CBC Radio One Streams Not Working

[phred]

Running LMS 8.2.0 - 1627922070 on Windows 10.

I've been using my Radio and Touch to listen to CBC Radio One streams for many, many years. They stopped publishing the URLs a few years ago and requested listeners to use TuneIn, but someone was able to get the URLs and I've using them with no issues. A few days ago they changed all the URLs for the live streams and again someone came through with the new URLs. However, none of the URLs are working on my Touch or Radio. But they -do- work if I use the URLs with Media Player Classic or Tapin Radio.

I'm not savvy enough to figure out why they would work with MPC amd Tapin Radio but not with LMS. I have restarted the LMS server and both devices. The stream appears to be accepted but there's no audio. During the few days when the prior URLs were changed and I hadn't gotten the new ones, trying to connect from the Radio or Touch would display an HTTP error, which if I recall correctly was a 404. With the new URLs it's not throwing an error and shows "Now Playing." But it isn't.

I've installed the CBC app on LMS and when launched it's throwing a 404 Not Found. The TuneIn app doesn't even list any CBC stations, although it did at one point. Going to tunein.com from my PC the CBC streams are active.

Here are the four URLs I've entered into LMS that seem to connect, but don't play:
Montreal: https://cbcradiolive.akamaized.net/h...MT/master.m3u8
Winnipeg: https://cbcradiolive.akamaized.net/h...WP/master.m3u8
Calgary: https://cbcradiolive.akamaized.net/h...CG/master.m3u8
Vancouver: https://cbcradiolive.akamaized.net/h...VC/master.m3u8

Desperately seeking some advice and ideally a solution.

Thanks.

EDIT: I've just updated the URLs on Airsonic (a Subsonic fork) and they all work.

[Paul Webster]

To get .m3u8 URLs to play you probably need the PlayHLS plugin.
Install that and then see if you can tell LMS to play one of those URLs.

Odd thing ... my CBCCanada plugin (not the CBC app that you referred to) seems to have disappeared from my LMS installation.

Edit:
I had forgotten that my plugin does not provide a list of stations ... it simply tries to match the streaming URL when something is playing.
In this case - the stream URLs have changed sufficiently for the matching to not work ... so my plugin does not show what is playing.

This could be the incentive I needed to move this plugin over to my Radio Now Playing plugin.

[stephenkca]

Running LMS 8.2.0 - 1627922070 on Windows 10.

I've been using my Radio and Touch to listen to CBC Radio One streams for many, many years. They stopped publishing the URLs a few years ago and requested listeners to use TuneIn, but someone was able to get the URLs and I've using them with no issues. A few days ago they changed all the URLs for the live streams and again someone came through with the new URLs. However, none of the URLs are working on my Touch or Radio. But they -do- work if I use the URLs with Media Player Classic or Tapin Radio.

FWIW, I ran into similar problems with CBC some weeks ago. If I remember correctly, the old feed would work for a few seconds and then stop. I was having networking problems at the time (Rogers) and wasn't sure if they were related. (Still not sure. My old feed of TSF Jazz also quit working and I had to track down the direct MP3 to get it up. But some other feeds like Venice Classic Radio kept working just fine. I'm about to switch carriers and will report back once I've tried the old feeds using BCE.)

My fix was to use the HLS feeds instead of the old ones I was using.

I needed to upgrade the PlayHLS plugin in my LMS (exactly the same version you are running) to version 2.9.

I hacked the feed URLs out of the web CBC Radio Player using Firefox > More Tools > Web Developer Tools. (This isn't too difficult once you know what you're doing. If you need directions post back and I'll provide them.) The feeds I have at my fingertips are:

-CBC Radio One Toronto: hlsplays://cbcliveradio-lh.akamaihd.net/i/CBCR1_TOR@118420/index_96_a-p.m3u8?sd=10&rebase=on|
-CBC Radio One Kitchener: hlsplays://cbcliveradio-lh.akamaihd.net/i/CBCR1_EKW@371992/index_96_a-p.m3u8?sd=10&rebase=on|
-CBC Radio Two Toronto: hlsplays://cbcliveradio2-lh.akamaihd.net/i/CBCR2_TOR@382863/index_96_a-p.m3u8?sd=10&rebase=on|

I hope this helps.

