Shot in the dark trouble shooting...

[moothekow]

Has anyone else experienced any issues with video playback stuttering/hanging since upgrading to SageTV 9? I'm like 80% sure there is probably something going wrong out of the blue with my raid enclosure box, but checking here just in case. For the last couple weeks I've started experiencing issues where some random media would become basically unwatchable as playback kind of hung/stuttered at random times during playback. I can't find any common threads as to what/when it happens - though once a certain file was having stuttering troubles I could usually reproduce the issue. I've been playing back all my media through an HD300 and HD200 extender - and both exhibiting the same behavior.

My raid monitoring software isn't reporting any issues, and none of the various HD diagnostics utilities I've tried running have reported or found any issues with the drive inside the box.

So - basically I'm at a point where I've had no troubles with playback in my SageTV7 setup for many many years.. have had my current raid box for about 6 months... and the issues seem to have started shortly after upgrading to SageTV 9 in the middle of last month. My gut is telling me that SageTV 9 is not at issue - but the timing of it all makes me think I should at least ask around here.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by moothekow

Has anyone else experienced any issues with video playback stuttering/hanging since upgrading to SageTV 9? I'm like 80% sure there is probably something going wrong out of the blue with my raid enclosure box, but checking here just in case. For the last couple weeks I've started experiencing issues where some random media would become basically unwatchable as playback kind of hung/stuttered at random times during playback. I can't find any common threads as to what/when it happens - though once a certain file was having stuttering troubles I could usually reproduce the issue. I've been playing back all my media through an HD300 and HD200 extender - and both exhibiting the same behavior.

My raid monitoring software isn't reporting any issues, and none of the various HD diagnostics utilities I've tried running have reported or found any issues with the drive inside the box.

So - basically I'm at a point where I've had no troubles with playback in my SageTV7 setup for many many years.. have had my current raid box for about 6 months... and the issues seem to have started shortly after upgrading to SageTV 9 in the middle of last month. My gut is telling me that SageTV 9 is not at issue - but the timing of it all makes me think I should at least ask around here.

It could also be a signal issue, presenting bad spots in the file. Are the glitches the same on every playback of a given recording, or is their playback different each time?

[moothekow]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

It could also be a signal issue, presenting bad spots in the file. Are the glitches the same on every playback of a given recording, or is their playback different each time?

It's different each time - and even within the same file it will happen -- and I can sometimes rewind and play the segment just fine.

[Fuzzy]

Okay, so that's definitely not a problem on the recording end, so it really comes down to network or harddrive errors.

[moothekow]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Okay, so that's definitely not a problem on the recording end, so it really comes down to network or harddrive errors.

Noted.. kind of what I figured. Also - these aren't necessarily recordings -- some are rips of movies or TV shows that I've had for many years.

Thanks for taking the time to respond btw.

[moothekow]

Update - getting a replacement RAID box (still under warranty) in hopes that it helps. Something I just realized though - all the files (i think) that I've noticed the issue with are .mp4 files.

I just went through and randomly started playing any file I could find that was a .mp4 file - and _every_ single one (probably tested 10) exhibited the skipping/stuttering. (an example of the format of one I tried: Quicktime[H.264/1577kbps 576p@25fps, AAC/112kbps@48khz stereo, subpic:nor DVDSUB -- another was Quicktime[H.264/2.4MBPs 40:17 1920x816@24fps, AAC/224Kbps@48kHz 5.1 ENG].

Every one I tested that was an mkv worked fine.

Those results mean anything of note to anyone?

This occurs during playback through either my HD300 or H200.

Also - may be unrelated -- but I've noticed my skipping forward/backward, and even changing volume, on my extenders seems to be much laggier than it used to be.

[Monedeath]

Originally Posted by moothekow

I just went through and randomly started playing any file I could find that was a .mp4 file - and _every_ single one (probably tested 10) exhibited the skipping/stuttering. (an example of the format of one I tried: Quicktime[H.264/1577kbps 576p@25fps, AAC/112kbps@48khz stereo, subpic:nor DVDSUB -- another was Quicktime[H.264/2.4MBPs 40:17 1920x816@24fps, AAC/224Kbps@48kHz 5.1 ENG].

Every one I tested that was an mkv worked fine.

Those results mean anything of note to anyone?

This occurs during playback through either my HD300 or H200.

What does your java heap usage look like during this time?

[moothekow]

Used/Total/Max is 655MB/1099MB/1520MB

[jusjoken]

Are you using the Linux 64 version....if not, then that heap should not be set above 1024

[moothekow]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

Are you using the Linux 64 version....if not, then that heap should not be set above 1024

No - I'm running on Win 7 64-bit.

What is the problem with setting the heap above 1024? I used the Sage Registry editing tool a loooong time ago to increase the heap size..

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by moothekow

No - I'm running on Win 7 64-bit.

What is the problem with setting the heap above 1024? I used the Sage Registry editing tool a loooong time ago to increase the heap size..

Java's garbage collection and memory management has a lot of overhead that can cause instabilities with JVM's much larger than about 1.2GB (depending on memory use pattern of the given program). Keeping in mind the entire java.exe process can only use up to 2GB as a 32-bit windows app, and it's running an entire 'virtual machine' inside that 2GB, yet outside the JVM Heap.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by moothekow

Also - may be unrelated -- but I've noticed my skipping forward/backward, and even changing volume, on my extenders seems to be much laggier than it used to be.

A couple of years ago, I noticed this as well on my HD300. I spent weeks troubleshooting things on the server, rebooting the HD300, etc. In the end, it turned out that PORT on my switch, to which my HD300 was connected, but bad... it was dropping packets all the time. I moved the cable to another port on the switch, and I've never had an issue since. The network is something that we tend to think about when troubleshooting these types of issues, because we tend to think that the network either works, or it doesn't. But, in many cases, a faulty switch (or port) can still enable the network to function, just at really reduced speeds.

[moothekow]

So - follow-up time:

It must have been somehow software related. I ended up basically re-installing windows from scratch on the machine and re-installing everything, starting with a fresh installation of SageTV and everything is working perfectly now (utilizing the same hard drive enclosure and everything plugged into the same network ports, etc).

Don't need any help with anything more now - mostly just posting the results here so it is documented in case someone runs into something similar in the future.

[KryptoNyte]

For anyone else that sees a similar issue, the first thing that I would do is to copy the offending file from the external storage directly on to the server, then use the HD200/300 to browse directly to that file on the server and attempt to play it. If it still skips, I'd move the file to an external USB drive and plug that drive directly into an HD200/300 to test the file alone.