Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

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Nexist418
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2021 5:11 pm

Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

Post by Nexist418 »

I am running UMS 10.4.1 on Windows 10.
I am streaming to a Roku Streaming Stick Plus.

A few versions ago (about 3-4 months ago), I noticed that I could no longer pause video.
I've tried other software (e.g. Servio), and they allow me to pause, fast forward, access the menu, etc.
I prefer your software, but it would be nice to be able to pause.

Is this a known issue? Is there a solution (i.e. am I missing a config option)?

Thank you
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RamenHouse
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2013 7:15 am

Re: Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

Post by RamenHouse »

I use Roku Media Player on a TCL 55S405 4K Roku TV, and I also can't pause. Generally, it's always been that way. But—

When I updated to version 9.8.2, my pause and seek suddenly worked! I was so happy to watch movies without it being a commitment I had to try to prepare for, finally. I'd created my own renderer file using whatever specifications I could find and gave up sometime ago. "SeekByTime = exclusive" was left in my configuration file, which was just a best guess from reading vaguely related streaming specification pages on Roku's site (IIRC). But—

After upgrading to the next release, it stopped working! :cry: I immediately re-downloaded the previous version, and it was no longer pausing or seeking! I tried doing a fresh install of the software and it didn't revert back to functionality. So, I browsed and saw some suggestions of specifying the buffer size (I stream via Wired), tried different "SeekByTime" options, but still nothing changed. Something was different somehow, but I don't have the competency to figure it out. With that, I gave up and just continued upgrading to the most recent version because the functionality is lost either way.

IIRC, I gave up messing with my renderer configuration and just restored the original version that temporarily worked with 9.8.2. I'll attach it in case it helps to diagnose my experience, helps people with similar TVs or maybe you can give me some recommendations of bad/improved settings.

Thanks!
Attachments
Roku-MediaPlayer5.conf
My personal Roku Media Player config file that temporarily worked w/ Pause & Seek w/ UMS 9.8.2
(4.77 KiB) Downloaded 459 times
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RamenHouse
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2013 7:15 am

Re: Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

Post by RamenHouse »

I discovered this morning that I can Pause, Resume, and Seek by giving directions through my Google Home Mini (Assistant). Then, I tested the Roku android app, but that didn't work; however, if I used the voice control in the app, it would work just like using Google Assistant. :? So... it's some kind of implementation error?

Tried tweaking my renderer file before that discovery, and messing with no transcoding versus ffmpeg transcoding, I noted that my TCL Roku TV could play the AVC video and recognized it as part 15, and when transcoded, was just sending part 10. Transcoding the AAC to AC3 is amusing because Roku's documentation seemed to describe that with a Dolby Audio compatible receiver connected over HDMI/Optical, it would convert it to Dolby Digital and preserve the 5.1 encoding. I guess there's no real problem, because transcoding gives me the surround, and now Seek controls are usable with the caveat of using voice commands, but I'm curious why the 5.1 AAC-LC isn't being preserved, and why the later iteration of mpeg4 isn't used. I'll just remove AAC from my settings, and I'm guessing it's software/TV/receiver limitations.

Query comparison using http://***.***.*.*:8060/query/media-player that caught my novice eye...

No Transcoding:

Code: Select all

<player error="false" state="play">
	<plugin bandwidth="57905786 bps" id="2213" name="Roku Media Player"/>
	<format audio="aac" captions="none" container="mp4" drm="none" video="mpeg4_15" video_res="1920x1040"/>
	<buffering current="1000" max="1000" target="0"/>
	<new_stream speed="2794496 bps"/>
	<position>18681 ms</position>
	<duration>6295541 ms</duration>
	<is_live>false</is_live>
<stream_segment bitrate="224" height="0" media_sequence="23" segment_type="mux" time="17663" width="0"/>
</player>
FFmpeg Transcoding:

Code: Select all

<player error="false" state="play">
	<plugin bandwidth="71694635 bps" id="2213" name="Roku Media Player"/>
	<format audio="ac3" captions="none" container="ts" drm="none" video="mpeg4_10b"/>
	<buffering current="1000" max="1000" target="0"/>
	<new_stream speed="2794496 bps"/>
	<position>161004 ms</position>
	<is_live>false</is_live>
</player>
Nexist418
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2021 5:11 pm

Re: Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

Post by Nexist418 »

Very strange. When I use my Roku's voice control to pause, that works (though it doesn't show the progress bar).
jrolson
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Aug 17, 2014 4:12 am

Re: Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

Post by jrolson »

Same here, pausing & skipping ahead/back no longer works on the remote...
redtux
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:42 am

Re: Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

Post by redtux »

Has anyone had any joy with this? Currently on 10.10.1 and still no pause/resume/seek on Roku
redtux
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:42 am

Re: Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

Post by redtux »

For info I have opened the following bug on this issue
https://github.com/UniversalMediaServer ... ssues/2631
DetectiveKenobi
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu May 06, 2021 6:42 pm

Re: Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

Post by DetectiveKenobi »

With this issue and the TSmuxer issue for me I've been having a rought time with UMS. I had to look somewhere else. Plex wasn't working on my Roku tv so I had to switch over to emby to get stuff play real well.
DetectiveKenobi
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu May 06, 2021 6:42 pm

Re: Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

Post by DetectiveKenobi »

As of 10.15 I still have this issue. It's fine since I wasn't able to play files before but I'd love to be able to pause and fast forward.
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SubJunk
Lead Developer
Posts: 3705
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 4:12 pm

Re: Roku Media Player only play or exit with UMS

Post by SubJunk »

It looks like minidlna and maybe emby don't have this problem with Roku, can you make logs with them and attach them here? Then maybe I can see what they are doing differently
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