# Playback failed. No audio/video data packets received from server?



## Hubie01

My title explains it but has anyone ever have this problem?  I'm in living room hr21 trying to watch something out of my bedroom hr24 and I get that message. Some shows will play and some will get that message. Any suggestions solutions? I also do not have internet access to my directv. Thanks


----------



## Davenlr

Sometimes hitting List, Resume on the same show will work the second time. 
Usually I have found the recordings on the server were corrupted when I get this error, however. If they all play fine on the server, you might want to check your Deca module on the Client and make sure all the connections are tight.


----------



## RAD

Hubie01 said:


> My title explains it but has anyone ever have this problem? I'm in living room hr21 trying to watch something out of my bedroom hr24 and I get that message. Some shows will play and some will get that message. Any suggestions solutions? I also do not have internet access to my directv. Thanks


What happens if you try to play that same show on the HR24, does it play OK or do you get a keep or delete message right away?


----------



## Hubie01

I just tried the bedroom hr24 and they will not play in there either. The screen will come on and its just a blank screen. Try to fast forward and nothing will happen. Is there any solutions that resolve this issue?


----------



## RAD

Hubie01 said:


> I just tried the bedroom hr24 and they will not play in there either. The screen will come on and its just a blank screen. Try to fast forward and nothing will happen. Is there any solutions that resolve this issue?


Probably not, you can try a reboot, it might fix it and then again it might just delete the recording as part of the reboot.


----------



## Davenlr

Run a system test on your HR24 and see if it gives you any errors.

Blank recordings can be caused by bad guide data (two reboots in an hour should force a guide data reload), low signal levels on one or more transponders, failing electronics in the system or the DVR itself. 

Hard to diagnose.


----------



## JACKIEGAGA

Hubie01 said:


> I just tried the bedroom hr24 and they will not play in there either. The screen will come on and its just a blank screen. Try to fast forward and nothing will happen. Is there any solutions that resolve this issue?


Try to play something else it sounds like the show you are trying to watch didnt record properly


----------



## Hubie01

This has happened with several shows. Wonder if its just a temp thing since I just got it Tuesday


----------



## RAD

Run a systems test and see if it passes them. Also check to see if the info screens say that you have two tuners enabled. Or if you just got this call DirecTV and ask for a service call since somethings not right.


----------



## 24Flames

I received the exact same error message about one week ago. I rebooted my HD DVR in question (HR 23) and all was back to normal. Try rebooting your bedroom HD DVR.


----------



## lugnutathome

This error appears under a number of conditions. In some cases a partially watched episode left for weeks will not resume instead give this error but it will restart and play fine.

If network connectivity was somehow lost between the client and server during streaming attempting to resume will produce this error.

I have seen this error when the client (also a DVR) spammed the network and flooded that rooms switch. It was also followed by notifications of the other DVRs "leaving the network".

IN the OP's case it would seem recording issues themselves may be causing this problem and both tuners on his serving DVR should be checked for adequate signal levels. 

BUT that notwithstanding, there are times where I've seen D*'s local rebroadcasting have these issues, "black holes" in both audio and video, loss of time encoding to where the program just locks but a short rewind and a fast forward past works fine.

It really could just be a situation that existed during the recordings outside the residence and not the OP's equipment. But best to verify that first.

Don "lots of possibilities" Bolton


----------



## devaska1

Here is my two cents on the issue from my previous thread! Same issues.
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=182163


----------



## markrubi

I am getting this error. It is only happening to recordings on a particular channel. Some times they will play after retrying. Resume will sometimes get it to play and others selecting start over. I have run system test all pass and have even rebooted the DVR's. Also reconnected the DECA's. I find it odd it is only failing on CBS shows. 

Edit: I have 1 HR-24 and 2 HR-20's. The shows which are not playing are located on the HR-24. They will not play on either of the other DVR's.


----------



## texasmoose

This is almost a daily thing for me. Most times a RBR works and all is well, but on an occasion or two it still gives me the error. I called D* CSR & complained and they comped me the MRV fee for a couple months. I just want this thing to work as promised, then hopefully I'll catch a lot less wifey aggro.


----------



## 996911

Getting the same thing as well. Did a reset of all receivers and it was finally work fine again. Frustrating. My guess is the software is going to take some tweaking over the coming year to get the bugs worked out.


