DirecTV Serial cable

[Melancholy Man]

Just installed the newest version of Sage and I can't get it to change channels on my DirecTV boxes using the serial cables that plugs into them. If there is already a post I can't seem to find it. Is their an answer somewhere?

[SHS]

Originally Posted by Melancholy Man

Just installed the newest version of Sage and I can't get it to change channels on my DirecTV boxes using the serial cables that plugs into them. If there is already a post I can't seem to find it. Is their an answer somewhere?

Man how old is your set-top box

[Melancholy Man]

The boxes are pretty new but the serial cables are very old.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by Melancholy Man

The boxes are pretty new but the serial cables are very old.

What model is that

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by Melancholy Man

Just installed the newest version of Sage and I can't get it to change channels on my DirecTV boxes using the serial cables that plugs into them. If there is already a post I can't seem to find it. Is their an answer somewhere?

Perhaps we should determine which sagetv version you upgraded from and to... Did you move to the 64 bit version.

k

[Melancholy Man]

The DirecTV boxes are H21-100 and H24-200. The Cables are made by Paterson Technologies and have a serial connection to the computer and USB to the DirecTV box. I was using Sage version 9.1.8 and everything was working great. I installed version 9.2-64bit and then the channels on the DirecTV boxes stopped changing. So I decided to try 9.2-32bit and had the same issue.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by Melancholy Man

The DirecTV boxes are H21-100 and H24-200. The Cables are made by Paterson Technologies and have a serial connection to the computer and USB to the DirecTV box. I was using Sage version 9.1.8 and everything was working great. I installed version 9.2-64bit and then the channels on the DirecTV boxes stopped changing. So I decided to try 9.2-32bit and had the same issue.

I see you want work with jusjoken maybe he can pin point there it want wrong
You may want look at this as two option
https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...9&postcount=28

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by Melancholy Man

The DirecTV boxes are H21-100 and H24-200. The Cables are made by Paterson Technologies and have a serial connection to the computer and USB to the DirecTV box. I was using Sage version 9.1.8 and everything was working great. I installed version 9.2-64bit and then the channels on the DirecTV boxes stopped changing. So I decided to try 9.2-32bit and had the same issue.

Sounds related to the new builds that changed how we do 32 and 64 bit but I am no expert on the details and if this is for sure related. Hopefully wnjj or JustFred will chime in.

K

[wnjj]

How does "serial cable" channel changing even work? Is there an external .exe using tunerstub or another DLL? I can't really offer any tips since I don't know how it's supposed to work.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Melancholy Man

The DirecTV boxes are H21-100 and H24-200. The Cables are made by Paterson Technologies and have a serial connection to the computer and USB to the DirecTV box. I was using Sage version 9.1.8 and everything was working great. I installed version 9.2-64bit and then the channels on the DirecTV boxes stopped changing. So I decided to try 9.2-32bit and had the same issue.

Have you tried HTTP tuning with those boxes? That is what I use with my HR21 and H24 boxes.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by wnjj

How does "serial cable" channel changing even work? Is there an external .exe using tunerstub or another DLL? I can't really offer any tips since I don't know how it's supposed to work.

It part of SageTV option where you use serial com port 1 thru xx option my guest is it has something to with DirecTVSerialControl

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by SHS

It part of SageTV option where you use serial com port 1 thru xx option my guest is it has something to with DirecTVSerialControl

Ah, thanks. I remember seeing that but didn't really spend any quality time in that code. I'll see if there's anything obvious that could have broken with a fresh compile, even in 32-bit mode.

Looks like there was some seemingly minor changes done to store COM handles into long rather than int but there's likely some up/down converting issues in there. For example, I'm seeing jint datatypes for the handles in DirectTVSerialControl.cpp which won't play nicely with long data. When I get some free time, I'll try some changes and build a replacement DLL to try.

[newyankee]

FYI, I'm another guy using a serial link to an old direct tv box.

I'm most impressed with all the work to develop the 64 bit code, and certainly plan to upgrade. So I'll be watching this issue closely.

Thanks from the small group of users with one last serial cable.

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by Melancholy Man

The DirecTV boxes are H21-100 and H24-200. The Cables are made by Paterson Technologies and have a serial connection to the computer and USB to the DirecTV box. I was using Sage version 9.1.8 and everything was working great. I installed version 9.2-64bit and then the channels on the DirecTV boxes stopped changing. So I decided to try 9.2-32bit and had the same issue.

Any chance you can post a log after attempting a channel change from either version that doesn’t work? There are a fair amount of tuning messages that may help me verify what is wrong. A log from the same on the working setup would help too.

Also, are you willing to test out new DLL’s if I build replacements, assuming I confirm what is wrong?

[davidb]

I have been running 9.1.8.770 32 bit with two DirecTV H23 boxes. I have a
two port serial card in the PC withe the two serial cables each going to a usb to serial adapter then into the DirecTV boxes. This has been stable for a long time. If there is a question if the latest 32 bit version still works with it I can upgrade.

David

Originally Posted by Melancholy Man

The DirecTV boxes are H21-100 and H24-200. The Cables are made by Paterson Technologies and have a serial connection to the computer and USB to the DirecTV box. I was using Sage version 9.1.8 and everything was working great. I installed version 9.2-64bit and then the channels on the DirecTV boxes stopped changing. So I decided to try 9.2-32bit and had the same issue.

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by davidb

I have been running 9.1.8.770 32 bit with two DirecTV H23 boxes. I have a
two port serial card in the PC withe the two serial cables each going to a usb to serial adapter then into the DirecTV boxes. This has been stable for a long time. If there is a question if the latest 32 bit version still works with it I can upgrade.

