[tvheadend] Continuity counter error

Help and Support Raspberry Pi
1

I have a small problem with PVR. I’m really not sure is it OSMC related or tvheadend or KODI related, but a few symptoms tell me that is system issue.

While watching PVR (sattelite) every few seconds there are some short (1 second max) artifacts - something like errors in video stream, corrupted data etc. When error appears there is info in tvheadend logs, something like this:
2016-05-08 22:50:43.162 TS: Hot Bird 13E/11508V/CHANNELNAME: H264 @ #532 Continuity counter error (total 9)
I’ve google it and other users problems shows that it`s related with signal quality. I have something like this:

  • SNR ~80%
  • Strength ~70%

It’s not very high, so i thought signal is the issue, but when I connect to tvheadend and stream from other device (laptop, android phone) via LAN there is no problem. I made a few test:

  • Watching TV via LAN and watching TV on OSMC simultaneously (same channel) - Problem occurs
  • Watching TV via LAN and watching high bitrate video content from disk on OSMC simultaneously - Problem does not occur
  • Watching TV via LAN and watching low bitrate video content from disk on OSMC simultaneously - Problem does not occur
  • Watching TV via LAN while stress test in osmc ( sysbench --test=cpu --num-threads=4 --cpu-max-prime=20000 run ) - Problem does not occur

Does not occur means that does not occure or it`s very rare so its acceptable.
Other thing is that problem occurs only on HD high bitrate channels, on SD works without any issue.

I’m using:

  • Latest OSMC
  • Raspberry PI2
  • Tvheadend GIT version compiled 2 months ago, but with repo version was the same.
  • My tuner is Technisat SkyStar USB HD (DVB-S/S2)

Is anything I can do? Thank you in advance for your advice, and for readeng this quite long post :smiley: !

2

What type is the stream? Are you transcoding?
Does the same happen if you watch the recording instead of live stream? Does it still happen if you copy the file to the OSMC first?

3

Thanks.
All HD channels are H264 streams, I’m not using any transcoding, just standard htsp profile. I think RPI2 is too weak for transcoding.
When I play recorded stream artifacts still exists, I’m not sure about error logs, but I think the issue refers to receiving signal from tuner, so probably while watching recorded stream they’re gone. I’ll check it out afternoon. Recorded files are on OSMC machine, If you mean to copy .TS recorded stream and play it without tvheadend participation I’ll check it later but for 99% problem exists.

4

Hi
Not sure for signal quality.
I’ve the same error message since some days in DVB-T.
I’use TVheadend (Vero 2) with 2 HDhomerun (4 Tuner).
It’s works fine with two PVR streams, but when I connect a third (or more) I have also
Continuity counter error (total 1).
When I delete the third PVR stream, no more counter error.
It’s beginning last month after the french TNT TV switch to HD for every channel.
Michael

5

OK, so I’ve checked the recording, and:

  • Only recording with no playing - problem does not occur
  • Recording while playing on OSMC machine - problem occurs (video in recorded files contains artifacts, even played without tvheadend)
  • Recording while playing via LAN - problem does not occur