----------



## Jennie5309

I had no issues previousy, so it was not a set-up issue. I reset both the main DVR and the bedroom receiver and the problem was solved.


----------



## mark40511

Wow! My Whole Home was installed a few months ago and it's been great. I'm not connected to the internet either. Tonight while watching in the bedroom a show that was recorded in the living room, it played, but it paused-started-paused-started. It's never done that. I've touched nothing & the installers were very professional. One installer was training another installer and he knew what he was doing & was very thorough in teaching the other one.

As soon as a recording stops, I'm going to check the connections to make sure they are snug on both the hr21's.

I do have SWM and signals are strong. I can't stand the thought of this not working correctly it's been fantastic!

I'm assuming it's normal display "please wait" for a few seconds when starting a DVR recording from another room as it has always done that, but always played fine.


----------



## bjamin82

I am having a similar issue. I have three DVR's... Bedroom, office and living room. The office has the most recordings on it. From the living room and bedroom I can see a full playlist... Bedroom and living room can stream between each other just fine, as well as if your in the office selecting a recording on the bedroom and living room. However when your in the living room or bedroom and select a recording from the office dvr I get the packet error. Watching the recordings in the office work fine.. I have rebooted via red buttons all three DVR's. The receivers are connected via deca modules... Living room is an hr 24 with the cinema kit.

Thoughts?


----------



## veryoldschool

The first thing that comes to mind is where is the PI for the SWiM and is it like this on the left:


----------



## bjamin82

"veryoldschool" said:


> The first thing that comes to mind is where is the PI for the SWiM and is it like this on the left:


Yup on the left... I think I have a green splitter to use... Why would this just start though? Nothing has changed... But I'm willing to try.


----------



## veryoldschool

bjamin82 said:


> Yup on the left... I think I have a green splitter to use... Why would this just start though? Nothing has changed... But I'm willing to try.


It's hard to say why it's changed, but it may have been marginal and finally just gotten slightly worse.
The PI has a DC block, which I posted about above and it doesn't always work well for the RF if it's too close to either the SWiM or a DECA.
Either a splitter or a longer coax should make a difference, if you can't simply relocate the PI farther away, at maybe another location.


----------



## bjamin82

"veryoldschool" said:


> It's hard to say why it's changed, but it may have been marginal and finally just gotten slightly worse.
> The PI has a DC block, which I posted about above and it doesn't always work well for the RF if it's too close to either the SWiM or a DECA.
> Either a splitter or a longer coax should make a difference, if you can't simply relocate the PI farther away, at maybe another location.


Interesting... Anyways I just added the splitter per your picture... Took a few minutes for the network to come back but when it did I tried a recording on the dvr and it's still broken


----------



## veryoldschool

bjamin82 said:


> Interesting... Anyways I just added the splitter per your picture... Took a few minutes for the network to come back but when it did I tried a recording on the dvr and it's still broken


Well this not nice.
Since you have a 24, you can run some tests of the DECA networking.

On the front panel of the 24, press the guide button and the right arrow [both] and when you get it working [may take a few tries] you'll see a menu with "coax" on the left. Select it and the first test will show the loss to each other DECA [node].
Then there is a Phy Mesh test that shows the mesh rates between all nodes.
It would help to post pictures of these results.

Should look like:


----------



## Garyunc

Have you guys ever heard of this occurring for 1 channel on 1 night? I have 4 recordings from ABC on Wed night that can not be played back from any other receiver in the house but are fine on the HR24 they were recorded on. Other shows from the HR24 can be viewed with no issues including other abc shows.

Oh and I have rebooted the HR24 but not twice in a row. Should I try that?


----------



## veryoldschool

Garyunc said:


> Have you guys ever heard of this occurring for 1 channel on 1 night? I have 4 recordings from ABC on Wed night that can not be played back from any other receiver in the house but are fine on the HR24 they were recorded on. Other shows from the HR24 can be viewed with no issues including other abc shows.
> 
> Oh and I have rebooted the HR24 but not twice in a row. Should I try that?


a "double reboot" is to flush the guide data, so I doubt this would make any difference.
I haven't found a recording that won't play through MRV. :shrug:


----------



## bjamin82

veryoldschool said:


> Well this not nice.
> Since you have a 24, you can run some tests of the DECA networking.
> 
> On the front panel of the 24, press the guide button and the right arrow [both] and when you get it working [may take a few tries] you'll see a menu with "coax" on the left. Select it and the first test will show the loss to each other DECA [node].
> Then there is a Phy Mesh test that shows the mesh rates between all nodes.
> It would help to post pictures of these results.
> 
> Should look like:


Here is what I got


----------



## bjamin82

On another note, how do you, if you can, change the friendly name?


