I have the latest server version and the latest firmware on my HDHomeRun Extend, but the other day, live TV just quit randomly. It will load the guide and appear to start loading the show, but will stall at 13% and just stay there until it error out. I made sure everything was up to date after it quit working, restarted the server, HDHomeRun, and router just to be sure. I’m able to view the same channel using my iPad on the HDHomeRun app. I’m not able to bring anything up on plex on my Roku or my iPad.
2 Likes
Same.
Updated to Version 1.16.1.1291 and LiveTV stopped working.
HomeRun Prime working on other devices (Win10, nVidia Shield) but Plex can’t play a live stream.
I tried to re-setup the LiveTV/DVR by refinding the cable card, but can’t complete the setup process. After selecting the channels, the “submit/enter/update” button just spins.
I have this issue as well. Get Home from work just to hear from my kids that TV doesnt work. Is there a patch or a guide or something you guys can put out to makey worky?
It seems to be an issue with the apps (or so communication between server and app) because I could make it work on a web browser.
How would I downgrade to the previous server version?
For some time now I’ve had a very similar probem where Live TV has stopped. Used to work perfectly fine… now i get an error “Unable to load DVRs”… when I try to view the live TV.
I go set it up again I don’t get an option to delete the one that was there previously. I also don’t get a chance to set up a new one as it can’t find the HomeRunHD box any more. I can type the IP in manually, but then it won’t let me set it up fully. It allows me to select “English” as the language… then won’t let me press continue.
Same here. Live TV no longer works after recent Plex upgrade. Not possible to find my TV tuners. Please fix A.S.A.P…
This has also stopped working on my setup. Tried restarting everything to no avail.
Restart of Plex is what fixes it for me. I even dropped back a version from the latest (Plex Pass), and it still does it. I just logout of the user (windows server 2019), and back in to have Plex reload, and then it’ll work fine for a few hours, maybe more, maybe less. PMS has also started getting hung up, and then eventually crash. I did a full clean OS reload (on new SSD) from Windows 10 Ent to the latest Windows Server 2019, and moved over my Plex appdata folder. That’s when I installed the previous public release (1291), and things have been running a bit better. I uploaded my logs to a post here in the forums before I did the clean load, etc (I’ve been meaning to put server OS on it anyways), but have yet to get a response.
Would be nice if I didn’t have to reboot the Plex server app to keep live TV going. 
Found this in another thread about the same issue
Worked for me. Running plex on a windows 7pro box with top of the line components(from 2010)
Basically
1-open your plex web gui and open your livetv dvr settings. It will tell you lies, ignore it.
2-rigth click plex in your system tray and exit plex.
Count to 10. web gui tosses words. they arent important.
3-go to plex in your apps and start it.
4-on the web gui you should see your tuner. Delete it. It’s pure evil and talks about you behind your back
4a-(optional)-repeat steps 2 and 3. I did this but i dont know if its required
5.-the web gui should have learned its lesson and be ready to obey now. set up your dvr/livetv stuff with a smile becasue your secrete collection of Buckrodgers episodes will continue to grow.
Didn’t help. Live tv is working, I can view it on the web. It just doesn’t work on any of the apps. It starts the stream on the server (I can see it on the activity screen) but something stalls bringing it to the app.
I’m running Plex server 1.16.2.1297 on Linux with a HDHomeRun Extend and Live TV is working to my Rokus and Android - so it can work. I don’t have an iPad to speak to that. While I don’t have a specific fix, a few things to check that might help troubleshoot:
-
Look at the dashboard in Plex web when trying to play. Is it transcoding and what is the CPU on your server doing at the time?
-
In Plex web, under your HDHomeRun Extend “Device Settings”, what do you have your Transcoder quality set to? If it is original, then your Extend is just passing through the MPEG2, and you might benefit from changing this. I set mine to “High Quality (30fps limit)”. Note that this setting is independent of the transcode configuration you have set in your Extend’s web interface. The one in Plex web is what is used when viewing Live TV through Plex. The one in your Extend’s web interface is used when viewing directly with the HDHomeRun app.
-
In the Plex app on the Roku, go into video settings and check settings “Local Quality”, “Direct Play”, “Allow Direct Stream”, and “Allow MPEG2”. These can help get you to Direct Play or Direct Stream if your problem is transcoding. I’d suggest “Local Quality” should be “Original”, “Allow Direct Stream” should be checked, and “Allow MPEG2” should be checked. Play with setting “Direct Play” to “Force”.
Just a shot in the dark…
Seems to be related to transcoding process writing on the HDD the original data stream. I see no problems with SD channels, but HD are the killers. It starts good, while Linux OS write cache can keep up. # top command shows very high IO wait. I have a slow HDD, I know this, but I cannot change it due to specifics of the setup. I tried creating tmpfs, without much success…
Version 1.16.5.1554 is currently installed and everything else seems to be working properly
If you are seeing it transcoding and your server hardware can’t keep up, then try to get it to direct play or direct stream. Both have significantly lower CPU demand than transcoding, and should also have less I/O demand (I haven’t specifically verified less I/O, but it won’t need to read/write as much to the transcode directory.)
