Known issues with Wowza Streaming Engine

Updated on 03/13/2023 10:18 am PDT

This article describes important issues that may affect your deployment, management, and use of Wowza Streaming Engine™ media server software. When available, workarounds and fixes for these issues are described. Check back often as this article is updated frequently as new developments occur.

Note: Where a third-party issue affects Wowza Streaming Engine software, it's the responsibility of the third-party to fix the problem. Wowza Media Systems works with these companies to help address the issue as soon as possible.

General issues

Open general known issues

The following general known issues are not fixed in the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine but may have a workaround.

iOS15+ WebRTC publishing fails due to fragmented WebSockets

We previously noticed an issue related to devices running iOS15+ that caused WebRTC publishing to fail in Wowza Streaming Engine. Reported errors include a WebSocket Connection Failed message.

Our initial investigation led us to believe that this was due to Apple's WebSocket fragmentation. After further exploration, we believe this issue is connected to the NSURLSession WebSocket experimental feature from Apple. For a workaround, check the following solution.

Solution

To circumvent this problem and publish the WebRTC stream:

1. Go to Safari > Settings > Advanced.

2. Enable Show Develop menu in menu bar.

3. From Develop in the menu bar, go to Experimental Features and disable the NSURLSession WebSocket feature.

Misconfigured Server.xml file lets anyone log in to Wowza Streaming Engine Manager

In Wowza Streaming Engine versions 4.8.19 through 4.8.20, if the Server.xml file is not configured correctly, anyone can log in to Wowza Streaming Engine Manager GUI with any random username and password.

Solution

We recommend upgrading to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.21 to resolve this issue.

REST API call to add a custom property to HTTPStreamer is added to LiveStreamPacketizer instead

When the REST API makes a PUT request to modify the parameter cupertinoChunkDurationTarget, it recognizes the path for live applications, but does not recognize the path for VOD applications.

Solution

Rename the parameter to CupertinoChunkDurationTargetVOD so that it differentiates between the live and VOD application paths.

Scaling issue of an image when using Beamr as a scaler

In Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20, if the dimensions (height and width) of an image are an even/odd or odd/even number of pixels, then scaling will fail. The Wowza Streaming Engine Manager shows an error:

sum of image Width and Height must be an even number.

Solution

Change the dimensions to either an odd or even number of pixels such that the sum of pixels is even. You can do this by cropping the original image.

Authentication Method – Cleartext is not compatible with Digest Authentication

In Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.19, SHA-256 compatibility was added to update security standards. Because of the update, Cleartext is not compatible with Digest authentication out of the box.

Solution

There are two workarounds for this issue - 

  1. For a more secure method, follow this - If you use Digest with Cleartext and receive a failure to log in message, update your password encoding scheme to use SHA-256 in the [install-dir]/conf/Server.xml file and restart Wowza Streaming Engine to log in. For more information on this method, check this article.
  2. You can also configure plaintext password using the below properties in [install-dir/conf/Server.xml]: 
<AuthenticationMethod>basic</AuthenticationMethod>
<PasswordEncodingScheme>cleartext</PasswordEncodingScheme>

This method is less secure because the password is in plaintext.

Third party dependency conflict

In Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.18 and later, the jaxb-core and jaxb-runtime jars were updated to version 3.0.2 from version 2.3.3. This causes a conflict if you need to import classes from jakarta.xml.bind-api.

Solution

If you use these classes, we recommend running Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.17 instead. We don’t recommend manually updating the JAR file because it may impact other sections of the workflow.
 

Load balancer stops working when configured for SSL

The load balancer SSL connection issue has been resolved. It is no longer necessary to roll back to a previous version of WSE. Customers who have experienced this issue will want to ensure they have installed latest load balancer module (build 17278+) for resolution.
 