----------



## veryoldschool

bjamin82 said:


> On another note, how do you, if you can, change the friendly name?


The friendly name is setup in the receiver's whole home menu, but this doesn't always show up on the DECA screen.

The tests don't look that bad [as in they're good "enough"].


----------



## mark40511

Garyunc said:


> Have you guys ever heard of this occurring for 1 channel on 1 night? I have 4 recordings from ABC on Wed night that can not be played back from any other receiver in the house but are fine on the HR24 they were recorded on. Other shows from the HR24 can be viewed with no issues including other abc shows.
> 
> Oh and I have rebooted the HR24 but not twice in a row. Should I try that?


Same thing here. My Hr21 recorded "Fear Factor" one local NBC HD(2 episodes) a week apart in the living room. This buffering problem occurred with me trying to watch in on the HR21 in the bedroom, and it was both episodes. But this didn't happen with any of the other HD shows recorded.....then I rebooted both receivers & everything has been OK.......I wondered to myself why it was just that one channel, then I read your post & you had a similar problem.


----------



## bjamin82

As an update everything is working now except for two shows on that DVR that won't stream but all the recordings are working. The two shows in question play fine on that receiver... Weird ... Might be time for a protection plan replacement of that box.


----------



## Joke

bjamin82 said:


> I am having a similar issue. I have three DVR's... Bedroom, office and living room. The office has the most recordings on it. From the living room and bedroom I can see a full playlist... Bedroom and living room can stream between each other just fine, as well as if your in the office selecting a recording on the bedroom and living room. However when your in the living room or bedroom and select a recording from the office dvr I get the packet error. Watching the recordings in the office work fine.. I have rebooted via red buttons all three DVR's. The receivers are connected via deca modules... Living room is an hr 24 with the cinema kit.
> 
> Thoughts?


Huh, this is almost exactly the same problem I just had. I have three HR-24s (Living room, bed room, and office). The bed room unit seems to be the problem -- it can play recordings from any of the three boxes, but the living room and office couldn't play recordings from the bed room (got the error message from the thread title). The living room and office could, however, play recordings from each other and themselves.

I did a reboot from the settings menu on the bed room unit, and that fixed it (for now).

The same problem happened 3 weeks ago, just before I was leaving town for Christmas. I think all I did to "fix" it that time was go to the bed room and watch a recording from the living room, and afterwards the living room was able to play bed room recordings. However, I was in a rush and might be misremembering -- I might've rebooted the bed room that time as well.


----------



## mark40511

Joke said:


> Huh, this is almost exactly the same problem I just had. I have three HR-24s (Living room, bed room, and office). The bed room unit seems to be the problem -- it can play recordings from any of the three boxes, but the living room and office couldn't play recordings from the bed room (got the error message from the thread title). The living room and office could, however, play recordings from each other and themselves.
> 
> I did a reboot from the settings menu on the bed room unit, and that fixed it (for now).
> 
> The same problem happened 3 weeks ago, just before I was leaving town for Christmas. I think all I did to "fix" it that time was go to the bed room and watch a recording from the living room, and afterwards the living room was able to play bed room recordings. However, I was in a rush and might be misremembering -- I might've rebooted the bed room that time as well.


I wish I had kept those 2 episodes of fear factor to see if they played in the living room on the HR21 they were recorded on. I'm suspecting they would have played fine.....Hopefully it was just a glitch and the reboot was all that was needed


----------



## mark40511

I just realized something. My bedroom HR21 is recording 2 things at once. The HD receiver in the office was watching a DVR recording from the HR 21 in the bedroom WHILE those 2 shows were recording. Meanwhile, I'm in the living room on the HR21 and all of the bedroom recordings showing on the list were displaying the red circle with the white line in the middle beside each. So if 2 shows are recording and one is being watched from that DVR, it can't be accessed. I didn't know this. I thought something was wrong until I realized that.


