[RELEASE] DStv Now KODI Add-on

COMPUTEK said:
@Tinuva were you not one of the brains behind the SS addon back in the days ?? :unsure:
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Tinuva said:
Sort of, also just an addon I maintained for a while.
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Yeah good ol' days before DRM came. At a stage I also jumped in with my very limited programming skills and compiled DOS scripts and macro programs to allow playback of dstv channels in VLC lol.
And of course the mtn play proggie lol
Brings back good memories...
 
Tinuva said:
I wonder, maybe the addon just need to add retry code when getting this json object error.
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I sniffed the SSL api calls made by the addon and it is the api call to get the isml drm stream details that return a 403 forbidden reply with 'access denied' in the body. This was done 30 minutes prior to kickoff and repeating the call in my http debugger did not seem to make a difference so don't think its that. Although kodi addon work as soon as streaming volume decrease on their server, slightly weird

Haven't had much time to test further but maybe one must just properly analyze the sequence the android app issues requests to establish why the app dont have the same issue.

@js9241698, any ideas?
 
so it's only happening during Boks games?
What channel is that on?
Do other channels work?
Or everything breaks?
Is there quite a delay before the json error?
Or pretty much instant?
 
js9241698 said:
so it's only happening during Boks games?
What channel is that on?
Do other channels work?
Or everything breaks?
Is there quite a delay before the json error?
Or pretty much instant?
Click to expand...
I don't know if it's specific to when the Bok games are on, but it's certainly always the case when the Springboks are playing and no other channels loads when it happens. It always through the json error code on all channels.

The error is almost instant on my side.
 
js9241698 said:
so it's only happening during Boks games?
What channel is that on?
Do other channels work?
Or everything breaks?
Is there quite a delay before the json error?
Or pretty much instant?
Click to expand...

Its always during boks games but affects ALL channels. Seems to happen when their is lots of requests to their license server and thereafter to get the drm dash url (gives a 403 forbidden with access denied reply)

Error is pretty much instant cause python cant parse the reply for the dash url - like I said it give 'access denied' in the body

Funny thing is, the android app does not have the same issue.


I might have a log from my phone, will send you a pm in a few minutes
 
Does OD still work?
Anyone got a photo of the error?
It should show a trackback telling me where it occurred.
 
Any on a lighter note....people are always so serious in this thread and tend to complain about the addon, so...

js9241698 said:
Does OD still work?
Click to expand...

It usually only works once, but can be fatal. I always tell people it is not worth doing it just because you can't stream a rugby game. :ROFL:
 
js9241698 said:
Does OD still work?
Anyone got a photo of the error?
It should show a trackback telling me where it occurred.
Click to expand...

Pardon the ignorance, OD refers to?

I don't have a photo but I may have logs. I'll check as soon as I'm back home.
 
martin said:
Pardon the ignorance, OD refers to?

I don't have a photo but I may have logs. I'll check as soon as I'm back home.
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That is what was so funny though, had to go here to check possible acronyms. I mean I refer to it as catch-up.
That being the reason for my silly post above. :laugh:

Kodi by default only produce basic logging, so you have to enable more detail by turning on debug logging (ctrl-shift-d) as mentioned here and obviously do it before the error is occurring to capture more useful info for the author of the addon.
 
Daruk said:
Well that depends on why it was broken. Was it broken for everyone all the time when it was, or was it a broken session variable for only some or something?

*Edit* seems it was a capacity problem:
mybroadband.co.za

DStv Now problems during South Africa rugby games – Explained

Over the last two weeks, there have been multiple reports from local DStv Now viewers about problems streaming popular rugby world cup games.
mybroadband.co.za mybroadband.co.za

So possibly intermittent and not everyone.
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Was broken for most if you go by the past posts in this thread.
The point being I analyzed it with a http debugger which logs I provided to the addon maintainer that prompted the fix.

I mean it was clearly an addon problem, in the past 3 boks games the error popped up immediately in the kodi addon whereas my android app worked first time and did not even buffer (buffering being a seperate issue for some) - most people could not get the stream started even.

edit: I know the article you refer to. That one and other reports online refered to people that could not stream on the apps either - if you read it properly and refer to other posts in this thread you will see it was the drm license server that was overloaded as people was adding new devices.

The *real* issue here though is that when the app store apps started working, the kodi addon still did not.
 
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Tinuva said:
@enerdude its possible they block connections where the http headers differ from that of the dstv now app ect. when hitting capacity.
Hmm.
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Yeah could also be or maybe combination of things, like you suggested earlier that by adding retry code to the api requests might improve things. When I did a quick test 30 min before the game I had a very quick look at the api call to get the drm stream url (which caused the json scraping error) but kept getting 403 errors in my debugger, so thought retries wont solve it. Still wanted to compare the app api calls as well as the preceding api calls to get a license etc but never got so far.

Any case hopefully js sorted it out for us, glad we got someone to maintain the code, I see in his addon update notes he mentioned he added 3 retries for the api calls and used some other calls from the website api. In his last update before today he implemented code (guess from the website) that did not need the addon to add a device to work (unlike the appstore apps) so guess that could also have broken some stuff.
 
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