David

It sounds like the 32-bit version doesn't work and there were some pointer size changes between the DLL and Java code. If you're willing (and can back up your old system), I have some replacement DLL's and a sage.jar. The jar is the same as the 9.2.1 released version with one minor bug fix for this issue. The DLL's are DirecTVSerialControl.dll, one for 32-bit and one for 64-bit. Rename them to remove the "_XXbit".

They can be downloaded from my Dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e1jucadp9u...ntrol.zip?dl=0

[davidb]

I have two directv receivers and am using serial control for both. One receiver is using Com1 and the other receiver is using Com2.

I backed up my existing sagetv(32 bit) directory and then installed using the 9.2.1 installer(32 bit) to update to the current version. I then ran sagetv and was able to duplicate not being able to change the channel using serial control. I then stopped playback and clicked the red x in the top right to exit the app. I briefly saw the spinning circle but sage would not exit. I did have keyboard control so I used it to go to the exit menu choice. It then showed a message "Warning! Exiting SageTV here will stop all recordings until SageTV is restarted" There was a yes/no choice so I selected yes and pressed enter. It still would not exit and I had to use the task manager to kill the process. Note there were not any recordings happening when trying to exit nor for the next 8 hours. I started sage again and confirmed I can exit normally only if I don't watch live tv first. If I watch live tv then I can't exit without killing the process.



I then took DirectTVSerialControl_32bit.dll from the dropbox zip file and copied it to DirecTVSerialControll.dll and confirmed the overwrite of the existing file. I then replaced my existing sage.jar from the dropox zip file. Now i tried to watch live tv and went to test both tuners. I did this by a combination of watching livetv changing the channel then telling it to record. Now with the one tuner busy It is forced to use the other tuner. What I am seeing is it can change channels only on the tuner that is configured to use Com2. When the tuner with com2 is busy and it uses the tuner with Com1 it can't change the channel. Also I still have the problem with not being able to exit.

I then restored just the sage.jar from my backup 9.1.8.770 directory. Now if I watch live tv I still can't exit normally. I restored the DirecTVSerialControl.dll from my backup and can now exit normally!

Originally Posted by wnjj

It sounds like the 32-bit version doesn't work and there were some pointer size changes between the DLL and Java code. If you're willing (and can back up your old system), I have some replacement DLL's and a sage.jar. The jar is the same as the 9.2.1 released version with one minor bug fix for this issue. The DLL's are DirecTVSerialControl.dll, one for 32-bit and one for 64-bit. Rename them to remove the "_XXbit".

They can be downloaded from my Dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e1jucadp9u...ntrol.zip?dl=0

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by davidb

I have two directv receivers and am using serial control for both. One receiver is using Com1 and the other receiver is using Com2.

I backed up my existing sagetv(32 bit) directory and then installed using the 9.2.1 installer(32 bit) to update to the current version. I then ran sagetv and was able to duplicate not being able to change the channel using serial control. I then stopped playback and clicked the red x in the top right to exit the app. I briefly saw the spinning circle but sage would not exit. I did have keyboard control so I used it to go to the exit menu choice. It then showed a message "Warning! Exiting SageTV here will stop all recordings until SageTV is restarted" There was a yes/no choice so I selected yes and pressed enter. It still would not exit and I had to use the task manager to kill the process. Note there were not any recordings happening when trying to exit nor for the next 8 hours. I started sage again and confirmed I can exit normally only if I don't watch live tv first. If I watch live tv then I can't exit without killing the process.



I then took DirectTVSerialControl_32bit.dll from the dropbox zip file and copied it to DirecTVSerialControll.dll and confirmed the overwrite of the existing file. I then replaced my existing sage.jar from the dropox zip file. Now i tried to watch live tv and went to test both tuners. I did this by a combination of watching livetv changing the channel then telling it to record. Now with the one tuner busy It is forced to use the other tuner. What I am seeing is it can change channels only on the tuner that is configured to use Com2. When the tuner with com2 is busy and it uses the tuner with Com1 it can't change the channel. Also I still have the problem with not being able to exit.

I then restored just the sage.jar from my backup 9.1.8.770 directory. Now if I watch live tv I still can't exit normally. I restored the DirecTVSerialControl.dll from my backup and can now exit normally!

Wow. Thank you for the thorough debugging. The jar change was related to shutting down and with the unpatched version I expected it to hang or crash since it was attempting to access a bad pointer. Unfortunately it seems there are still some issues to work out. The data types involved are tricky with 32 or 64 bit handles that are shuffled back to Java for reference. I may consider punting and slightly rearchitecting how that is handled.

Any chance you can get log files? One from a completely working old system and one with both the jar and DLL replaced?

Thanks again.

[Melancholy Man]

Originally Posted by wnjj

Any chance you can post a log after attempting a channel change from either version that doesn’t work? There are a fair amount of tuning messages that may help me verify what is wrong. A log from the same on the working setup would help too.

Also, are you willing to test out new DLL’s if I build replacements, assuming I confirm what is wrong?

What is the name of the log file you want? I would be willing to try out the DLL.

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by Melancholy Man

What is the name of the log file you want? I would be willing to try out the DLL.

sagetv_0.txt.

I did find something that needed fixed. Here are updated DLL's along with the patched jar. On your 32-bit system, you just need the 32-bit DLL (renamed back to DirecTVSerialControl.dll) and the jar.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6uf61qtvkf...ol_v1.zip?dl=0

davidb, if you want to try again, use this link instead.