----------



## veryoldschool

mark40511 said:


> I just realized something. My bedroom HR21 is recording 2 things at once. The HD receiver in the office was watching a DVR recording from the HR 21 in the bedroom WHILE those 2 shows were recording. Meanwhile, I'm in the living room on the HR21 and all of the bedroom recordings showing on the list were displaying the red circle with the white line in the middle beside each. So if 2 shows are recording and one is being watched from that DVR, it can't be accessed. I didn't know this. I thought something was wrong until I realized that.


what a DVR is or isn't recording has nothing to do with this, but each DVR [other than the HR34] can only stream one recording to another receiver at a time.


----------



## mark40511

A DVR can only stream one recording at a time? Hmmm

I thought we had streamed 2 recordings at a time before from the same DVR without an issue. Maybe not. I guess that's why I thought that it recording had something to do with it.


----------



## veryoldschool

mark40511 said:


> A DVR can only stream one recording at a time? Hmmm
> 
> I thought we had streamed 2 recordings at a time before from the same DVR without an issue. Maybe not. I guess that's why I thought that it recording had something to do with it.


The HR34 can stream three, while all the others can only stream one.


----------



## mfeinstein

I recently started having the same problem. I have three DVRs (2 HR20s and 1 HR21) all networked via Ethernet. Has worked fine with MRV since the feature was originally rolled out. Then, two shows on one of the DVRs couldn't be streamed to either of the other two DVRs. These shows could be viewed just fine on the DVR where they were recorded.

Now, a couple of weeks later, another 2 shows on the same DVR can not be streamed to either of the other DVRs, but also can be watched fine on the DVR where they were recorded. All the other shows on that DVR can be streamed just fine to both of the other DVRs.

I have rebooted all of the DVRs, but the problem remains.


----------



## jasonCbraatz

i've been experiencing the playback failed issue, and what appears to happen is that the drive gets near full (or it thinks it's near full) and this is what's preventing the buffering to operate correctly. thus, while rebooting flushes a little bit, it's a short term fix. what i've found to correct the issue is to delete down (on the receiving receiver) to at least 15%+ free. after doing so, allow the box to do it's 'clean up,' garbage collection process -- which may take up to a few minutes or more to complete.


----------



## krazyrs

i had 1 of my hr24s doing it the first week i had installed my HSP system in, so i had a good 90% + of space on it

my fix was just unplugging all DVRs then the PI and letting it sit 2-3m and rebooting the entire system since RBR on the 1 receiver wasn't doing the trick


----------



## xrism

Its just a loose cable. The 10 inch cable that goes from your HD-DVR to the little adapter box that has the ethernet cable and is attached to the cable from the wall. That small cable is loose. Tighten the end that attaches to the small adapter box. The part with the rubber sleave should be tight and not twist at all. After you tighten, you will see the power and th network light stay a solid green. Its good to tighten the same on all boxes.

I was troubleshooting for hours, reboot, reset, manual IP programming. All it was was a loose cable. Goes to show that you have to do the basics before anything.


----------



## xrism

Its just a loose cable. The 10 inch cable that goes from your HD-DVR to the little adapter box that has the ethernet cable and is attached to the cable from the wall. That small cable is loose. Tighten the end that attaches to the small adapter box. The part with the rubber sleave should be tight and not twist at all. After you tighten, you will see the power and th network light stay a solid green. Its good to tighten the same on all boxes.

I was troubleshooting for hours, reboot, reset, manual IP programming. All it was was a loose cable. Goes to show that you have to do the basics before anything.


----------



## bcrd500

Whole Home system was installed by Direct TV about two months ago and this is the first problem encountered. Got the audio packet not received when attempting to watch program recorded on another DVR. Program could be viewed on DVR that recorded it and after viewing a minute to ensure it was working, I returned to the Genie DVR that the no packet error occurred and was able to view the program.

Did not reset any of the DVR's so it was an easy fix. What I would like to know is what causes the problem?


----------



## Beerstalker

Sometimes this happens and it is just a little glitch possibly in the programming, or maybe just a temporary network glitch. It is likely if you just tried playing that same program again right away it would have worked. It is when you have a lot of these problems that you need to start looking for the issue causing it (cabling or hardware most likely).


----------

