Roku Direct Publisher

[mramim]

I'm trying to run a stream in a roku DP channel from the following URL:

http://96.73.1.110:8080/0.m3u8

The stream used to work perfectly before on my channel, but now, after around 20 seconds of playback it stutters. It works on a web browser, but when i try to run this on my unpublished channel, it doesn't work. I've tested the stream using Roku Stream Tester(http://devtools.web.roku.com/stream_tester/html/) and the issue is present there as well. So I know for some reason roku devices isn't liking my stream. The stream is generated using a PVI h264 IPTV encoder server. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here.

Does anyone know why this is happening? Can someone guide me towards a fix for this?
Thanks in advance.

[Baradanikto]

Per the JSON schema spec for a Video object:

The URL of the video itself. The URL must use the secure protocol prefix "https://".

Have you tried using an "https" prefix?

[mramim]

I have not yet, I'm not sure how complicated it will be to get SSL for that URL. The reason I suspect less about SSL is because
1. Everything worked correctly few weeks ago.

2. The player is playing the media. I'm guessing if Roku blocked http connection then there should be no playback at all?(it's just my guess)

[mramim]

Actually to verify it's not a SSL issue I've also tried running 

This sample from apple and This sample from internet 

both of them are http, and they ran totally fine in the roku stream tester

[mitchstein]

I'm still at a loss of the purpose of a secured link to access a video that is free for people to watch..
Seems to me to be a whole lot of unnecessary overhead.

Anyway, I created the issue and found he cause.

Here is what happened. On my roku 4 ultra on my back deck it started stuttering, buffering and complaining I need to check my wifi network. I was perplexed because I just left the living room where it was playing just fine on my TCL roku TV. So I checked the wifi, found no problems, found no problems with the internet connection either, but for kicks and whistles ran a cat6 directly to it, same issue..

Then about 6 hours later my roku 3 in the garage started doing it, but the Living room tv was fine and so was the roku 4 ultra in the bedroom, no network errors could be found. Also setup the laptop and played the same stream from my website and had no issues with it sitting on the same netowrk segment as the roku.

Then a few hours later my bedroom started doing it.. Now I was at a loss.. And then it dawned on me.

I checked the software version number on the roku 3 and 4's, they were all 9.4.1..
The TV was 9.3..

So I ran a update check manually on the TV and it updated to 9.4.1..

And bam, the problem began..

It stopped doing it for a few hours the other day and then went right back to doing it. it is also doing it on some channels on the sling app as well.. I complained to sling, they got a tech on the phone with me, we ran 3 hours of trials and tests, we found that it only happens on the rokus, it does not happen on the amazon fire box, apple tv box and 3 of my android tv players.

The roku stream tester passes the stream as well.

This hls stream has been streaming for over 5 years and is consistently good.

I wish I could roll back from the update.

[FloSports]

Hi, we are experiencing similar systems on our channel as well, due to 9.4.  Did you ever find the resolution. Would make my day if you shared how you fixed it. Thanks!

[FloSports]

Hi, we are experiencing similar systems on our channel as well, due to 9.4.  Did you ever find the resolution. Would make my day if you shared how you fixed it. Thanks!

[mramim]

Unfortunately no, I could never fix that, the channel was actually a free channel that was a hobby project of an acquaintance. So after I gave up, they just left it like that as far as i know.

[pauljmanoogian]

100% same issue as you, @mitchstein. Everything was great until it updated the OS of the Roku boxes/TVs. Web stream works fine elsewhere, just as you mentioned. A little tough to sell my clients on promoting their shows and commercials on my Roku stream with this issue.

[mitchstein]

Nope, never got it fixed, modified the streaming settings to make it happen less often.

First changed the duration of .ts files to 60 seconds from 5.

the roku stutters ever time it loads a new .ts file so this stopped the 5 second stutter and made it  one minute stutter. We also changed the number of .ts files to save from 5 to 10. this seemed to mke the stutter less obvious but still present. 

Now the drawback to these setting are pretty severe. before the roku ran 5 - 15 seconds behind realtime, now it runs 5 minutes to 10 minutes. Which is fine if our streaming prerecorded content, just bump everythig 5 minutes ahead, for instance to start a 4pm show t 4pm start it at 3:55.. and it will start between 4pm and 4:05.. where as before I would have started it at 3:59:55 and it would hve started at 4:00:00 - 4:00:05.

otherwise we have just been moving any customers that complain (which is MANY) over to other pltforms, this problem is NOT happening through the webbrowser on any device (windows, android, ios) and also is not happening on apple tv, chrome/android tv, firetv or the other services our stream goes through. 

Roku is not even acknowledging it as an issue so I doubt they will do anything to fix it in the near future. Seems they no longer care about the little guys anymore, if you ain't got 10K simultaneous viewers your not on thier radar anymore.