Apache Log4j2 security vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-44228, CVE-2021-45046, CVE-2021-45105)

Logging in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.8.01 and later uses a version of Apache Log4j2 with a security vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228) involving JNDI functionality that is not protected against attacker-controlled LDAP and other JNDI-related endpoints.

In addition, steps to mitigate CVE-2021-44228 in Apache Log4j 2.15.0 and 2.16.0 did not fully address security vulnerabilities. These issues are captured in CVE-2021-45046 and CVE-2021-45105.

Solution

We recommend Wowza Streaming Engine customers take action to address the recent Apache Log4j2 vulnerabilities by using our Log4j2 updater to get the latest Log4j2 files: see Update to fix Apache Log4j2 security vulnerabilities to get the updater and for information about runnning it.

Although Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.17 upgrades to Apache Log4j 2.16.0 to fix CVE-2021-44228 and CVE-2021-45046, it does not fix CVE-2021-45105, which is fixed in Apache Log4j 2.17.0.

Important: You do not need to update to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.17 to get the latest fixes for Apache Log4j2-related issues.

Addressing recent Apache Log4j2 issues is a dynamic situation that we will continue to respond to based on Apache updates.

Insufficient memory when starting and stopping publishing frequently and using Beamr transcoding

Wowza Streaming Engine can crash when starting and stopping stream publishing frequently and using Beamr encoding or decoding due to insufficient physical memory (RAM). Depending on the amount of RAM, this may only occur after starting and stopping the stream frequently for many hours or multiple days.

Solution

There is no fix available at this time. On Linux, limiting the number of arenas allowed per CPU core can prevent this issue. See Optimize Transcoder Memory Utilization (Linux Only) for more information.

Streaming to Facebook from Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.8 doesn't work on some versions of CentOS

There is a problem with the Facebook stream target destination in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.8 that breaks the ability to send streams to Facebook when Wowza Streaming Engine is running on some versions of CentOS.

Solution

There is no fix available at this time, but you may be able to use the generic RTMP stream target destination type to send streams to Facebook. For more information, see Use RTMP to distribute live streams from Wowza Streaming Engine.

Erroneous log statements when accessing the Wowza Streaming Engine REST API over SSL

If you've enabled secure sockets layer (SSL) security for the Wowza Streaming Engine REST API, you may see the following warning statement in the logs even though the REST API queries are working properly:
WARNING: An error occurred during the communication with the remote HTTP server.

Solution

Disregard the erroneous log statements and use the Wowza Streaming Engine REST API as intended. No workaround is needed.

Misleading message when uninstalling Wowza Streaming Engine updaters (Wowza Streaming Engine 4.3.0-4.4.1)

After you uninstall updater versions 4.3.0, 4.3.0.01, 4.3.0.02, 4.3.003, 4.4.0, 4.4.0.01, and 4.4.1, you may see a message that indicates your updater uninstall may have failed: 
A required action of the update failed. The update did not complete successfully, see the wowzastreamingengine_update.log for details.

Solution

This message can be misleading. Check for the following message. If it's present, your updater uninstall completed successfully: 
Restoration complete

Startup delays and hostname resolution problems on Azure Marketplace virtual machines

When running Wowza Streaming Engine virtual machines on Azure Marketplace, the Wowza Streaming Engine software may start after some delay. After startup, Wowza Streaming Engine Manager may display the virtual machine's private IP address, instead of the public IP address, on the Home, Sources (Live), and Test Playback pages. These problems are caused by the way in which Azure Marketplace processes variable lookup metadata.

