URLs of IPTV muxes are always rewritten a day after...

New user

Hello,

I configured a few IPTV channels in TVHeadend, following the step-by-step documentation:

First, creating a network, in "Configuration > DVB Inputs > Networks". In the URL of the new network I paste in the address of the M3U file, e.g. http://185.23.75.51:80/live/fergertytr/ihfgertuz/1972405.m3u8, then I press "Force scan" to download and process the M3U file.

Then, I configure the related muxes, in "Configuration > DVB Inputs > Muxes". There are 6 new muxes related to this network. I select the 6 new muxes, and press "Edit". In "URL", for some reason, the value is different and it is a .ts file, not a .m3u file, e.g. http://85.52.182.18:80/hls/b369auiergzeurda78c572d989111bdf909/132178367_5059.ts
I think this value is wrong, so I replace it with the same value as the URL field in the first step above.

Then I configure the services in "Configuration > DVB Inputs > Services". There are 6 new lines that relate to the new muxes, I select them, and press "Edit". In "Channel", I select the channel name that correspond to the services. I check the "Channel" checkbox, and press "Save".

Last step, I go to "Configuration > Channel / EPG > Channels", select the channel name, press "Edit", and in "Services", I select the 6 services accordingly. And I click "Save".

Then, after doing that, I'm able to record TV programs using this newly created IPTV channel (it works, using the M3U file in the "URL" field). However, I noticed that a day after, this type of IPTV channels get misconfigured, and any scheduled recording aborts (it doesn't work when the "URL" field is a .ts file). Investigating, I found out that the muxes have a wrong "URL" value in "Configuration > DVB Inputs > Muxes" again: a .ts file instead of a .m3u file. So I fix it, save and it works again... Until next day, to find out that the value of that URL field is wrong again...

Have some of you stumbled upon this problem? Why does TVHeadend gets misconfigured there? How to keep this value fixed?

Thank you.

Tony Wagner

TVHeadend will periodically rescan that IPTV M3U URL, and in this case, it thinks the provider is sending a new stream mux path because it no longer matches the one you edited manually.

Instead of editing the muxes manually in TVHeadend, you can pipe the M3U through a script which makes your edits. I do this with a Python script to change HLS muxes to pipe TS muxes (which may be something else you want to do).

Save something like the following to pipe.py (note that I am using cvlc for piping the streams here, but you could substitute ffmpeg instead):

#!/usr/bin/python
import sys
import requests

try:
    m3u_url = sys.argv[1]
except:
    print("no m3u url specified")
    sys.exit(1)

data = requests.get(
    f"{m3u_url}"
).text.splitlines()

for line in data:
    if line != "":
        if line.startswith("#"):
            print(line)
        else:
            print("pipe:///usr/bin/cvlc -vvv --intf dummy vcd:// --quiet --adaptive-logic=highest --sout '#standard{mux=ts,access=file,dst=-}' \"" + line + "\"")

Then under Networks in TVHeadend, your IPTV M3U URL would be something like:
pipe:///usr/bin/python /path/to/pipe.py "http://185.23.75.51:80/channels.m3u"

New user

Thank you. I've installed ffmpeg and adapted the script to use it. I've come this far, with a 403 error.
(I've removed actual IP address and credentials from the code below)
Here's the output of my terminal when running the commands to try to debug:

Running the pipe script:

