The Official "Working SageTV + Ceton Firmware + SageDCT Version Combinations" thread

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Allocating and not immediately releasing memory isn't necessarily indicative of a memory leak. It's very difficult to have a true memory leak in managed code. That said, SageDCT does use native COM objects, so it's possible but if it were I would expect to be able to reproduce it locally.

The most likely scenario is that your target drive can't keep up with the inflow of RTP data so it is buffered in the receive and write components until it overflows; causing packet loss and the other symptoms that you're seeing.

Try 2.1.9 with "Write Async" enabled. It might help in this scenario.

So I have a SiliconDust Prime. In what situation would I want to enable the "Write Async". Is this something to enable just if I have issues or is there a "rule of thumb" for its use? Like if you have a Prime enable it, or only enable it when the recordings continue to break up in a recording. I imagine you had a reason for adding this. And thanks again for all the work you put into this.

Gerry

[egeller]

Originally Posted by babgvant

The most likely scenario is that your target drive can't keep up with the inflow of RTP data so it is buffered in the receive and write components until it overflows; causing packet loss and the other symptoms that you're seeing.

Try 2.1.9 with "Write Async" enabled. It might help in this scenario.

Many thanks for your help. Write Sync made an improvement, but I also found that the Linux box was part of the problem. I un-defined all the recording directories there, and set them up as import directories for now. I am researching it as a Samba issue. I defined a recording directory on another PC, a Win 7 machine, and SageDCT has no issues using it.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by gplasky

So I have a SiliconDust Prime. In what situation would I want to enable the "Write Async". Is this something to enable just if I have issues or is there a "rule of thumb" for its use? Like if you have a Prime enable it, or only enable it when the recordings continue to break up in a recording. I imagine you had a reason for adding this. And thanks again for all the work you put into this.

Gerry

If you're writing to a fast, local disk I wouldn't recommend using it. Most likely you'd actually see slower write performance (not that it matters, I've been using it for several days and it works just as well in practice).

When writing to a slower, non-local target it could resolve the issue where SageDCT can't empty the RTP queue fast enough to eliminate packet loss.

[stevenkd]

I had some trouble with the Ceton setup. Part of the problem was with my Norton firewall even though I had set up all the ports indicated in the directions. The Ceton diagnostic tool keeps telling me to re-install InfiniTV when I use it to discover tuners. The good news is that SageDCT sees all 4 tuners and I can set up tuners 3 and 4 in SageTV. The better news is it looks like Comcast is only flagging the premium channels and a couple of the movie channels like Mplex and Flix. The rest of my channels I get fine. I suspect Windows Media Center is using the other 2 tuners, even though I cannot get that working at the moment. I would like to get it working to get my Encore channels. Until then I will keep one of my DCP501's for that.

Thanks for all of the great information on this thread, it helped a lot.

[stevenkd]

Originally Posted by stevenkd

I had some trouble with the Ceton setup. Part of the problem was with my Norton firewall even though I had set up all the ports indicated in the directions. The Ceton diagnostic tool keeps telling me to re-install InfiniTV when I use it to discover tuners. The good news is that SageDCT sees all 4 tuners and I can set up tuners 3 and 4 in SageTV. The better news is it looks like Comcast is only flagging the premium channels and a couple of the movie channels like Mplex and Flix. The rest of my channels I get fine. I suspect Windows Media Center is using the other 2 tuners, even though I cannot get that working at the moment. I would like to get it working to get my Encore channels. Until then I will keep one of my DCP501's for that.

Thanks for all of the great information on this thread, it helped a lot.

Turns out Norton Fire had explicitly blocked port 2869 which Media Center needs to use. It was over riding my setting to open it. I need to do a little more research to see what bad can happen if that port is open. The issue with Media Center was my Hauppauge PVR-500 which was somehow conflicting with the setup of the TV tuners in Media Center. Once I disabled the two tuners on those cards, Media Center set up fine. I then re-enabled them and everything seems to be fine. One tuner for Media Center to get the Encore encrypted channels and 3 for Sage right now. One more annoying issue is I now need an HDCP compliant monitor to play the encrypted channels and recordings that came from them on the PC. Great support from Ceton and Comcast.

