[Doctor Eggs]

@d21spike 

Great Add-on! I really appreciate the hard work you've done.

I'm having an issue playing channels from the Orange Sling package through IPTV Simple. The Blue Sling channels play just fine. I was trying to play South Park on Comedy Central, but nothing happens.
Here's my log with the error: https://pastebin.com/5uzSYsBz

Orange Channels play fine through the add-on.
Here's my log showing the same South Park episode playing successfully through the add-on: https://pastebin.com/cQUJ29es

It looks like they have different URLs that they are trying to play:
ERROR with IPTV:
plugin://plugin.video.sling/?mode=play&url=http://cbd46b77.cdn.cms.movetv.com/cms/api/channels/29938328f60d447299ec48511a09ebab/schedule/now/playback_info.qvt
SUCCESS with the add-on:
plugin://plugin.video.sling/?mode=play&url=http://cbd46b77.cdn.cms.movetv.com/cms/api/channels/3844c0aee4df43849a938774ee504b4a/schedule/now/playback_info.qvt

I am going to go out on a limb here and say you have changed subscription packages recently. With this, the add-on constantly checks for subscription changes but the guide can become stale due to it's nature.

More specifically, the PVR is trying to play the channel 29938328f60d447299ec48511a09ebab aka COMEDY (Comedy Central).
This channel is available to the following subscriptions:
Sling Orange
Sling Orange and Sling Blue

You are indeed subscribed to Sling Orange and Blue but your subscription package only comes back with 7a0ff80be0c14f4da6b6cc510b9be57b aka COMEDY-M (Comedy Central).
Thus, when you try to play the channel above, it sees it's not in your subscription package and refuses to license.

You can try to trigger Channel Update and Guide Update via Sling add-on settings. If that does not work, proceed one step further to clear cache in the PVR database via Kodi settings...
(exert from IPTV Simple github page)
Clear the EPG cache 
Settings->PVR & Live TV->Guide->Clear cache
For it to take effect in the case of EPG relatd config and for channel related config will need to clear the full cache 
Settings->PVR & Live TV->General->Clear cache

A Kodi restart may be necessary for full effect.   

That didn't work for me. I was able to get it figured out by adding ordering to the query in the getChannels function so that the Orange URL is selected (which is the correct one) instead of the blue.

I sent you a pull request on Git with this update. It looks like there are a lot of changes in Git that I don't have locally so I'm pretty sure I made the change in the correct place. getChannels looks like it got moved to the Guide service.

For anyone that is also having this issue, you can go to addons/plugin.video.sling/resources/lib/service/slinger.py go to line 575 and change
"WHERE Channels.Name NOT LIKE '%Sling%' AND Channels.Hidden = 0 ORDER BY Channels.Name asc"
TO
"WHERE Channels.Name NOT LIKE '%Sling%' AND Channels.Hidden = 0 ORDER BY Channels.Name asc, Channels.Last_Update asc"

[d21spike]

That didn't work for me. I was able to get it figured out by adding ordering to the query in the getChannels function so that the Orange URL is selected (which is the correct one) instead of the blue.

I sent you a pull request on Git with this update. It looks like there are a lot of changes in Git that I don't have locally so I'm pretty sure I made the change in the correct place. getChannels looks like it got moved to the Guide service.

For anyone that is also having this issue, you can go to addons/plugin.video.sling/resources/lib/service/slinger.py go to line 575 and change
"WHERE Channels.Name NOT LIKE '%Sling%' AND Channels.Hidden = 0 ORDER BY Channels.Name asc"
TO
"WHERE Channels.Name NOT LIKE '%Sling%' AND Channels.Hidden = 0 ORDER BY Channels.Name asc, Channels.Last_Update asc" 

Let me just say thank you for trying to help with this add-on, definitely shows you have at some insight into what you're doing.

