Lockups with 2.2 and a WinTV 350

[Blackwell15]

Sage 2.1
XP MCE
Intel PIII 1000 Mhz.
Asus Cusl2 Intel 815 Chipset
384 Meg memory
PVR350 using tv out, local disabled. UI out.


I have been searching the threads on this issue. Now that I'm "done" with my system I would like to troubleshoot this problem in an organized manner.

We all know how hard it can be to seperate the software, hardware, driver issues. Im not a software or hardware expert.

Yea.. the heatsink on the 350 is hot. I have my case open and since its still cold here ambient temp is low enough to keep the thing cool, I plan on monitoring the heat sink temp with a DVM/temp probe once I get that set up.
If anyone has done this please post your findings.

After running Sage for ~20 hours, recording 3 programs.. then watching each recording:
1. At the end of each recording Sage "locks up". It responds to remote or mouse commands very slowly. Checking the system cpu utilization shows that the "system" process is using 99% of the CPU.

2. If your patient enough to get Sage pointed to a new recording and play it
it will start and after a few seconds CPU drops back to 0 and its back to normal.

3. On the 3rd trial.. I switched the Sage priority to "High". This let Sage respond to commands at normal speed. Playing back another recording or
watching live TV had the same results.. CPU util. drops back to normal and Sage is off and running again without restarting.

I was hoping to get some info out of the system event log but its not monitoring anything thats giving any errors. The java console appears to be oriented to the web browser so its no help either. If anyone has any tips on monitoring whats happening I would appreciate hearing them
If anyone can recomend 3 party monitoring software for XP that would be great too.

I also did a lot of "skipping" back and forwards. no problems there yet.
So is this the "EOF" problem? Sounds like it.

Thanks
Blackwell

[alijiwani]

Originally Posted by Blackwell15

After running Sage for ~20 hours, recording 3 programs.. then watching each recording:
1. At the end of each recording Sage "locks up". It responds to remote or mouse commands very slowly. Checking the system cpu utilization shows that the "system" process is using 99% of the CPU.

2. If your patient enough to get Sage pointed to a new recording and play it
it will start and after a few seconds CPU drops back to 0 and its back to normal.

I am running v3 of the 350 on a PIII600 machine in the same config as you. However, at the end of a file, the system becomes a little sluggish, but will respond to the menu asking to Delete after oh..maybe an additional second or two.

It seems that the EOF bug most are talking about has to do with a more permanent lockup of the system, though I stand to be corrected.

The one thing I cannot explain is why the SageUI stops responding to the remote after a while. I have to walk up to the hidden keyboard, press the up or down key and suddenly the remote works again.

Also, yes the card gets very hot in this mode, but a decent cardslot exhaust fan can pull enough air to keep it cool. My sagebox has been running straight for 2 days 5 1/2 hours without any problems other than the bizarre remote one above.

Also, to anyone else reading this post..is it possible for us to create a 350 specific forum?

[bartley9]

Yes this is the 350 eof problem.

It doesn't occur when watching live tv as it never ends.

Sage becomes sluggish as the system task is consuming 100% CPU.

If you can press STOP it clears it self. Some people report that suspend also works, this may do a STOP internally.

FF and REW do not cause a problem as they are both supplying data to the card. The card odes not care if it is logically out of sequence, provided it can locate key frames.

I suspect that the problem lies between Sage and the driver.

[Guess]
sage dumps data into a buffer which the card reads from.(Like a CD burner)
At eof, sage stops dumping data but the card keeps reading it and causes the loop.
Pressing STOP tells sage to tell the card there is no more data, as does standby. This causes the card to stop looping.
If sage would tell the card to stop reading data at eof the problem would go away.
[/Guess]

Anyone care to shoot me down.

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by alijiwani

It seems that the EOF bug most are talking about has to do with a more permanent lockup of the system, though I stand to be corrected.

This also what I believe the EOF bug to be. As I have previously stated I believe the EOF bug currently only occurs on AMD systems. I di encounter it on this system when I first got it. At that time if I played a file to the end the system would lock up and required a reboot to regain control. The EOF bug was fixed for me several months after I reported the bug by a new driver from Hauppauge.

The "system" task problem I consider to be a operating system issue, no OS should use 100% CPU for several minutes at a time. I have seen the system task use 100% of the CPU anywhere from a few seconds to over a half hour. I believe it appears to occur at the end of program because Sage stops using a lot of resources at that time causing the "system" task to start doing whatever it is doing. I believe the apparent hung of SageTV is because it is unable to get enough resouces to start playing the next program. The "sytem" task does not seen to effect any of the other programs that I use, which is why I believe it is a resource type use. I only saw this issue when I ran with Hyper-threading turned off. Since I have Turn HT on, I have not seen any problems with the system task.

