Some future virtual channel shows play wrong video

I've got a weird problem that I'll do my best to describe.

I go to the guide and select a virtual channel. Then I move forward in time in the guide to choose a show that isn't "airing" until later. Sometimes the show I choose will play correctly. But sometimes it will play a completely different video in my library. And that incorrect video is always the same video whenever the problem occurs.

I have some clues that might help. When it plays the wrong video, the show I was trying to select is almost always one without art attached. When it plays the correct video, the art that is attached almost always has a green icon with what looks like an open book displayed in the top right corner.

I've tried updating to the latest version of the server software and the Apple TV app. I've tried both the normal version and the Test Flight version. This is not happening in the Mac app. And I just tried it on my iPhone and discovered it is happening there.

It looks similar to this issue but not quite: Virtual channel “watch” on a future item in guide no longer responds - #2 by maddox

I'd appreciate any help! If you need more info just let me know. Thanks for your time.

I’m seeing the same issue.


Edit with a few more details: This is on the most recent Apple TV, and the same thing happens when I just tested on my iPad. Virtual Channels which pull from predesignated content in my Movies folder seem to work just find. The virtual channel that exhibits the strange behavior is pulling from a list of concert videos. and is pulling from a Library Collection that can be found under "Shows" in Library > Collections (I think that's how I set this up). The source content is found at:

/Volumes/Media500GB - SanDisk Extreme/Media/Videos/Music Videos/The Connells

Maybe the double nesting in the file path is an issue for me? I've always struggled with understanding/following how I'm supposed to organize the "Videos" section, despite reading the support page and forum posts.

I installed older Test Flight builds and have narrowed down when the issue began.

Hope that helps outs some. For now, I've just rolled back to 1.30.1515 where everything is fine!

2 Likes

Thanks for narrowing it down. I'm trying to figure out what changed.

@jamesrw Could you go onto the latest Testflight beta, reproduce the issue and then immediately submit diagnostics?

If you could take a photo of the screen of what you were intending to play and then what happened when you did play, it would also help us understand the series of events.

I think I have an idea of what's going on, but this will make it easier to track it down.

Apologies! We had family in town the past week so I forgot to check back in and didn't see this. I will try to get this done by the weekend.

I assume the diagnostics you want are from the server? Or from the Apple TV app?

From the Apple TV app.

I submitted diagnostics at around 10:05am EDT. I'm also including a video of the issue in action. As you'll see, the problem only seems to appear when the show metadata hasn't been auto matched. Shows on the same virtual channel, that have been matched seem to play fine. There's nothing different about the video files, I added them all manually from my collection. One of them just happened to auto match something in Gracenote.

Also note, even though I forgot to include it in the video, the current playing show on the virtual channel always works fine. It's only if I select a future show that the problem occurs.

Can you download http://<dvr-ip>:8089/devices/VIRTUAL/guide and email it to [email protected]?

Let us know if the latest TestFlight beta fixes this for you.

Wow! That seems to have done it! Thanks so much! I really appreciate you guys.

I assume you don't need the json virtual guide file emailed now?

Correct. We were able to track down what was happening from the video. Thanks for capturing that.