Meraki Display Freezing

[Aquatoes]

Hello we have 3 sites using a Meraki Display. 2 are working fine with absolutely no issues but I have a new site and the Meraki display is freezing up to where its showing a still image of footage from yesterday or whenever it stops playing live footage. The only fix has been to completely back out of the organization and go back in and then it runs for a bit and seems to lock back up again shortly thereafter. I have the apple TV installed on direct ethernet and plugged into a TV and it is on the same network as the cameras.

Has anyone else experienced this type of issue and have any ideas? The Meraki support team found that the camera firmware wasn't matching what we have showing in the dashboard and we got that fixed but still having the issue on the apple TV display station.

The apple TV is a brand new current generation 4k ethernet model and is plugged in directly to a meraki switch on the network same switch that the cameras are on.

Also to note having no issue viewing camera video walls on remote pc's or on the mobile app on cellular this is just on the Meraki display onsite.

[GIdenJoe]

So you are saying the apple TV that is on the same layer 2 segment as the cameras at that site is having the streaming issue?

Do you have the posibility to mirror traffic on the switches?  You could verify if the network is delivering the traffic to the endpoint (apple TV) by doing a capture in a site that is working and using the wireshark IO graph to check packets per second and bits per second and comparing that to a capture on the problematic site.

[Aquatoes]

Support did the packet capture already and saw no issues. The apple TV is ethernet plugged in in the IT closet directly to the same switch as the cameras.

[GIdenJoe]

Then there is a possibility the problem lies with that specific Apple TV unit.
If possible try with another unit that works with the other cameras and compare the hardware versions and the firmware versions on the AppleTV units if the result is different.

[Hanz]

Hi Aquatoes. Thank you for reporting this problem. We are actively addressing this problem (we think we have identified the issue) and plan to resolve it in the upcoming release.

[Aquatoes]

Thanks Hanz after extensive troubleshooting with Apple support it appears after around 30-90 seconds the Apple TV is sending a TCP RST to all cameras and that is when the freezing occurs. It was determined either a bad Apple TV or an issue with the Meraki Display app. My next step was going to be replacing the Apple TV unless you feel I should hold off. When do we anticipate the app update is coming?

[Hanz]

I recommend holding your Apple TV for 2 weeks. We are on the right track in terms of conducting our root cause analysis. But I cannot guarantee a timeline yet. 

If you cannot wait and can easily replace the Apple TV, feel free to perform this, although I cannot guarantee it will fix the issue.

[Aquatoes]

Thanks Hanz. This is as a client facility who just got 12 Meraki cameras installed. He is pretty upset the display station is not working right out the gate. We will hold off as I don’t feel there is an issue with the Apple TV and thought it was the app from the beginning. By any chance is there a test flight beta option for Meraki Display where we can try rolling back to an old app version like there is on the mobile app? I am wondering if rolling back may resolve this issue as well but I don’t have a test flight invitation for the Meraki Display. 

[Hanz]

Hi Aquatoes - unfortunately we do not offer rolling back versions from TestFlight. This is an active development area - I will update you as soon as the fix is ready to be tested. 

[Aquatoes]

Hey @Hanz any update on this? My client still cannot use his Meraki display app which he paid for as it is still freezing within a minute of turning it on. Any feedback on when we should expect the fix?

[Hanz]

Is it possible to share with me your client's app version, Apple TV hardware SKU, number of cameras on the video wall, camera firmware and whether they are cloud or LAN stream?

[Aquatoes]

@Hanz Apple TV 4K on current firmware 17.1. Plugged in via Ethernet so direct stream. 

original issue cameras freezing on version 1.1.8. 

new app update came out last night for v person 1.1.9 since we updated we can no longer login receiving error “Error fetching video walls session is not authenticated”

this is getting very frustrating and the new issue is worse. 

[Hanz · Accepted solution]

We have discovered an issue with 1.1.9, which prevented camera-only admins from accessing the app. We have withdrawn the app from being available and we are working on a fix immediately. Thank you for the report.

[Aquatoes]

@Hanz 

Hello,

I was able to convert my admin to a full network admin and revoked the camera only admin privilege and we were able to get logged in. I can confirm now that we are logged in that the original issue from 1.1.8 causing the cameras to freeze around 1 minute is no longer happening and the client is happy with this work around until we can get the next update and convert the user back to camera only admin.

 I appreciate the attention to this issue and look forward to a full fix on the next update.

Happy Thanksgiving.

[Aquatoes]

@Hanz just a heads up. At first glance we believed that 1.1.9 had fixed the freezing issue but it just delayed it. We are not consistently freezing after about 5-10 minutes of viewing a video wall. Not sure if we can get this info up to the engineering team for further review to help with a permanent fix on the new update.

[Jedediah_Jumbl]

Was there any definite solution that was determined for this issue?

After setting up some Meraki cameras for one of my locations, and attempting to just use the Vision portal on a computer to have cameras simply display their feeds via one of the video walls we had created for the site, we found that the Organization timeout period was causing the account that was being used to sign in and view those video walls was automatically signing the account out when the timeout period was met, since the computer was not actively being used for anything other than displaying the camera feeds.

We found out about Meraki Display and the use of an Apple TV, so we purchased the licensing for Display, along with an Apple TV and set it all up. While at first it seemed to be a solution, my users at the site are finding that the problem seems to remain. Although it is not going by the Organization timeout, the cameras do appear to "freeze" after about a day. When you try to back out, then select the same or a different video wall, we are being presented with the "error fetching video wall session is not authenticated" message, and being forced to sign in once again, despite the literature on Display indicating that a re-authentication for the account being used should only be necessary once every 30 days.