HD-PVR Stops Responding ~Once/Day

[briands]

So, what drivers are you guys using?

Originally Posted by joe123

Yes, the newer HD-PVR drivers never worked for me on my old setup. I have not tried the new HD-PVR drivers on my new PVR. Like you, I am using the older HD-PVR drivers.

Some times I wonder if the HD-PVR is so picky that it boderlines on working / Not working with certain hardware setups. This would explain all of the mysteries that we see here.

With my old setup, I was always able to get the HD-PVR to skip recording ( ~1-2 second skips in the recordings ) by simply lightly taxing the PVR system. The top blue light on the HD-PVR would go off and then back on again while recording. The light going off meant a skip on the recording, so we would see skips when watching. I was ALWAYS able to re-produce this problem with the HD-PVR.

With my new setup, I cannot get this to happen - I watch the blue light and it never goes out while recording and having the system maxed out to the fullest. The worse I have seen in rare occasions is a short fraction of a second of garble, but no skips and the garbles happen during the times I was maxing out the system stress testing it while recording.

[jerryt]

1.0.5.301

[joe123]

Originally Posted by briands

So, what drivers are you guys using?

The one that seems to be stable and that I am using is 1.0.5.301.

[sportera]

Aha...

I'm using 1.5.6.1, which is the one that came with my E1. I tried to revert to 1.0.5.301 sometime back and had problems. Forget what they were now but seem to remember that I could find the driver but not the CD that had the install software and version of TME that supported setup of the driver.

Maybe I need to look back into this again before I buy a new hardware setup and start divorce proceedings. If anyone remembers a good link to help me do it successfully this time, please forward or send private message.

[Taddeusz]

Yea, I've been using 1.5.6.1 and I recently tried going back to 1.0.5.301. I ended up with files that had little glitches in them. The latest drivers work perfectly.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by sportera

I could find the driver but not the CD that had the install software and version of TME that supported setup of the driver.

If anyone remembers a good link to help me do it successfully this time, please forward or send private message.

Link to original CD for use wth 1.0.5.301 drivers sent by PM.

[Hunter69]

I figured I would join in on this conversation because for the past couple weeks I been having some serious freezing issues and daily errors. Here is an example of a error I seem to be getting daily:

Sun May 09 02:53:56 GMT-600 2010 - Halt Detected in Recording
The device input "Hauppauge HD PVR Capture Device #2 Component" stopped producing data while recording "Paid Programming" on HGTVD on physical channel 756. SageTV will try to reset the device. This may be caused by a channel that is no longer available.
I am getting this issue for my HD-PVR's and HDhomerun. I kept thinking the problem was comskip but this did not make sense since my server is a 2.4 ghz quad core with 4 gig a ram. When comskip is running the server is averaging 30% cpu usage. I have also been experiencing freezing while watching live tv and recored tv (which I have been experiencing these problems until recently). So on to my question. Could these type of errors and freezing issues be caused by Java. This is why I ask.

I wanted to upgrade to the Clowndb. This required a Java upgrade. So I stopped the sagetv service upgraded to the most up to date version of sun java. I started the sagetv service. Prior to this change I had the Java heap size set to 1024, with no issues.

After this upgrade:
I started receiving a java error when logging onto the server. I can resolved this error by reducing the java heap size to 512 (which I never had to do until I upgraded the java). It seems to me this is when the freezing issues began. Now I am receiving the above stated error's on a daily basis. This problem is actually making the sage recordings almost unwatchable.

So could my problems stem from this java issue? If so what is the best way to fix a java issue without destroying sage? One other change I made was: I was having the freezing issues so I decided to look at my whs pool to see how much disk space I had. I actually had a lot of space but the disks were balanced and at around 85%. So I got another 1.5 tb disk and added it to the pool. When this was all setup I followed the instructions to place the recording to the pool. So could adding this drive affect the setup that was originally odne to put the sage recording to the whs pool?

Thanks
Bill

[joe123]

Originally Posted by Hunter69

So could adding this drive affect the setup that was originally odne to put the sage recording to the whs pool?

Let me guess, a Seagate 1.5TB disk?

A while back I added a Seagate 1.5TB disk and it was bad. Formated ok, no real errors, but I kept hearing a clicking sound - enough to stop things for a few seconds. This translated to the HD-PVR red icon showing up with Halt detected in recordings.

I RMA the drive and at that time, that fixed those problems ( had other red icons, but that's a different story).

[joe123]

Originally Posted by sportera

Aha...

I'm using 1.5.6.1, which is the one that came with my E1. I tried to revert to 1.0.5.301 sometime back and had problems. Forget what they were now but seem to remember that I could find the driver but not the CD that had the install software and version of TME that supported setup of the driver.