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by stevenkd

Turns out Norton Fire had explicitly blocked port 2869 which Media Center needs to use. It was over riding my setting to open it. I need to do a little more research to see what bad can happen if that port is open. The issue with Media Center was my Hauppauge PVR-500 which was somehow conflicting with the setup of the TV tuners in Media Center. Once I disabled the two tuners on those cards, Media Center set up fine. I then re-enabled them and everything seems to be fine. One tuner for Media Center to get the Encore encrypted channels and 3 for Sage right now. One more annoying issue is I now need an HDCP compliant monitor to play the encrypted channels and recordings that came from them on the PC. Great support from Ceton and Comcast.

Thanks for the follow up.

[The Truth]

Does anyone have a Comskip setup that works on all channels? I have found that my comskip only works on a few channels and on others it is completely off. With my other tuners comskip works fine.

If anyone has any advice to get better commercial skipping with the centon i would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

[stevenkd]

In case anyone is having issues with their Sage Server locking up after installing SageDCT and a Ceton card, here is what happened to me. Once I got SageTV, Ceton and Windows Media Center working together my PC started to have several lock ups a day. The fans would come on and the DVD light would stay on solid and I would have to do a hard restart by holding the power button in. Was getting an Event 7001 something about Service control manager error. It didn't seem like I got this when I first installed Window 7 and SageTV 7, but it started happening after I installed the Ceton Card and SageDCT. After much trouble shooting I finally seem to have it fixed by setting the sleep option in the control panel to never. Been running for over 24 hours now and seems to be fine. It also solved several other events I was getting in the error logs.

[HokiePerogi]

I had been running with SageDCT utilizing my internal 4 tuner Ceton card for months until recently. I'm not sure what spurred the change, but most likely it was a windows update. I was running with SageDCT version 1.x, but I don't know exactly what version it was.

I started to experience my Ceton tuners disappearing from my SageTV setup. When I investigated, I saw that the SageDCT process was running, but was consuming almost all of my CPU (quad core Windows 7 x64).

I decided to look for updates to both my Ceton and SageDCT. I found the latest firmware and applied it for my Ceton via its web configuration. I then found SageDCT 2.4 x64 and install that after uninstalling the version of SageDCT already on my system.

I got SageTV back up and running and seeing my Ceton tuners once again. A couple days went by before I noticed the Ceton tuners were missing again. Upon further inspection, the SageDCT service had stopped.

After restarting the SageDCT service and SageTV, they came back again. Until a few days later when they disappeared yet again.

It seems that I have tracked it down to SageDCT continually consuming more and more memory until the service just falls over. I can see the memory increasing slowing in both Task Manager and Process Explorer even after several hours since the last recording.

At this time of the TV season, only 1, at most 2, of the Ceton tuners are being used for a couple of hours a day. My HDHomeRun carries the weight of the OTA network recordings.

I have three drives in my SageTV server for SageDCT to dump the packets to. SageTV is configured to balance them. Two of them are WD Caviar Blacks and the third is Seagate Barracuda 7200.10. So I'm thinking the HD's can keep up.

My current SageDCT settings are:
Log Level: Important
Replace Path: <blank>
Encoder Start Port: 6970
RTP Start Port: 5010
Write Buffer: 1024
RTP Buffer: 131072
Auto Reset Wait: 15 <disabled>
HD Suffix: HD;-DT;DT
RTP Delay: 0
Tuner Reset Count: 2
Delay Tuner Start: 30

Debug Data Receive: <UNchecked>
Static Tuners: <CHECKED>
Write Async: <UNchecked>
Log Stats: <UNchecked>
Use PBDA Capture: <UNchecked>
Recycle on Stop: <Unchecked>


Any suggestions as to what could be causing the SageDCT service to continually fall over after a couple of days?

[mguebert]

Originally Posted by HokiePerogi

I had been running with SageDCT utilizing my internal 4 tuner Ceton card for months until recently. I'm not sure what spurred the change, but most likely it was a windows update. I was running with SageDCT version 1.x, but I don't know exactly what version it was.

I started to experience my Ceton tuners disappearing from my SageTV setup. When I investigated, I saw that the SageDCT process was running, but was consuming almost all of my CPU (quad core Windows 7 x64).