Solution

Future Azure Marketplace releases may optimize how variable lookup metadata is reported in the Azure platform. To permanently display the public IP address in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager, do the following:
 
  1. Connect to your virtual machine (Windows connection instructions | Linux connection instructions).
     
  2. Open the [install-dir]/conf/VHost.xml] file in a text editor and replace the <Manager>/<TestPlayer>/<IpAddress> value (${com.wowza.video.platform.PLATFORM_METADATA_EXTERNAL_IP}) with your virtual machine's public IP address: 
    <Manager>
	<TestPlayer>
		<IpAddress>[wowza-vm-public-ip-address]</IpAddress> <!--changed for default video install. -->
		<Port>${com.wowza.wms.HostPort.FirstStreamingPort}</Port>
		<SSLEnable>${com.wowza.wms.HostPort.SSLEnable}</SSLEnable>
	</TestPlayer>
	<!-- Properties defined are used by the Manager -->
	<Properties>
	</Properties>
</Manager>
  3. If you were signed in to Wowza Streaming Engine Manager, sign out, and then sign in again.
The Home, Sources (Live), and Test Playback pages in the manager should display the virtual machine's public IP address.

Wowza Streaming Engine services don't start automatically on Ubuntu 15.04

Wowza Streaming Engine services on Ubuntu 15.04 fail as part of the installation and don't start automatically. This appears to be related to the recent move by Ubuntu from upstart to systemd (see SystemdForUpstartUsers).

Solution

Do ONE of the following:

Start Wowza Streaming Engine manually by running the following as root: 
# /etc/init.d/WowzaStreamingEngine start

# /etc/init.d/WowzaStreamingEngineManager start

-OR-

Reinstall the missing upstart functionality, which should ensure that Wowza Streaming Engine services are restarted on reboots: 
# apt-get install upstart-sysv

Latest Linux updates prevent Wowza Streaming Engine from starting (init.d or systemd)

Wowza Streaming Engine services fail to start--either as legacy init.d scripts or as systemd services--after Linux is updated. We've observed this with Centos 7.2 updates.

Solution

Create the following service files:

/usr/lib/systemd/system/WowzaStreamingEngine.service 
[Unit]
Description=WowzaStreamingEngine
After=syslog.target
After=network.target
After=local-fs.target
After=remote-fs.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=root
Group=root
ExecStart=/usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine/bin/WowzaStreamingEngine start
ExecStop=/usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine/bin/WowzaStreamingEngine start
RemainAfterExit=yes

# Give a reasonable amount of time for the server to start up/shut down
TimeoutSec=300

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
/usr/lib/systemd/system/WowzaStreamingEngineManager.service 
[Unit]
Description=WowzaStreamingEngineManager
After=syslog.target
After=network.target
After=local-fs.target
After=remote-fs.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=root
Group=root
ExecStart=/usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine/manager/bin/WowzaStreamingEngineManager start
ExecStop=/usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine/manager/bin/WowzaStreamingEngineManager start
RemainAfterExit=yes

# Give a reasonable amount of time for the server to start up/shut down
TimeoutSec=300

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Enable services 
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable WowzaStreamingEngine.service
systemctl enable WowzaStreamingEngineManager.service
Start new services 
systemctl start WowzaStreamingEngine.service
systemctl start WowzaStreamingEngineManager.service

Antivirus tools falsely detect Luhe.Fiha.AN threat

Some antivirus tools report "Found Luhe.Fiha.AN" in Windows Installer (.msi) files for Wowza Streaming Engine software.

Solution

We believe this to be a false positive. Customers haven't reported any problems.

Issues with Java version 8u78 and greater

If you use your own Java Runtime Environment (JRE) (8u78 and greater) with Wowza Streaming Engine, you may not be able to start Wowza Streaming Engine Manager.

You may also encounter an instability issue related to Java settings and see an error message similar to the following:

500 error is thrown: "Sorry there was an error getting to (server/performance/javasettings/edit.htm):
Internal Server Error:500"

Solution

If you use your own JRE, you can install an earlier JRE version that doesn't have these issues (see Manually install and troubleshoot Java on Wowza Streaming Engine) or you can run the latest Wowza Streaming Engine installer, which has an earlier version of the JRE. We'll monitor the Java updates and update this article with the latest findings.

