View Full Version : [SX988] Client Mode is unreliable
Hello,
I have a Vu+ Uno4KSE configured for satellite reception and acting as a server, and an Octagon SX988 acting as a network streaming client. Both are running OpenViX 6.4.009.
The client is setup in client mode with the following settings ("Schedule EPG and channel list import" is enabled):
65837
This works well most of the time, however, sporadically the client will not show any channels on the channel list after boot and I just get a blank black screen.
If I disable Client Mode and instead only use the "Fallback Configuration" option under the Tuners menu of the client then the streaming works reliably on every boot, however, the problem with this method is that I do not get the EPG updates, nor an up-to-date channel list whenever a channel changes frequency etc.
What could be causing this reliability problem with Client Mode? I am not familiar with how to debug or the code, but one guess of mine is could it be that the FTP connection sometimes fails? Is the code that deals with this robust enough to deal with a failed FTP connection and stream anyway with existing EPG/channel list data?
Thanks,
Paul
I assume other box ip has not changed and does that box need a reboot to clear any bugs.
I assume other box ip has not changed and does that box need a reboot to clear any bugs.
The server box has a static IP, and I've had this problem sporadically for almost a year now (so many reboots of the server in-between).
choose ip adress instead of url. Be shure you have a free tuner on main box
choose ip adress instead of url. Be shure you have a free tuner on main box
I will try an IP instead of URL and report back, but that still wouldn't explain why when I set a "Fallback Configuration" using an auto-detected "Network Peer" it works reliably.
I have 8 tuners available on the server and I don't think they have ever been used all at once!
I will try an IP instead of URL and report back, but that still wouldn't explain why when I set a "Fallback Configuration" using an auto-detected "Network Peer" it works reliably.
I have 8 tuners available on the server and I don't think they have ever been used all at once!
OK, I tried by setting the receiver address by IP on the client as follows:
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This initially worked, but after 5 or so boots later of the client it stopped working again (same problem as described in OP).
To elaborate with some more screenshots, when this problem occurs, on boot of the client I just get the following blank screen. Typing a 3-digit channel number into the remote does nothing:
65839
If I press up or down on the remote control to get the channel list I get a blank black screen with no channels listed. If I press the red "All" button I get the complete list of unsorted channels (not in a bouquet) and I can stream them by tediously manually selecting as in this screenshot:
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However, my main "Freesat UK - All Channels" bouquet is not present if I press the blue button for "Favourites", with only some minor bouquets present.
If I disable client mode to rely on the "Fallback Configuration" and reboot everything works as expected (except no automatic EPG and channel list updates).
OK, I tried by setting the receiver address by IP on the client as follows:
65838
This initially worked, but after 5 or so boots later of the client it stopped working again (same problem as described in OP).
To elaborate with some more screenshots, when this problem occurs, on boot of the client I just get the following blank screen. Typing a 3-digit channel number into the remote does nothing:
65839
If I press up or down on the remote control to get the channel list I get a blank black screen with no channels listed. If I press the red "All" button I get the complete list of unsorted channels (not in a bouquet) and I can stream them by tediously manually selecting as in this screenshot:
65840
However, my main "Freesat UK - All Channels" bouquet is not present if I press the blue button for "Favourites", with only some minor bouquets present.
If I disable client mode to rely on the "Fallback Configuration" and reboot everything works as expected (except no automatic EPG and channel list updates).
turn on debug logs (menu/setup/system/logs/settings ---> select hdd/usb, set local time, show in extensions(helpful - use blue button)) and post when issue arises
turn on debug logs (menu/setup/system/logs/settings ---> select hdd/usb, set local time, show in extensions(helpful - use blue button)) and post when issue arises
OK, here is the log from the SX988 client when Client Mode failed:
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And a screenshot of the blank channel list:
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I thought this section from the log was maybe appropriate:
15:40:02.4756 [ClientModeScheduler][ClientModeautostart] AutoStart Enabled
15:40:02.4758 [ChannelsImporter] Fetch bouquets.tv and bouquets.radio
15:40:02.4758 [ChannelsImporter][fetchRemoteBouquets] Downloading channel indexes...