The current problem of the 350 video locking up and then restarting after a certain period of time or number of SageTV sleeps, appears to be a chipset or CPU speed related. I believe speed related is the most likely suspect from the way the bug behaves and my programming exprience. I think some code has a criticalal region of code that is not properly protected. The fast the CPU the more likely that critical region will be hit at the wrong time. This problem occurs most of the time when skipping forward or backward but I have seen it occur without any skipping. It also seems to occur much more since I have been running with HT turned on, which reinforces my speed related theory.

[Crashless]

My EOF crashes manifest themselves as hard resets of the system.

I'm running a Asus A7N8X mb, and 2600+.

This problem is _relatively_ new as it didn't occur the first half of last year, and only started happening to me the last quarter of 2004 or so. The good news is that I no longer have problems DURING shows, so if I have a quick finger on the pause button, my system will basically run forever.

It's those damn shows that are offset by a minute that screw me though....

[byopvr]

me: *stands* Hello, my name is rampy.. *gulp* and I have a pvr350/sageTV stability problem...

everyone: Hi rampy!



Just wanted to chime in and join the support group, btw... where are the donuts?

Although it's not a panacea for everyone, have those of you with the EOF issue, tried to DISABLE Hardware Decoding Only in Detailed Setup -->multimedia? It's my understanding that this helps some people with this issue (like the software decoding "touch" of the file somehow jiggles the handle so to speak, so SageTV doesn't get stuck in a loop).

FWIW: I'm running SageTV 2.1.x, on a VIA EPIA M10000, Windows XP home, PVR350 (latest driver CD via shs's forum), JRE 1.5u2 (?), 256MB or ram, PCI slot cooler fan next to pvr350 card. I've tried it both as service mode and "stand alone" mode, and not sure what mode I'm at now after flip flopping a few times =)

my previous thread looking for the lowest cpu intense software decoder

I'd be interested in seeing if enabling software encoding (i.e. disable HW decode only) in the background helps any of the people in this thread with their EOF issues. I know crashless has stated previously the setting doesn't help him... but i've heard of other people that its helped.

*shrug*

rampy

[carlgar]

byopvr,
Have you seen he following paragraph on the Hauppauge Driver page very near the bottom?

VIA 4-in-1 driver update will often fix compatibility problems with the WinTV.
This driver is suitable for all VIA chipsets using Windows 95, 98, 98SE, NT, 2000, XP
This driver will install the VIA: - IDE Busmaster (2.1.41 or higher) - VIA AGP 3.55 - IRQ Routing Driver (1.3a or higher) - VIA Registry (ACPI). Also included is the VIA DMA Tool which facilitates the adjustment of DMA settings. The 4-in-1 Driver will automatically detect which versions of drivers you are currently using as well as determine the necessity to upgrade.

[byopvr]

Originally Posted by carlgar

byopvr,
Have you seen he following paragraph on the Hauppauge Driver page very near the bottom?

Thanks Carlgar, I had seen that previously and have made it a point to update my 4-in-1's semi-frequently ( I *do* need to do the latest bios update and video chip driver for the m10k but don't feel like digging out a floppy )

although that paragraph seems to point to WinTV incompatibility, meaning the included software...

rampy

[Blackwell15]

Originally Posted by Crashless

My EOF crashes manifest themselves as hard resets of the system.

I'm running a Asus A7N8X mb, and 2600+.

This problem is _relatively_ new as it didn't occur the first half of last year, and only started happening to me the last quarter of 2004 or so. The good news is that I no longer have problems DURING shows, so if I have a quick finger on the pause button, my system will basically run forever.

It's those damn shows that are offset by a minute that screw me though....

Just curious if you made any other changes or updates to Sage or PVRT drivers when the lockup's started?
thanks
Blackwell

[Crashless]

Yeah, but I can't remember what it was.

I was having middle-of-show soft-crashes for some time, then suddenly it switched to EOF problems. But it's possible I was having the EOF problems all along, but never got to them because I was having problems during the shows. I had been looking at driver revisions and every SageTV beta release as soon as I could, so I don't remember what made it start actually restarting the computer. That, as I mentioned, is a new development.

FWIW, I really prefer the current behavior to the crashing when I was doing nothing. At least now I can control it a little.

I've heard all kinds of fixes suggested, but I just haven't had time lately to work on the thing. Moving, coupled with taxes, and finishing new furniture has really taken me out of the loop.

I hope to be back on track after the 15th, and I'll of course, post my findings.

[laurenglenn]

Originally Posted by byopvr

I'd be interested in seeing if enabling software encoding (i.e. disable HW decode only) in the background helps any of the people in this thread with their EOF issues. I know crashless has stated previously the setting doesn't help him... but i've heard of other people that its helped.

*shrug*

rampy

Guys... I've tried sooooo many ways to fix the PVR lockup problem in Sage with my STV. The bottom line is that if you have the EOF lockup happen to you, it generally only happens when you're playing back a recorded file or library file and it hits the end. It won't crash that often (if at all) when you watch LiveTV and it has another show to jump to.

