ORF 2 Stream Crash on TVH Server

phaze75 · 2025-10-08T18:42:25+00:00

Hi there, For the past few weeks, I’ve been experiencing an issue with the ORF 2 channel stream provided by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation. This chan...

Sp3ncMan

phaze75

I think, in any way it's a kind of bug of TVH. ORF and Astra are doing things which are technical standard for decades. There are simple too less, crazy, people like we, who need this feature in TVH ggg :- )

The more complex Problem will be, to get some developer who is able to recreate the situation (regional, encryption, ...) and who is able to fix the bug in the code.

Capmt client/server have some settings which hopefully can conceal the bug more or less. Hopefully!! Perhaps this works for us ... don't know!

phaze75

Sp3ncMan Capmt client/server have some settings which hopefully can conceal the bug more or less. Hopefully!! Perhaps this works for us ... don't know!

Does it work for you?

phaze75

Sp3ncMan
Today, I finally managed to implement all suggested changes 1-4. The national/regional switch worked with a small glitch in the stream. Unfortunately, I am not sure if this really due to the changes made today, as the national/regional switch seemed to work also during the last days without implementing the changes 1-4.

So, I hoped the regional/national switch would now work or at lease be improved, as this switch always crashes the stream. Unfortunately, there was no improvement - the stream went dark as always.

Sp3ncMan

Hi, the switch from national to regional works, from regional to national not. after I watched "Kärnten heute" once, the national stream doesn't work at all. only tvheadend restart helps. very strange.

but I think the variables above are without function in newest versions. they have patched it out. only configuration which is still configured is the ca stream filter, but as you mentioned, I think in the actual versions they have made some changes done which partially helped us. hopefully the change from regional to national will also work anytime in the future ..

Actual version is 4.3-2514_g2169e1235.

phaze75

Sp3ncMan after I watched "Kärnten heute" once, the national stream doesn't work at all. only tvheadend restart helps. very strange.

Same here. But this was and is the very reason I started this thread.

Sp3ncMan but I think the variables above are without function in newest versions. they have patched it out. only configuration which is still configured is the ca stream filter, but as you mentioned, I think in the actual versions they have made some changes done which partially helped us.

@DeltaMikeCharlie What is your expert opinion on the changes 1-4? Are these variables still available/relevant or have they been patched out?

@DeltaMikeCharlie I have sent you a PM via LibreELEC forum. Could you please check your inbox there?

Sp3ncMan

in the meantime version 4.3-2518_g7f9710c13noble became online. will try that.

phaze75

Sp3ncMan in the meantime version 4.3-2518g7f9710c13noble became online. will try that.

I removed changes 1-4 for now and also installed version 4.3-2518g7f9710c13noble. Let's see.

DeltaMikeCharlie

phaze75 What is your expert opinion on the changes 1-4? Are these variables still available/relevant or have they been patched out?

I'm sorry but I am not an expert. We don't use encrypted FTA services in Australia and I don't know that the result of these proposed changes will be. I have run out of ideas.

phaze75 I have sent you a PM via LibreELEC forum. Could you please check your inbox there?

Thank you. I have replied.

phaze75

DeltaMikeCharlie I have run out of ideas.

Thank you for your efforts put into this issue so far.

DeltaMikeCharlie

phaze75 Thank you for your efforts put into this issue so far.

You are welcome.

The final test that I wanted to achieve on this issue was to see how TVH handles the change in PIDs without the complication introduced by encryption.

I hacked TVH to ignore the CA tags embedded in the PMT of my unencrypted sample stream and then started playback using both VLC and Kodi individually.

When the PID transition occurred, VLC (http) glitched slightly and played for a few seconds before freezing permanently. Playback on Kodi (htsp) froze for at least 2-3 minutes, but then resumed in roughly the right place.

I got lots of error messages about DTS discontinuity, etc.

2025-11-11 14:41:39.890 [WARNING] mpegts: too much queued input data (over 50MB) for TSFile, discarding new
2025-11-11 14:41:40.106 [WARNING] TS: TSfile Network/Multiplex [onid:0001 tsid:03ED]/ORF2St HD: H264 @ #3010 Continuity counter error (total 1)

2025-11-11 14:41:40.111 [WARNING] parser: TSfile Network/Multiplex [onid:0001 tsid:03ED]/ORF2St HD: H264 @ #3010: DTS and PCR diff is very big (685745)

Just before the Kodi unfreeze, the log was bombarded with dozens of DTS discontinuity errors before settling down and then Kodi proceeding without error.