What client(s) are you using when watching Live TV and it is transcoding?
The tuner feeds MPEG2, so not a whole lot of clients can decode it. I have HDHomerun palyer installed and it works very well. Samsung TV can play a stream directly from the tuner DLNA
I’m trying to play in Plex players on Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Anroid and Windows. None of the players have native MPEG2 decoder, so it goes through transcoder.
Enabling DEBUG log indicates that the grabber is producing garbled chunks. Not sure if it is related to I/O latency or anything else. The transcoder appears to be able to keep up with the load. Using tmpfs for transcoder temp directory should eliminate I/O latency, but the problem persists.
I tried to enable hardware transcoding, but despite the fact that vainfo shows the GPU capabilities to decode MPEG2, transcoder cannot see it. I guess it is related to some kind of permissions in the system, still need to dig into it.
Are these clients local or remote?
Mine are local, and I turned off transcoding on my HDHR Extend so it is producing MPEG2. I’m having success getting clients to direct play or direct stream on some of the clients you listed. For a 1080i MPEG2 Live TV broadcast I have the following working:
-
Roku TV: Full Direct Play.
-
Roku 3: Direct stream of video, transcode audio. Tthis is expected because the projector the Roku 3 is attached to is only capable of stereo. Still, transcoding audio is lightweight compared to having to transcode video…
-
Android (on a smartphone): Full direct play using ExoPlayer v2 in the Plex client.
-
Windows: Full direct stream with both the new Plex client for Windows and PMP. If you are using the web client in windows then it is going to force a transcode - try one of the installable Plex clients.
I didn’t make any changes in the Android client to get it to direct play. In Roku, under Settings -> Video, you might try setting “Local Quality” to “Original”, make sure “Allow MPEG2” is checked, make sure “Allow Direct Stream” is checked, and try it with “Direct Play” set to “Force” (or “Auto” if “Force” doesn’t work.)
Also keep in mind that if the device the Roku is connected to is only capabile of a lower resolution than the original, then it will have to transcode.
I have local clients. The server is configured for remote access as well, I will try to disable it for testing in order to avoid any uncertainty.
So far I see transcoding with all clients including installed Windows PMP. I will check Roku Settings, thanks for the tips.
It is still would be beneficial to make transcoding working for remote access.
I will make another round of troubleshooting tonight and share the results.
If PMP is transcoding I feel like we are missing something. Can you test with a wired connection to take wifi variability out of the equation? Also when in the PMP client, go into the “Plex Media Player” settings and click on “Show Advanced”. Look under “Debug” on the left to make sure “Direct Play” and “Direct Stream” are checked. Also look under “Quality” on the left to see that “Use recommended settings” is checked (or uncheck it and set “Video Quality” to “Maximum”,
Getting local working first is key, then there isn’t any reason you shouldn’t be able to direct play or stream remotely IF you have the bandwidth. Of course 1080 MPEG2 is fairly large. In Plex web check at the bottom of the Remote Access setup page and set internet upload speed to either near or at the max your internet connection can upload. Then set “Limit Remote Stream Bitrate” to “Original (No limit)”.
Thank you for the tips, I’m going through this path of eliminating possible problems and any ideas are very welcome. I have done a quick test, mounted /mnt/ramdisk directory as tmpfs and pointed transcoder to it in order to eliminate slow disk IO.
While I had player open and accessing a channel, I copied all he .TS files accumulated in the transcoder temp directory.
Opened them in VLC player and it clearly indicated that whenever I have an image issue, the TS files had partial content, literally the image would just stop at arbitrary MPEG2 block until the end of the chunk file. The next file would also have partial content and etc.
I rule out antenna and tuner issue, because HDHomerun player works just fine.
Network interfaces show no errors, at least where I was able to see them. So the main suspect is the network or grabber.
Things look weird now. I have done packet capture on the Plex Server interface and captured entire session. Video is transmitted over HTTP/TCP and there was no single packet loss or retransmit, very smooth sequence numbers timing. However when I export content of the pcap, remove HTTP 200 header and feed the rest to VLC, it reports frame loss in the payload, exactly where I observe pixelation, so that means that Plex transcoder is not a problem, but I need to investigate HDHomerun problems. The main question what Plex does to it, so it starts losing frames, while DLNA and native HDHomerun player don’t suffer.
Something was up with the tuner itself. I opened a ticket with SD and they suggested to power cycle the box, and it fixed the issue. Seems like some of the components were not reloaded after firmware upgrade and soft reboot.