Custom properties with leading and trailing blank spaces

If you use a text editor to add properties to Wowza Streaming Engine XML configuration files, you can't edit the property in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager if the property name or value has a leading (or trailing) blank space. For example, if you add the following property that has leading blank space in its name to an XML file: 
<Property>
	<Name>  myCustomProperty</Name>
	<Value>12345</Value>
	<Type>String</Type>
</Property>
When Wowza Streaming Engine Manager starts, it will load the XML file, and then remove the leading blank space from the property name that it displays in its user interface. (It does this because leading and trailing blank spaces are a common source of configuration errors.) For the example property above, the manager will display this as myCustomProperty in its UI.

If you try to edit myCustomProperty in the manager, the property will be saved as a new property to the XML file. 
<Property>
	<Name>  myCustomProperty</Name>
	<Value>12345</Value>
	<Type>String</Type>
</Property>
<Property>
	<Name>myCustomProperty</Name>
	<Value>67890</Value>
	<Type>String</Type>
</Property>

Solution

If your media server configuration requires a property with a leading or trailing blank space in its name or value, you must always edit this property in the configuration XML file using a text editor.

Updating to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.0 breaks existing configurations for HTTPS Manager connections

Updating to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.0 overwrites the startmgr.bat (Windows) or startmgr.sh (Linux) file. This means that if you have configured Wowza Streaming Engine Manager to use a secure socket layer (SSL) certificate so that you can connect using HTTPS, that configuration is lost during the update.

Solution

After you have successfully updated to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.0, follow the instructions in How to connect to Wowza Streaming Engine Manager over HTTPS to reconfigure HTTPS connections.

Metadata from Matrox Monarch HD encoders can't be processed by Akamai stream targets

The Matrox Monarch HD encoder sends metadata with encoded streams that goes through Wowza Streaming Engine but can't be processed when received by an Akamai RTMP CDN endpoint.

Solution


Add a custom property to the stream target that instructs the target to ignore the problematic metadata.
 
Note: Creating custom properties for a stream target requires an administrator user with advanced permissions.
  1. In Wowza Streaming Engine Manager, select the live application that uses the Matrox Monarch encoder and the Akamai RTMP stream target.
     
  2. In the contents panel, click Stream Targets.
     
  3. Select the stream target that's sending the stream to Akamai.
     
  4. Click the Custom tab, click Edit, and then click Add Custom Property.
     
  5. In the Add Custom Property dialog box, specify:
     
    • Name - removeMetadataObjects
    • Type - Boolean
    • Value - true
  6. Click Add and then click Save.

Resolved general known issues

The following general known issues are fixed in at least the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine, if not in earlier versions too.

Resolved: WebRTC publishing and playback fails with Safari on iOS 15

Publishing or playing a WebRTC stream using Safari on iOS 15 fails. 

With the Wowza Streaming Engine WebRTC test pages, you get the following error message:

WebSocket connection to ‘wss://[address]:443/webrtc-session.json’ failed. The operation could not be completed. Socket is not connected.

Solution

The fix is to download our published example from here.

Resolved: Decoding fails for some H.264 live and VOD sources

With Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.13 and later, some live and VOD sources with H.264 video fail upon publishing or playback due to a decoding error. The error is logged with a message similar to the following:

ERROR 500 - H264Utils.decodeAVCC : java.lang.Exception: Expected to parse SPS of length 28 bytes, but 16 bits remained

Solution

Update to the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine. This problem is fixed in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.15 and later.

Resolved: Slow memory leak with SRTP-based video sources, HLS, and large amounts of lost or out-of-order packets

With SRTP-based video sources (WebRTC or RTSP), HLS enabled (cupertinostreamingpacketizer), and large amounts of lost or out-of-order packets, the HLS packetizer can stop creating segments due to SRTP authentication and decryption failures and cause a slow memory leak. Wowza Streaming Engine logs indicate SRTP failures with the following message: SRTP authentication failed.