I decided to look for updates to both my Ceton and SageDCT. I found the latest firmware and applied it for my Ceton via its web configuration. I then found SageDCT 2.4 x64 and install that after uninstalling the version of SageDCT already on my system.

I got SageTV back up and running and seeing my Ceton tuners once again. A couple days went by before I noticed the Ceton tuners were missing again. Upon further inspection, the SageDCT service had stopped.

After restarting the SageDCT service and SageTV, they came back again. Until a few days later when they disappeared yet again.

It seems that I have tracked it down to SageDCT continually consuming more and more memory until the service just falls over. I can see the memory increasing slowing in both Task Manager and Process Explorer even after several hours since the last recording.

At this time of the TV season, only 1, at most 2, of the Ceton tuners are being used for a couple of hours a day. My HDHomeRun carries the weight of the OTA network recordings.

I have three drives in my SageTV server for SageDCT to dump the packets to. SageTV is configured to balance them. Two of them are WD Caviar Blacks and the third is Seagate Barracuda 7200.10. So I'm thinking the HD's can keep up.

My current SageDCT settings are:
Log Level: Important
Replace Path: <blank>
Encoder Start Port: 6970
RTP Start Port: 5010
Write Buffer: 1024
RTP Buffer: 131072
Auto Reset Wait: 15 <disabled>
HD Suffix: HD;-DT;DT
RTP Delay: 0
Tuner Reset Count: 2
Delay Tuner Start: 30

Debug Data Receive: <UNchecked>
Static Tuners: <CHECKED>
Write Async: <UNchecked>
Log Stats: <UNchecked>
Use PBDA Capture: <UNchecked>
Recycle on Stop: <Unchecked>


Any suggestions as to what could be causing the SageDCT service to continually fall over after a couple of days?

I cannot say I ever noticed the SageDCT service consuming more memory like yours. However our setups are very similar and I did have a problem every few days where the signals displayed would start stuttering and macroblocking really bad, once it started the only way I could get the channels to display normally was to stop the SageDCT service and restart. So now I restart the service with a scheduled bat file every night at 3am and it has been working great so far.....knock on wood

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by HokiePerogi

I had been running with SageDCT utilizing my internal 4 tuner Ceton card for months until recently. I'm not sure what spurred the change, but most likely it was a windows update. I was running with SageDCT version 1.x, but I don't know exactly what version it was.

I started to experience my Ceton tuners disappearing from my SageTV setup. When I investigated, I saw that the SageDCT process was running, but was consuming almost all of my CPU (quad core Windows 7 x64).

I decided to look for updates to both my Ceton and SageDCT. I found the latest firmware and applied it for my Ceton via its web configuration. I then found SageDCT 2.4 x64 and install that after uninstalling the version of SageDCT already on my system.

I got SageTV back up and running and seeing my Ceton tuners once again. A couple days went by before I noticed the Ceton tuners were missing again. Upon further inspection, the SageDCT service had stopped.

After restarting the SageDCT service and SageTV, they came back again. Until a few days later when they disappeared yet again.

It seems that I have tracked it down to SageDCT continually consuming more and more memory until the service just falls over. I can see the memory increasing slowing in both Task Manager and Process Explorer even after several hours since the last recording.

At this time of the TV season, only 1, at most 2, of the Ceton tuners are being used for a couple of hours a day. My HDHomeRun carries the weight of the OTA network recordings.

I have three drives in my SageTV server for SageDCT to dump the packets to. SageTV is configured to balance them. Two of them are WD Caviar Blacks and the third is Seagate Barracuda 7200.10. So I'm thinking the HD's can keep up.

My current SageDCT settings are:
Log Level: Important
Replace Path: <blank>
Encoder Start Port: 6970
RTP Start Port: 5010
Write Buffer: 1024
RTP Buffer: 131072
Auto Reset Wait: 15 <disabled>
HD Suffix: HD;-DT;DT
RTP Delay: 0
Tuner Reset Count: 2
Delay Tuner Start: 30

Debug Data Receive: <UNchecked>
Static Tuners: <CHECKED>
Write Async: <UNchecked>
Log Stats: <UNchecked>
Use PBDA Capture: <UNchecked>
Recycle on Stop: <Unchecked>


Any suggestions as to what could be causing the SageDCT service to continually fall over after a couple of days?

