HD-PVR Stops Responding ~Once/Day

[OldPCGUY]

My HDPVR is hanging 1 a day or once every 2 or 3 days at various times but mostly at night.

Here is a summary of the proposed root causes of the HDPVR lockup problem.

Let's Seperate these into 2 main Categories

1. USB Port is getting Hung
or
2. HDPVR is Locking up


The New SAGE Software is looking for a type 2 failure and will issue 40 or 50 resets but my HDPVR never recovers until I unplug and replug the USB cord. Power cylcling the UNIT will fix it also (Equivalent to restarting USB port). If the USB port is hung and Sage sends 50 resets to the HDPVR then nothing will happen. At that seems to be what is happening in my case.

IF the HDPVR is actually hung then resarting the USB port will not unlock it? But a power cycle will?

Over 90% of my lockups are type 1.

Who is the Culprit? My Best Guess is Windows XP SP3 OS, or Hauppauge Drivers or some other program that causes the Hang.

Sombody is Reccomending an NEC USB PCIE card which may address ISSUE 1.

Can anyone confirm if a Linux User is seeing HDPVR lockups?

[reggie14]

OldPCGUY-

That sounds like my situation before I installed the new v1.5.6.1 whql drivers. I haven't had any HD-PVR lockups ever since.

Other people have had worse luck with the new drivers, but if you're already having problems, what harm could it do? You might has well give it a try if you haven't already.

[Taddeusz]

And make sure you run the installer so that the firmware gets upgraded as well.

[OldPCGUY]

Originally Posted by reggie14

OldPCGUY-

That sounds like my situation before I installed the new v1.5.6.1 whql drivers. I haven't had any HD-PVR lockups ever since.

Other people have had worse luck with the new drivers, but if you're already having problems, what harm could it do? You might has well give it a try if you haven't already.

Thanks, I will, but What I want to do is a USB Power RESET which is the equivalent of USB unplug/plug.

This is exactly what Sage Software should do.

If we could get Sage to implement this then I think 90% of the lockups would get fixed with a 1-2 second interrurption in service.

I am going to take a stab at writing a Python Driver this weekend to do this but I have no experience with USB so I am not sure if it is possible.

Will update this link on Sunday or Monday.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

1. USB Port is getting Hung
Over 90% of my lockups are type 1.

Who is the Culprit?

Do any of your USB hubs have "power saving" enabled ?

[OldPCGUY]

Originally Posted by jerryt

Do any of your USB hubs have "power saving" enabled ?

I am assuming no since I was able to get the whole setup to work for 1 week.

However, I should check this out. My HDPVR is plugged into a MB USB port so where do you check for USB power saving mode in XP?

Kind Regards,

[OldPCGUY]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

I am assuming no since I was able to get the whole setup to work for 1 week.

However, I should check this out. My HDPVR is plugged into a MB USB port so where do you check for USB power saving mode in XP?

Kind Regards,

Just checked my pc at work and looking under Device Manager/Universal Serial Bus Controls

There are four USB Root HUB (right click for Properties)
Click on Power Management Tab and uncheck 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power'

[jerryt]

I tried restarting the HD-PVR with devcon command prompt and it is a no go. States "Device(s) require a restart to complete the operation".

Maybe I am confusing the device and USB port ???

Tried to reproduce HD-PVR lockups by removing power from either the STB or the HD-PVR, In either case the HD-PVR recovers in a few minutes. Sage does not recover and CPU goes very high, but I am running 6.4.8.184

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

Let's Seperate these into 2 main Categories

1. USB Port is getting Hung
or
2. HDPVR is Locking up

If the USB Port is getting hung, then rebooting your system would fix the problem, no? When my units hung, rebooting wouldn't help unless I also power cycled the HD-PVR.

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by eric3a

Not in my case. 3 RMAs all failed in similar fashion (audio getting more and more out of sync until lock up at minute 50 of a recording).
And now without any further hardware change, the very units that used to lockup have been stable for 2 weeks after a simple driver downgrade. To a driver I had already tried before.

Eric

Glad it's working for you Eric. However, I don't believe your issue was the typical HD-PVR lockup. Certainly not what I had.. it would lock-up randomly and had nothing to with audio getting out of sync and certainly was not predictable ala exactly at minute 50.

If the issue is strictly a software/driver issue, then rebooting the system would fix it. But the HD-PVR stays locked up until you power-cycle the device itself. This is indicative of a hardware, not a software/driver issue.

Also, the fact that Hauppauge doesn't hesitate to RMA units (I'll give them credit for that much at least) also tells me there's a lot of bad hardware out there. If it were all driver related, they'd have a pretty big economic incentive to fix it and just refer the user to the latest drivers. But they don't do that (at least didn't for my three RMAs).

I'm not sure if I should love Hauppauge for making the HD-PVR available or hate them for not coming out and help many of their users end the suffering. I guess I should like them since my system is working great now, and the pain of the 6-9 months of suffering and frustration is starting to fade.

