RTSP/VLC/FFPlay silently freezed stream on random frame

[brandousov]

Which version are you using?

v0.13.3

Question

Hi! We have IP cam's with RTSP streams, proxied by rtsp-simple-server, which freezes on random frame, on random time when I testing it with VLC or ffplay (no error usually, only few dropped frames sometimes - both on good and frozen cams). Our architecture designed as such a way that we use TCP only protocol.

That issue happens with 1-2 cameras of 10. Other ("good") cam's freezes too, but for only 1-2 times a day. "Bad" cam's freezes every 1-3-5-10-15-20 minutes randomly, if I restart VLC with same MRL it works fine from start.. How can I detect frozen stream if ffplay still shows the same bitrate with same parameters from start without any error?

Screenshot: https://github.com/brandousov/pix/blob/main/rtsp-freeze.jpg

[aler9]

Hello, if cameras are working correctly, freezes are caused by packet loss.
If the protocol is TCP and there aren't reconnections, packet loss is possible only when readBufferCount is too low - try increasing it. Otherwise, it's the camera.