIA_SHIELD/Streaming/ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb/stream.m3u8: no such file or directory
2019/12/14 22:30:29 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session ch1613-dANY-83bb2df574bb

This happened when I tried opening Channels and watching some live TV. I just kept getting the spinning circle in the video window.

#11

Same error as before. The usb drive is disconnected or powered off.

#12

Well that seems strange because the recordings that were taking place at the same time recorded fine as far as I can see.

I’ll keep investigating. Thanks for staying with me through this. You guys are the most responsive direct customer service I think I’ve ever experienced!

#13

Ah interesting. Seems like a possible bug then.

If you enable Old Transcoder under experimental settings does it work?

#14

I have that selected now and it’s been that way for a couple days and things “seem” ok but honestly I haven’t used Channels a lot in that timeframe. I’ve tried it on and off throughout my troubleshooting process and it didn’t appear to be an issue either way, but I could be wrong. I’ll try to focus on that more and see if it makes a noticeable difference.

Any ideas on the “every one minute into a recording from big four networks, playback glitches and jumps a minute or so later”? I mentioned this earlier and it’s really stumping me as to what the cause of such a weird issue could be!

#15

Any messages in the log a minute after the recording starts?

#16

Could it be that the USB HDD is going into a sleep mode or something? Or maybe the Shield?

#17

Not that I recall seeing at the time.

#18

@HarperVision: Could you update to the latest DVR beta and see if that changes anything? I’ve improved the error messages to help us figure out what’s going on.

#19

OK I’ll do it first chance I get. Thanks!