My Video Sources are Breeding

[gandalf]

I went into Setup/Video Sources to make a modification to enabled channels and found many more 'sources' than I physically have. The R5000 source, a network encoder, was replicated many times. Shutting SageTV down and restarting the service got me back to the right number of sources - until I made a change to the channel lineup on any source. Going back to the source menu showed that four 'new' R5000 source copies had appeared. The same keeps happening every time a change is made - more copies appear.
This did not happen, as far as I know, when I originally upgraded from V7 to V9 and the install (32bit 9.1.10.783 / Java 1.8.0_241) has been stable for some time.
So I decided it was time to upgrade to 64 bit and see if the problem vanished with newer software. I installed 64bit 9.2.1.826. Took a long time to configure and I still have issues around the HDHR tuners and the USBUIRT to resolve. However it will load and run showing the set of tuners. However same issue as with 32bit. Changing anything causes replication of the R5000 entry.
Any ideas what might be causing this? I really want to solve it before proceeding further with the upgrade to 64bit. I have a system that is live and working - apart from the breeding sources issue.

[pilotguy7ca]

I had experienced the same issue with my 4 R5000 units but it appeared to be only a display issue from what I could tell. I never noticed any operating issues other than it was confusing when editing channel lineups since the sources would multiply with each successive time I went back to edit. I am on 64bit but had same issue with 32 like you say.

I have since moved on from the R5000's to newer satellite boxes using HDMI and the openDCT plugin and don't experience this issue now.

[checkbin]

Pilotguy7ca, please tell me more? What is your setup for using Satellite boxes with the Opendct plugin and HDMI?. I am still using Dish Network with R5000s and am very interested in knowing more of how your setup works. Thank you for any details you can provide.

[peternm22]

Take a look at these threads for more details:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63177
https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63855

The HDMI capture device I have been using (BM3000), is significantly more reliable than my old R5000 mod ever was. The two downsides are a slight loss in quality due to re-encoding, and no 5.1 audio support.

[gandalf]

Since I wrote this post I have made no changes to the channel lineups. When I posted, I had just restarted the SageTV service and had 7 sources:
Hauppauge Siena #2
DTC100 (R5000 modified box)
Hauppauge Siena #1
HDHR 1a
HDHR 1b
HDHR 2a
HDHR 2b
I just looked now and have to scroll down to source #166 to find the Hauppauge Siena #1. Sources 2 to 165 are all duplicates of the DTC100 R5000 unit.
Windows was restarted after updates 11 days ago - so that is how long SageTV has been running.
Simply stopping and restarting the SageTV service returns me to the real 7 sources only.
Yes - this does seem to be only a display issue. However there is no obvious cause and I am concerned that there might be an underlying issue that could have unexpected consequences. It is certainly not 'normal behaviour' and has evidently been observed by at least 2 of us. Have others using R5000s not seen this artifact? What might I be doing differently / wrongly?

[trk2]

I know nothing of using the R5000. Does this present itself as a network tuner to Sage? If so, have you tried network_encoder_discovery=false in the properties file? I assume this would prevent new tuners from being created, but I'm not sure if it would disable your existing tuner.

[gandalf]

This looked like a potential solution, though I can find no info on what network_encoder_discovery actually does.
I stopped SageTV and the service then changed network_encoder_discovery True to False then restarted everything.
Did that yesterday so there was only one R5000 entry. Now there are 4 - so still breeding. Bummer.
And yes, I did check the properties file to see network_encoder_discovery was still False.
Nice idea though - thanks.

[pilotguy7ca]

Originally Posted by checkbin

Pilotguy7ca, please tell me more? What is your setup for using Satellite boxes with the Opendct plugin and HDMI?. I am still using Dish Network with R5000s and am very interested in knowing more of how your setup works. Thank you for any details you can provide.

I had to upgrade my Starchoice boxes to get many of the new channels so I bought some HDMI streaming boxes from aliexpress, I have 6 now, and use the OpenDCT plugin found here https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62774 and sees it as network encoder similar to the R5000. Down side is you need to use something like the USBUIRT to change channels and sound is only stereo but works for me.

[JustFred]

Can you post a copy of the sagetv.properties file, all the sagetv_*.txt logs and the OpenDCT logs once the phantom R5000s have appeared? Examination of these files might provide some insight into what's taking place. You might need to zip up all those files to remain within the posting limits.

[gandalf]

Here is a ZIP with the properties file and the ...0.txt file. the other text files are too big to upload this way but you may have what you need in this file. If you need the others then I will send you a link to a cloud folder where you can download them.
What / where are the OpenDCT logs?
For context, SageTV now shows 33 sources, of which #2 to #28 are the same. The system uptime is 1 day 14 hours from a Windows Update reboot.

