Known issues with Wowza Streaming Engine

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.

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

There is no fix available at this time. For playback, as a workaround, you can complete the following steps from your iOS 15 device:

1. Open the Settings application.
2. Tap Safari, then Advanced, and then Experimental Features.
3. Disable the NSURLSession WebSocket feature.

With Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.8.01 and later, using the Client Restrictions setting on the Playback Security page in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager to restrict playback to only specified IP addresses or block playback from specified IP addresses does not work.

Solution

Add the following properties to the <Application>/<Properties> container element of your application's Application.xml file. Wowza Streaming Engine Manager does not reflect when these properties have been configured manually in an application's Application.xml file but they work regardless.

• securityPlayIPAllowList – Only allow playback from the following IP addresses.
• securityPlayIPBlockList – Do NOT allow playback from the following IP addresses.

For example:

<Property>
   <Name>securityPlayIPAllowList</Name>
   <Value>...</Value>
   <Type>String</Type>
</Property>

When HLS is enabled (cupertinostreamingpacketizer) and a stream with audio and video drops video, the HLS packetizer can stop creating segments, causing a slow memory leak.

Solution

There is no fix available at this time. One specific instance of this issue is fixed in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.12 and later: see Resolved: Slow memory leak with SRTP-based video sources, HLS, and large amounts of lost or out-of-order packets for more information.

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.

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.

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.

A required action of the update failed. The update did not complete successfully, see the wowzastreamingengine_update.log for details.

Solution

Restoration complete

Solution

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.cloud.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 cloud 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.

Solution

# /etc/init.d/WowzaStreamingEngine start

# /etc/init.d/WowzaStreamingEngineManager start

# apt-get install upstart-sysv

Solution

[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

[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

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable WowzaStreamingEngine.service
systemctl enable WowzaStreamingEngineManager.service

systemctl start WowzaStreamingEngine.service
systemctl start WowzaStreamingEngineManager.service

Solution

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

<Property>
	<Name>  myCustomProperty</Name>
	<Value>12345</Value>
	<Type>String</Type>
</Property>

<Property>
	<Name>  myCustomProperty</Name>
	<Value>12345</Value>
	<Type>String</Type>
</Property>
<Property>
	<Name>myCustomProperty</Name>
	<Value>67890</Value>
	<Type>String</Type>
</Property>

Solution

Solution

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Note: This problem is limited to the Wowza Streaming Cloud target destination when configured for Wowza Streaming Cloud to transcode the stream. All other configurations of the Wowza Streaming Cloud 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.

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

Solution

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.

• 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).

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.

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.

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.

Solution

Solution

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.

Solution

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

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