15:40:02.4759 [ChannelsImporter][fetchRemoteBouquets] 1/2
15:40:02.4759 [ChannelsImporter] Downloading remote file 'bouquets.tv'
15:40:02.5087 [ChannelsImporter][FTPdownloadFile] Error: [Errno 101] Network is unreachable
15:40:02.5088 [ChannelsImporter][fetchRemoteBouquets] Error fetching. Stopping script.
It seems the FTP transfer indeed fails. It says "network unreachable", however, by the time the boot is completed I can use the network fine. I am using a USB WLAN module - maybe the network has not had time to initialise fully before this script executes??? If indeed the FTP transfer fails, why not just use the locally stored bouquet data that is already there, rather than seemingly wiping it?
strange you have client mode failed.Have masterbox vu duo2 (4 tuners ) here and 2 remote boxes duo2 and SF8008 and never a failed .Something wrong with your network ? My boxes only go in stb and all boxes view recordings from master also.
Ps: your box has only 2 effective tuners.Maybe thats the problem.
Wonder if it got hard wired would it work.
strange you have client mode failed.Have masterbox vu duo2 (4 tuners ) here and 2 remote boxes duo2 and SF8008 and never a failed .Something wrong with your network ? My boxes only go in stb and all boxes view recordings from master also.
I don't think there is anything wrong with my network (Kodi clients stream flawlessly). Are your client devices connected wired or wireless? I suspect the problem may be the delay caused to authenticate the WLAN. I am using the WLAN module as at: https://www.octagon-germany.eu/produkte/zubehor/wl618blister/ connected to a 5GHz network.
Ps: your box has only 2 effective tuners.Maybe thats the problem.
How do you figure that? My Vu+ Uno4KSE server has 8 tuners configured with a Unicable II FBC:
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Here is the front panel showing 3 streams on tuners A, B, C:
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Wonder if it got hard wired would it work.
I will try that, but it involves a bit of fiddling and moving the box to another room to test out the theory...
Sometimes for testing having long rolls of lan cable come in handy.
Sometimes for testing having long rolls of lan cable come in handy.
Yeah - I got it set up that way now - so far no problems on wired LAN, but will report back after a few days.
my network is fully cabled an 1 GB reliable with cisco switch
I can confirm that with wired Ethernet I had no problems over days. Upon switching back to WiFi the problem reappeared almost instantly.
Otherwise WiFi streams with no problems. Therefore, I suspect this is a bug related to the fact that WiFi takes longer to initialise than wired Ethernet. Does the OpenViX code explicitly check and wait for a network connection before running "ChannelsImporter"?
There is no check for network up.
I have had the same problem using wirles
ArloGuthrie
07-12-23, 23:55
I have watched this thread and kind of laid back on it.
If you have the options and assuming that you are running server/client on your own LAN only.
Disable DHCP on the receivers and give them a fixed IP and the router as the DHCP server. Give the 2 receivers a fixed IP a few numbers away like XXX.XXX.122, XXX.XXX.124.
Then in your router web interface you should be able to assign fixed IP's per MAC address.
Mind you the MAC will change depending on if you use wifi or the Ethernet port.
Saying that I'm experiencing 0 issues using server/client might be taken as bragging. But honestly, no issues at all. If there does happen to be a burp. A simple cold boot of the receivers fixes it.
You do realize that the server receiver has to be in standby. Else on the client you can only watch the channels on the transponder the server is tuned to.
I do wonder if its the router causing the issue as many on a certain provider did say wifi sucked and to put it into modem mode and use another router for better wifi performance ?
You do realize that the server receiver has to be in standby. Else on the client you can only watch the channels on the transponder the server is tuned to.Only if the server is a single tuner box.
There really should be a check for network up, e.g. ping the server.
I do wonder if its the router causing the issue as many on a certain provider did say wifi sucked and to put it into modem mode and use another router for better wifi performance ?
