Home Server / HD-PVR Woes

[TR3 Driver]

Good Morning and apologies for the length of this post. I'll try to make it as brief as possible. My system has been up and running without serious problems for over a year. Sage is on WHS with 2 HDHR for over the air and clear QAM. I have (had) one HD-PVR attached to a DCT6200 Comcast box for encrypted cable. About 2 weeks ago, I started getting error messages regarding capture errors on the HD-PVR. Then it just disappeared from Sage.

I tried the typical rebooting of the unit and the server, but it refused to be found. I ran HCW Clear and re-installed drivers. I uninstalled Sage and tried to install the HD-PVR without Sage there. I swapped the USB cable and power supplies to rule them out, I tried another HD-PVR that I had on the shelf, again swapping cables, etc. to rule out any problems there. No joy. I tried all of the USB ports on the server and got the same result. I installed a pci usb card and got the same results. Other USB devices (flash drive, wireless mouse, external hard drive) can all be attached to the server and work as expected. Only the HD-PVR's don't work. If I attach either of the HD-PVR's to my XP computer, they are immediately recognized.

I did a complete reinstall of the Home Server OS (no fun, but no loss of data), made sure all bios and motherboard drivers were up to date, and when I first attached the HD-PVR it was detected and the drivers loaded. Hallelujah!! Unfortunately, that only lasted a few hours and the unit disappeared again. Now it just sits there and the blue light flashed quickly every 4 or 5 seconds. Hauppage offers no help because they don't support WHS. I have tried about everything I can think of. Does anyone out there have any suggestions?

Thanks for listening.

[wayner]

Given the fact that many people (however not me) have reliability issues with the HD-PVR it is most likely a faulty unit.

Can you try plugging in the HD-PVR to another PC running another OS - like Win7 or XP and see if you have the same problems. If you do then that would pretty much confirm the issues. You could always download Sage and run the trial version on another PC or you could just run the Arcsoft software first.

By the way, I had similar, although more minor issues with Sage on WHS in the past. I would get capture error messages. I also rebuilt my server as I suspected a bad system drive. But I had other issues with the reinstalled system and I have moved away from WHS and now run my server on Win7. A lot of people are able to run Sage on WHS without problems but after several months I had problems twice so I gave up. I also HATED the fact that you couldn't do a quick restore of the system drive on WHS. So I still run a WHS server for backing up my PCs, etc and I mirror my media files between my Sage server and WHS. It is not ideal as it means two servers running 24x7 but I have a higher degree of redundancy this way and I am going to try to get Sage running on the WHS once again so that I always have a "hot" backup Sage server available.

[Chriscic]

Think you missed some of his background; his other PC recognized the HD-PVR just fine and he even tried a second HD-PVR and that doesn't work on his server either. So it's not a faulty unit (or extremely unlikely).

I'll think about this one... I don't see an obvious solution. As have many, I've run HD-PVRs successfully on my WHS box. Many lock-ups, but that's a different story. Anyway, I don't think the failure rate on WHS is any higher than for any other OS.

[gplasky]

Mine has worked fine on my WHS since I bought it when they first came out. I have a C1 unit. The only suggestion I can make is make sure all the WHS Windows updates and Power Packs are installed. ( I NEVER use any of the Micrsoft hardware updates. Always use the manufacturers drivers.)And I think initially I also installed Arcsoft to test the HD-PVR outside of Sage a couple of times when I had a few issues. Although not required I used the original CD and ran the driver install (not the CD autoinstall which blows up) and then upgraded to the lastest driver. I saw issues and a couple of times a blue screen when I just installed the latest drivers. And always run the setup for the drivers and don't point to the directory from the hardware wizard and let it load the drivers.

Gerry

[sic0048]

I would check to see if there is a Windows update ready to be installed. I realize this is a long shot since you just reinstalled the OS, but it's worth a look.

I have seen many times where a computer gets wonky and there is an update ready to be installed. But because I normally manually do updates (rather than automatically), the computer doesn't like it. It's like MS purposely makes the computer run like crap until the update is accepted and installed.

I've not seen these symptoms on my WHS set up either and I've been running a WHS system for a while. If it isn't the update issue, then I am at a loss.

[mwhittaker1024]

Originally Posted by TR3 Driver

Good Morning and apologies for the length of this post. I'll try to make it as brief as possible. My system has been up and running without serious problems for over a year. Sage is on WHS with 2 HDHR for over the air and clear QAM. I have (had) one HD-PVR attached to a DCT6200 Comcast box for encrypted cable. About 2 weeks ago, I started getting error messages regarding capture errors on the HD-PVR. Then it just disappeared from Sage.

