Known issues with Wowza Streaming Engine

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

Solution

As a workaround, use VP8 video instead of H.264 video or a decoder implementation other than default (MainConcept).

Solution

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

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.

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

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

Solution

• Epiphan Pearl
• Hauppauge StreamEez-Pro
• Matrox Monarch HD
• NewTek TriCaster
• Telestream Wirecast

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