[bpa]

CBC URLs as returned from RadioNet are all non HLS. A spot test indicates only some work - for example the http/MP3 stream for CBC Radio Vancouver doesn't play but the Toronto stream does.

[bpa]

-CBC Radio One Toronto: hlsplays://cbcliveradio-lh.akamaihd.net/i/CBCR1_TOR@118420/index_96_a-p.m3u8?sd=10&rebase=on|
-CBC Radio One Kitchener: hlsplays://cbcliveradio-lh.akamaihd.net/i/CBCR1_EKW@371992/index_96_a-p.m3u8?sd=10&rebase=on|
-CBC Radio Two Toronto: hlsplays://cbcliveradio2-lh.akamaihd.net/i/CBCR2_TOR@382863/index_96_a-p.m3u8?sd=10&rebase=on|

These are not good URLs to show as they are not proper "master" HLS urls. They are internal PlayHLS ones (with hlsplays prefix and "|" suffix) where the bit rate has been selected.

IIRC when testing CBC stream, the number after the "@" sign changes every so often so these URLs may fail.

This file has been a usually good for CBC HLS URLs (there is another file for MP3)

https://gist.github.com/nevillepark/d8358256e05a23250ad845a70776776e

[phred]

@ Paul Webster: I have now added the PlayHLS plugin (v1.1) and restarted LMS. Once LMS had rebooted I power-cycled the Radio. It's still not playing, but at least now it's displaying an error:
Problem: Unable to play file type for CBC Calgary (or any of the four I mentioned in the OP.)


@ stephenkca: Where did you find PlayHLS v2.9? All I see on LMS Plugins is the one I installed - v1.1.

The stream URLs I mentioned in my first post are all valid as they work in the other apps mentioned in that post. I'ts only LMS that isn't playing them.

The end goal here is to have one Radio One station from each of the four time zones - Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific. There are shows that I want to listen to and I'm often not available when they air, so I can typically catch them later in the day from another time zone.

@ bpa: I see you're the PlayHLS dev - where can I find v2.9 and how do I manually install it on Win10?

Thanks all for the responses. I have faith that y'all will help me get to the bottom of this.

[bpa]

@ bpa: I see you're the PlayHLS dev - where can I find v2.9 and how do I manually install it on Win10?

V1*. uses ffmpeg to play HLS stream which means it can handle a wider variety of streams but in stream metadata (e.g. track data & images) are lost. Also all streams are transcoded into Flac so playing may have a higher server CPU and network load than V2.

V2.* is native Perl based. It only handles a big subset of HLS audio streams formats. In stream metadata is passed to LMS and no transcoding if player can play format natively (e.g. MP3, AAC, MPEG4/AAC)

General PlayHLS details are in its thread https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...LS-m3u8-stream

General installation instruction for V2.*. Add the following repository at the bottom of the LMS Settings/Plugins tab into "Additional Repositories" and then click Apply.
http://bpa-code.github.io/bpaplugins/repo-playhls-v2.xml

[phred]

V1*. uses ffmpeg to play HLS stream which means it can handle a wider variety of streams but in stream metadata (e.g. track data & images) are lost. Also all streams are transcoded into Flac so playing may have a higher server CPU and network load than V2.

Thanks for the follow up. Since the only streams I use on the Logitech devices are the CBC streams mentioned in the OP, it looks like I don't really need v2 as I don't need to see the metadata. And LMS runs on a Win10 box dedicated to LMS and Airsonic, so I'm not worried about server/network load.

So the question becomes since V1 uses ffmpeg, does it (ffmpeg) need to be in the Squeezebox\Server directory? If not, then where?

Thanks again.

[bpa]

Thanks for the follow up. Since the only streams I use on the Logitech devices are the CBC streams mentioned in the OP, it looks like I don't really need v2 as I don't need to see the metadata. And LMS runs on a Win10 box dedicated to LMS and Airsonic, so I'm not worried about server/network load.

It's a choice. Main user reason for using V2 would be metadata for example, many US iHeart streams have track data and track art.

So the question becomes since V1 uses ffmpeg, does it (ffmpeg) need to be in the Squeezebox\Server directory? If not, then where?

"helper" applications needs to be in a directory which LMS expects executables to be saved. All the directories searched by LMS for executables are listed in LMS Settings/Information under the heading "Help Applications Folder".

