TVE Superbowl fail

Channels DVR Server TV Everywhere
#1

I've been successfully using Channels with TVE for over two years. Last night when we went to watch the 6:30 EST Superbowl recording a few minutes after the recording was to begin, there was an error stating that it couldn't record because I needed to update my TVE password to use Xfinity TVE. At the time I didn't troubleshoot the error because my priority was getting the game on the screen. I'm currently running the TVE rescan recommended by troubleshooting, but so far it's not having any issues, making me think the TVE authentication error was a very inconvenient temporary issue.

The other issue is that I have my HDHomerun set as the priority, so I'm wondering why it didn't use that available channel (where I wound up watching the game) instead of trying and failing to use TVE. It's the first failure like this I've ever experienced with Channels/TVE, but I'm wondering if there's anything else I can try to prevent this in the future.

Did anyone else experience an Xfinity authentication failure that went away by itself the next day?

EDIT: This is the error I see in the DVR Schedule, but resetting my password with Xfinity had no effect. Failed: could not start stream on channels=[6003]: TVE: Blocked by Xfinity: Reset your Xfinity password. Please update your password and try again.

#2

in all fairness, I think everyone was having issues keeping up with bandwidth needs during the Superbowl broadcast.
The beginning and the end were good but I saw where things spiked up and just about anything was buffering a little from my location.
Results will vary based on network and backbone traffic between the internet service provider and your TV provider.

#3

My Stream cut off just when the Super Bowl ended so I got none of the aftershow and just a thank you screen for about an hour.

#4

Well after the TVE rescan I dropped from about 175 channels to 74. I guess that's why I couldn't use it last night. Also, about 6:15 my son pointed out the kickoff was a separate program than the game itself. Apparently my last-minute recording of the kickiff portion used the HDHomerun tuner, leaving just TVE for the game recording. Oh well, 12 more months to figure this out. It's been a family tradition for the DVR to go bad during the super bowl, first mythtv and now Channels.

#5

Updating, just in case it helps anyone else or this happens to me again: I clicked the Manage Lineup setting, then chose "Scan" on the same line as "TVE Channels" (ie, not "Rescan All Channels" or "Rescan New Channels.") This showed me all 181 channels that should be available. About half of those not working show the "Blocked by Xfinity" password error in my first post, while the rest show something like Get "https://medium.ngtv.io/media/tru-east/tv": dial tcp 0.0.0.0:443: connect: connection refused. Once the blocked channels were displayed, using "Rescan All Channels" brought back an additional 61 channels. I still have 46 channels that are either "Blocked by Xfinity" or display the connection refused error. It's progress, for sure.

#6

This means your ad blocker is intefering

#7

It wouldn't be the first time pihole suddenly started blocking something that hasn't been blocked for 2 years. Any idea what I need to whitelist?

#8

Xfinity forced reset all users passwords recently, due to security event of some sort.

#9

Its listed in what you copy/pasted

#10

Thanks I just saw that thread and updated my secondary user's password to see if that helps, apparently after waiting 48 hours because I'm sure I've re-scanned too many times the last 12 hours.

#11

Another update: After changing my password (despite not receiving any notice from Xfinity and despite it working on 135 of 181 channels without a password change), I also whitelisted "medium.ngtv.io" in my pihole. Now the channels that had either the blocked or the connection refused errors show "no login form found." I'm going to set a reminder to try again in 48 hours to see if that helps get the final channels working.

#12

I would suggest not doing any DNS blocking on your DVR. It's only going to cause you pain.

1 Like
#13

I'm not specifically blocking anything on the DVR. The pihole, as you might know, is a whole network ad blocker. It hasn't blocked anything that affects Channels since I started using it in 2021. Recently it seems a handful of legitimate sites made their way onto the pihole block lists, because Channels isn't the first thing I've had to whitelist recently.

#14

Maybe you could do this:

https://docs.pi-hole.net/group_management/example/

#15

Exactly, so everything on your network is affected.

And then this happens, and wreaks havoc.

We're on the record as saying, multiple times, PiHole and whole network DNS blocking, is an absolute guarantee to get gremlins in your system.

2 Likes
#16

For the record, i have been running Adguard Home DNS (simialr to PiHole) for quite a few years now with quite a few Block Lists, OISD Big being the main list. It has never caused any issues with CDVR and TVE.
Though, i have paid attention to the logs for what it is blocking and have whitelisted several domains that seem important, cdn's and such, even though, having them blocked did not seem to cause any issues with TVE auth, other than the occasional delay to auth. I still have much of the add and metrics domains blocked, has not caused any issues.

1 Like
#17

Yup, that's the situation: If you're looking to be your own system administrator and take an active management role in your network it is completely possible to successfully run the DVR on a network that has ad blocking.

...but if you're not wanting to sign up for actively managing your network, the easiest solution that will give the least problems is to just not do any of that blocking for the DVR. That sort of blocking won't ever be a benefit for the DVR and can only cause you problems.

2 Likes
#18

Hi, co-founder of Pi-hole here. Do like Eric has suggested, create a group for your streaming servers and assign no lists to that group. You're looking to have no blocking (or any modifications) done to the Channels DVR server. That's how I configure things for my personal setup.

Edit: I see the domain in question in the suggested default list, which has had a number of bad false positives recently:

Match found in https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts:
  medium.ngtv.io

Edit 2: That domain should not be on the list as per Two filters block the Adult Swim app from starting on Roku · Issue #2363 · StevenBlack/hosts · GitHub but it is, I'll open an issue since it was added back by Add hosts from CNN. · StevenBlack/hosts@8598402 · GitHub on November 24, 2023.

And I've opened Previously removed streaming domains added back · Issue #2572 · StevenBlack/hosts · GitHub to have this addressed.

1 Like
#19

I appreciate all the advice from the developers of both Channels and Pi-hole. I'll certainly research the suggested configuration so that hopefully bad false positives won't shut me down in the future.

Returning to the TVE topic, where I stand now is I've changed the secondary channels user password with Xfinity and input that into Channels configuration. I've also whitelisted the medium.ngtv.io site that was being blocked by Pi-hole. Now I have 131 working TVE channels, and the other 46 switched from the "Blocked by Xfinity" error or the "medium.ngtv.io" blocked error to "no login form found." I've tried directly logging in to some such as Comedy Central, and that works fine, but I can't get Channels to validate those last 46. As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to leave it alone for 48 hours and then check to see if I can scan the remaining unauthenticated channels.

#20

Thank you for this Dan @dschaper.

The domain medium.ngtv.io is removed in commit 8887828 and this will reflect in the next release.

Closing.

2 Likes