That said let's look at the problem at hand. You're claiming that the guide is playing Sling Blue channels over Sling Orange channels implying that on the Sling side of things, they take preference to Sling Orange when both channels exist in a subscription package. Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending how you look at it), this is not the case. The following URL is a JSON list of channels you are subscribed to:
Sling Orange and Blue Channel Lineup
One thing to notice, we'll use the example from last time, is that it lacks the Blue versions of channels if there is an Orange alternative. Your PVR is trying to play a Blue channel, as such since it's not listed in your channel lineup it is not licensed and does not play. The problem becomes one of stale data cached on your system and not of channel preference from Sling.

On the topic of stale data. You mentioned "getChannels looks like it got moved to the Guide service," this tells me you're running an outdated version of the add-on. Specifically, older than 10 days ago or version 0.0.86. In this release, the Slinger service transitioned from a file based EPG to one where IPTV Simple calls on a web page hosted on the device. This web page is created on the fly by querying the database and has less chance of becoming stale as a file would. To tackle the stale data I requested that you run "Channel Update" and "Guide Update." At least in the current version, I have trouble believing this didn't rectify the issue...here's why:

In "Channel Update" after it pulls in the subscription package and processes the channels, the very last thing it does is in slinger.py, line 354 it loops through the channels in the database and deletes anything that wasn't returned in the subscription package. (This would have removed your Sling Blue channels from the database as they are not included in the URL I referenced above.) Triggering "Guide Update" on the now corrected channel lineup will pull in data for those channels and in versions prior to 0.0.86 it would recreate the playlist files used by IPTV Simple. (This is no longer required in newer versions since as I mentioned the page is dynamically created.)

As I said, the add-on constantly checks for subscription changes. Specifically, each visit to the main menu will retrieve your subscription package identifiers (sling.py, line 67) and each visit to the channels menu will pull in the page referenced above to include/exclude any subscription changes (channels.py, line 19). This is why you had no issues with playback here since there was no stale data.

Having addressed that, I hope you can see the problem is not the ordering of the data that comes back from the database but your PVR displaying channels you are no longer subscribed to. If there is something that truly needs addressed, it would be figuring out a way to not have this occur. Moving onto your fix. I went as far as populating the Channels table with both Sling Blue and Sling Orange channels, since as you can see above, as of current writing, the Sling Orange and Blue does not contain duplicates. Then I proceeded to test the query both with and without your fix, which also as of this time does indeed give prioritization to Sling Orange channels. My problem with this fix however is how it is accomplished and whether or not it can be broken, which I believe it can. You rely on adding Channels.Last_Update to the sort which simply is a timestamp of when the channel was last pulled from your subscription package. If the order of channels ever changes in the URL above, which it does, then this fix may no longer function. Closest example I can think of is, Post 11 where both channels were included. As such, we try to think of patches that can have a lasting effect on the issue and not just the symptom.

With all that said, I don't have a problem adding your "fix" into the add-on but I think I came up with a better one, more so in the regard that no matter what Sling Orange channels with be given priority. Your change added changed the ORDER BY to
"ORDER BY Channels.Name asc, Channels.Last_Update asc" whereas my suggestion is
"ORDER BY Channels.Name asc, substr(Channels.Call_Sign, -2) = '-M' desc".
As you can see, it would first sort the channels by name ascending and then afterwards sort it by the condition that the suffix of the Call_Sign is '-M', otherwise the only way I am aware of to tell the two types of channels apart. I'll make sure this gets added to the next iteration.

[markeymark]

anyone have issues with incorrect epg data being pulled?

anyone have issues with incorrect epg data being pulled?

had some initially, I believe in settings > live tv/pvr > general  "clear data" did the trick for me  

My guess is it's related to channel order changing with Sling adding/removing channels and the pvr caching data in the database. This is just a guess at the moment though. 

ok many thanks

[Doctor Eggs]

That didn't work for me. I was able to get it figured out by adding ordering to the query in the getChannels function so that the Orange URL is selected (which is the correct one) instead of the blue.

I sent you a pull request on Git with this update. It looks like there are a lot of changes in Git that I don't have locally so I'm pretty sure I made the change in the correct place. getChannels looks like it got moved to the Guide service.

