My logs should show the problems. The last set I was getting complaints that live tuners would not load until I restarted
Iām not sure if this makes a difference but all my family uses is the Roku client. Not sure what OP is using.
mostly apply TVs , iOS and some Samsung smart tv
Did you still need more logs to fix this issue? Or have you got enough?
I can try to reproduce the issue over the weekend.
How exactly would you like me to do this? Enable logs, do some normal channel switching and then do some channel switching to try reproduce ?
Thanks
I would not mind getting more logs of the issue arising and impacting recordings or watching live tv under normal usage conditions.
Having artificial way of reproducing the problem is good to know but does not help when the issue gets assessed on impact to users since it is not normal usage to be flicking between channels very quickly
@sa2000 here are more logs with it currently happening and should have also logs of normal usage in that too.
Plex Media Server Logs_2023-09-28_19-00-20.zip (4.2 MB)
@sa2000 any feedback on new logs?
Sorry i have not had time to look further
It is on my list of issues to look into
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Likewise @sa2000 , I havenāt had time to try to recreate the issue.
Will try to when I get a chance.
I do recall a couple of ways I got a tuner to lock up for 3mins, but then frees itself - I think if you try to keep tuning after this happens is when it full locks up by opening heaps of āLive TV Recording Sessionsā.
I notice this problem a lot more as one of my devices is limited to 1 tuner.
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Is to be playing a channel on Apple TV and instead of press back a few times until the video closes inside the app, is to press home while the channel is still playing. If you then try to open a channel on say your iPhone or another device - the tuner will still be locked if itās within 3 or so minutes.
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Same sort of thing except when viewing the video on your iPhone in PiP mode, close the PiP with the cross instead of going back into the app and closing.
So yeah my theory from when Iāve had it lock up is that when plex thinks a tuner is in use but isnāt, it canāt prompt a user to close an existing stream because itās technically not being viewed - itās being classed as a recording which canāt be cancelled?
And then when they start to pile up with multiple attempts to open channels they donāt seem to time out like they do if itās just one recording session.
here are new logs with the same issue.
Plex Media Server Logs_2023-10-13_16-39-47.zip (4.2 MB)
Plex Media Server Logs_2023-10-28_20-37-05.zip (4.8 MB)
Plex Media Server Logs_2023-10-28_20-35-25.zip (4.8 MB)
Issue came up today without trying to recreate. Not sure what the cause was - I am assuming it was my brother press home while watching on his Apple TV - causing it to go into a permanent recording session. And adding further recording sessions for any other attempts to view live tv.
@sa2000 let me know if thereās anything I need to do differently with the logs 
Also have you had a chance to look at this issue yet or still on your to-do?
Thanks!
I have started looking into this and looked at logs from @tree2369 and @jrandallnyc
I have not been able yet to reproduce the problem - but I know that the 3 minute period when a tuner remains as āin useā when the client app stops communicating with the server is working as designed.
Yes - this is true. The server will timeout the connection and free up the tuner after 3 minutes if it stops getting periodic playback timeline updates from the client app .
So we know we have potentially a 3 minute window when a tuner may be locked out when not actually in use. Bearing this in mind - we need to see if the issue of permanent lockout / no tuners until server is restarted can be reproduced in a certain scenario
If the Apple TV home button was pressed - then the server would timeout that playback session 3 minutes later.
In the example I looked at from @tree2369 for the 28th October, we had
- iPhone on cellular connection tune a channel and then pause the playback
- The server cleared up the tuner 3 minutes after the device stopped communicating with the server
- The iPhone connection to the server was re-established sometime later - on wifi
- Apple TV attempted to tune the same channel a few minutes later
- Apple TV tried to switch to another channel
I followed this sequence in my test setup but I did not manage to get the tuners remain occupied - there was the expected 3 minute period when a tuner was deemed to be in use which cleared up after 3 minutes.
Trying also with an iPad - with both my 2 tuners tied up - I did correctly get this dialogue box on the iPad when selecting to tune a different channel from those on the iPhone and Apple TV
My tests were using the betas: Plex for Apple TV 8.29 beta and Plex for iOS 8.29 beta and Plex Media Server 1.32.8.7639 on windows
Is anyone getting this issue with the server running on windows ? Would like to see if there are similarities with the logs from @tree2369 and @jrandallnyc
Also does the problem arise with the current beta of Plex Media Server 1.32.8.7639 - please let me see new server logs with that version
i get the issue with 1.32.8.7639 on my synology still. i am not sure if these logs are showing it, since it was a few days ago and been restarted, but in case, here they are in case
Thanks - nothing about tuner allocation in the logs.
The Plex Media Server.x.logs only covered last 90 minutes. You have verbose logging enabled - but that was about 67%/32% increase on number of log lines/increase in file sizes. So even without verbose logging we would only got about 2 hours of time covered.
The server was last restarted 4 days earlier.
@sa2000 appreciate you looking into this.
Will try a few things over the weekend and see if I can consistently replicate the tuner lock up - so hopefully you can reproduce it too!
Will post my logs too.
Edit:
Some logs here
I think what locked this one up was while my iPhone was loading the channel (spinning circle) I pressed somewhere on the screen and tried to open another channel.
Then every subsequent attempt to open a channel would add a ārecording sessionā with no prompt to close my previous channel to free up a tuner.
Though when I tried to open a channel on my Apple TV I did get the prompt for the first attempt, but it only added another recording session and left me with a spinning loading circle.
So by that, could one (could be more) aspect to this be the ability to interrupt the client while a channel is loading?
I have reproduced sequence where some tune requests get hung but eventually after alot of channel switching on iPhone it did manage to stream a channel -
I have referred the new evidence / logs to the development team
So timing issue appears to be
With just one tuner available:
- tune a channel from a client app eg iOS
- the tune gets allocated a tuner
- before the tune request completes, select another channel to tune
and this may lead to a hang
but in my tests leaving it to settle down after a lot of switching, I was able to tune a channel on the iPhone
Great news you are able to reproduce.
Havenāt had a spare moment to test some more, but will be sure to post my logs here when I get the chance.
Oh okay I have left it a while in the past but it never freed up for me, so since then I would just restart my server.
But yeah I can avoid locking the tuners up, itās usually my family members that will accidentally click or touch at the wrong time and lock it up haha, so hopefully the development team can come up with a solution:)
Thanks again
@sa2000 here are some new logs
I found an issue I encountered on Apple TV where after pausing a Live TV channel stream, the touchpad on the Apple TV remote was no longer responsive and I could not navigate back to the paused Live TV session. During all this time, the tuner was tied up. I found that if I hit the Menu button, and scroll to the left to the sidebar Live TV icon and then right back again to the guide, I could now use the touchpad to navigate to the paused session and resume. After hitting the MENU button on the Apple TV remote, scrolling to the left sidebar and selecting other sidebar rows than Live TV would kill the paused session and free up the tuner.
I will be discussing this with the development team.
Other than this, i found that tuners were actually released in the end when the queued actions of channel switching rapidly were processed