I don't think so. WiFi works perfectly on my network if I configure the client to use the "fallback configuration" instead. In this case the "ChannelsImporter" script is not run at boot to update the channel list and EPG - that is where I think the problem lies.
Only if the server is a single tuner box.
There really should be a check for network up, e.g. ping the server.
Hi Huevos,
Thanks for the update in 6.4.010 to try to address this. It makes the client box usable after boot.
However, there are some issues.
Firstly, when the WiFi-connected client box fails to connect on first attempt it does the following:
1. 3D Vix logo rotates at top-left, then the bar which shows the current channel shows at the bottom of the screen for a few seconds. During this time it looks like you can try and change the channel but it will not work.
2. The 3D Vix logo then comes back and rotates again at the top-left (I assume this is the first re-attempt at running the ChannelsImporter). When the Vix logo has finished rotating, the bar showing the channel at the bottom reappears. The main problem here is that the channel does not start to automatically stream. To start streaming a channel, you need to change the channel - this time it works.
How I would expect the boot process to work from a user point-of-view instead:
1. Turn on the box, and see Vix logo rotating.
2. No end of logo rotation and no visible channel bar at bottom until a full connection has been established (so the user is not confused and think the boot has completed, and then tries to change the channel when it won't work)
3. Once fully booted and connected, the last viewed channel should start to stream automatically.
Secondly, the whole boot process is very slow when there is an initial connection failure. I had a brief look at the code and don't fully understand it - there seems to be a delay (not sure how long) between each attempt and only 5 attempts. Instead, to speed this up, could we not ping say every second and then time-out after a minute? Is testing a full FTP connection necessary?
Thanks again for your time and work,
Paul
I've come across a similar problem with sx988, but not exactly the same. I thought I'll report it here in case it is related somehow.
I use ethernet cables with a 1Gbps switch to connect the sx988 to the server (Mut@nt HD51 with DVB-T2 tuners). On the first boot once I installed OpenVix-6.4.011, the GBipBoxClient plugin launched and asked me to configure a server which I did. With the rest of the wizard choices completed the sx988 started up and BBC1 started playing. Then I noticed whenever I tried to change channel ended up showing a black screen.
If put the sx988 into standby and bring it out of standby, or if I fully reboot it, then the channel I had switched to starts streaming normally. Having to switch it off/on after switching channels to be able to watch TV made me take a second look into its configuration.
I disabled and uninstalled the GBipBoxClient plugin, then rebooted the box. I was still able to stream TV, but changing channels caused the same problem, a black screen and no streaming. I captured a log and noticed this:
< 4038.5670> [eFilePushThread] wait for driver eof timeout
< 4038.8173> [eFilePushThread] wait for driver eof timeout
< 4039.0676> [eFilePushThread] wait for driver eof timeout
< 4039.3121> [eHttpStream] openUrl failed
< 4039.3122> [eHttpStream] Thread end NO connection
< 4039.3179> [eFilePushThread] wait for driver eof timeout
< 4039.3180> [eFilePushThread] read error: Function not implemented
< 4039.5683> [eFilePushThread] wait for driver eof timeout
< 4039.5683> [eFilePushThread] read error: Function not implemented
< 4039.8186> [eFilePushThread] wait for driver eof timeout
< 4039.8186> [eFilePushThread] read error: Function not implemented
< 4040.0690> [eFilePushThread] wait for driver eof timeout
with the last two lines repeating endlessly.
Then I tried to configure the Client Mode, but it would not recognise the FTP password, perhaps because it has some symbols in it. With the FTP password the connection failed and the settings would not be saved. Without an FTP password it would not allow me to save the server IP address either. So I aborted setting a Client Mode and went to the tuner's 'Fallback Configuration', where I set up the server's IP address there. Subsequently the sx988 has been able to switch channels normally and streaming works perfectly.
I found the above confusing when compared to openATV, which uses IPBox Client and does not require FTP settings.
