libdvbpsi finds TS discontinuity for UK Multiplex B DVB-T services

[Gareth Hart]

When using VLC 1.1.4 on Maverick RC1, attempting to view or listen to any radio or TV service broadcasting on Multiplex B in the UK (BBC Free to View Ltd, including BBC Four/CBeebies, BBC Parliament, 301 and the BBC's national radio stations) will throw up an TS discontinuity error message when trying to access any channel. This results in no audio or video output of any service on the affected multiplex. All other multiplexes work fine.

I can access Multiplex B from my Humax HD-FOX T2 set-top-box, connected to the same aerial point as my TV card can decode video and audio content from Multiplex B.

All other multiplexes work fine in VLC.

I am using a Hauppauge Nova-T 90002 PCI (cx88_dvb) TV card.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: libdvbpsi6 0.1.7-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.33-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Oct 2 15:22:00 2010
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 LANG=C
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: libdvbpsi

[Pablo Pablovski (pablosquared)]

I can confirm this behaviour with VLC 1.1.4 on Ubuntu Maverick RC.

I'm in a different part of the UK (Glasgow), so am served by a different DVB transmitter. I can receive the affected streams (BBC radio channels) on a DVB-enabled TV. Problem did not occur on VLC 1.0.6 on 10.04, but did with 1.1.4 on 10.04.

Review of codec detals in VLC when trying to access the affected streams is that no streams are detected / reported, though correct EPG information is presented.

Adaptor - Hauppauge Nova-T DVB-T receiver
Ubuntu 10.10
libdvbpsi6 0.1.7-1
Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.33-generic x86_64
nvidia driver - 256.33
Architecture - amd64

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

We cannot even think of analyzing this issue without a raw dump of the TS transponder.

[Pablo Pablovski (pablosquared)]

Remi, happy to produce a dump for analysis. Err, can you instruct me in how to do that?

Thanks,
Paul

[Ignacy Gawędzki (iazz)]

I have pretty much the same problem with an RTSP feed from the french ISP Free's TV service. Apparently the problem appears only on x86_64. If run on i386 (be it schroot'ed environment or real machine), everything's okay.

I have the same version as Pablo on Ubuntu 10.10.

For the moment I'll use the schroot'ed version as a workaround, but would be happy to help if I can. Just please tell us how to produce the dump. I can dump on both i386 and x86_64 platforms (not at the same time though).

[Peter Graversen (peter-graversen-deactivatedaccount)]

Same problem in Denmark: running VLC 1.1.4 on released Ubuntu 10.10. VLC log attached.

The system was upgraded from a working Ubuntu 10.04 with VLC working correctly.

gnome-dvb-control can record programs correctly.
totem does not work.

[Peter Graversen (peter-graversen-deactivatedaccount)]

Ran the same command without and with raw dump. Hope it's the information needed. Otherwise please give further instructions.
regards

Without dump:
vlc -v dvb:// :dvb-adapter=0 --dvb-frequency=730000000 --dvb-bandwidth=8 --program=101
VLC media player 1.1.4 The Luggage (revision exported)
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_ADDRESS")
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_BUS_TYPE")
[0x19db120] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")
Blocked: call to sigaction(17, 0x7f897ef20b20, 0x7f897ef20a80)
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to srand(1287333487)
Warning: call to rand()
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")

(process:4717): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
 Using the fallback 'C' locale.
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
[0x1e40bd0] dvb access warning: CAMInit: opening CAM device failed (No such file or directory)
libdvbpsi error (PSI decoder): TS discontinuity (received 14, expected 0) for PID 0
libdvbpsi error (PSI decoder): TS discontinuity (received 3, expected 0) for PID 18
libdvbpsi error (PSI decoder): TS discontinuity (received 2, expected 0) for PID 81
libdvbpsi error (PSI decoder): TS discontinuity (received 12, expected 0) for PID 17
libdvbpsi error (PSI decoder): TS discontinuity (received 9, expected 0) for PID 20
[0x1e40bd0] dvb access warning: unimplemented query in control

With dump:
vlc -v dvb:// :dvb-adapter=0 --dvb-frequency=730000000 --dvb-bandwidth=8 --program=101 --demux=dump --demuxdump-file=dr1.dump
VLC media player 1.1.4 The Luggage (revision exported)
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_ADDRESS")
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_BUS_TYPE")
[0xfef120] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")
Blocked: call to sigaction(17, 0x7f2f41c5fb20, 0x7f2f41c5fa80)
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to srand(1287466552)
Warning: call to rand()
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")

