Hauppauge QuadHD tuner. T1 access all chan. T2,3,4 have problems with some channels

[SteveP]

I have used a Huappauge quadHD model 1609 tuner for quite a while with no problems until the last few months. The Dallas TX stations seem to be constantly changing their channel mappings. Every couple of weeks I rescan channels and typically find something that has changed. During this time, I started having issues with some of the detected channels I want having 0% signal strength some of the time and 100% other times. I traced this to what seemed to be a bad tuner 4. I disabled it and things were fine for a couple of days, then the issue reappeared. Tuners 2 and 3 now have problems. They are able to tune over half of the channels fine and then consistently fail on channels such as 47 and 49. Tuner 1 can receive all channels fine. (I used the Preview function of Channel Setup for each each station on each tuner)

I thought the tuner card was failing so I bought a new one--same problems. Tuner 1 works fine, the other tuners have issues with certain channels. I installed the latest Hauppauge driver, rebooted, and still have the same issue.

Any idea why this is happening?

I am using Sage 9.1.8.770 32-bit on Win7-64-bit build 1709. (Odd side note, Sage system information shows my OS as Win8 6.8--why?)

Thanks,
Steve

[JustFred]

The most common cause: some tuners (probably T2, T3 & T4) are using a COPY of a channel lineup, rather than "Use an existing lineup". If this is the case, doing an Update Scan for T1 won't automatically update the lineup info for the other tuners.

[SteveP]

Thanks for the info. I did check the mapping on the other channels and I think it matched the setup for tuner 1. I also think each tuner was setup to use an existing lineup. Maybe I slipped up. I'll do an experiment of disabling tuners 2, 3, and 4 then add one back and do a full scan just for it. I'll let you know if it makes a difference.

[SteveP]

I rechecked the mappings and station IDs for the problem channels on each tuner. All tuners showed the same information, but only the first tuner could properly tune all channels. Since the information was the same for each tuner, why couldn't all tuners receive all channels? (I'm receiving over-the-air channels only.)

I found a way to get all tuners to work properly. I removed the three problem tuners then added back each tuner with a full channel scan for each tuner. The problem channels now work properly. I probably could have done a scan for each tuner without removing them first.

As I added each channel back I told the configurator to use the existing lineup. The channels were listed properly, but the tuners still could not receive the problem channels. I had to do a full scan for each tuner to get the problem channels to work.

I never had this problem for the 12 or so years I've used Sage. The problem only showed up kind of randomly at first after I added a few new channels 2 to 3 months ago--the first channels I've added in probably several years. Everything worked fine for a few days/weeks before issues started showing up. Any idea why new channels would cause the tuning issue?

Scanning all channels results in the system finding 133 channels. Sage seems to arbitrarily enable channels--the same set of channels on each scan. It enables most of the channels I want and about 30 channels I don't want. So, after each scan I had to manually step though the channel list and disable many channels. What criteria does Sage use for automatically enabling channels? Why does it keep re-enabling channels I don't want?

Thanks,
Steve

BTW, I still love using Sage.

[JustFred]

Originally Posted by SteveP

I never had this problem for the 12 or so years I've used Sage. The problem only showed up kind of randomly at first after I added a few new channels 2 to 3 months ago--the first channels I've added in probably several years. Everything worked fine for a few days/weeks before issues started showing up. Any idea why new channels would cause the tuning issue?

Could be a number of things. It depends on EXACTLY how you added the new channels. Example: Full scan vs. Update scan vs. manually adding channels to the lineup.

Scanning all channels results in the system finding 133 channels. Sage seems to arbitrarily enable channels--the same set of channels on each scan. It enables most of the channels I want and about 30 channels I don't want. So, after each scan I had to manually step though the channel list and disable many channels. What criteria does Sage use for automatically enabling channels? Why does it keep re-enabling channels I don't want?

Explain what's meant by "channels I don't want" ?

There are basically two types of channel scan: Full and Update. A Full scan will start from scratch, enabling any channels it finds and ignoring any previous remapping or manual enable/disable. On the other hand, an Update scan will retain your old channel settings (as much as possible) and only offer a list of channels it found which have changed. At that point, it's up to you to manually enable/disable from that list.

Note: When multiple tuners are using a single EPG lineup (not a COPY of a lineup), performing a channel scan (either Full or Update) on any of those tuners will update the channel list for that **one** EPG lineup. (Think of it as the lineup that's being modified, not the tuner. The lineup then affects the tuner behavior.) Example: you scan using T1 and manually disable some channels. Next, you do a Full scan using T2. The T1 changes are now gone. Whatever actions (scan/enable/disable/remap) that are performed on T2 also affect T1. Tip: Perform the channel scan on EVERY tuner that uses a given EPG lineup; THEN manually do the enable/disable/remap to just ONE of those tuners (I prefer T1). This way, there's no need to ena/dis/remap on each of the 4 tuners.