Server spec

patfenton · 2025-08-11T16:26:19+00:00

I have Tvheadend working as the server running on a RPi 3B+ with 1GB RAM. I have a DTT TV Hat and a Sat IP tuner on the network (Telestar Digibit Twin). I'm...

patfenton

May be the version in the repository is not a newer version??

Flole

patfenton One thing I have not tried is removing tvheadend as I just expect it will install my version again and I'll lose all my configuration for no reason.

As long as you don't purge a package all configuration files are preserved, thats the default for most (if not all) deb packages btw.

patfenton

Flole
Removed and reinstalled it, yes you were correct all configs remained, ok.
But still end up with the old version.
What do you think might be happening here?

patfenton

sudo apt remove tvheadend # OK

sudo apt install tvheadend # OK

As expected, ended with the same old version again. But thanks for responding.

Are you really sure that the repo has a newer version in it?

DaveH

I note somewhere above it says you are running raspbian buster on your pi. I don't claim to be an expert but I can't find anything except a lot of bookworm and a few bullseye packages for raspbian. So I'm not surprised your upgrade ends with nothing to do. You need to upgrade your pi first, and ideally swap it for a newer one, I suppose.

patfenton

Yes Dave, ancient. about 5 years old. It came bundled with this OS.
Definitely I need to a buy a newer one.

DaveH

I think you certainly need to upgrade the OS!

patfenton

Raspbian came installed on the RPi 3 B+ and has been very stable. I upgraded the OS recently.
sudo apt full-upgrade.

DaveH

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/os.html says:

"Run the following command to upgrade all your installed packages to their latest versions:

$ sudo apt full-upgrade

"When Raspberry Pi releases a new major version of Raspberry Pi OS, the above commands won’t upgrade your operating system to that new major version. To upgrade to a new major version, follow our OS upgrade instructions."

So no, you haven't upgraded the OS! You need to follow the instructions on that page before you will see any recent tvheadend updates.

patfenton

Thanks Dave. I'll have a go at that.

patfenton

As a follow up to trying to get a Raspberry pi 3 B+ working as a media server running TVheadend with a DTT (DVB-T) HAT and a wired network connected Sat IP Telestar Digibit Twin. I was getting breakup on the vision on HD channels from the satellite but no breakup on the terrestrial channels and trying to find the cause. I was running Kodi as the client on an old PC with LibreELEC. as the OS. Was it the satellite signal, Pi, the network or the client?
DaveH had informed me that I needed to do a full reinstall of the OS to get the latest version of tvheadend.

I decided to buy a new Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB RAM and install the latest version of OS (Debian 12 bookworm).
I now have the latest version of tvheadend, HTS Tvheadend 4.3-2451_g74720af62, which is much much easier to configure.
The results.
I never see breakup anymore but I do see buffering if the network on the client side is not good enough.
I can record two satellite HD channels while playing a terrestrial HD channel and a satellite HD channel simultaneously (4 HD streams) with a strong network connection on the client sides. The Pi and sat ip are gigabit wired.
But all devices need to be wired network connected or be close to the wifi router and be reasonably powered PC's.

The old PC running LibreELEC is just not up to the job. The fan goes into overdrive after about half an hour of HD video playback and is too noisy. It cannot play HD video consistently, plays well for a while and then starts buffering. I've dumped that idea.

Even using reasonable PC's as clients I need to be relatively close to the router for HD to work well over wifi. Using a speedtest on the network, I find that I need a consistent result of over approx 50Mbit/s for really reliable playback. Anything less will result in video buffering.

So no surprises really, need a decent server, latest OS, latest version of tvheadend, gigabit network connecting the pi and sat ip. And clients with the ability to play HD video consistently over a long period with a good connection of approx. 50Mbit/s over wifi or preferably wired to avoid interference.

So my next task is to go back to the RPi 3 and reinstall OS and tvheadend from the ground up and test.

Thanks for all the assistance above.

userxy79

Wifi produces a lot Overhead, so to get for example 10Mbit you need approx 25Mbit Connection Speed. You may noticed that if you have 300Mbit WLAN Connection Speed from your Router/AP you only get around 50 % of that as real Connection Speed when for example copy Files over this Connection.

Just a guess, i dont think that, on the server side, the change from OS 11 to OS 12 solved the Problem. I think the Hardware change to Pi5 did it. But thats just a guess.

And Buffering happens for me too on my HTPC where the Server (TVH) and Client (KODI) are on the same Machine. But it only happens if i run Timeshift for Hours and as longer as i run it and that not always, i didnt figured it out why it does it but my guess is that its a TVH thing with the timeshift-module itself trying to reorganize or worktrough the Timeshift Buffer.

In your Case if it just happens on Clients with Wifi Connections, its maybe the Wifi thats causing the Issue.

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