Obscene memory consumption is almost always due to slow write IO. Since your HD should be fast enough, it could be an early sign of failure or perhaps a driver or config change. Check that AHCI is enabled, that the driver is up to date, and that SMART counters are indicative of a healthy drive. Resource Manager will also help to indicate problematic queue lengths.

[HokiePerogi]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Obscene memory consumption is almost always due to slow write IO. Since your HD should be fast enough, it could be an early sign of failure or perhaps a driver or config change. Check that AHCI is enabled, that the driver is up to date, and that SMART counters are indicative of a healthy drive. Resource Manager will also help to indicate problematic queue lengths.

A few weeks ago I made sure to enable AHCI in my bios. I also installed HDTune so that I could check the SMART counters on all three of my recording drives. Additionally, I added a scheduled tasked to restart the SageDCT service nightly.

HDTune shows all three drives as being completely healthy. After getting AHCI turned on and the proper drivers installed in Win 7 x64, I wanted to give the changes some time to settle in before I reported back.

I'm said to say that I'm still getting SageDCT crashing issues. It seems that every couple of days I come home to a recording conflict status icon in SageTV. To me, this means that the SageDCT service has crashed, stuck, or is crashing because SageTV believes the tuners are no longer there.

Most of the time I find that the SageDCT service status reads "Stopping". When this is the case, I have to kill SageDCT process just so I can restart it again in the control panel.

It appears that this condition is forced when my wife watches live TV throughout the day on channels served up by SageDCT via my Ceton InfiniTV.

I have SageTV commercial detector set to run during recording. I have used Windows Resource Monitor to watch the disk queue lengths for my three recording disks while shows are recording, but I never see it get over 0.1. When nothing is recording, they each show a queue length of 1.

I'm using SageDCT 2.5.0.0 with the following settings. Any suggestions on what else I can try to harden my SageDCT setup is appreciated.


Write Buffer: 1024
RTP Buffer: 131072
RTP Delay: 0
Tuner Reset Count: 2
Delay Tuner Start: 30

Debug Data Receive: unchecked
Static Tuners: CHECKED
Write Async: unchecked
Log Stats: unchecked
Use PBDA...: unchecked
Recycle On Stop: unchecked


I appreciate the help!

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by HokiePerogi

I appreciate the help!

I need to see a verbose log that captures the issue to offer you anything.

[HokiePerogi]

Originally Posted by babgvant

I need to see a verbose log that captures the issue to offer you anything.

Okay, will do.

When you say "verbose log" do you mean "Debug Data Receive" = CHECKED, or something else? Sorry if this is a silly question. I don't see anyplace else to enable debug logging for SageDCT.


DUH. Look again, first dropdown box. I set this to "Verbose" log level. Should I also check "Debug Data Receive"?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by HokiePerogi

Should I also check "Debug Data Receive"?

No

[HokiePerogi]

babgvant,

Here is my verbose log from the latest crash. Hopefully your expert eyes can see something in it that mine can't.

Thanks for the help.


I guess it's too big. Here's a link to my public dropbox where you can grab the 11 MB zipped text file.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2396745/SageDCT_2952.zip

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by HokiePerogi

babgvant,

Here is my verbose log from the latest crash. Hopefully your expert eyes can see something in it that mine can't.

It looks like the DCT is popping on/off the network rapidly.

Is it in the same box?

Running latest firmware/drivers?

[HokiePerogi]

Originally Posted by babgvant

It looks like the DCT is popping on/off the network rapidly.

Is it in the same box?

Running latest firmware/drivers?

Yes, everything is on the same box. I'm running the latest version of SageDCT and the Ceton InfiniTV drivers and InfiniTV firmware. Windows 7 64-bit is completely up to date as well.

[HokiePerogi]

Any suggestions on what else I can try to resolve the popping on the network repeatedly issue? If DCT is popping on and off the network, while nothing else is having the same problem, should I try a different version of SageDCT? Perhaps an older version?

I run Playon on the same box, could that cause the issue?

I also run other DLNA applications and devices on my network as well as Sonos. Can I be getting some kinds of collisions?


Thanks again for the troubleshooting help.

[HokiePerogi]

Is there an archive of older versions of SageDCT available for download? I'm thinking maybe I'll try a few older versions to see if it fixes my issue(s).

Thanks.