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.
Slow memory leak when HLS is enabled (cupertinostreamingpacketizer) and a stream's video drops
When HLS is enabled (cupertinostreamingpacketizer) and a stream's video drops, the HLS packetizer can stop creating segments, causing a slow memory leak.
Solution
There is no fix available at this time.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
Misleading message when uninstalling Wowza Streaming Engine updaters (Wowza Streaming Engine 4.3.0-4.4.1)
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
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:- Connect to your virtual machine (Windows connection instructions | Linux connection instructions).
- 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>
- If you were signed in to Wowza Streaming Engine Manager, sign out, and then sign in again.
Wowza Streaming Engine services don't start automatically on Ubuntu 15.04
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)
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
[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
Antivirus tools falsely detect Luhe.Fiha.AN threat
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
<Property> <Name> myCustomProperty</Name> <Value>12345</Value> <Type>String</Type> </Property>
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.
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.
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.
Publishing multicast streams with Wowza Streaming Engine generates unnecessary network traffic
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:
- In Wowza Streaming Engine Manager, click the Server tab and select Virtual Host Setup in the contents panel.
- In the details page, click the Properties tab, and then click Outgoing RTP Datagram in the Quick Links bar.
- In the Outgoing RTP Datagram section, click Edit.
- Change the sendIGMPJoinMsgWhenPublishing value to true and then click Save. (The default value is false.)
- Restart the server when prompted to apply the changes.
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.
Checking for incorrect Java version when updating to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.3 or 4.7.4
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.
Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.4 may experience problems sending streams to Wowza Streaming Cloud for transcoding
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.
Windows 10 may not start Wowza Streaming Engine services (Services error -1073741502)
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:
- Open an elevated Command Prompt window (press the Windows Logo+X keys, and then click Command Prompt (Admin) on the power user menu).
- 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.
- 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
SHOUTCast and Icecast stream targets don't work (Wowza Streaming Engine 4.5.0)
Solution
Install the latest updater for Wowza Streaming Engine software, which has a fix for this issue.Incorrect Wowza CPU statistics in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager (cloud deployments)
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*
Encoding/decoding issues
Open encoding/decoding known issues
The following encoding known issues are not fixed in the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine but may have a workaround.
Transcoded H.264 WebRTC streams published from Firefox play previous video frames when camera is muted
Solution
As a workaround, use VP8 video instead of H.264 video or a decoder implementation other than default (MainConcept).
Wowza Streaming Engine does not support CUDA 11 (NVIDIA drivers 450.00 and later)
Solution
Install an NVIDIA driver that supports CUDA 10, such as version 440. See the NVIDIA documentation for installation instructions.
Audio and video drift out of sync when transcoding MPEG-1 Audio Layer II to AAC
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.
- 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>
- 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)
Solution
We hope to have a fix for this issue in the next Wowza Streaming Engine software update.
Metadata from Matrox Monarch HD encoders can't be processed by Akamai stream targets
Solution
Add a custom property to the stream target that instructs the target to ignore the problematic metadata.
- In Wowza Streaming Engine Manager, select the live application that uses the Matrox Monarch encoder and the Akamai RTMP stream target.
- In the contents panel, click Stream Targets.
- Select the stream target that's sending the stream to Akamai.
- Click the Custom tab, click Edit, and then click Add Custom Property.
- In the Add Custom Property dialog box, specify:
- Name - removeMetadataObjects
- Type - Boolean
- Value - true
- Click Add and then click Save.
GOP size limitation for encoding presets when using default (software) encoder (Wowza Streaming Engine 4.4.1 and later)
In Transcoder, an encoding preset option you can specify is to align the keyframes in the transcoded output rendition with the keyframes in the incoming source stream (this is required for transrating an incoming source stream). In Wowza Streaming Engine Manager, you do this by setting the Key Frame Interval option to Same as source (required for transrating) for an encoding preset. In the template XML file, this setting is configured by the <Video>/<KeyFrameInterval> setting with <FollowSource> set to true for the encode block.
<KeyFrameInterval> <FollowSource>true</FollowSource> <Interval>0</Interval> </KeyFrameInterval>
In Wowza Streaming Engine 4.4.1 and later, if you set the keyframe interval of the transcoded video to be the same as the source video, and you select the Default Encoding Implementation to use the built-in MainConcept software encoder, the Transcoder will add extra keyframes to the output rendition that don't match the incoming stream IF the incoming stream's GOP (number of frames between keyframes) size is more than 300. This issue occurs for both H.264 and H.265/HEVC incoming streams with encoded keyframe intervals greater than 300.
Solution
We hope to address this issue in a future Wowza Streaming Engine software update.
Potential SEGV crash on Linux with the H.265/HEVC default (software) decoder
Solution
You can address the issue by forcing the Java signal handler to be loaded on Java startup. To do this, open the /usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine/bin/setenv.sh file in an editor, and then near where the _EXECJAVA variable is set, add a line setting the LD_PRELOAD environment variable to the full path to the $JAVA_HOME/lib/amd64/libjsig.so file. For example:
if [ -d /usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine/java ]; then WMSJAVA_HOME=/usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine/java _EXECJAVA=$WMSJAVA_HOME/bin/java export LD_PRELOAD=$WMSJAVA_HOME/lib/amd64/libjsig.so else _EXECJAVA=java fi
NVIDIA hardware-accelerated decoding doesn't work with Wowza Streaming Engine on Windows 10 with Java 8
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.
Resolved encoding/decoding known issues
The following encoding known issues are fixed in at least the latest version of Wowza Streaming Engine, if not in earlier versions too.
Wowza Streaming Engine generates malformed XML encoding profile for integrated encoders
- Epiphan Pearl
- Hauppauge StreamEez-Pro
- Matrox Monarch HD
- NewTek TriCaster
- Telestream Wirecast
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.
NVIDIA NVENC hardware-accelerated encoding doesn't work with Wowza Streaming Engine 4.2.0
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
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
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
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.
Live DVR streams won't start on iOS 8
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.
Problems with WebVTT closed captions in JW Player 7
Solution
JW Player addressed the issue in JW Player 8. You can also use JW Player 6 or CEA-608 captions.
Apple HLS playback issues using the Microsoft Edge native player
Solution
The issue doesn't occur with with Edge version 25.10586.0.0 on Windows 10 (version 1511 - OS build 10586.3).
WebVTT closed captions dropped from long-running live streams on iOS 9
Solution
This issue is fixed in iOS 12-based players. It also doesn't occur with iOS 8 and iOS 7 players.