Solution

Update to the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine. This problem is fixed in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.12 and later. To sort out-of-order packets for UDP transports, see Turn on an RTP jitter buffer and packet loss logging (RTP and MPEG-TS) in Wowza Streaming Engine or Set up WebRTC streaming with Wowza Streaming Engine.

Resolved: Publishing streams to Facebook with Facebook Live stream targets fails

Publishing streams to Facebook using the Facebook Live stream target fails as a result of a change in the Facebook Graph API to deprecate the save_vod parameter for some requests.

Solution

Update to the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine. This problem is fixed in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.8.01 and later.

As a workaround, you can publish streams to Facebook using the generic RTMP stream target and enabling RTMPS for the stream target by adding "sendSSL":"true" to the generic RTMP stream target entry in the PushPublishMap.txt file. See Use RTMP to distribute live streams from Wowza Streaming Engine for more information.

Resolved: Publishing multicast streams with Wowza Streaming Engine generates unnecessary network traffic

In some versions of Wowza Streaming Engine software, when publishing a stream to a multicast group, an IGMP join group message was also sent. The IGMP message results in unnecessary traffic on the network and may result in packet loss issues as well.

Solution

This is fixed in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.6 and later.

Note: If, for some reason, you would like to continue sending IGMP join group messages with Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.5.01 and later, you can configure the sendIGMPJoinMsgWhenPublishing property To enable the behavior of previous Wowza Streaming Engine releases, do the following:

  1. In Wowza Streaming Engine Manager, click the Server tab and select Virtual Host Setup in the contents panel.
  2. In the details page, click the Properties tab, and then click Outgoing RTP Datagram in the Quick Links bar.
  3. In the Outgoing RTP Datagram section, click Edit.
  4. Change the sendIGMPJoinMsgWhenPublishing value to true and then click Save. (The default value is false.)
  5. Restart the server when prompted to apply the changes.

Resolved: Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.7 can't be installed on macOS Catalina

New instances of Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.7 or earlier can't be installed on macOS Catalina because the installer is a 32-bit executable. macOS Catalina requires 64-bit executables.

Solution

Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.8 and later provides a 64-bit executable installer, making Wowza Streaming Engine installations compatible with macOS Catalina.

Resolved: Checking for incorrect Java version when updating to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.3 or 4.7.4

When updating Wowza Streaming Engine software to version 4.7.3 or 4.7.4, it checks for Java version 1.6.0 or later. However, Java version 1.7.0 is the minimum required version.

Solution

With Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.5 and later, the updater checks for Java version 1.7.0 or higher. 

Note: You still must use Java version 1.7.0 - 1.8.0_77 or use the Java version that is installed with Wowza Streaming Engine software (Oracle Java 1.8.0_77). Versions newer than 1.8.0_77 aren't supported. For more information, see Download and install Java.

Resolved: Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.4 may experience problems sending streams to Wowza Video for transcoding

With Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.4, the Stream Target functionality that enables you to send streams to Wowza Video for transcoding and delivery to users may not work. 

Note: This problem is limited to the Wowza Video target destination when configured for Wowza Video to transcode the stream. All other configurations of the Wowza Video and Wowza CDN stream targets work as expected in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.4.

Solution

Update to the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine media server software. This problem is fixed in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.5. and later.

Resolved: Windows 10 may not start Wowza Streaming Engine services (Services error -1073741502)

The NSSM service manager can't open a console window when trying to start Wowza Streaming Engine services. This error may appear after a recent Windows 10 update.

