HD Extender video playback freezes when another client connects

[mattsm]

I am seeing a problem where the HD Extender freezes and sometimes cannot even play back the video anymore (sometimes it jerks and catches back up and freezes again) once another SageClient or a Placeshifter connects. Has anyone else seen a similar issue?

Thanks,
Matthew

[DualQuad]

Matthew,
I have not noticed this issue on my setup. I have tried with placeshifter and multiple HD extenders and have seen no weird behavior upon connect.

Have you verified the throughput at the server? Does transferring data from the server while the HD extender is active cause issues?

DQ

[mattsm]

Originally Posted by DualQuad

Matthew,
I have not noticed this issue on my setup. I have tried with placeshifter and multiple HD extenders and have seen no weird behavior upon connect.

Have you verified the throughput at the server? Does transferring data from the server while the HD extender is active cause issues?

DQ

I have done limited monitor so far, but I the network looks like this:

Gigabit Rotuer (DIR-655)
-> SageTV Server (gigabit)
-> SageClient (gigabit)
-> HD Extender
-> HDHomerun

That seems like a typical setup and with the two actual computers being gigabit, I don't think it would present any bandwidth issues. I have all my QoS and "special" stuff turn off on the router so it should not be causing a problem.

But without fail the instance I connect anything else to the SageTV server (over the network only, from the server machine it works fine) the HD Extender starts exhibiting weirdness (freezing, jerkyness) and even the other client on the network can cause problems.

-Matthew

EDIT: I am also running Vista on the server if that might be causing problems. XP on the client.

[mattsm]

sorry but.... bump.

[bcjenkins]

Vista server? Are you running the RC1 for SP1? That seemed to clear up MVP issues for a few people. If not, make sure you turn off Vista's media qos features. http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27350

B

[mattsm]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Vista server? Are you running the RC1 for SP1? That seemed to clear up MVP issues for a few people. If not, make sure you turn off Vista's media qos features. http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27350

B

Ahh, I forgot about the QoS on Vista itself. I will give that a try and report back if it works.

Thanks,
Matthew

[mattsm]

Originally Posted by mattsm

Ahh, I forgot about the QoS on Vista itself. I will give that a try and report back if it works.

Thanks,
Matthew

I can report back those both turning off the QoS and disabling that service did not solve the problem. I guess I will try reverting back to XP before I blame this on Sage....

*sigh*

-M

[mattsm]

Originally Posted by mattsm

I can report back those both turning off the QoS and disabling that service did not solve the problem. I guess I will try reverting back to XP before I blame this on Sage....

*sigh*

-M

And finally, to reply to myself one last time...

I downgraded to XP and everything is working quite well now.

-M

[bcjenkins]

interesting. you were using vista as a server? I use it as a client with no issues.

B

[carlgar]

I am using Vista Home Premium Service Pack 1, v.668 as the server. There are issues using the HD extender with Vista. While I have not seen the above issue, I have seen the HD extender just freeze for no apparent reason. Sage support has verified that it is the same issue that the MVP extender has with Vista. If you have logging enabled you can search for Vista and probably will find something like:
Fri 12/28 22:23:26.230 [Pusher@2884e0] Socket timeout on Vista...trying to workaround Vista TCP bug...
Fri 12/28 22:23:29.625 [Pusher@2884e0] Error with MiniPlayer, closing UI: java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Read timed out
Fri 12/28 22:23:29.626 [Pusher@2884e0] pushBuffer call failed; terminating push loop
Fri 12/28 22:23:29.627 [Thread-5695@fe6b85] Killing UIMgr UIManager:localhost@@00085c53a3b1-133f081
Fri 12/28 22:23:29.627 [Thread-5695@fe6b85] Killed UI Timers
Fri 12/28 22:23:29.627 [Thread-5695@fe6b85] stopPush0()
Fri 12/28 22:23:29.628 [Thread-5695@fe6b85] java.net.SocketException: Connection reset by peer: socket write error
Fri 12/28 22:23:29.629 [Thread-5695@fe6b85] Closing down MiniPlayer
Fri 12/28 22:23:29.629 [Thread-5695@fe6b85] closeDriver0()
Fri 12/28 22:23:29.629 [Thread-5695@fe6b85] java.net.SocketException: Connection reset by peer: socket write error

The only suggestion from support so far is:
You can try setting this property in the Sage.properties to help with the issue: ui/remote_ui_connection_timeout=60000
Then it should only hang and then recover instead of disconnecting when the problem occurs.

I just set that value last night and have not encounted the problem yet.

BTW: this morning out of frustration while on the Microsoft web site I entered "Vista stinks" and got 968 hits.

[mattsm]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

interesting. you were using vista as a server? I use it as a client with no issues.

B

Yea I was using Vista as the server. I've used it successfully as the client. I think Vista networking is so screwed up it can't handle the bandwidth when running as the server.

-M