[JustFred]

Looking at the two files provided, I don't see anything out of the ordinary. Both files show only a single instance of the DTC100-100254C device. I'm assuming that's your R5000. Please post a screen grab of the Sage menu that shows multiple R5000 devices.

[gandalf]

OK - last night I shut down the SageTV client (server was still running). Today I started SageTV and took the first screenshot for you. It shows what should display. I then watched a 30 minute show and then took the second screenshot. It shows that 3 'new' copies of the R5000 source have appeared. The ONLY thing I did was watch a show and delete it.
Enjoy the puzzle.

[peternm22]

1) Do you have more than one client? Do the extra R5000 instances show up on all of the clients?
2) Do you have any plugins installed?
3) You said that restarting the SageTV service removes the extra R5000's. Does simply restarting the client do the same? Or does it require the service to be restarted?
4) Do the extra sources appear in the parallel recording schedule? Go to TV > Recording Schedule > Parallel Schedule. It will list all of your active sources along the top.

The network_encoder_discovery that someone else brought up was a good idea, but I don't believe the R5000 supports auto encoder discovery. When I had a R5000, I needed to manually edit the Sage.properties file to get SageTV to see it. I checked your properties file and compared it to the one on the R5000 site, and I don't see any problems with it.

You could try backing up your SageTV installation (make sure to get your wiz.bin and Sage.properties, but probably best to just copy the entire folder). Then remove all of your sources except for the R5000 and see if it still multiplies on its own.

[JustFred]

Disclaimer: I'm not at all familiar with the R5000. Looking at the screen grab of input Sources shows the device is a USB device.. is that correct? Maybe the USB device disconnects & reconnects, causing the another entry each time it reconnects. Maybe the phantom source appears after the PC wakes from sleep? Try connecting to a different USB port on the computer?

Seems cosmetic. Might just be a mystery that remains unsolved...

[peternm22]

Originally Posted by JustFred

Disclaimer: I'm not at all familiar with the R5000. Looking at the screen grab of input Sources shows the device is a USB device.. is that correct? Maybe the USB device disconnects & reconnects, causing the another entry each time it reconnects. Maybe the phantom source appears after the PC wakes from sleep? Try connecting to a different USB port on the computer?

Seems cosmetic. Might just be a mystery that remains unsolved...

Yes, the R5000 is a mod for cable/satellite boxes that gives them a USB output so that you can record the raw video stream from them.

The R5000 is setup as a network encoder so SageTV can’t see the device directly. There is a R5000 app that handles the actually recording and tuning, and SageTV just tells it what to do. I don’t think SageTV would be able to detect the USB being disconnected as the R5000 network encoder (and I think this is the case for most SageTV network encoders) is pretty limited in the feedback it provides back to SageTV. There would be recording halts in the system messages if the R5000 couldn’t record, but beyond that I don’t think there is much communication between the two.

[Denali]

Just a thought, In Windows Device Manager are USB Hubs set to Power Down to save power?

[gandalf]

Thanks for the comments - here is some follow-up.
This does seem to be related to the client - yes, restarting the client alone (leaving the service running) seems to reset the problem. I do have an extender that I will try shortly - my son has it right now. I suspect that will not have the problem and that it relates just to how this client sees the system.
Looking at System Info shows the interesting attached screenshot. The client seems to show the correct 7 'Capture Devices Available' yet it then goes on to show 'Configured Input Details' for the phantom devices. How is there a difference to the client between the two - 'devices' and 'inputs'?
No, it is not a USB power-down issue. The USB ports used are on the MoBo and are USB2 - and nothing on the system other than the disk drives, is set to power down. The system runs 24x7 and is UPS backed.

[peternm22]

Certain capture devices can have more than 1 input. For example, I had a very old Hauppauge PVR250 capture card (before I went HD). It had 3 inputs: analog TV tuner, composite video, and S-Video.

When you changed to 64 bit to see if it resolved the problem, did you copy your sage.properties file over to the new installation? Or did you configure everything from scratch? If you copied over your previous config, you may have copied over a problematic setting that is causing this.

When you have the duplicates listed in Video Sources, if you change the settings of one of them (change the EPG lineup for example), do the rest of the duplicates have their lineups changed as well? I'm wondering if all of those duplicate entries are just ghost entries pointing to the same thing.

[gandalf]

I created a new properties structure for 64-bit. However I had a lot of issues with the USBUIRT. These were solved by moving it to a USB2 port. I still have issues that are stopping me going live on 64bit but basically I have no time to play at present.
Re the duplicates - yes they are 'ghosts'. Changing channel lineup on one changes them all.