It has something to do with the buffer running out and then some kind of null pointer thing.

I used to tell Sage to stop playback early (10 seconds or so) just so it didn't lock up. If I told Sage to stop within 5 seconds of the end, it would be in the buffer and would crash soon after. Try my STV and see if it crashes with your PVR 350. The older versions were made when I had a PVR 350, and the newer ones run off my TV out on my nVidia FX5200 (in overlay mode) because I got tired of constant crashes.

Lauren

[mayamaniac]

Does anyone know if the 350 has the same problems in WinTV 2000 (the PVR software that came with the card)? I remember running it with WinTV once before I tried it with Sage and it ran fine for 15-30 minutes. Just wanna rule out whether its a hardware problem or software problem.

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

Does anyone know if the 350 has the same problems in WinTV 2000 (the PVR software that came with the card)? I remember running it with WinTV once before I tried it with Sage and it ran fine for 15-30 minutes. Just wanna rule out whether its a hardware problem or software problem.

I've personally never even double clicked the program, so I don't know.

But AFAIK, it doesn't output a GUI through the 350, only the video. You can turn off the GUI in sage, but that defeats the purpose of the thing in my mind.

lauren, still haven't had time to really test your STV since we last spoke. But will tonight. Sorry I forgot to mention your work, I've been scatter-brained lately and I apologise.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by Crashless

But AFAIK, it doesn't output a GUI through the 350, only the video. You can turn off the GUI in sage, but that defeats the purpose of the thing in my mind.

So are you saying that if you run SageTV without the GUI thru the 350, then it won't have any problems freezing?

[byopvr]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

So are you saying that if you run SageTV without the GUI thru the 350, then it won't have any problems freezing?

In the past that has been my experience for what it's worth (although as previously noted: this makes it kinda useless) but I haven't tested it recently or deliberately trying to invoke EOF sans gui...

It would be interesting as well to see if it happens in wintv2000 (there IS an option to enable pvr350 tv out through wintv2000, btw) although wintv2000 doesn't lend itself to being on all the time, but could certainly playback a few files all the way to the end.

*shrug*

rampy

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by byopvr

although wintv2000 doesn't lend itself to being on all the time, but could certainly playback a few files all the way to the end.

I remember reading somewhere that WinTV2000 actually does not play a file to the end. It stops maybe 5 or 10 seconds before the video ends. So maybe this is Hauppauge's way of dealing with it. Maybe Sage can do the same thing or have a setting to make it stop playback before the video ends.

As for freezes with SageTV GUI enabled, then we can narrow the problem to there to fix freezes during skipping also.

[cummings66]

For what it's worth, the EOF bug does not affect me when using the WinTV app, but it does in Sage. All the other problems exist with WinTV as well.

Referring back to a previous post that said Intel Chipsets cause the problem, I seem to recall it was the Intel Chipset that was most likely to work with it, not the other way around.

Of course no official data exists.

How about a thread that says Yes, I have a PVR 350 using an intel chipset and it doesn't work. There has been no thread or poll to that end and I think it might be useful to do one.

I've always believed there has got to be a chipset the 350 likes and everything works under it.

Too start off I have an ASUS P4PE MB with the P4 2.4 Gig CPU (no hyperthreading) based on the 845PE chipset and it has numberous problems with the 350. The system is solid with everything else.

[byopvr]

Originally Posted by cummings66

For what it's worth, the EOF bug does not affect me when using the WinTV app, but it does in Sage.

Thanks for checking/verifying. Although will we ever know if it it's truely immune or just clever (i.e. automagically stops X amount of seconds before EOF)

All the other problems exist with WinTV as well.

Dare I ask, what other problems?

This is such a tough thing to nail down... so many variables and conflicting anecdotal data points. I'm pretty sure if I stand on one foot, face southwest, and rub my tummy at the same time it won't crash =P (actually it's been pretty solid as of late *knock on wood*, although I had a brief loss of power that restarted the machine yesterday so I have to reset the uptime counter)

rampy

[cummings66]

Well to name 2 that I've had. OSD lockups and audio sync problems when using the hardware decoder.

You could say a problem is the heat generation as well, i.e. many of us use fans to keep the thing cool. They know it runs hot, in fact they suggested to me to buy a fan to cool it. That being the case, why don't they just put one on the heatsink themselves and insure it's right?

Many of the problems result in either the card locking up, or the computer locking up.

[byopvr]

I've done some more testing... nothing too scientific... but I thought I'd share...

1. enabling software decoding (i.e. disabling hardware decoding only) doesn't "solve" the EOF bug, but it DOES seem to help my overall system stability/uptime.

2. I've found that disabling video on menus (i forgot the setting, but i think it was "view video with menus" to NEVER) and that helps too for some reason.

I had a few other thoughts but they've escaped me... *sigh*

I'm thinking about putting together a testing grid, where we could systematically test certain conditions/options...

rampy