Stats API counting recordings as connections

[bchah]

Describe the bug
In OME 0.17.2 and above, starting a recording causes the stats API to report an additional connection under maxTotalConnections. I believe this is a regression.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

• Start a stream and open with 1 viewer
• Start a recording using the API
• Check stats API for maxTotalConnections on that stream, it will read 2

Expected behavior
maxTotalConnections should only reflect external connections to the server.

If this is not easily reproducible I can provide more evidence - thank you!

[Keukhan]

@bchah

This is not a regression. I think it’s better to include the recoding sessions from the File Publisher in the statistics.

If the recording session statistics are not updated, the stream might be seen as unused (for pull streams) and stopped. This issue is related to the problem below.

#1708

Thanks. :)

[bchah]

OK thank you, I understand why the change was made - it was not documented so it seemed like a regression. I was using maxTotalConnections to figure out peak viewers because it only reflected external traffic until recently. Now it reflects internal operations too. I think I can work around this by defining another OutputProfile like ${Stream}_rec and targeting that for recording. Does that sound right?

[bchah]

@Keukhan I am putting this workaround together - do you know if there is an easy way to reuse an encode from one OutputProfile to another? Here is what I am trying to do:

Currently, we have a 'stream' OutputProfile that looks like this:

<OutputProfile>
                                                        <Name>stream</Name>
                                                        <OutputStreamName>${OriginStreamName}</OutputStreamName>
                                                        <Encodes>
                                                                <Video>
                                                                        <Name>original_video</Name>
                                                                        <Bypass>true</Bypass>
                                                                </Video>
                                                              
                                                                <Audio>
                                                                        <Name>aac_audio</Name>
                                                                        <Codec>aac</Codec>
                                                                        <Bitrate>128000</Bitrate>
                                                                        <Samplerate>48000</Samplerate>
                                                                        <BypassIfMatch>
                                                                                <Codec>eq</Codec>
                                                                        </BypassIfMatch>
                                                                </Audio>
                                                                <Audio>
                                                                        <Name>opus_audio</Name>
                                                                        <Codec>opus</Codec>
                                                                        <Bitrate>128000</Bitrate>
                                                                        <Samplerate>48000</Samplerate>
                                                                        <BypassIfMatch>
                                                                                <Codec>eq</Codec>
                                                                        </BypassIfMatch>
                                                                </Audio>
                                                        </Encodes>
                                                </OutputProfile>

This was used for both playback sessions and recordings (by just recording the video + AAC audio). Now with the change to the API in OME 0.17.2 we can't use it for recordings because maxTotalConnections used to show peak viewership, but now is not accurate. It seems that creating a separate OutputProfile for recording only could fix this issue.

If I create another OutputProfile for recording, is there any way to reuse the 'aac_audio' encode from the original 'stream' profile? It seems that the only way to ensure AAC audio for the recording is to create another encode of the same kind. Ideally we would not encode the same material twice. Do you know of a way to achieve this? Thank you! 🚰🚰🚰

[getroot]

We made this update because we thought Recording was also a single client connection.

I think your problem will be solved if we make the output of Stat API more specific and output stats by OutputProfile. This will take some time.

[bchah]

Thank you, I understand your reasoning for the change. It was not a huge problem to work around, I added a database column to store the max viewers on a channel anytime statistics are called. This actually gives me more control 😁

[bchah]

@getroot Since recording connections are now included in maxTotalConnections, can they also please be included in the "connections" array? Also with the SRT publisher connection count, which does not seem to be included in either connections or maxTotalConnections.

[Keukhan]

@bchah
statistics in 'file' indicate the number of recording sessions. :)

[bchah]

I am not a smart man. Thank you @Keukhan !!