gstreamer 1.14.5 multiple rtspsrc element pipeline, reconnect individual streams when disconnected via 'C' code

Question

Hello GStreamer community & fans,

I have a working pipeline that connects to multiple H.264 IP camera streams using multiple rtspsrc elements aggregated into a single pipeline for downstream video processing.

Intermittently & randomly, streams coming in from remote & slower connections will have problems, timeout, retry and go dead, leaving that stream with a black image when viewing the streams post processing. The other working streams continue to process normally. The rtspsrc elements are setup to retry the rtsp connection, and that seems to somewhat work, but for when it doesn't, I'm looking for a way to disconnect the stream entirely from the rtspsrc element and restart that particular stream without disrupting the other streams.

I haven't found any obvious examples or ways to accomplish this, so I've been tinkering with the rtspsrc element code itself using this public function to access the rtspsrc internals that handle connecting.

__attribute__ ((visibility ("default"))) GstRTSPResult my_gst_rtspsrc_conninfo_reconnect(GstRTSPSrc *, gboolean);

GstRTSPResult
my_gst_rtspsrc_conninfo_reconnect(GstRTSPSrc *src, gboolean async)
{
    int retries = 0, port = 0;
    char portrange_buff[32];
    // gboolean manual_http;

    GST_ELEMENT_WARNING(src, RESOURCE, READ, (NULL),
            (">>>>>>>>>> Streamer: A camera closed the streaming connection.  Trying to reconnect"));

    gst_rtspsrc_set_state (src, GST_STATE_PAUSED);
    gst_rtspsrc_set_state (src, GST_STATE_READY);
    gst_rtspsrc_flush(src, TRUE, FALSE);
    // manual_http = src->conninfo.connection->manual_http;
    // src->conninfo.connection->manual_http = TRUE;
    gst_rtsp_connection_set_http_mode(src->conninfo.connection, TRUE);
    if (gst_rtsp_conninfo_close(src, &src->conninfo, TRUE) == GST_RTSP_OK)
    {
        memset(portrange_buff, 0, sizeof(portrange_buff));
        g_object_get(G_OBJECT(src), "port-range", portrange_buff, NULL);
        for (retries = 0; portrange_buff[retries] && isdigit(portrange_buff[retries]); retries++)
            port = (port * 10) + ((int)(portrange_buff[retries]) + 48);

        if (port != src->client_port_range.min)
            GST_ELEMENT_WARNING(src, RESOURCE, READ, (NULL), (">>>>>>>>>> Streamer: port range start mismatch"));
        GST_WARNING_OBJECT(src, ">>>>>>>>>> Streamer: old port.min: %d, old port.max: %d, old port-range: %s\n", (src->client_port_range.min), (src->client_port_range.max), (portrange_buff));
        src->client_port_range.min += 6;
        src->client_port_range.max += 6;
        src->next_port_num = src->client_port_range.min;

        memset(portrange_buff, 0, sizeof(portrange_buff));
        sprintf(portrange_buff, "%d-%d", src->client_port_range.min, src->client_port_range.max);
        g_object_set(G_OBJECT(src), "port-range", portrange_buff, NULL);

        for (retries = 0; retries < 5 && gst_rtsp_conninfo_connect(src, &src->conninfo, async) != GST_RTSP_OK; retries++)
            sleep(10);
    }

    if (retries < 5)
    {
        gst_rtspsrc_set_state(src, GST_STATE_PAUSED);
        gst_rtspsrc_set_state(src, GST_STATE_PLAYING);
        return GST_RTSP_OK;
    }
    else return GST_RTSP_ERROR;
}

I realize this is probably not best practice and I'm doing this to find a better way once I understand the internals better through this learning experience.

I appreciate any feedback anyone has to this problem.

-Doug