Channel is offline

tml

I've looked at a few other posts and I see that it's commonly said that "Channel is Offline only shows when the playout doesn't contain an item for the current time", but my playout exists and has shows; the XMLTV feed shows that something should be playing; but, when I go to play it in either Plex or Jellyfin, I just get the "Channel is offline" image. If I stop the view in Plex or Jellyfin, I get a logfile entry in Ersatz showing the client disconnecting from an open stream:


ersatztv  | [vost#0:0/copy @ 0x555db5ed9300] Error submitting a packet to the muxer: Broken pipe
ersatztv  |     Last message repeated 1 times
ersatztv  | [out#0/mpegts @ 0x555db5f89440] Error muxing a packet
ersatztv  | [out#0/mpegts @ 0x555db5f89440] Task finished with error code: -32 (Broken pipe)
ersatztv  | [out#0/mpegts @ 0x555db5f89440] Terminating thread with return code -32 (Broken pipe)
ersatztv  | [out#0/mpegts @ 0x555db5f89440] Error writing trailer: Broken pipe
ersatztv  | [out#0/mpegts @ 0x555db5f89440] Error closing file: Broken pipe`

When the streams connect, I get an entry saying it should play:
ersatztv | [10:24:50 INF] Starting ts stream for channel 3

But I only get the "Channel is offline" image. Would appreciate any other suggestions on how I can debug.

Screenshots showing that the guide and the IPTV Client both think something should be playing:
https://imgur.com/a/JSBclel

jason

tml Do you see any errors in the log when you build the playout? I think the XMLTV may only update if the playout build is successful.

tml

I deleted the playout and recreated it, the only log entries created at that time are:

ersatztv  | [23:57:51 DBG] Built playout 5
ersatztv  | [23:57:51 DBG] Refreshing channel data (XMLTV) for channel 3

Again, the XMLTV Guide appears to populate and has what seems to be correct information (though I haven't done the actual math to make sure it's calculating from the midnight offset correctly), it's just that the stream appears to be unable to play in anything I try to use.

tml

Even with logging set to debug, I just don't see much to go off of:


Upon playing Ersatz channel from Plex
ersatztv  | [00:08:29 DBG] FFmpeg pipeline ["NoStandardInputOption", "ThreadCountOption", "HideBannerOption", "LoglevelErrorOption", "NoStatsOption", "StandardFormatFlags", "MapAllStreamsOutputOption", "EncoderCopyAll", "MetadataServiceProviderOutputOption", "MetadataServiceNameOutputOption", "OutputFormatMpegTs", "PipeProtocol"], [], []
ersatztv  | [00:08:29 INF] Starting ts stream for channel 3
ersatztv  | [00:08:29 DBG] ffmpeg arguments -nostdin -threads 1 -hide_banner -loglevel error -nostats -fflags +genpts+discardcorrupt+igndts -readrate 1.0 -i http://localhost:8409/iptv/channel/3.m3u8?mode=segmenter -map 0 -c copy -metadata "service_provider=\"ErsatzTV\"" -metadata "service_name=\"Anime\"" -f mpegts pipe:1
ersatztv  | [00:08:29 DBG] Maybe starting ffmpeg session for channel 3, mode segmenter
ersatztv  | [00:08:29 DBG] Session is already active; returning multi-variant playlist for channel 3
ersatztv  | [00:08:29 DBG] HTTP GET /iptv/channel/3.m3u8?mode=segmenter responded 200 in 6.98 ms from ["Lavf/61.7.100"] at ::1
ersatztv  | [00:08:30 DBG] HTTP GET /iptv/session/3/hls.m3u8 responded 200 in 967.07 ms from ["Lavf/61.7.100"] at ::1
ersatztv  | [00:08:30 DBG] HTTP GET /iptv/session/3/live038906.ts responded 206 in 12.55 ms from ["Lavf/61.7.100"] at ::1
ersatztv  | [00:08:30 DBG] HTTP GET /iptv/session/3/live038907.ts responded 206 in 1.37 ms from ["Lavf/61.7.100"] at ::1
ersatztv  | [00:08:34 DBG] HTTP GET /iptv/session/3/live038908.ts responded 206 in 1.34 ms from ["Lavf/61.7.100"] at ::1
ersatztv  | [00:08:38 DBG] HTTP GET /iptv/session/3/hls.m3u8 responded 200 in 413.51 ms from ["Lavf/61.7.100"] at ::1
ersatztv  | [00:08:38 DBG] HTTP GET /iptv/session/3/live038909.ts responded 206 in 2.16 ms from ["Lavf/61.7.100"] at ::1```

