WSE Streaming to Wowza CDN - Stream Targets randomly don't start. Stuck in "Waiting"

[Naoca]

We have a number of Wowza Streaming Engine (4.8.5 / JRE 9.0.4) instances running on dedicated servers (Ubuntu 20.04) pushing transrated HLS streams to Wowza Cloud CDN Stream Targets. Each server handles a number of applications and on occasion (increasingly so in the last few weeks) applications will randomly not send streams to the CDN. If I check the application during the incoming RTMP ingest, the Incoming Stream is working and recording fine, the transcoder is working fine (I can check the renditions), but the Stream Target is stuck in the “Waiting” mode. There are only 2 fixes:

1. Restart the application - not ideal since we get a break in the recording

2. Delete and re-add the Stream Target - also not ideal, since we have to then log into Wowza Cloud, regenerate connection codes and go through the re-linking process

Once one of those two fixes is done the Stream Target immediately goes “Active” and proceeds to work fine. There is no pattern or predictability to this issue - it can happen on any of the 160+ applications we have across 30+ dedicated servers and the above two fixes are the only solution. I have checked the logs on the affected servers / applications when I catch this problem and there are no errors indicated at all.

Would really appreciate some help with this one.

Thanks!

[Naoca]

Sorry - should clarify my title - We’re streaming from WSE to Wowza Cloud CDN.

[Rose_Power-Wowza_Com]

Just so you know, we do understand it can be difficult in your position to diagnose when it shows the stream is working fine in Wowza and there are no useful log errors. We can help find the issue from wowza to the CDN, but with Akamai, it requires a little research and testing on our end. Sorry for your inconvenience with this issue. Still looking into this though.

[Naoca]

This problem has continued to happen today on at least 3 separate occasions. I could really do with some advice here please?!

[Rose_Power-Wowza_Com]

Checking with both Engine and Cloud team on a suggestion, I don’t see a support ticket so it can be really hard to diagnose in forums without any log errors as you say. We may need to replicate your setup and run some tests to see what we can find on our end.

Can you submit one and in the meantime, I’ll continue to see what the engineers suggest as a troubleshooting tip.

[Rose_Power-Wowza_Com]

I did check on what could be some causes for this @Naoca:

1. The “Waiting” status usually indicates an issues with the “Source Stream Name”. You’ll want to ensure the exact stream name shown in the “Incoming Streams” page, matches this “Source Stream Name” in your Stream Target information.

2. How the the Wowza Streaming Engine stream target listens to an SRT MediaCaster. In this case in our tests, restarting the application fixed it (as you stated). Are you using SRT? We’ll need to fix the listener config perhaps.

3. Sometimes in tickets for this issue, we’ve had to republish the PushPublishMap entry to match the current active Wowza CDN stream target.

To truly find the cause, we will need the support ticket though. I can assure you tech support will have more details on the issue after reviewing your config and will be sure to find a resolution so this won’t be a sporadic event for you anymore.

https://www.wowza.com/support/open-ticket

[Naoca]

Hello Rose,

Thank you for your reply. I will raise a ticket now and we will begin working through this issue.

Regards,

George