Skipping (Rewinding or forwarding) a recording in progress will cause the recording to be split on tvheadend (backend!)

Wild Penguin

Hi,

Not sure if this is a backend issue or frontend issue, but posting here since I need kodi to trigger this.

I was recording sime ice hockey (since I could not watch it live from the beginning). If I rewind or skip forward too much near the current end of the recording (which is in progress) the recording will be split on backend!.

This seems like a bug in backend, since no frontend should have anyt effect on the recording which is still in progress.

It seems I can reliably duplicate this.

Any idea what's going on, or ways to fix this?

Robert Cameron

How about some relevant information: which versions of Tvheadend, Kodi, and the pvr.hts addon are you using? Also, are you watching through the Live TV interface on Kodi, or through the Recordings listing? (That makes a big difference as Kodi treats Live TV completely differently than it does a recording selected through the Recodings screen.)

The current stable/release versions are:
* Tvheadend: 4.2.6
* Kodi: 17.6
* pvr.hts: 3.4.28
The current unstable/development versions are:
* Tvheadend: 4.3
* Kodi: 18a1
* pvr.hts: 4.2.14

Also, if you are using a development version, please update to the newest commit/nightly, and include the commit/git hash.

Does this happen with regularity? Can it be reproduced, and if so, what are the minimal steps needed. Also, additional information can be provided in the form of debug logs from both Tvheadend and Kodi. Usually that will show what the application is actually doing when the unexpected behavior occurs.

Wild Penguin

Some more info:

Tvheadend version is 4.3-949~gebd339120

The split program will be given a new name (Ohjelma = a generic name, finnish for "Programme").

I can resume from where the split occured (not sure what happens after the program / recording is finished).

Wild Penguin

Hi Robert,

Yes I forgot some relevant information.

I was watching the recording in progress, not the channell (I though that was obvious since I told what I was doing and why).

I'm already using the development version os tvheadend on Arch (switched to that branch since I needed regexps in autorecs, which do not work on stable or at least didn't work previously, haven't checked if the feature got into release yet).

Kodi is 17.4. (LibreElec), hts plugin version 3.4.27.1. For some reason there is no newer version available trough kodi, I'll see if I can get a newer version manually.

I'm running on a Odroid C1, and sadly there is no newer version of kodi available for it (and probably never will be); that might limit also the version of pvr.hts which will run on it.

Now that I started another recording, I can not repeat the behaviour again for some reason. So unless there are other users out there with this problem, you can just ignore this as a single fluke for the time being. I will provide the logs if this bothers me again :-)

Thanks!

Robert Cameron

If you're using a C1, the alarm repos definitely have 17.6 pacakges: https://archlinuxarm.org/packages/armv7h/kodi-c1

Also, for the pvr.hts addon: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/kodi-addon-pvr-hts/ (For this you will also need the

kodi-c1-dev

package, otherwise all of the other build dependencies are in the standard repos.)

Also, you might consider upgrading your Tvheadend install. The version you are running is from 14 January, over 3 months ago. If you're following a development branch, that isVERY old, especially considering how quickly Tvheadend development progresses.

Wild Penguin

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your advice. The computer running tvheadend is running Arch and I'm using AUR helpers. In any case I need to manually update tvheadend every now and then, which I though I had made recently, but apparently haven't!

I'm using LibreELEC on the C1, though (since for these purposes any full blown distribution seems overkill). But since it seems the LibreELEC (or equivalent) doesn't seem to get enought attention, I might opt for a full-blown distribution in the near future.

Robert Cameron

Regarding LE: its updates always seem to lag behind (especially for lesser-used models like the C1), when they bundle third-party software (such as Tvheadend) they either choose a development version which is not the best for a stable frontend device or fail to maintain the current version, and they do not provide a full and proper userland. In short, it's an ill-maintained appliance-like OS.

Since you already seem to be comfortable with Arch, you're probably much better off using that on your C1. And getting Kodi setup and running requires very little more than a base Alarm install:

Assuming your system is already up-to-date:

# pacman --needed -S base-devel git $ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/pacaur $ cd pacaur $ makepkg -si $ cd .. $ pacaur -S kodi-{c1{,-dev},addon-pvr-hts} # systemctl enable kodi

(That's using pacaur as your AUR-helper, feel free to substitute your preferred application.) The advantage of using a real OS on your frontend is that is much easier to manage because you don't have to jump through hoops trying to anything that is just a little different from the LE developers' idea of what you should be able to do.

Wild Penguin

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your suggestion. This is getting quite heavily [OT] now, btw ;-)

The thing is, that sometimes you just do not want to tinker. LibreElec packaged for this kind of devices is designed to do one thing and do it well, and have been tested. These have exotic hardware and may require some special drivers etc. settings, which are not user friendly and well documended.

However all things considering I went ahead and installed Arch Linux on the Odroid, too. However seems that the gamestopper here is a buggy fb driver in Arch for the C1. It is just unusable (as in: no refresh rate control at all, console messages keep popping up over KODI UI, and hard lockups).

Considering that I needed quite a few steps to get going where I am now:

* follow this guide: https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/amlogic/odroid-c1
* follow this guide for the relevant parts (key mapping etc.): https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide
* Install kodi-c1 and required dependencies, such as the buggy fb driver
* Enable bluetooth for bootup
* Fix keyboard issue with kodi (chmod /dev/ttyS0) and make the relevant service to make the keyboard usefull

Some things are better (such as CPU usage, which was constantly around ~20% on LibreElec, and keyboard layout control and proper userland). But the buggy FB driver makes this unusable! I suspect that the hard lockups are also caused by it.

So, for KODI usage, the current packages are not usable. I'll see if I can get the driver to work more stably and if I can get different refresh rates working (without a reboot; I can choose the video mode during bootup, but this is far from optimal for a video player)!.

In the meantime, for anyone eavesdropping: installing KODI trough Arch can not be recommended for the Odroid. Stick to LibreElec; it's not optimal but at least works.