Tvheadend

Thank you. I missed the dropdown for advanced setting.

So I have read through 25 pages and still can't work out how to install this on a Raspberry Pi 4 which is also the backend for Tvheadend in my network. Are there instructions for installing on a Raspberry Pi anywhere? Thanks

Chicken Dinner wrote:

So I have read through 25 pages and still can't work out how to install this on a Raspberry Pi 4 which is also the backend for Tvheadend in my network. Are there instructions for installing on a Raspberry Pi anywhere? Thanks

A Pi isn't too different from any other system. Take a look at:
https://tvheadend.org/boards/5/topics/43052?r=44145#message-44145

Ah, I get it now. Maybe I should install windows and try the windows installer to get a config.ini to look at that is not just a few lines. I got cabernet working in a docker container running on my ubuntu server. There is still much mystery. My tvheadend chops are marginal at best. I would write up some kind of howto but I barely know what I am doing. Will sort it out eventually.

Got it installed on my Pi 4 - the install instructions are like another language for those who are codingly challenged like myself. Some of the instructions are in the cabernet github and some in the old locast github.

I have somehow managed to get it installed and USTVGO is working but I keep getting this error with PlutoTV -

DEBUG:plugin_obj Initializing plugin PlutoTV
PlutoTV HTTP Channel Request Failed for instance default
DEBUG:plugin_obj Setting plugin PlutoTV to disabled

I can play the m3u8 fine from https://i.mjh.nz/PlutoTV/ in VLC fine.

My config.ini is as follows:

[plutotv_default]
label = PlutoTV Instance
enabled = True

[ustvgo_test]
label = USTVGO Test
enabled = True

....

Not sure what the issue might be? Does anyone have any ideas.

Thanks

Hi Chicken,
Not sure why the channel request failed. There should have been some log lines prior what you stated that indicate why the HTTP channel list request failed. If the plugin cannot initialize, it will automatically be disabled. Try to look further up the log and see what you find.

Although not related to the issue, you will need to change the config settings. Go to the website on your box at port 6077 and add the following settings:

Import Channel Groups: unchecked
Enable URL Filtering: true
Enable PTS/DTS Resync: true

I do plan in the near future to change the default settings to these so people do not have to make the changes manually. On USTVGO, I also recommend
Enable PTS/DTS Resync: true

By enabling the Enable PTS/DTS Resync setting, Cabernet will cleanup stream timestamps between shows to be consistent when they are way off.

I appear to also be experiencing the issue ChickenDinner is referring to.
Pluto is just saying Request Failed for instance default.

I will do some debugging and see if I can find something. Thanks for letting me know.

1. The json text received was not valid (the browser would also say this)
2. The length of json data was zero/none
3. An HTTP error occurred when requesting the URL

It might also be a good idea to try this within the environment you are running Cabernet, to see if you have a network issue.

The interesting part is Cabernet checks for HTTP and JSON errors and would have logged something. It also did not timeout the connection due to no response, so my best guess is the connection came back nicely with no data.

G Kazaroth wrote:

Code is indicating that PlutoTV is not responding to a request for the list of channels. From a browser, try to go to the URL
https://api.pluto.tv/v2/channels.json
and see if you get a good json response. When I hit it, it gave me 352 items. The code says that one of the following was true:

1. The json text received was not valid (the browser would also say this)
2. The length of json data was zero/none
3. An HTTP error occurred when requesting the URL

It might also be a good idea to try this within the environment you are running Cabernet, to see if you have a network issue.

The interesting part is Cabernet checks for HTTP and JSON errors and would have logged something. It also did not timeout the connection due to no response, so my best guess is the connection came back nicely with no data.

Thanks

When I go to that address I get a blank page in the JSON tab but it seems as though it is a geo-blocking issue which I have never had before...not sure if they changed something recently but when I go to the PlutoTV website it now says We’re sorry, but Pluto TV is currently unavailable in your location. We’re working hard to bring Pluto TV to this area, so stay tuned to find out when.

I am not using a US server with my VPN which probably explains it.