I'm shocked that there are no competitors to the HD-PVR out there ~1.5 years after release, but that's another topic.

[eric3a]

If the issue is strictly a software/driver issue, then rebooting the system would fix it. But the HD-PVR stays locked up until you power-cycle the device itself. This is indicative of a hardware, not a software/driver issue.

Not sure I can agree with that logic. The drivers of the HDPVRs do not appear to only install on the computer.

Instead the HDPVR driver intalls appear to be flashing/modifying the firmware of the unit. If the firmware of the HDPVR is poorly coded, or if didn't install correctly because the installer is poorly coded and as a result the firmware is corrupted, then what you might end up with is an HDPVR software failure. A simple reset of the unit makes it work again.

There is plenty of stand-alone electronic equipment that needs the occasional reset to work properly. So a need for reset isn't a necessary indication of hardware failure.

Also, if only the hardware was at fault, why would my units now work? They are the same that used to fail regularly. Did the hardware repair itself?
The only change has been a downgrade of driver. I think the more likely reason they work now is that the units' firmware installed correctly this time or is one that works better with my Dish receiver.

Would 3 successive units with different revision numbers ALL have the same hardware fault? Unlikely in my opinion. So it points to firmware/driver problems I believe.

It could be that more recent drivers use portion of the hardware that is faulty when the earlier version do not, but I do not believe that to be the case.

Reading the various posts, there appear to be plenty of people who reported issues similar to mine (gradual loss of audio synch until failure). I had a couple people report lock-ups at set times also on the Snapstream forum.

I believe Hauppauge take RMAs easily because they know nothing is wrong with their hardware, and they can easily reflash the firmware in-house and loose very little in the process while keeping customers happy.
I believe your RMA return to Hauppauge is my newly re-flashed RMA return from them!

Eric

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by eric3a

Reading the various posts, there appear to be plenty of people who reported issues similar to mine (gradual loss of audio synch until failure). I had a couple people report lock-ups at set times also on the Snapstream forum.

Eric

That was exactly my issue with the latest 1.5.6 and 1.5.6.1 versions. I'm recording analog audio from a Dish VIP211k STB. Some channels would record fine, but others would start off OK, but quickly the audio would get out of sync. This would become worse until the audio even started to click (almost like some sort of buffering was going on, but because the sync was so far off, it was cutting off the last portion of bufffered audio - that probably isn't right, but that is how I would discribe it). Eventually the recording would fail completely if it recorded long enough. Sometimes it was at the end of a 1 hour recording, so it didn't take that long.

Switching back to 1.0.503 version seems to fix all those issues.

[ewelin]

I think I'm going ot try 1.0.5.301 again... had 3 days with random lockups throughout the day, then today it went back to the 12:01 lockup. It's random which device locks up, but one or the other seems to do it atleast once a day.

Those running 1.0.5.301, are you running working versions of TME as well? I use it for local debugging, but the version I have on my CD does not work with the drivers prior to 1.5.6

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by ewelin

Those running 1.0.5.301, are you running working versions of TME as well?

Yes, the TME version on my original CD works with the drivers 1.0.5.301. I believe it is the first CD release.

[ewelin]

weird, guess i'll give it another shot. I have the org. cd downloaded from here:
http://www.shspvr.com/ftp/download/wintv-hdpvr/

hopefully it'll change something this time around.

[ewelin]

Just downgraded to 1.0.5.301 and the version of MTE on that link i provided doesn't work with it. I may be upgrading to 1.5.6 as recordings go about 2-5 minutes before there is a blip and the file is split. This is a new issue that makes it hard to watch live tv.

[jerryt]

@ Ewelin
Check your PM

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

Thanks, I will, but What I want to do is a USB Power RESET which is the equivalent of USB unplug/plug.

This is exactly what Sage Software should do.

Interesting idea. Next time my HD-PVR crashes I'll see if simply unplugging and plugging back in the USB cable fixes it. I've always just turned off and back on the HD-PVR.

If that really brings the HD-PVR back up, and if an application can actually force a USB power reset, that seems like a really good way of dealing with HD-PVR crashes. I'm not sure Sage always detects HD-PVR crashes though. I sometimes see the resets in the system messages, but often my HD-PVR would lock up and I wouldn't see anything about it in the system messages.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by reggie14

if an application can actually force a USB power reset, that seems like a really good way of dealing with HD-PVR crashes.

I tried creating a HD-PVR lockup and then restarting the HD-PVR or USB hub with Devcon batch file. but I can not get past the windows warning "Device(s) require a restart to complete the operation". It may be that I have to stop any service (Sage) which is access those devices first.

It would appear to not be a real lockup I am creating because the HD-PVR is always recovering after a few minutes.

[eric3a]

That was exactly my issue with the latest 1.5.6 and 1.5.6.1 versions. I'm recording analog audio from a Dish VIP211k STB.

Same issues and same Dish network receivers too!
Not a coincidence, and points even more to a driver issue.

Eric