For anyone that is also having this issue, you can go to addons/plugin.video.sling/resources/lib/service/slinger.py go to line 575 and change
"WHERE Channels.Name NOT LIKE '%Sling%' AND Channels.Hidden = 0 ORDER BY Channels.Name asc"
TO
"WHERE Channels.Name NOT LIKE '%Sling%' AND Channels.Hidden = 0 ORDER BY Channels.Name asc, Channels.Last_Update asc" 

Let me just say thank you for trying to help with this add-on, definitely shows you have at some insight into what you're doing.

That said let's look at the problem at hand. You're claiming that the guide is playing Sling Blue channels over Sling Orange channels implying that on the Sling side of things, they take preference to Sling Orange when both channels exist in a subscription package. Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending how you look at it), this is not the case. The following URL is a JSON list of channels you are subscribed to:
Sling Orange and Blue Channel Lineup
One thing to notice, we'll use the example from last time, is that it lacks the Blue versions of channels if there is an Orange alternative. Your PVR is trying to play a Blue channel, as such since it's not listed in your channel lineup it is not licensed and does not play. The problem becomes one of stale data cached on your system and not of channel preference from Sling.

On the topic of stale data. You mentioned "getChannels looks like it got moved to the Guide service," this tells me you're running an outdated version of the add-on. Specifically, older than 10 days ago or version 0.0.86. In this release, the Slinger service transitioned from a file based EPG to one where IPTV Simple calls on a web page hosted on the device. This web page is created on the fly by querying the database and has less chance of becoming stale as a file would. To tackle the stale data I requested that you run "Channel Update" and "Guide Update." At least in the current version, I have trouble believing this didn't rectify the issue...here's why:

In "Channel Update" after it pulls in the subscription package and processes the channels, the very last thing it does is in slinger.py, line 354 it loops through the channels in the database and deletes anything that wasn't returned in the subscription package. (This would have removed your Sling Blue channels from the database as they are not included in the URL I referenced above.) Triggering "Guide Update" on the now corrected channel lineup will pull in data for those channels and in versions prior to 0.0.86 it would recreate the playlist files used by IPTV Simple. (This is no longer required in newer versions since as I mentioned the page is dynamically created.)

As I said, the add-on constantly checks for subscription changes. Specifically, each visit to the main menu will retrieve your subscription package identifiers (sling.py, line 67) and each visit to the channels menu will pull in the page referenced above to include/exclude any subscription changes (channels.py, line 19). This is why you had no issues with playback here since there was no stale data.

Having addressed that, I hope you can see the problem is not the ordering of the data that comes back from the database but your PVR displaying channels you are no longer subscribed to. If there is something that truly needs addressed, it would be figuring out a way to not have this occur. Moving onto your fix. I went as far as populating the Channels table with both Sling Blue and Sling Orange channels, since as you can see above, as of current writing, the Sling Orange and Blue does not contain duplicates. Then I proceeded to test the query both with and without your fix, which also as of this time does indeed give prioritization to Sling Orange channels. My problem with this fix however is how it is accomplished and whether or not it can be broken, which I believe it can. You rely on adding Channels.Last_Update to the sort which simply is a timestamp of when the channel was last pulled from your subscription package. If the order of channels ever changes in the URL above, which it does, then this fix may no longer function. Closest example I can think of is, Post 11 where both channels were included. As such, we try to think of patches that can have a lasting effect on the issue and not just the symptom.

With all that said, I don't have a problem adding your "fix" into the add-on but I think I came up with a better one, more so in the regard that no matter what Sling Orange channels with be given priority. Your change added changed the ORDER BY to
"ORDER BY Channels.Name asc, Channels.Last_Update asc" whereas my suggestion is
"ORDER BY Channels.Name asc, substr(Channels.Call_Sign, -2) = '-M' desc".
As you can see, it would first sort the channels by name ascending and then afterwards sort it by the condition that the suffix of the Call_Sign is '-M', otherwise the only way I am aware of to tell the two types of channels apart. I'll make sure this gets added to the next iteration.     

Thank you for posting this info. 

I updated to version 0.95 in Git, cleared out my addon_data folder, and it is still an issue.