tml

Upon stopping it in Plex:

ersatztv  | [vost#0:0/copy @ 0x555d5ccb8300] Error submitting a packet to the muxer: Broken pipe
ersatztv  |     Last message repeated 1 times
ersatztv  | [out#0/mpegts @ 0x555d5cd68440] Error muxing a packet
ersatztv  | [out#0/mpegts @ 0x555d5cd68440] Task finished with error code: -32 (Broken pipe)
ersatztv  | [out#0/mpegts @ 0x555d5cd68440] Terminating thread with return code -32 (Broken pipe)
ersatztv  | [00:08:40 DBG] HTTP GET /iptv/hdhr/channel/3.ts?transcode=heavy responded 200 in 10665.87 ms from ["Lavf/LIBAVFORMAT_VERSION"] at ::ffff:192.168.1.43
ersatztv  | [out#0/mpegts @ 0x555d5cd68440] Error writing trailer: Broken pipe
ersatztv  | [out#0/mpegts @ 0x555d5cd68440] Error closing file: Broken pipe

jason

A couple other things to check:

Make sure ETV has the proper time zone (usually only applies if running in docker).
Look at the Playout Detail table (on the Scheduling > Playouts page, click on a row and another table will appear below).

tml

I have confirmed that the timezone is correctly passed into the Docker image:

docker exec -it ersatztv /bin/bash
root@f11ef329b1a9:/app# date
Sat Sep 13 11:10:42 AM MDT 2025

based on the docker-compose.yml setting:

  ersatztv:
    container_name: ersatztv
    image: ghcr.io/ersatztv/ersatztv
    environment:
      - TZ=America/Denver

The Playout Detail table correctly shows on Scheduling > Playouts

https://imgur.com/a/PzMn9nV

jason

Have you been playing the channel the entire time? This message means the channel is still running (and displaying the error message from whenever the channel was first opened)

ersatztv | [00:08:29 DBG] Session is already active; returning multi-variant playlist for channel 3

I would stop the channel (using the stop button in the channels list) and then try viewing it again.

tml

The Idle Behavior is set to stop on disconnect, and this stuff is on a private subnet so I'm literally the only person accessing it. But I have actually stopped the channel, deleted the playout, deleted the channel, and recreated everything all the way again from scratch and have the same issue. The guide appears to populate correctly, but when Plex or Jellyfin (or an external IPTV client, such as UHF on MacOS) try to connect they are only presented with the "Channel is Offline" message and the ErsatzTV logo.

jason

tml there's a major disconnect happening somewhere. The channels can't have content scheduled and also not find that content for playback. At this point the most helpful thing would be to send me your database (ersatztv.sqlite3) from the ETV config folder. You can private/direct message me here or on discord with a link to the db (gdrive, dropbox, whatever).

jason

I believe this was resolved in discord - the issue was a combination of an invalid schedule and the channel still running (showing an infinite offline message from before anything was scheduled). I should have noticed this in the log from earlier:

ersatztv | [00:08:38 DBG] HTTP GET /iptv/session/3/live038909.ts responded 206 in 2.16 ms from ["Lavf/61.7.100"] at ::1```

ETV uses 4-second segments that start counting at zero, so at this point the channel had been active (displaying the offline message) for 38909*4 seconds (over 43 hours).

As mentioned above, there is a stop button in the channel list in ETV that will forcibly disconnect all clients, so the channel can start over (and check for the latest playout item from the db).