Debugging Live TV & DVR working on Web & Mobile, but failing on Vizio Plex App & Plex Mobile Chromecast to Vizio TV

Live TV & DVR
1

Server Version#: 1.25.4.5426-eb46d070e
Player Version#: Vizio SmartCast 2.3.0-2125.0003
Tuner Make/Model:
Guide/Lineup name:
Using XMLTV?: Yes
Channel number/Name:

I have have a Live TV tuner which is working on Browser, Android Mobile, Amazon FireStick, and Google TV as well as being able to cast from Android Mobile to a Chromecast Gen 1 & Gen 2 and a Nest hub; HOWEVER, when I try to play the channel on my Vizio TV it fails every time. It used to work, so I’m thinking it may be the new up date. It even fails when I attempt to open the channel on my android mobile app and cast it to the tv.

The error on screen is “Playback Error. Recording failed. Please check your tuner or antenna.”

What is going on here and how can I begin to debug it? Happy to provide server logs and look more in detail.

Not sure if this is helpful; but found the following in the ‘Plex Media Server.log’ file which matches up with the Vizio IP Address

Jan 25, 2022 20:16:04.440 [0x7f5720923b38] ERROR - [TranscodeOutputStream] Session appears to have died from under us
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:04.521 [0x7f572052cb38] WARN - [Transcode] Got a request to stop a transcode session without a valid session GUID.
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:16.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: Entity: line 1:\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:16.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: parser\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:16.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: error :\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:16.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: Start tag expected, '<' not found\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:16.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: status=ok\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:16.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: ^\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:16.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - Error parsing content.
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:16.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - Error parsing XML: Error parsing file.
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:16.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - SSDP: Error parsing device schema for http://192.168.1.125:9080
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:57.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: Entity: line 1:\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:57.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: parser\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:57.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: error :\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:57.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: Start tag expected, '<' not found\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:57.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: status=ok\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:57.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: ^\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:57.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - Error parsing content.
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:57.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - Error parsing XML: Error parsing file.
Jan 25, 2022 20:16:57.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - SSDP: Error parsing device schema for http://192.168.1.125:9080
Jan 25, 2022 20:17:36.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: Entity: line 1:\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:17:36.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: parser\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:17:36.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: error :\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:17:36.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: Start tag expected, '<' not found\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:17:36.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: status=ok\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:17:36.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - XML: ^\00
Jan 25, 2022 20:17:36.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - Error parsing content.
Jan 25, 2022 20:17:36.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - Error parsing XML: Error parsing file.
Jan 25, 2022 20:17:36.674 [0x7f5720257b38] ERROR - SSDP: Error parsing device schema for http://192.168.1.125:9080
2

What’s the Model of your TV and what is the Client Version listed in Settings → About?

3

TV Brand Name: Vizio
TV Model Name: M658-G1
TV Version: 7.0.120.1-1
Cast Version: 1.50.243780

Plex Client Version: 5.31.1
Plex Platform Version: 2.3.0-2125.0003

4

Thanks. It looks like I’ll probably need some logs.

Could you set Settings → Advanced → Log to Media Server to your server and then attempt to play replicate the issue and then send me the full server logs in a private message?

5

Thanks for the logs!

An error like below:

[Player] A critical HTML media error occurred: 4 (MEDIA_ELEMENT_ERROR: Format error); the player cannot recover

Means that for some reason, the TV’s could not play the stream. Unfortunately there’s not really any useful information that goes with this error. It could be that some part of the stream’s format is not supported or just something about the stream that the TV’s player isn’t able to handle.

Since I don’t see anything about the stream format that the TV shouldn’t be able to handle, it seems like there is something about this specific stream that the TV can’t handle. The fact that it plays on other devices either means that those devices are more capable than the TV or possibly that they require a transcode which means they’re not playing the unaltered stream.

It’s been well over a year since we’ve touched anything to do with the player, so it’s unlikely that an app update has triggered the issue. Since you mentioned it used to work, I can only guess that either something about the stream has changed or a TV firmware change has caused something to be different.

What is the source of the channel that is failing? Is it from an actual tuner, or is it an IPTV stream?

6

This was definitely specifically working for a couple of years up until that update the Plex TV App on Vizio about a year ago. I think it was lightly before I made the original post.

The source is from iptv through xTeve

How else could I Debug this to figure out what happened and why and how to fix it?

7

Since the Vizio app didn’t support Live TV until that update, I’m not sure what you mean.

8

It was supported as “DVR” beforehand and worked perfectly, then it switched to TV & DVR and now it doesn’t work… only on Vizio.

9

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