I didn't realize that there was a function that deleted channels that weren't available to me but looking at sling.db shows that I still have both channels (COMEDY and COMEDY-M as well as all the other channels available in Orange and Blue). Having not known about the delete functionality, I thought is was a problem with priority which led me to add the additional order by.

When I signed up for Sling, I signed up for both Orange and Blue from the beginning so I'm not sure if that has something to do with it. Probably not but you mentioned earlier that I may have just recently changed my subscription.

When I go to Sling Orange and Blue Channel Lineup and search for "COMEDY" it only finds "COMEDY-M" as one of the channels which matches with what you mentioned above.

Ultimately it looks like the delete channels isn't working for me and that putting in the additional order by statement is not getting to the root cause of my issue. Agreed that ordering by ", substr(Channels.Call_Sign, -2) = '-M' desc" is a better temporary solution.

On a side note, the dynamic creation of channels.m3u and guide.xml is awesome! Thank you for that.

[d21spike]

Thank you for posting this info. 

I updated to version 0.95 in Git, cleared out my addon_data folder, and it is still an issue.

I didn't realize that there was a function that deleted channels that weren't available to me but looking at sling.db shows that I still have both channels (COMEDY and COMEDY-M as well as all the other channels available in Orange and Blue). Having not known about the delete functionality, I thought is was a problem with priority which led me to add the additional order by.

When I signed up for Sling, I signed up for both Orange and Blue from the beginning so I'm not sure if that has something to do with it. Probably not but you mentioned earlier that I may have just recently changed my subscription.

When I go to Sling Orange and Blue Channel Lineup and search for "COMEDY" it only finds "COMEDY-M" as one of the channels which matches with what you mentioned above.

Ultimately it looks like the delete channels isn't working for me and that putting in the additional order by statement is not getting to the root cause of my issue. Agreed that ordering by ", substr(Channels.Call_Sign, -2) = '-M' desc" is a better temporary solution.

On a side note, the dynamic creation of channels.m3u and guide.xml is awesome! Thank you for that. 

No problem at all, key for me is to get to the bottom of the issue to keep it from happening which in this case you may be right the delete statement may need a look. It's especially easier when both parties understand whats going on.

I sort of touched on this in my example, but it appears the previously Sling Orange and Blue used to list both versions of the channel which is why I had to include a name filter so only one got displayed. It appears now they only include one copy, the Sling Orange. This is why I said it's subject to change and sadly we don't know when those changes occur till something goes wrong. So in your case even though you yourself didn't change your subscription, it appears the lineup itself has changed to exclude the duplicate channels from the "other" package.

Now onto the problem. When you say you "cleared out my addon_data folder" I'm assuming you mean Kodi/userdata/addon_data/plugin.video.sling? This definitely should have removed the database. It resides in that directory, it's name is "sling.db". We can try a few things for testing/resolution purposes.

On your device if you have Kodi running with the current version of the add-on and the guide enabled, you can either use the same device or another on your local network and navigate to http://KODI_DEVICE_LOCAL_IP:9999/channels.m3u
This is the channel playlist page injested by IPTV Simple. So if we look for "Comedy Central" you can see both what channel is reported as well as how many version of it (duplicates). The tvg-id will match one of these two:

29938328f60d447299ec48511a09ebab (Sling Blue COMEDY)
7a0ff80be0c14f4da6b6cc510b9be57b (Sling Orange COMEDY-M)

If it is indeed COMEDY-M then we can assume the problem is not the add-on but stale data in IPTV Simple/Kodi Database.

 

The database file mentioned above, with Kodi not running you can delete it and it will be recreated from scratch eliminating the possibility of stale data in the Sling add-on. Then going to the page in Test 1 you can see which channel is returned.

 

Running updates via Sling add-on settings such as Channel Update. Make sure it runs to completion 0 - 100% via the progress bar notification. The service that runs this, Slinger, uses a file for it's metrics/cue system, Slinger.json. These functions use try/catch system to suppress hard errors and provide better execution. If an error occurs, it is logged (if add-on debugging is enabled) and also written to this metrics file. Included in the Sling add-on settings is the ability to view the contents of this file which includes a field called Last_Error. If the delete statement happened to fail, the error would be written here. Do note, there can be as much as a 60 second delay between the update button click and the actual execution of it.