NOTE: I had trouble setting up NFS exports on the server. This happened because when the NFS service is installed and enabled, the /etc/exports file is created for a LAN segment of 192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0, so if your LAN happens to use a different private network block, e.g. 172.16.0.0/12, you won't be able to access recordings for playback until you manually edit /etc/exports on the server and restart the NFS service.
I found the above confusing when compared to openATV, which uses IPBox Client and does not require FTP settings.
Yes, it is strange that GBipBoxClient is installed by default on the SX988 when there is also Client Mode. I had started another thread on this: https://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?66012-Extensions-GBipboxClient-no-attribute-quot-WHERE_RECORDTIMER-quot
The advantage of Client Mode is that it runs the ChannelsImporter plugin and auto-updates the channel-list and EPG from your server box. I actually now install ChannelsImporter plugin separately in combination with GBipBoxClient on OpenATV.
Back on the original topic of the WiFi network initialization delay problem, I can confirm that this problem also happens on OpenATV 7.3 - on OpenATV, occasionally on boot the channel tries and fails to stream, with you having to wait and then change the channel to get the streaming to start. On OpenATV though, the initialization delay seems to improve with a static IP set. I have not reported this bug to the OpenATV people yet (need to do some more testing first) but it seems this is therefore a common issue in Enigma2 not checking for network availability before trying to stream.
The fix Huevos made in OpenVix-6.4.010 only applied to the ChannelsImporter plugin, but as I posted in post #23 this could be more seamless. Perhaps this needs changes at a deeper level in Enigma2 to work seamlessly? Perhaps there could be some co-operation to get this issue improved upstream so it works across distributions?
The fix Huevos made in OpenVix-6.4.010 only applied to the ChannelsImporter plugin, but as I posted in post #23 this could be more seamless. Perhaps this needs changes at a deeper level in Enigma2 to work seamlessly? Perhaps there could be some co-operation to get this issue improved upstream so it works across distributions?This is not true. I haven't touched the ChannelsImporter plugin. The change was in enigma, not a plugin. In ViX the client mode is built in. ChannelsImporter is only needed when you want to continue using a local tuner on the client.
From a cursory look at the OpenATV 'IPBox Client' entries and options, it looks the same as the OpenVIX 'Falllback Configuration'. When you boot in OpenVIX have you tried:
1. Disabling GBipBoxClient plugin.
2. Disabling the Tuner 'Client Mode'.
3. Setting the Tuner 'Fallback Configuration' with the IP address of the server and perhaps rebooting?
The ChannelsImporter plugin was installed along with OpenVIX, but it is set to "never" import any data.
The above works on my sx988 smoothly and without any problems. Anything else causes sluggishness and a black screen as I posted already. Now I can change channels, I can view the EPG (and with NFS export of the server's /media/hdd/movie directory I am able to playback/move/delete recordings stored on the server). Changing channels, or bringing up the EPG takes less than a second, as is for live TV to start streaming when I stop playing a video.
The only thing I have not yet delved into is setting the NFS mount on the client for timeshift or for recording video - which is not something I really need to do from the sx988.
This is not true. I haven't touched the ChannelsImporter plugin. The change was in enigma, not a plugin. In ViX the client mode is built in. ChannelsImporter is only needed when you want to continue using a local tuner on the client.
OK, thanks for the clarification. Thanks for your work
Where do you find "client mode" as pictured in OP? I've got 6.4.011 installed on both server and client side.
Is it an optional plugin?
No, it's part of the default OpenVIX firmware. Look under
Main Menu > Setup > Tuners & Scanning > Fallback Configuration
It needs to be enabled on the client.
No, it's part of the default OpenVIX firmware. Look under
Main Menu > Setup > Tuners & Scanning > Fallback Configuration
It needs to be enabled on the client.
Client Mode is actually not the same as Fallback Configuration.
Client Mode is an option under Main Menu > Setup > Tuners & Scanning > Tuner Setup and then press the yellow button
Yes, you're right. With the Fallback Configuration alone you can stream from the server's tuners to the client, However, if you want to be able to access the server's drive over Samba to record programs, then you'll need to enable the Client Mode under Tuner Setup.
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