Since you stated the M3U file is working in VLC, you can try to add an M3U plugin and point to the M3U and XML files. The same configuration should work as the PlutoTV plugin. As an example, you can use
M3U: https://i.mjh.nz/PlutoTV/all.m3u8
EPG: https://i.mjh.nz/PlutoTV/all.xml.gz

Having some trouble keeping epg data current for xumo. I see in my instance "EPG Min Refresh Rate" is set at 21600. I am assuming that is minutes and that makes it 360 hours.
Is that right? What value should I be using? Not sure how the xumo epg stuff works, concerned about setting it too low.

There are two things that determine the refresh rate. As indicated by the popup on "EPG Min Refresh Rate", 21600 is in seconds and represents 6 hours. This is a blocking time that keeps Cabernet from constantly asking for an EPG update. As an example, if you have the EPG updated every 15 minutes, it won't make a different until 6 hours has past. If you reduce the minimum refresh rate, then it will refresh more often if you schedule it more often. The second part is the Scheduled Task for XUMO EPG. The default is to have it update once a day. Instead of changing the 6 hours minimum refresh, you can add or change the scheduled task to run more often. If 6 hours has past, then the update will happen.

Thank you. I had not noticed there were tool tips. It seems like the epg data for xumo is limited. It is set now for "Every 3 hours with random maximum added time of 10 minutes" and EPG Min Refresh Rate at 10800. Since last night. The timer though, doesn't seem to be running. When I got up this morning scheduled tasks said last run 11 hours ago. I have a cron job pulling epg data but epg data in cabernet only seems to update when I tell it to manually or when I restart the cabernet docker container.

There may be a bug in the task reporting. I'll take a look. Chances are, the task is running and the logs would show that. I believe when I reviewed XUMO for updates, it only updated once a day in the evening, which is why the schedule is once a day.

I am not sure where the problem is. It's more usual to have barely any epg data displayed in the kodi epg. Or even none at all. It only populates when I run the scheduled task manually then run the epg fetch script for tvheadend. No worries. I still enjoy using it. It makes it more difficult to schedule recordings though. In that case I just watch something else. Thank you.

I restarted the docker container. Looking at the log just now I see epg is being triggered now. I'm not sure what is going on or if it is working. Will keep monitoring the log. But you say there is no point scheduling xumo to update more than once a day?
Thank you.

G Kazaroth wrote:

Since you stated the M3U file is working in VLC, you can try to add an M3U plugin and point to the M3U and XML files. The same configuration should work as the PlutoTV plugin. As an example, you can use
M3U: https://i.mjh.nz/PlutoTV/all.m3u8
EPG: https://i.mjh.nz/PlutoTV/all.xml.gz

Not sure how I go about adding an M3U plugin with those playlist/EPG URLs... any chance you can advise example config file please?

Thanks!

TJ M: Recommend just adding the basic to initialize the instance, then update the config settings in the web page. So, to add an instance, you could add the following to config.ini:

[m3u_plutotv]
label = M3U PlutoTV

Restart the app and the instance should show up. It will all be disabled at first to allow you to configure it. Make sure the plugin level is enabled (you will need to restart the app to accept the enable change, if not). The instance can be disabled while you make the changes, then enable the instance and restart the app.

john: It may be a chicken and egg issue. It takes a while to update the EPG from XUMO into the database, so if TVH requests XUMO EPG before it is updated, you could be getting old data. This would look like no data is being provided. Check the logs; they will indicate when the EPG request is complete. (It will say at the INFO level "EPG update completed")

Next is the update rate. You can take a look at the XUMO EPG data from the provider and see when they publish new data. As an example, try the url
https://valencia-app-mds.xumo.com/v2/channels/channel/99991772/broadcast.json?hour=23
It will display a start time in seconds. Hop over to the URL
https://www.unixtimestamp.com/index.php
Which will display the current time in seconds.
What you want to do is run the xumo URL every hour until the timestamp changes. This will indicate the next 24 hours of data has been published. What Cabernet does is ... after the update, it will run a channel list update, wait about 1 hour, then do an EPG update.

Also, the pull script on TVH to request the EPG can timeout based on how much data is being requested. If you are using tv_grab_url, then go to the bottom of the file and make sure the -T option is big (like 3600).

G Kazaroth wrote:

TJ M: Recommend just adding the basic to initialize the instance, then update the config settings in the web page. So, to add an instance, you could add the following to config.ini:

[m3u_plutotv]
label = M3U PlutoTV

Restart the app and the instance should show up. It will all be disabled at first to allow you to configure it. Make sure the plugin level is enabled (you will need to restart the app to accept the enable change, if not). The instance can be disabled while you make the changes, then enable the instance and restart the app.