[Doctor Eggs]

When I try to go the channels.m3u, it doesn't return anything:

I did dig through kodi.log and saw that it included the 29938328f60d447299ec48511a09ebab (Sling Blue COMEDY) when I tried to play it.

I'm assuming that when I go into the database I should not be seeing the additional Sling Blue channels that I am seeing (CNN, COMEDY, COMET). Is this correct?

[d21spike]

When I try to go the channels.m3u, it doesn't return anything:

I did dig through kodi.log and saw that it included the 29938328f60d447299ec48511a09ebab (Sling Blue COMEDY) when I tried to play it.

I'm assuming that when I go into the database I should not be seeing the additional Sling Blue channels that I am seeing (CNN, COMEDY, COMET). Is this correct?

Yup that's definitely a stale database. The channels url didn' show anything because chrome doesn't like the syntax, you can just right-click and select "View page source".

[Doctor Eggs]

When I try to go the channels.m3u, it doesn't return anything:

I did dig through kodi.log and saw that it included the 29938328f60d447299ec48511a09ebab (Sling Blue COMEDY) when I tried to play it.

I'm assuming that when I go into the database I should not be seeing the additional Sling Blue channels that I am seeing (CNN, COMEDY, COMET). Is this correct?

Yup that's definitely a stale database. The channels url didn' show anything because chrome doesn't like the syntax, you can just right-click and select "View page source". 

I tried updating to 0.95 on another box and while the m3u grabs the correct url, looking at sling.db shows the same data. The only difference is that the order is different meaning that the "-M"s are listed first when I "select * from channels order by channels.name".

[Doctor Eggs]

@d21spike 
Looks like my channel_url is not returning the correct value. This is what you provided above which is correct:
https://cbd46b77.cdn.cms.movetv.com/cms/...TM=/1.json

When I log(channels_url) in slinger.py (after line 317) I get the following URL which has COMEDY CENTRAL (and others) in both Blue and Orange
https://cbd46b77.cdn.cms.movetv.com/cms/...TM=/1.json

The difference being in the subs variable MjMx vs MjE3.

[snoopyjoe]

So I'm getting something weird and am not sure if it's something to do with the InputStream or the Sling addon. Live channels will work just fine but any on-demand content does not play. Glancing over the log it looks like it fail at the inputstream section, but there is no error inside of the Sling addon.  The log is after a clean install and first login.

Sling TV log

[clones]

This morning I noticed the guide had not updated, went into the program, requested manual update to the guide, and received an error; shut down kodi tried again but am still getting an error message. Live tv still seems to play okay. http://paste.kodi.tv/uhoremuqid

[clones]

This morning I noticed the guide had not updated, went into the program, requested manual update to the guide, and received an error; shut down kodi tried again but am still getting an error message. Live tv still seems to play okay. http://paste.kodi.tv/uhoremuqid

Wasn't if I'm missing something, the guide was empty this morning, an attempt at manual channel update also prompted an error

EDIT: uninstalled sling & simple iptv and it looks like all is fine, guide installed & updated

[lhassell]

add the debug file to see if it can be figured out what this kodi crashes on this computer: https://pastebin.com/AWZrtWrb   

Hi @d21spike  wanted to check on the changes in the addon to see if it is working with some of the crashes (see debug log above), two of my systems, kodi crashes and shuts down after a few hours, and the other when playing live tv, is stopping every half hour (it appears the system is trying to upload the guide). If I can post another debug log let me know.         

I've been actively working on it, that's why I changed the way the EPG was being created. My thought is it's related to the interaction of IPTV and the guide files, specifically if the add-on is in the process of updating them.

With your log specifically I included a screenshot. As you can see it goes from a left mouse click to a complete shutdown with no relevant information in between.

0.88 fixed things for me too. Thanks

Glad it worked for you.

Ok, I switched over to this Sling addon because the original one stopped working. This one work better but with some issues.