2025-11-11 15:02:20.796 [WARNING] tsfix: transport stream H264, DTS discontinuity. DTS = 138378623, last = 137728823
2025-11-11 15:02:20.796 [WARNING] tsfix: transport stream H264, DTS discontinuity. DTS = 138648623, last = 138378623

At the second transition, it seems like Kodi jumped back in time to just after the first transition. The stream played for several minutes before my test system spontaneously rebooted.

I think that I have 2 findings:

1) Streaming results seem to depend on the client and/or the protocol in use.
2) TVH sees the change in the DTS, tries to compensate (tsfix messages), but does not totally succeed. Perhaps the DTS change is too large to handle.

phaze75

DeltaMikeCharlie 1) Streaming results seem to depend on the client and/or the protocol in use.

I will try to verify that with VLC and Kodi on my side using the live stream and the live decryption.

BTW: Only today I received an answer from ORF concerning my request from end of October for a detailed technical description of what is happening. Their answer was very unspecific and for more detailed information I would need to give them the receiver brand and and model. So I guess this ends here.

phaze75

DeltaMikeCharlie 1) Streaming results seem to depend on the client and/or the protocol in use.

I can confirm your finding #1. Today, I used two Kodi clients (Win+CoreELEC) via RTSP and one VLC client via HTTP to access the same ORF2St HD stream. All three clients handled the switch from national to regional with the usual glitches, but surprisingly, VLC even "survived" the switch back from regional to national, while both Kodi clients went black.

Here’s where it gets interesting:

It’s clearly not the stream itself causing the issue, but rather the subscription of each client. While VLC keeps playing on the same stream shared by the Kodi clients, the latter go dark. The screenshot shows that the Kodi subscriptions still receive the correct input bandwidth but have zero output bandwidth (see red boxes), whereas the VLC subscription maintains proper output bandwidth.

Maybe the problem isn’t tied to a specific client but to the protocol being used. Is there a way to get Kodi to play a stream over HTTP?

Additionally, I can confirm that the PID list only grows by adding new PIDs and isn’t cleaned up when PIDs are no longer in use. Since VLC continues to play using the same PID list without problems, I doubt this is a critical issue.

Sp3ncMan

Hi DMC,
in my opinion its definitive a TVH topic, not Client dependent. Because? Because the result is the same with every client:

Channels, which have been viewed at time of switching, are getting DARK - until you restart TVH. No matter what client has been used for viewing.

/Mario

DaveH

Sp3ncMan in my opinion its definitive a TVH topic, not Client dependent. Because? Because the result is the same with every client

How do you reconcile your opinion with DMC's description of different results using VLC and Kodi?

Sp3ncMan

Very interesting what I tried today: recorded the "dark" orf2khd channel, copied TS file to windows pc and played it with VLC, it works. So raw data, from satellite to backend works. There seems to be a problem with backend to client ... somewhere!!!???

EDIT: also playing "dark" channel-record with Kodi works ...

EDIT: also strange when tuning with kodi: no output traffic under subscription

phaze75

phaze75
Could the profile be causing the issue, since Kodi uses "htsp" and VLC uses "pass"?

Sp3ncMan

phaze75

we both are on the same direction ;-), try at the moment with different profiles, but nothing works yet with kodi ... seems that kodi client is htsp only.

EDIT: TVH Web Player has obviously the same problems than kodi. Channels stay dark, btw ...

phaze75

Sp3ncMan we both are on the same direction ;-)

Yes indeed! ;-)

Sp3ncMan What I can say is, that timeshift is not working with pass-profile any more :-(

These are just troubleshooting steps to pinpoint the root cause of the issue. I don’t plan to use “http” streaming or the “pass” profile as a long-term fix. There’s a reason “htsp” is the standard for TVH.

Sp3ncMan

Guys,

I have activated:

"Activate HTTP for streaming ..."

Made "pass" profile as default:

And for me the dark ORF2kHD chanel gets bright again. Will test it tomorrow with Live Stream ...

What I can say is, that timeshift is not working with pass-profile any more :-(

/Mario

phaze75

One more thought - since the VLC client could keep streaming via HTTP, this means also the full decryption process was working. So I’m assuming the decryption itself isn’t the root cause, especially as I noticed that oscam kept decrypting even the “gone-dark” subscription for the Kodi client. The issue might be on the subscription layer.

Sp3ncMan

phaze75 exactly!

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