Ceton InfiniTV 6 ETH SageDCT ethernet/CPU issue?

[MattHelm]

All,
I hope someone can help me with this. I set my dad up with the above product, and all was working fine, until I shut down his system to move all his wiring (power and coax) around. This is ALL I did. I moved his power lines to a single power strip, and then move the coax to get it out of the middle of the floor. All the other stuff is in the same place.

After doing all that, I booted his system and all was fine until he started recording a LOT of college football games at the same time. Now, as he uses more and more turners, the CPU usage goes thru the roof. 2 or 3 are OK, but 4 or more start messing things up to the point SageTV starts breaking the files up. This was NOT an issue before the shutdown/restart. All signals are fine, and recording off his HDHomerun (antenna) are fine (unless the the other records mess them up).

Everything I've read points to the Ethernet card (Intel), but it was fine until the rewiring/shutdown. I even updated the Intel drivers, and no change. Any suggestions??????????? Help!!!!!!!

[jerryt]

Did you re-seat the ethernet cable?

Verify all connections.

[MattHelm]

Yes, reseated all connections. Only the Ceton's Ethernet (just the one end) and a few USB connectors were moved. All power connectors were moved.

I'm still leaning toward an Ethernet issue. This machine almost never gets turned off, as my dad is by himself, and isn't a computer person, and he normally records about 60 hours of TV per day! (OK, I'm kidding, just seems that way!). I'm 250 miles away, so normally I just do a restart, not a shutdown.

I've just ran into 2 issues when a Windows box REQUIRED a complete shutdown, not just a reboot!!! I'm thinking this might be a 3rd one.

[MattHelm]

All,
I just remembered I updated Avast! anti-virus while down at dad's. Could there be a setting in there messing up SageDCT and it's connection to the box? (this was a update that required a reboot, but I don't remember WHEN I did it vs. when the issue started)

[mguebert]

It very well could be.... I was having many problems with a Ceton Infintv4 that was eventually fixed by uninstalling AVG antivirus.

[Taddeusz]

You should always set your AV to ignore recording drives.

[MattHelm]

Well, check dad's system last night, and it isn't the AV. Still not sure what is going on. It's too far to drive!

Anyone know an easy way to check for TCP/IP errors in Windows 7?

My brother will be down there next weekend, and he can hear and has some computer skills, I may have him play with the cables again.

[Taddeusz]

If there is anything serious going on it should show up in the Windows System log. Look at the logs and see if any errors are present.

[mguebert]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

You should always set your AV to ignore recording drives.

In my case AVG was set to ignore all sage directories including the recording drives. It still interfered with the operation of the Ceton tuners. I would get failed recordings and the ceton would stop responding causing the need for a restart of the sage service. Removing avg and going to security essentials fixed the problem.

[MattHelm]

Just to post my findings. I was using UNC paths, and while that worked for a few channels, when it went over 3, that was the issue. Switch to drive paths last night, and recorder 6 with about 5% SageTV and about 6-8% SageDCT.

[sflamm]

Did you use the "replace path" (path rewrite) functionality of SageDCT to change the UNC to a local path? Works like a charm - no need to eliminate UNC paths.

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by sflamm

Did you use the "replace path" (path rewrite) functionality of SageDCT to change the UNC to a local path? Works like a charm - no need to eliminate UNC paths.

No, changed them. I have 5 recording drives, so the "Replace path" wouldn't work. Took me maybe 10 minutes, including 2 shutdowns, and 2 .properties edits.

[adone36]

I'm confused here.

I checked my properties file and found the line:

seeker/video_storage=\\\\SAGETV\\D\\TV_RECORDING1,20000000000,3;\\\\SAGETV\\E\\TV_RECORDING2,300000000000,3;

Even though drive letters are shown, isn't this a UNC Path?? Since the directories are shared,

seeker/video_storage=\\\\SAGETV\TV_RECORDING1,20000000000,3;\\\\SAGETV\TV_RECORDING2,300000000000,3;

would do the same thing and be a UNC path.

Or are you saying to change to:

seeker/video_storage=\\D\\TV_RECORDING1,20000000000,3\\E\\TV_RECORDING2,300000000000,3;

[MattHelm]

Here is the line from my dad's machine, it uses drive letters, not UNC:

seeker/video_storage=I\:\\Shows1,20000000000,2;J\:\\Shows2,20000000000,2;K\:\\Shows3,20000000000,2;L\:\\Shows4,20000000000,2;M\:\\Shows5,20000000000,2;

Use the setup menu to add the drive letters, then remove the UNC paths.

Setup -> detailed setup -> General -> Video Recording directories

In that menu, they look like "I:\Shows1".

UNC look like "\\ServerName\Shows1".