Slow Motion Video and No Audio on Client - Daily Recurring Problem

[71_Cuda]

I'm a long time user of Sage. Like many, I figure the end is coming at some point. But Sage still gives me everything I want and need and I'm not ready to give up on it yet.

I'm no developer or expert, but I've been able to to keep my system up and running (with a lot of help from these forums) over the years. But I've had a problem develop over the past few months that I can't figure out. Hopefully there are enough people left here with enough knowledge and willingness to help that can help me fix this issue.

First off, I am running SageTV (9.1.8.770) in service mode on a Windows 10 HTPC. I run the client on the same machine as the server. It had been working flawlessly for a long time. A few months ago I started having a problem where I would start to play a recording and it would play in slow motion with no audio. Live TV - the same thing. I would reboot, and it would start working again. More recently (the past several weeks), it has become a daily occurrence. When I come home from work and try to watch something - slow motion with no audio. Also, rebooting doesn't usually fix it the first time. It would take multiple reboots.

I did some experimenting where I tried just restarting the service. In the end, I've figured out that killing and restarting the client multiple times will eventually fix it. Most recently, it seems that 2 client restarts fixes it. This morning (I'm home sick) it was doing it as usual. I checked my extender (HD300) and it played fine. So it does appear to be an issue with the client.

Restarting the client multiple times daily when I want to watch something isn't going to be bearable much longer.

I'm stumped.

Any ideas or suggestions of things to try or check to figure out what is going on?

[wnjj]

That sounds really painful.

What format of video files, MPEG2 (OTA) or something else (h.264 MP4)?

If MPEG2, did you install over V7 which allows you to use the “SageTV MPEG Video Decoder” or are you using LAV filters that install with V9?

Either way, look in the settings for what decoders and renderer you are using for video and audio. Try changing them to other choices if they are available.

[71_Cuda]

Originally Posted by wnjj

That sounds really painful.

What format of video files, MPEG2 (OTA) or something else (h.264 MP4)?

If MPEG2, did you install over V7 which allows you to use the “SageTV MPEG Video Decoder” or are you using LAV filters that install with V9?

Either way, look in the settings for what decoders and renderer you are using for video and audio. Try changing them to other choices if they are available.

Good questions. I have both HDHomeRun (OTA) and HDHomeRun Prime (CableCard) tuners. All recordings are stored in TS files - so that would be MPEG2, I believe. I did check previously and it does it on all recordings independent of tuner.

It's been a long time since I upgraded, but I think I did do the install over V7. I am using the LAV Video Decoder, though. I don't even have the SageTV MPEG Video Decoder as an option. The only other option is Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder. I've been using EVR as the Video Renderer.

I'll try changing those up and see if it has any impact - and report back.

In the meantime, if anyone else has any ideas....

[wnjj]

Also if you can post client and server log files from right after having an issue there may be some clues...particularly with the missing audio where there could be some error messages.

[KryptoNyte]

It is possible that Windows 10 did a forced update to your video card drivers that borked it?

[71_Cuda]

Originally Posted by wnjj

Also if you can post client and server log files from right after having an issue there may be some clues...particularly with the missing audio where there could be some error messages.

Changing the encoder and decoder didn't work. I changed them both this morning. Came back home this evening to slow motion without sound.

Can you tell me which files are the log files? Are they the sagetv_0 and sagetvclient_0 files in the main SageTV folder? If so, those files are like 7 MB and the upload limit is only 750 KB. Any suggestions? I also have _1, _2, _3 versions of each of those files dating back to yesterday.

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by 71_Cuda

Changing the encoder and decoder didn't work. I changed them both this morning. Came back home this evening to slow motion without sound.

Can you tell me which files are the log files? Are they the sagetv_0 and sagetvclient_0 files in the main SageTV folder? If so, those files are like 7 MB and the upload limit is only 750 KB. Any suggestions? I also have _1, _2, _3 versions of each of those files dating back to yesterday.

Yes those are the correct ones. The _0 versions are the most recent and all that’s needed. You can zip them up to post or host them somewhere like a cloud drive. Worst case I can PM you a link to my cloud drive to upload them to.

[71_Cuda]

Originally Posted by wnjj

Yes those are the correct ones. The _0 versions are the most recent and all that’s needed. You can zip them up to post or host them somewhere like a cloud drive. Worst case I can PM you a link to my cloud drive to upload them to.

Sorry for the delayed response. I've been away most of the weekend. Went to watch this morning, and of course the same thing. Looks like it started a new client file, though. So that is small. The server file is still big.

I posted both files at the link below. I renamed the files to contain the word error. After restarting the client and it working correctly, I recopied the logs again. So there are both client and server logs when it wasn't working correctly, labeled error, and both files when it is working correctly.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AitzyXgGBuAEgfUv...-yg8Q?e=DZxwXn

Please let me know if you see anything.

[wnjj]

In the failed client log, I see an error “Could not add specified audio renderer filter to graph” that isn’t in the good one. This is just after it sets the renderer to “Directsound: SFDIF Out (XMC-1)”.

What is an XMC-1 and you have some kind of audio driver installed for it? I don’t know why that would also affect video but perhaps something more fundamental is going wrong.

[71_Cuda]

Originally Posted by wnjj

In the failed client log, I see an error “Could not add specified audio renderer filter to graph” that isn’t in the good one. This is just after it sets the renderer to “Directsound: SFDIF Out (XMC-1)”.

What is an XMC-1 and you have some kind of audio driver installed for it? I don’t know why that would also affect video but perhaps something more fundamental is going wrong.

The XMC-1 is my preamp (Emotiva XMC-1). I have it connected via USB for digital audio.

It's been connected that way for a long time - nothing has changed recently. I have had issues in the past with no sound, but video was fine. I would have to reboot to reestablish the connection with the preamp. Disconnecting and reconnecting the USB may have worked, but it is too hard to access.

But it is a good observation. I'll try playing around with that. There is an option for the SPDIF without the DirectSound. I've changed it to that for now. If it happens again, I'll check the logs. If it still shows the same difference between good and bad, I may have to move to an analog connection.

I'll post back here results.

[71_Cuda]

Well that was definitely the issue...

After changing the Audio Decoder to something other than the DirectSound SPDIF, I went several days without the issue occurring. To be sure, I set it back to DirectSound and the next day the issue returned.

The only problem now is I remember why I was on that setting... The other settings result in a popping in the speakers/subwoofer when I skip forward and back, and sometimes pause. That's a separate annoying issue that now I will have to try to figure out. But, for now, it is better than a daily recurrence of restarts to fix the slow motion with no audio.

Thank you very much for your help - VERY appreciated.

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by 71_Cuda

Well that was definitely the issue...

After changing the Audio Decoder to something other than the DirectSound SPDIF, I went several days without the issue occurring. To be sure, I set it back to DirectSound and the next day the issue returned.

The only problem now is I remember why I was on that setting... The other settings result in a popping in the speakers/subwoofer when I skip forward and back, and sometimes pause. That's a separate annoying issue that now I will have to try to figure out. But, for now, it is better than a daily recurrence of restarts to fix the slow motion with no audio.

Thank you very much for your help - VERY appreciated.

That's good to hear. Popping sound is better than an unusable system. Have you looked into drivers and/or firmware?

I found this: https://emotiva.com/blogs/info-hub-1/xmc-1