Solution

Update your Wowza Streaming Engine installation to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.0 or later. If you can't or don't want to update your media server software, do the following:

  1. Open an elevated Command Prompt window (press the Windows Logo+X keys, and then click Command Prompt (Admin) on the power user menu).
  2. In the Command Prompt window, navigate to a Wowza Streaming Engine installation bin folder that has an NSSM EXE file installed. There are two possible locations: [install-dir]/bin and [install-dir]/manager/bin.
  3. Run the following commands: 
    nssm set [wowza-streaming-engine-service-name] AppNoConsole 1
nssm set [wowza-streaming-engine-manager-service-name] AppNoConsole 1

You must use properly formatted service names in these commands. To get the service names, open the Services control panel (press the Windows Logo+R keys, and then type services.msc in the Run dialog box), right-click the Wowza Streaming Engine and Wowza Streaming Engine Manager services in the list, and then click Properties. The service name to use will be highlighted on the General tab in the Properties dialog box.

Example commands for Wowza Streaming Engine 4.6.0

nssm set WowzaStreamingEngine460 AppNoConsole 1
nssm set WowzaStreamingEngineManager460 AppNoConsole 1

Resolved: SHOUTCast and Icecast stream targets don't work (Wowza Streaming Engine 4.5.0)

Wowza Streaming Engine 4.5.0 software has an error that prevents the SHOUTcast and Icecast stream targets from working.

Solution

Install the latest updater for Wowza Streaming Engine software, which has a fix for this issue.

Resolved: Incorrect Wowza CPU statistics in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager (cloud deployments)

If you deploy Wowza Streaming Engine media server software in the cloud, and then log into the web-based Wowza Streaming Engine Manager on the cloud-hosted virtual machine, the Usage graph in the manager may display a higher Wowza CPU value than the actual media server CPU usage. Refreshing the manager webpage may boost the Wowza CPU graph so that it's even more out-of-sync from actual CPU consumption.

Solution

Update to the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine. Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.0 and later includes Wowza CPU calculation improvements to address this issue.

As a workaround, to view Wowza CPU consumption:
 
  • Windows - Look at the running Java.exe processes in Windows Task Manager (be sure to Show processes from all users).
     
  • Linux - Run the following grep command to display running Java processes and filters for Java processes: 
    PS - ef  | grep java*
    Then, to see the CPU usage for a particular Java process, run the top command using the Java process identifier (PID).

Transcoding issues

Open transcoding known issues

The following transcoding known issues are not fixed in the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine but may have a workaround.

Decrease in NVIDIA GPU performance with Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.14 and later

With NVIDIA GPU-acclerated transcoding in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.14 and later, GPU performance is lower than with previous versions of Wowza Streaming Engine. Logs show repeated SKIP1FRAME and ALLFRAMESOFF messages as a result.

Solution

There is no fix available at this time.

Access logs report warnings for missing Transcoder libraries on Windows after update to 4.8.14

If you use the updater to update to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.14 on Windows, when the Transcoder starts, Access logs (wowzastreamingengine_access.log) report warnings about missing Transcoder library files. These warnings can be ignored as transcoding is not affected and continues normally. 
WARN 200 - TranscoderSessionNative.loadLibrary: File is missing: C:/Program Files (x86)/Wowza Media Systems/Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.13+1/lib-native/win64/mc_bc_dec_avc.dll
WARN 200 - TranscoderSessionNative.loadLibrary: File is missing: C:/Program Files (x86)/Wowza Media Systems/Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.13+1/lib-native/win64/mc_dec_hevc.dll
WARN 200 - TranscoderSessionNative.loadLibrary: File is missing: C:/Program Files (x86)/Wowza Media Systems/Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.13+1/lib-native/win64/mc_enc_avc.dll
WARN 200 - TranscoderSessionNative.loadLibrary: File is missing: C:/Program Files (x86)/Wowza Media Systems/Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.13+1/lib-native/win64/mc_enc_hevc.dll

Solution

There is no fix available at this time.

As a workaround to remove the warning logs, complete the following steps:

  1. Navigate to the [install-dir]\lib-native\win64 directory and open transcoder.list in a text editor.
  2. Delete the following lines: 
    mc_bc_dec_avc.dll
mc_dec_hevc.dll
mc_enc_avc.dll
mc_enc_hevc.dll
  3. Save your changes and then restart Wowza Streaming Engine.

