Live TV / DVR *Fix* for HDHomerun + Mac OS Big Sur (solved)

Live TV & DVR
1

Server Version#: 1.21.1.3766
Player Version#: 4.48.1
Tuner Make/Model: [HDHomeRun EXTEND 1057A1BA] HDTC-2US v.20200907
Guide/Lineup name: OTA
Using XMLTV?: No
Channel number/Name: All

Like several others here, a recent update to Plex completely borked my HDHomerun live TV and DVR setup. The usual suspected solutions (clear logs, restart, clear plugins, restart, remove DVR, restart, re-add DVR, restart, etc. etc.) weren’t working, so I decided to go scorched earth this afternoon.

I followed the instructions to completely remove Plex from my mac and rebooted. I also deleted the Plex server app from the Mac and downloaded a fresh instance, just in case.

Next, I started completely from scratch. It sucked, and I lost all my library data in the purge. I first re-added my DVR and Live TV setup to make sure it was working (and it was!) before bothering to re-add all my Movie and TV library data.

While moving through the Plex Server settings, I found one or two that would seem to cause Live TV to immediately stop working and throw the dreaded “Error code: s3015 (Media)” (also seen as code s3016, s3017, s3018, and s3019). So, whatever you do, DO NOT choose to:

  • enable hardware acceleration under the Transcoder settings, or
  • change the default transcoder quality away from “high quality” on the Live TV & DVR HDHomerun device settings.

Checking either of those two options has, for me, caused the issue to recur and required me to start from scratch again.

I hope I’ve added enough error codes and keywords to help someone else out. I consider this issue solved for me, for now, but shame on Plex for ignoring the many similar complaints and concerns in this thread. I presume there’s some bug in the Plex server app, settings, or logs that doesn’t get corrected during normal troubleshooting. Something about one or both of those transcoder settings trips a breaker (so to speak) in Plex that can’t be reset to my knowledge.

I suppose also that it’s possible for someone to figure out how to salvage or restore their library data when going through these steps, but I wanted to be sure my fixed actually worked.

/edit: forgot I’m actually on Big Sur, so I updated the title.

2

How long has it been since your setup hasn’t “borked” it self since rebuild?

I am having issues as well (Mac/Catalina/PLEX/HDHomerun), but suspect your issues will re-occur. Live TV channels become disabled and if I manually enabled them back, it worked… temporary. The issue would return. It was faster to delete the DVR and add it back again, but eventually, the issue returned. Lately I am using VLC to watch LiveTV.

3

Had you tried just swapping out the expanded app from a manual download in applications folder?
Server must be not Running.
https://www.plex.tv/en-ca/media-server-downloads/

4

It’s been running all day, so not long. But then again I wasn’t even having any luck deleting and adding the live tv / dvr…

I’ll check in next week?

5

I did not, as I was blinded by annoyance and impatience. Worth a shot?

6

Well it’s really quick and nothing is lost

7

It’s about a week later and all is still well!

1 Like
8

Where is the transcoder quality setting? I don’t see it under Live TV & DVR HDHomerun device settings. Thanks.

9

I started having this same issue about a week ago. Unchecking “Use Hardware Acceleration When Available” in Transcoder settings fixed this for me. Thanks for the tips!

10

I think that this setting only applies to the OP’s HDHomeRun EXTEND, it’s not present for my HDHomeRun Prime.

11

What is an “expanded app” and what would I swap it with?

12

Thanks for the tips. I have been getting almost daily (or more) kernel panics on my Mac since updating to Big Sur. I’m not sure if its Plex but there is some correlation to the DVR recording from the HD HomeConnect. This is the panic I always get:

panic(cpu 4 caller 0xffffff800f09c1df): “m_free: freeing an already freed mbuf”@/AppleInternal/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-7195.60.75/bsd/kern/uipc_mbuf.c:4829

Anyone else seen this?

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