I tried the typical rebooting of the unit and the server, but it refused to be found. I ran HCW Clear and re-installed drivers. I uninstalled Sage and tried to install the HD-PVR without Sage there. I swapped the USB cable and power supplies to rule them out, I tried another HD-PVR that I had on the shelf, again swapping cables, etc. to rule out any problems there. No joy. I tried all of the USB ports on the server and got the same result. I installed a pci usb card and got the same results. Other USB devices (flash drive, wireless mouse, external hard drive) can all be attached to the server and work as expected. Only the HD-PVR's don't work. If I attach either of the HD-PVR's to my XP computer, they are immediately recognized.

I did a complete reinstall of the Home Server OS (no fun, but no loss of data), made sure all bios and motherboard drivers were up to date, and when I first attached the HD-PVR it was detected and the drivers loaded. Hallelujah!! Unfortunately, that only lasted a few hours and the unit disappeared again. Now it just sits there and the blue light flashed quickly every 4 or 5 seconds. Hauppage offers no help because they don't support WHS. I have tried about everything I can think of. Does anyone out there have any suggestions?

Thanks for listening.

Have you had any luck getting it working again?

Same thing just happened to me. Last night, I started getting error messages regarding capture errors on the HD-PVR. Now, the HD-PVR doesn't show up in device manager on my WHS machine.

[davephan]

You mentioned that you had a another computer with Windows XP. Is it possible to have the Windows XP computer setup for SageTV and the WHS server for a storage pool for your video library files?

The downside to using WHS for the SageTV computer is the poor recovery options. With WHS you can't use imaging, so your stuck with a scratch rebuild if anything breaks your system. If you used Windows XP or Windows 7, you could quickly get back to a working state in 30 minutes with an image.

Dave

[TR3 Driver]

Have you had any luck getting it working again?

Same thing just happened to me. Last night, I started getting error messages regarding capture errors on the HD-PVR. Now, the HD-PVR doesn't show up in device manager on my WHS machine.
__________________
Mark J Whittaker

Mark,
I wish I had some bit of wisdom to give you. After days (literally) of trying everything I could come up with, I happened to plug my second unit into the server along with the first just to see what would happen (that's about the only thing I hadn't tried). Believe it or not, the HD-PVR was detected, the drivers loaded, and it's been working flawlessly for several days. This happened to be the original working unit, not the extra that I had on the shelf. Over the course of several days I had tried each of the units individually and had no luck. Although I have only one Comcast box I have left both units connected to the server just because I'm afraid to move anything now. I suppose I'll have to gather up my courage and disconnect the second unit and see what happens. I have NO idea what happened or what finally caused the HD-PVR to be recognized.

[mwhittaker1024]

I'll uninstall SageTV and reinstall the HD-PVR drivers (after running HCWClear) and see if that works. I've also submitted a support request so hopefully they'll be able to get me up and running.

Thanks

[sic0048]

When I have an issue with my HD-PVR and it stops recording, it is generally because the device is no longer recognized by the computer. When this happens I generally try to cycle the SageTV service and while that is cycling, I cycle the power on the HD-PVR.

Sometimes this works and the HD-PVR works normally. However, sometimes the computer still does not recognize the HD-PVR. When this happens (perhaps 50% of the time), I have to actually reboot the computer. Again, I will cycle the HD-PVR power while the computer is rebooting.

If cycling the SageTV service doesn't work, rebooting the computer has always worked for me and I'm using WHS too. If that isn't working for you, then I don't really know what to say. I would guess it is a USB issue if the hardware isn't recognized. Are you using a USB card, or just the motherboard ports?

[rlvogel322]

I know you mentioned you swapped out the power supplies and I assume you meant HD-PVR supplies.

I have seen strange things like this when the power supply for the PC starts going. It is kind of counterintuitive when you say it works when both are connected but might be another idea to troubleshoot.

[mwhittaker1024]

Originally Posted by sic0048

When I have an issue with my HD-PVR and it stops recording, it is generally because the device is no longer recognized by the computer. When this happens I generally try to cycle the SageTV service and while that is cycling, I cycle the power on the HD-PVR.

Sometimes this works and the HD-PVR works normally. However, sometimes the computer still does not recognize the HD-PVR. When this happens (perhaps 50% of the time), I have to actually reboot the computer. Again, I will cycle the HD-PVR power while the computer is rebooting.

If cycling the SageTV service doesn't work, rebooting the computer has always worked for me and I'm using WHS too. If that isn't working for you, then I don't really know what to say. I would guess it is a USB issue if the hardware isn't recognized. Are you using a USB card, or just the motherboard ports?

I had tried disconnecting the power to the HD-PVR and rebooting the PC before and it still wasn't working. However, after rebooting the PC a couple times again, the HD-PVR showed up in Device Manager. It seems to be working now.

Thanks

Mark