Audio and video drift out of sync when transcoding MPEG-1 Audio Layer II to AAC

If you transcode MPEG-1 Audio Layer II to AAC, you may experience the audio and video drifting out of sync. When transcoding the audio, you may see a log similar to the following:
INFO server comment - JNI:TranscoderSession.audioDecoderCreate[_defaultVHost_:live/_definst_/mpegtsstream.stream]: Create audio decoder: MPEG1 Part 1/2: default INFO transcoder decoder-audio-start mpegtsstream.stream {"codec":"MP3", "objectType":"MPEG1LAYER2", "sampleRate":48000, "channels":2}

Solution

Add a custom property to the Transcoder template that instructs the transcoder to transcode to HE-AAC instead of AAC.  

  1. Open the transcoder template XML file that you're using, such as [install-dir]/transcoder/templates/transcode.xml, in a text editor and add the following property to the <Encode>/<Audio>/<Parameters> section. 
    <Parameter>
    <Name>mainconcept.he</Name>
    <Value>2</Value>
    <Type>Integer</Type>
</Parameter>
  2. Save the file and restart incoming stream to pick up the Transcoder template changes.

Memory leak when transcoding with transparency overlays (Wowza Streaming Engine 4.5.0.01 and 4.5.0.02)

If you include graphic overlay images when transcoding streams and you set the overlay opacity value to less than 100 (completely opaque), or you use a file for your overlay image that was originally created with less than 100 percent opacity, a memory leak occurs. Our findings also show that the memory leak is larger for larger overlay image files.

Solution


There is no fix available at this time.

NVIDIA hardware-accelerated decoding doesn't work with Wowza Streaming Engine on Windows 10 with Java 8

NVIDIA accelerated decoding fails on Windows 10 with Java 8. The failure occurs when you use CUDA or NVCUVID acceleration for decoding. (NVENC acceleration seems to work.)

Solution


Use Java 7 on Windows 10 to avoid this issue. For information on installing Java, see Manually install and troubleshoot Java on Wowza Streaming Engine. NVIDIA is investigating this issue.

 

Wowza Transcoder doesn't work in some versions of Wowza Streaming Engine on CentOS 6

Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.8

Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.8 included changes to the minimum supported versions of some of the libraries used by Wowza Transcoder. For example, GNU C Library (glibc) 2.17 is now the minimum supported version.

Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.5

Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.5 included changes to some of the libraries used by Wowza Transcoder, including updating the GNU C Library (glibc) to version 2.14. However, CentOS 6.9 doesn't support glibc 2.14. This means Wowza Transcoder doesn't work on CentOS 6.9 with Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.5. 

Solution

Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.8

Update to a version of CentOS that supports glibc version 2.17 or later. Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.8 doesn't support CentOS 6.

Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.5

The best solution is to update to Wowza Streaming Engine versions 4.7.5.01 - 4.7.7. 

Alternatively, you can update to CentOS 7, which supports glibc 2.14 and would enable you to use the fixes and new features in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.5.

If you can't update to CentOS 7 and need to use Wowza Transcoder, don't update to Wowza Streaming Engine version 4.7.5. Earlier versions of Wowza Streaming Engine media server software use glibc 2.12, which is supported by CentOS 6.9.

  • If you're installing Wowza Streaming Engine media server software for the first time, request a copy of the Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.4 installer package.

  • If you've already updated to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.5, follow the instructions in Remove an update on Linux to remove the 4.7.5 update and revert to an earlier version of the media server software.

Resolved transcoding known issues

The following transcoding known issues are fixed in at least the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine, if not in earlier versions too.

Resolved: Overlay image issues with NVIDIA CUDA scaling on Windows with 4.8.14

With Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.14, when using graphic overlays and the CUDA scaling implementation for NVIDIA GPU-accelerated transcoding on a Windows system, the overlay images can flicker or appear transparent.