# python3 pipe.py http://remote-ip-address/live/my_username/my_password/732206.m3u8
Output:

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:3
#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:2011
#EXT-X-ALLOW-CACHE:YES
#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:13
#EXTINF:9.600000,
pipe:///opt/bin/ffmpeg -reconnect 1 -reconnect_at_eof 1 -reconnect_streamed 1 -reconnect_delay_max 2000 -probesize 1000k -analyzeduration 0 -fpsprobesize 0 -fflags -nobuffer -err_detect ignore_err -i http://remote-ip-address/hls/df5a372ce86612a4b2c82678d680e90e/732206_2011.ts -codec copy -f mpegts -tune zerolatency pipe:1
#EXTINF:9.600000,
pipe:///opt/bin/ffmpeg -reconnect 1 -reconnect_at_eof 1 -reconnect_streamed 1 -reconnect_delay_max 2000 -probesize 1000k -analyzeduration 0 -fpsprobesize 0 -fflags -nobuffer -err_detect ignore_err -i http://remote-ip-address/hls/7a380506875583fa5dd8bfd38c74a1bd/732206_2012.ts -codec copy -f mpegts -tune zerolatency pipe:1
#EXTINF:12.800000,
pipe:///opt/bin/ffmpeg -reconnect 1 -reconnect_at_eof 1 -reconnect_streamed 1 -reconnect_delay_max 2000 -probesize 1000k -analyzeduration 0 -fpsprobesize 0 -fflags -nobuffer -err_detect ignore_err -i http://remote-ip-address/hls/74a59b1cfdbcbe36548871002846d39d/732206_2013.ts -codec copy -f mpegts -tune zerolatency pipe:1
#EXTINF:9.600000,
pipe:///opt/bin/ffmpeg -reconnect 1 -reconnect_at_eof 1 -reconnect_streamed 1 -reconnect_delay_max 2000 -probesize 1000k -analyzeduration 0 -fpsprobesize 0 -fflags -nobuffer -err_detect ignore_err -i http://remote-ip-address/hls/3f422689daeed9b00a652e83ffe924f4/732206_2014.ts -codec copy -f mpegts -tune zerolatency pipe:1
#EXTINF:9.600000,
pipe:///opt/bin/ffmpeg -reconnect 1 -reconnect_at_eof 1 -reconnect_streamed 1 -reconnect_delay_max 2000 -probesize 1000k -analyzeduration 0 -fpsprobesize 0 -fflags -nobuffer -err_detect ignore_err -i http://remote-ip-address/hls/4def7a953055087879605781e35a9ec5/732206_2015.ts -codec copy -f mpegts -tune zerolatency pipe:1
#EXTINF:9.600000,
pipe:///opt/bin/ffmpeg -reconnect 1 -reconnect_at_eof 1 -reconnect_streamed 1 -reconnect_delay_max 2000 -probesize 1000k -analyzeduration 0 -fpsprobesize 0 -fflags -nobuffer -err_detect ignore_err -i http://remote-ip-address/hls/e50cd66076e952de52a497aedb1541ae/732206_2016.ts -codec copy -f mpegts -tune zerolatency pipe:1

Running ffmpeg using the address of a .ts file taken above:

# /opt/bin/ffmpeg -loglevel fatal -i http://remote-ip-address/hls/df5a372ce86612a4b2c82678d680e90e/732206_2011.ts -map 0 -c copy -f mpegts pipe:1

Output:
Error opening input files: Server returned 403 Forbidden (access denied)

I tried opening the remote M3U8 file in VLC, using the full address with credentials in the URL: It opens the stream successfully. Then, I downloaded the M3U8 file to my desktop, opened the file in a text editor, copied the full address of one of the .ts files and tried to open it in VLC : it doesn't work. Any idea?

Tony Wagner

New user Running the pipe script:

python3 pipe.py http://remote-ip-address/live/my_username/my_password/732206.m3u8

You want to run this script on the M3U address (the list of all channels), not the M3U8 list of TS segments for an individual channel.

Tony Wagner

New user Running the pipe script:

python3 pipe.py http://remote-ip-address/live/my_username/my_password/732206.m3u8

If you run this script on the M3U address (the list of all channels), then it will transform each M3U8 channel streams inside the M3U into a pipe:// ffmpeg conversion command that TVHeadend can understand.

Once you have it working on the command line, prepend it with "pipe://" and use absolute paths to Python and your script file. Then add an IPTV Automatic Network in the TVHeadend web interface, set the View level to Expert, and put this command in the URL field as pictured below. I'd also uncheck "Scan after creation" and set "Service ID" to "1" so that TVHeadend just creates a mux/service for each channel without trying to load them all.

New user

Thank you. I've bookmarked your instructions. I might need them one day. For now, I'll have to disable the IPTV networks, as when they are enabled, Tvheadend stops working, I need to restart it from the command line, and only then, I can access the playlist and the web UI. I'll have to use only the DVB-T network and muxes.