(process:4728): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
 Using the fallback 'C' locale.
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
[0x1453750] dvb access warning: CAMInit: opening CAM device failed (No such file or directory)
[0x146e860] demuxdump demux: dumping raw stream to file `dr1.dump'
[0x1453750] dvb access warning: unimplemented query in control
[0x146e860] demuxdump demux: closing dr1.dump (13 KiB dumped)

[harald kragh (harald-nymosegaard)]

This is also an issue in DK.

trying to isolate the issue on 10,04 I had the experiences as #2, 1.0.x worked perfectly and 1.1.x simply didn't work, getting the same errors as #7.

My issue is that on 10.10 only VLC 1.1.x is available.

IF I can support the process, e.g. by validating the fix, please feel to contact me.

[Lars P. (lp-lapont)]

Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
"We cannot even think of analyzing this issue without a raw dump of the TS transponder".

Will this command give a raw dump of the TS transponder:

vlc -v dvb:// :dvb-adapter=0 --dvb-frequency=538000000 --dvb-bandwidth=8 --program=111 --demux=dump --demuxdump-file=vlc1.dump
?????

This is a danish channel that plays in vlc 1.0.6 and not in vlc 1.1.* on ubuntu
The attached file is recorded with vlc 1.0.6.
The strange thing is that vlc 1.1.5 will play the file.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

It should produce a dump. But I cannot promise that someone will look at it because the VLC team is quite overloaded and Ubuntu is not looking at upstream bugs. (I can only promise that without dump, nothing will happen)

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

The provided vlc1.dump plays fine for me on VLC 1.0.7, VLC 1.1.10 and VLC 1.2.0 (i386).

Discontinuity errors pretty much always happen when tuning to a DVB channel (or when there is packet loss). That is not an issue.

[Pablo Pablovski (pablosquared)]

Remi,
Are you in the UK? Have you tested the build in the areas noted in the original call? After this length of time, this update isn't helpful, unless you're intending to close the call, with the fault unresolved.

FWIW, I've moved away from VLC and have been using me-tv for the last 6 months without problem. It's still my view that this is a problem with the build of VLC noted - it didn't happen in earlier builds or versions of ubuntu and is repeatable by several users.

Ho hum.

Paul

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

I am not in the UK and that's why I asked for a dump. Which works fine for me. But as said, I use 386, not x68-64. And libdvbpsi 0.2.0.

[Lars P. (lp-lapont)]

Remi,
The dump was made i DK.
I also use 386 and every version of vlc from 1.0.6 to 1.0.9 that I have tested plays the dump without problems.
The problem is, that no version of vlc newer than 1.0.6 can tune into channels when playing direcly from the usb dvb-t tuner.
A new observation: If I stream the channels on LAN with dvblast, then vlc (all versions) can open and play the network streams rtp://239.255.x.x:xxxx

Lars

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

Not being able to tune has nothing to do with not being able to parse the stream. Please don't pollute bug reports; it's highly confusing.

And the we're back to beginning: VLC developers need a sample dump of the failing *British* stream.

[Lars P. (lp-lapont)]

Sorry for the pollution. Here is a litle more:
Activate Budget mode in Inddata/Codecs->Adgangsmoduler->DVB (danish names - don't know the english ones)
This makes VLC 1.1.x playing in my case

The same can be achieved in vlcrc in section [dvb]:

# Budget mode (boolean)
dvb-budget-mode=1

This might help the other danish contributers to this thread

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

If it works with budget mode, it's probably a bug in the kernel driver.

[Peter Graversen (peter-graversen-deactivatedaccount)]

If it worked fine in VLC 1.0.x, and it works with gnome-dvb-client/totem, and it does not vork with VLC 1.1.x it's probably not a kernel driver problem.

Last tested on Ubuntu 11.10 with Gnome3 and VLC 1.1.12.
mpeg2 channels will play with gnome-dvb-client/totem on the same installation. (gnome-dvb-client/totem has a bug so it will not play mpeg4, so it is not a option)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for vlc (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for libdvbpsi (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]