iPlayer / QTube recent issue?

Oakington_Mike

New Member
Is anybody else suddenly finding that both the iPlayer and QTube apps crash the HDR-FOX T2? iPlayer will not now get to the first screen, QTube is a little better but crashes after a few minutes. Both were fine (after the out of date certificate issue a year or so back) until a couple of days ago. I see that Humax Freesat users have a broken iPlayer issue also, acknowledged by Humax & the BBC, starting at about the same time as my HDR-FOX T2 problem. Have checked for custom firmware updates etc but all up to date.
 
I can try it, but I don't see why qtube would crash (and there's nothing unusual in the Huamx TV Portal crashing). What are you trying to download?
 
I was trying to download a couple of iPlayer files. I can post the URLs if it helps. Downloaded one ok and it crashed on the second (using the QTube download queue), which repeated the second try. I have just retried the same two files with QTube again but this time it worked. So maybe there was a one-off glitch, I will try a few more times tomorrow.

But iPlayer itself now crashes immediately, never gets to the splash screen, let alone the home page, so no URL etc relevant there. This has repeated a fair number of times and is still failing every attempt. I'm starting it from the Custom Portal, but the same happens if started via the Humax Portal. I'm guessing from what you say there is no connection between the iPlayer App and QTube at all? So maybe I have a near-EOL box, though nothing else seems wrong. If nobody else is reporting a similar problem that's probably the answer and I will have to investigate a well-known auction site to see if I can get a replacement, the box and custom firmware is just too useful to do without. Has lasted around 11 years and given good service till now.

By "Crash" I mean the box black-screens, with the LED display saying "Crash - please wait" and the box then restarts. I can't see anything interesting in the log files, though the activity.log file shows the reason as "System booted (unknown 4)" if that is meaningful.
 
I'm guessing from what you say there is no connection between the iPlayer App and QTube at all?
Correct.

So maybe I have a near-EOL box
And maybe you don't. The network stack embedded in the Humax code is known to be flakey. It work fine when the network traffic is healthy, but if the connection is iffy and there are packet errors, instead of robustly retrying (or whatever a decent network stack does) it seems like the code has failed to implement some of the necessary error traps and it bombs out. Basically, the worse your network/broadband and more network traffic you initiate, the greater the likelihood of a crash.

If you think you are getting more crashes than you are used to, start thinking whether your broadband or internal networking is less than "clean".
 
Yes - same happening here. Was working fine the last time I used it (December 2021) - thanks to iplfix I was able to access the iPlayer and download episodes etc, but now if I select iPlayer from the apps page of TV Portal, there's a longish pause of blank screen, then the machine gives up and re-boots itself.

My broadband connection is fine - the machine is connected to the network via ethernet and has always proved adequate before.
 
Yes - same happening here.
But presumably only iPlayer, not qtube / youtube-dl.

I was saying about the network stack no being robust, but that doesn't have to be some kind of transmission error bombing it out – there could be some valid packets it doesn't like either. Another possibility is running out of memory, and a third is whether the built-in web browser (which implements the portal) can handle all the latest web protocols.

If the iPlayer app is now consistently bombing, it is reasonable to assume the BBC are now serving up something the browser doesn't like when presenting the iPlayer home page.

My HD-FOX crashed the moment I selected iPlayer.
 
But presumably only iPlayer, not qtube / youtube-dl.
Couldn't say on that one. I only use it to access iPlayer - I have no experience with qtube.

If the iPlayer app is now consistently bombing, it is reasonable to assume the BBC are now serving up something the browser doesn't like when presenting the iPlayer home page.
Yes, that does seem the most likely scenario. Dammit! Ah well...
 
Dammit! Ah well...
But, for Custom Firmware users, the qtube package offers a work-around (qtube provides a GUI front-end for youtube-dl). By finding the desired content on the BBC iPlayer website and copying the URL, then pasting the URL into the qtube GUI, the content will be downloaded in the background and (once complete) can then be played on the HDR-FOX (or HD-FOX) as a local .mp4.

This process is far more tolerant of dicky Internet connections than the iPlayer app, and even if it does break, the download can be resumed where it left off. It also doesn't have a front end to have to load (and crash).
 
Thanks for the explanation. Installed qtube and gave it a whirl. Works rather well, I'm pleased to say - cheers! :)
 
Confirm that the iPlayer app crashes for me whether accessed via the Humax portal or new-portal.

If anyone wants this to be fixed, probably the BBC should be poked.

At one time, the iPlayer app was carefully decoupled from platform characteristics, but perhaps a child has been allowed to screw with this.
 
Remind me: does the portal access iPlayer directly, or is it routed through the Humax intermediary?
 
As above, either way fails, with CF.
Sure, but I don't remember whether Humax servers act as an intermediary once the iPlayer app has been started (regardless of how one starts it). It just crosses my mind that the BBC might not be responsible if Humax have their fingers in the cake mix.

In any case, the box shouldn't crash whatever comes down the line – that it does demonstrates how fragile the firmware is.
 
Last edited:
With new-portal, this page http://az341951.vo.msecnd.net/webapps/iplayer/default.htm, which is part of the Humax implementation, is loaded first:
HTML:
<html>

<!--

This is the iPlayer launch page. 

...
 -->

<head>
  <script>
      var isANT = (/ant/gi).test(navigator.userAgent);

      function initialise() {
          if (isANT) {
              var url = 'iplayer.html' + (window.location.search || '');
              document.ownerWafer.appendChild(document.ownerWafer.createWafer(url));
          } else {
              document.location.href = 'http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer';
          }
      }
  </script>
</head>

<body onload="initialise()">
</body>

</html>
As the navigator.userAgent is that of Opera 12 and not the earlier Ant framework, it goes straight to http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer.
 
Never really used Iplayer via the HDR-Fox T2 before but prompted by this thread decided to have a fiddle earlier today and it also causes a crash/reboot the same as described by the OP (I have New Portal & iplfix installed).

One thing I did notice is that when you enter the portal and are met with the very first screen the time shown in the upper left corner is an hour behind BST. The time shown in settings/preferences/time however is correct i.e. an hour later. Could the portal being an hour out have anything to do with this issue suddenly starting a fortnight before the first post?
 
Probably not, because the new-portal package skips the Humax site other than the trivial redirect page shown above and the crash still occurs. Also, the GMT-BST switch was even earlier. The crash appears to occur when actually loading the iPlayer JS. Maybe devs introduced a special April Fool iPlayer version and forgot to restore the original at midday.

I do have a copy of the older JS that might possibly be shoe-horned into a custom portal like new-portal, but the issue should be run through the Humax/BBC support channels first.
 
I've also encountered the same problem. For what it's worth, between invoking the iPlayer app and the crash, my firewall doesn't appear to record any attempt by the Humax to access the internet. This may or may not be relevant - or it may be that I'm just interpreting my firewall behaviour incorrectly!
 
For what it's worth, between invoking the iPlayer app and the crash, my firewall doesn't appear to record any attempt by the Humax to access the internet.
I think we can be pretty sure nothing has changed at the local end, so it's hard to see how a crash could be provoked without some kind of exchange with the iPlayer server.
 
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