I'm running on a RPi3 running LibreLec 9.0.2, Kodi 18.2, MythTV DVR Addon (configured with HDHomerun sources).
Sometimes the guide info integrates into the TV guide but as soon as the MythTV reloads/updates guide data, the sling channels leave the guide. If I force update the channels from Sling addon, the channels come back. 

The other issue is the playback is very unreliable. About every minute or two, I experience severe buffering. Actually it's not buffering, it's a freeze. The circle does not show and wait, it just stops dead for a few to several seconds, then the buffering circle comes up and playback goes into double speed until it catches up. Otherwise things seem to be progressing.

I have monitored my network just incase the network is an issue and it isn't. I also have a FireStick with SlingTV installed and it works flawlessly unless I have a wifi issue. My RPi3 is has wired network.

If you need a guinea pig for testing my type of configuration, feel free.

The EPG is currently a work in progress, specifically the stability of it. Generally speaking Sling add-on only points IPTV Simple to where it can find the guide files (self-generated.) That said, I have come across instances where the Sling Guide ends up blank, particularly when a user is trying to access the guide and IPTV is rebuilding it. Still working out the kinks in this one. Biggest hurdle right now is, the add-on has no way of automatically telling IPTV to update it's stuff once new guide data is retrieved. Currently a work around is employed by disabling and re-enabling IPTV simple but clearly this isn't the best solution and actually may be part of the problem if this happens during execution. I should note that IPTV Simple in Kodi 19 does introduce an auto-refresh mode as quickly as every 15 minutes.

On the topic of playback, this one isn't exactly Sling add-on related as much as it is the components handling the playback. Another user is experiencing similar issues and I touch on this in my reply here...
Link to post

Logfile is at https://paste.kodi.tv/izadaqagac 

This log definitely shows some connection issues so much so it even fails to contact a kodi mirror. I do see the audio sync issues you referenced but what I think may be more related is lines like this:

2020-01-29 08:57:14.300 T:12296 NOTICE: CVideoPlayerAudio:rocess - stream stalled
2020-01-29 08:57:14.688 T:12720 NOTICE: CDVDVideoCodecFFmpeg::CDropControl: lost diff
2020-01-29 08:57:14.907 T:12792 NOTICE: DXVA::CDecoder::Close: closing decoder.
2020-01-29 08:57:15.189 T:12720 NOTICE: CDVDVideoCodecFFmpeg::CDropControl: calculated diff time: 33366
2020-01-29 08:57:15.823 T:12720 NOTICE: CDVDVideoCodecFFmpeg::CDropControl: lost diff
2020-01-29 08:57:16.223 T:12720 NOTICE: CDVDVideoCodecFFmpeg::CDropControl: calculated diff time: 33366
2020-01-29 08:57:16.840 T:12720 NOTICE: CDVDVideoCodecFFmpeg::CDropControl: lost diff

Closest reference I came across is here HLS Stream Buffering

Not sure what your network setup is but it does make most sense for it to be networking issues when multiple devices are affected. I would double check your settings, maybe try using a public DNS like 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.4.4?        

Any chance of getting subtitles working?

There's an issue created on github here where I go into more detail on the topic. Short answer though, without changes to inputstream adaptive I don't believe subtitles will be coming too soon. It would require modification to that add-on specifically which would need coordination of the creator. With current work on the EPG and other stability issues that are within my (our) control, it's just not the biggest priority.  

I messaged the inputstream.adaptive coder and he sent this back. There's no hurry, but I thought you might be interested to know they made some changes.

https://github.com/peak3d/inputstream.ad...-586127690

I think he's referring to this commit: https://github.com/peak3d/inputstream.ad...fe9768d075

[z419]

Subtitles work for me when "Enable parsing for closed captions" is enabled in Player > Language settings. Though they seem to be disabled automatically, I think because the language is "Unknown", and have to be enabled every time you switch channels. Also, sometimes you have to wait for them to be detected, and sometimes it detects 2 subtitles but only 1 actually works.

[RM4ever]

Great Add-on
But "NBC Sports Network" channel  is missing for me, although i updated the channels multiple times.
My Kodi version is: kodi-18.5-Leia-x64