If you are still unsure - put it in same LMS "Bin/MS-WIn32???" subdirectory as you find the LMS supplied executables such as flac.exe, faad.exe and sox.exe

edit:

V2 may also the be the only choice for users with LMS on a platform for which it is hard to get the right build of ffmpeg installed such as a NAS.

[phred]

If you are still unsure - put it in same LMS "Bin/MS-WIn32???" subdirectory as you find the LMS supplied executables such as flac.exe, faad.exe and sox.exe

With apologies to Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks (Young Frankenstein) IT'S ALIVE!!!

Thanks to bpa for the tips to getting ffmpeg in the correct location. Once there, a simple restart of LMS and I have my CBC Radio One streams back. And to Paul Webster for pointing me to the PlayHLS plugin first.

[Paul Webster]

I expect to get the stations into RNP plugin over the next couple of days. This should show song info the Music stations and programme info for all.
I have the list of stations with the current stream URLs in place in unreleased beta.
Next step is to port over the song & programme meta data collection.

[phred]

Odd thing ... my CBCCanada plugin (not the CBC app that you referred to) seems to have disappeared from my LMS installation.

@Paul... When you say your CBC plugin(s) are gone from your installation, do you mean they're not appearing on your devices? Or that they're not appearing in the list of third-party plugins available/installed? Because I do see them in the third-party list.

Regarding the CBC Canada plugin(s) - does the user have the option to pick the station, or are you picking up a national feed?

I'll keep my eyes open for your updated RNP plugin.

Thanks.

[slartibartfast]

@Paul... When you say your CBC plugin(s) are gone from your installation, do you mean they're not appearing on your devices? Or that they're not appearing in the list of third-party plugins available/installed? Because I do see them in the third-party list.

Regarding the CBC Canada plugin(s) - does the user have the option to pick the station, or are you picking up a national feed?

I'll keep my eyes open for your updated RNP plugin.

Thanks.

The edit to the post you quoted implies that the CBC plugin no longer works because the URLs have changed.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[phred]

V1*. uses ffmpeg to play HLS stream which means it can handle a wider variety of streams but in stream metadata (e.g. track data & images) are lost. Also all streams are transcoded into Flac so playing may have a higher server CPU and network load than V2.

@bpa... I'm a firm believer in the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

That being said, now that I have my streams working with v1 and ffmpeg, will there be any issues if I updated to v2? And if so, can I go back to v1? If the only reasons to ditch v1 are lack of metadata (which CBC Radio One does use) and server/memory overloads (which I haven't seen) should I just stay where I am with v1?

Thanks.

[bpa]

@bpa... I'm a firm believer in the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

That being said, now that I have my streams working with v1 and ffmpeg, will there be any issues if I updated to v2? And if so, can I go back to v1? If the only reasons to ditch v1 are lack of metadata (which CBC Radio One does use) and server/memory overloads (which I haven't seen) should I just stay where I am with v1?

CBC may have metadata but I haven't seen any metadata carried in their HLS streams.

No issues to go back and forth - just make sure you don't have both installed at the same time and you restart LMS between changes.

It is not server "overload" but a "loading" on server & network. The likely situation, LMS server is a NAS with low power ARM processor - it is better not to do transcoding on server especially since most players can play MP3 and AAC natively. For an x86 setup, the difference is unlikely to be noticeable but may be an issue if for example syncing many players (i.e. transcode into Flac uses more network than native MP3 or AAC).

Horses for courses.

V2 is a one-step simple install with no other executable to find & install & check. It should keep up to date with LMS revisions on all platforms.

V1 will never be updated as it just passes the stream over to ffmpeg to do all the work. So the user will have to ensure ffmpeg is kept up to date with their platform.

As it works on all LMS platforms, it is my intention that V2 should become the standard PlayHLS from 3rd party plugin list but that V1 will remain available but probably called something like PlayHLSv1. For this to happen, there needs to be checks put into the plugin to ensure two are not installed at the same time - an alternative is a single plugin with an V1/V2 option setting - not sure yet.

I have an unfinished V3 which implements a few more audio stream formats which are becoming more popular as well has playing just audio from a HLS video stream (e.g. CBC TV news).