Thanks, that all worked.

Now having another strange issue.. When I have tvh scanning my cabernet playlist it seems to just keep spawning new python.exe processes and they don't end by themselves either. Logs seem to indicate it has run out of tuners however I noticed on a quick look of some of the cabernet code that it talks about idle tuners... so in theory I take it I am experiencing some sort of a bug?

Hello, I was wondering if someone can help me figure out my issue. I was able to install Cabernet using Docker on my Synology NAS. Cabernet runs fine, I am able to access the web page and change settings wioth no issues. My problem is that I don't understand what to do to use it on my Plex Server. I mostly want to be able to watch USTVGO using my Plex.

I added a config.ini file to data folder with this in it:

[plutotv_default]
label = PlutoTV Instance
enabled = True

[loggers]
keys = root

[logger_root]
level = DEBUG
handlers = loghandler

[handlers]
keys = loghandler, filehandler

[formatters]
keys = extend,simple

[handler_filehandler]
enabled = False
level = INFO
formatter = extend
class = lib.common.log_handlers.MPRotatingFileHandler
args = (os.getenv('LOGS_DIR','data/logs')+'/cabernet.log', 'a', 10000000, 10)

[handler_loghandler]
enabled = True
level = WARNING
class = StreamHandler
formatter = extend
args = (sys.stdout,)

[formatter_extend]
format = %(asctime)s-%(levelname)s:%(module)s %(message)s

[formatter_simple]
format = %(levelname)s:%(module)s %(message)s

[main]
uuid = D8D2A2C0-C948-11EC-B01F-0242AC110002

[hdhomerun]
hdhr_id = 105346B6

[ustvgo]
enabled = True

[m3u]
enabled = True

When I go to Plex Settings > Manage > Live TV & DVR and add the link to my channels.m3u, after it searches for channels I get this message:

No channels found. Make sure your device has a signal from your antenna and try scanning again.

TJM: It is probably normal to have that many processes. This is caused by the number of tuners set at the plugin level. Each active stream will generate a new process. This helps with running many streams at one time. The more streams, the more processes it takes and is only limited by the size of your server.

When TVH does a force scan, it goes as fast as it can and uses two critical settings. First is the Network Max # input streams. This value causes TVH to use that number times 2 for the number of streams since it does not terminate the stream until after the next stream starts. The second value is Network Maximum timeout. This is the time TVH will use for each channel scan. It is not the maximum, but rather the actual value used. So if you have the input stream set to 5 and the timeout set to 30, then it will use at least 10 tuners in Cabernet and will timeout most channels after 30 seconds. If not all the M3U URLs are not working, then Cabernet may end up going through a timeout when may take even longer. Normally we recommend using a small number for the number of inputs like 2 to do a Force Scan. The timeout should be based on how long it takes for the stream to initialize (which can be different for each provider.) Note, Cabernet uses 3 processes by default, so it looks like you have TVH set to a big number of input streams with Cabernet set to around 12.

Then going to the Cabernet side, there is a tuner count at the plugin level. After doing many tests, it looks like that number needs to be at least x*2+1 of the # of inputs in TVH for that network. This is due to the number of streams TVH will have opened at one time. You could have TVH set to 2 and Cabernet set to 10. Cabernet would still probably only use 4 or 5 max.

RW: My understanding is a recent change to Plex has restricted the use of HDHR simulators to be on the same ports as the original appliances. Last I checked, they had not released the update, so I have not tried the new changes. If they did do that, then Cabernet would need to move from port 6077 to port 80 and enable HDHR and possibly SSDP. Last time I did that, Plex did find the appliance and the channel list with it all enabled and the port moved. You can also not turn on SSDP and just change the port from 6077 to 80. If you do that, then you would need to enter the IP address manually into Plex. That should work, but you may also need to turn on HDHR in Cabernet.

I will run some tests and see what changes they have made. I also have HDHR appliances and Plex does find them.

I have something running on port 80 already so Im gonna have to figure out a workaround, maybe reverse proxy?

But also Plex runs on port 32400 and Cabernet on port 6077 so they're not in the same port.