Solution

Update to the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine. This problem is fixed in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.15 and later.

Resolved: Wowza Streaming Engine does not support CUDA 11

Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.13 and earlier do not work with NVIDIA drivers that support CUDA 11.

Solution


Update to the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine. Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.14 upgraded CUDA support to CUDA 11 and supports NVIDIA drivers 460.00 and later.

If you are using an earlier version of Wowza Streaming Engine, install an NVIDIA driver that supports CUDA 10, such as version 440. See the NVIDIA documentation for installation instructions.

Resolved: NVIDIA NVENC hardware-accelerated encoding doesn't work with Wowza Streaming Engine 4.2.0

An issue in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.2.0 software prevents NVIDIA hardware from being recognized; therefore, NVIDIA NVENC hardware-accelerated encoding can't be enabled for Transcoder.

Solution


Wowza has fixed this issue in the latest Wowza Streaming Engine software update. To get this update, sign in to your Account Management page using your Wowza account and then check the Downloads tab. You must have an active Maintenance and Support contract to receive updates.

Playback issues

Open playback known issues

The following playback known issues are not fixed in the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine or a third-party technology but may have a workaround.

iOS 7 and iOS 8 native players incorrectly display CEA-608 captions that have 32 characters

A CEA-608 caption that has exactly 32 characters and is sent as part of the video NAL units is displayed incorrectly. This doesn't occur if the caption has 31 or 33 characters.

Solution


There's no fix at this time. Bug 19179149 is open in the Apple Radar bug reporting tool. Last tested with iOS 8.3.

Playback issues with MPEG-DASH streams

When using the DASH-IF reference player (dash.js) and Google Chrome, DASH streams may play for a while and then start looping on a single media segment.

Solution


We recommend that you use either the Google Shaka player or the Bitmovin Adaptive Streaming Player to play DASH streams. These players seem to have better compatibility with Wowza Streaming Engine MPEG-DASH streams.
 

Transcoded WebRTC source streams with passthrough video fail to play over MPEG-TS HLS

WebRTC source streams, including those with H.264 video, that are transcoded for adaptive bitrate streaming with Video Codec set to Passthrough encounter playback issues over MPEG-TS HLS (cupertinostreamingpacketizer).

Solution


There is no fix available at this time, but you can transcode the video by setting Video Codec to another codec, rather than Passthrough, to avoid this issue.

Resolved playback known issues

The following playback known issues are fixed in at least the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine, if not in earlier versions too, or a third-party technology.

Resolved: Live DVR streams won't start on iOS 8

Live streams with DVR enabled by Wowza nDVR may not start playback on iOS 8 devices.

Solution


This issue is fixed on iOS 12. If you encounter this issue on your iOS 8-based player, you can either touch and hold the Rewind button to start playback immediately or wait for about 30 seconds for playback to start.
 
Note: This problem doesn't occur on iOS 7 (or earlier).

Resolved: Problems with WebVTT closed captions in JW Player 7

JW Player has confirmed that a problem in their JW Player 7 software may prevent WebVTT closed captions in live streams from being displayed during playback.

Solution


JW Player addressed the issue in JW Player 8. You can also use JW Player 6 or CEA-608 captions.

Resolved: Apple HLS playback issues using the Microsoft Edge native player

In the Microsoft Edge native player, you can play Apple HLS streams, but artifacts appear across the lower part of the video. This issue was reported with Edge version 20.10240.16384.0 on Windows 10 (build 10240).

Solution


The issue doesn't occur with with Edge version 25.10586.0.0 on Windows 10 (version 1511 - OS build 10586.3).

Resolved: WebVTT closed captions dropped from long-running live streams on iOS 9

On iOS 9-based players, after a live stream with WebVTT captions runs for over 12 hours, the captions no longer appear in the player.

Solution


This issue is fixed in iOS 12-based players. It also doesn't occur with iOS 8 and iOS 7 players.
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