Maybe I need to look back into this again before I buy a new hardware setup and start divorce proceedings. If anyone remembers a good link to help me do it successfully this time, please forward or send private message.

User sic0048 wrote some really nice steps to get the HD-PVR drivers installed fresh and the steps to take.

[Hunter69]

Originally Posted by joe123

Let me guess, a Seagate 1.5TB disk?

A while back I added a Seagate 1.5TB disk and it was bad. Formated ok, no real errors, but I kept hearing a clicking sound - enough to stop things for a few seconds. This translated to the HD-PVR red icon showing up with Halt detected in recordings.

I RMA the drive and at that time, that fixed those problems ( had other red icons, but that's a different story).

It is a wd 1.5tb green disk. This disk upgrade did start because I started experiencing freezing, so I thought is was because my disks were to full. So now I am wondering if one of the disks in the pool is having problems? Now I am tempted to remove the disk I just added to the pool and set it up as my recording share. I am only experiencing the freezing with the recorded and live tv, not blurays or dvd's. Any ideas with that new bit of info?

[heffneil]

I hate to be OT but an you guys let me know what type of a delay you are seeing with your HD PVR? I was trying to change menu settings and the only way I had to watch was via sage. It seemed to be a 9 second + delay so I wanted to know if that is normal? Changing channels takes a long time too. It isn't USB-UIRT related because I was using the buttons on the front of the box when experiencing this delay!

Thanks,

Neil

[joe123]

Originally Posted by Hunter69

Now I am tempted to remove the disk I just added to the pool and set it up as my recording share. I am only experiencing the freezing with the recorded and live tv, not blurays or dvd's. Any ideas with that new bit of info?

Try to see if there is a pattern. So when you are having the freezings, check and see if it happens to always be on the same drive? If so, the easy way to confirm this is to tell SageTV not to record on that drive anymore and then see if the freezings go away.

Note that you may have more than one drive failing, so the trick is to see if the freezings happen with one all the drives, or with a selected few (or one drive).

[Hunter69]

Try to see if there is a pattern. So when you are having the freezings, check and see if it happens to always be on the same drive? If so, the easy way to confirm this is to tell SageTV not to record on that drive anymore and then see if the freezings go away.

Note that you may have more than one drive failing, so the trick is to see if the freezings happen with one all the drives, or with a selected few (or one drive)

This is the difficulty of WHS. Drive pooling does not allow me to know where a file is located. I did hear ticking out of a drive but with 4 disks in there I am guessing which drive was making the noise. So I am currently removing one of the drives from the pool to see if my guess is correct. In the pool I have 4 1.5 tb drives and a 400 gig drive. 3 1.5 tb seagate drives, 1 1.5tb wd green drive and 1 400 gig wd drive. I am pretty sure that this could be one of the seagate drives causing me problems. This is going to be a long process figuring out which drive causing problems. Right now WHS is not reporting a drive problem but this freezing states other wise. I hope I get this correct the first time!

Bill

[joe123]

Originally Posted by Hunter69

I am pretty sure that this could be one of the seagate drives causing me problems. This is going to be a long process figuring out which drive causing problems.

Try the Seagate drives first. There are known problems with Seagate Drives Click of Death

[Hunter69]

So I watched the hd activity form the whs console. I figured out which one was hosting the recording share. Last night is removed the drive. This morning I am watching something recorded last night and no freezing , so far. So I will continue to test to make sure the freezing is gone.

[sportera]

Hey,

So far, I haven't had a lockup yet since upgrading to Sage v7. The list of release notes said something about finding a workaround for the HD-PVR. Looks good so far.

Here's keeping my fingers crossed....

[davephan]

I've had a couple HD-PVR system haults after version 7. I recycled the power on the HD-PVR and am monitoring it now for any more problems.

I've already deployed most of the modifications except the fan and autopower cycling.

Dave

[briands]

Originally Posted by davephan

I've had a couple HD-PVR system haults after version 7. I recycled the power on the HD-PVR and am monitoring it now for any more problems.

I've already deployed most of the modifications except the fan and autopower cycling.

Dave

Same here... I added a post over in the Beta forum and will submit a bug ticket today as well.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by davephan

I've had a couple HD-PVR system haults after version 7. I recycled the power on the HD-PVR and am monitoring it now for any more problems.

Dave, on your headless server, are you running SageTVService.exe and SageTV.exe, or SageTVService.exe only?

[davephan]

Originally Posted by joe123

Dave, on your headless server, are you running SageTVService.exe and SageTV.exe, or SageTVService.exe only?

I always run the SageTV service, but sometimes I also run the SageTV application. I SageTV application was running on the SageTV computer. I don't know if that causes the HD-PVR to become unstable. I tried shutting off the SageTV application on the SageTV service, since it runs headless. I normally use two HD-200 extenders.

Dave