MVP Blinking black screen + Sage "booting up" screen.

[Fallen Kell]

hehe... I'm just another user Jester, I don't work for Sage in anyway. I just know how to debug network issues because that is what I have been doing for the last 9 years. I also understand programming because that is what my degree is in, so it gives me a good grounded basis for electronics and computers. All I can hope to do is point poeple, including SageTV, in possible directions of where the problems may be, since I have a vested interest in the product working because I can't run a hardwire into the room that I want to use without many issues (like the fact that the wall has a loadbairing beam that runs the length along the top of it between the floors, which would mean I would have to drill through it, or possibly go through the heating/cooling ducts, but that is a major pain and I would then have to fish the line from the floor, back over to the wall and then up the wall and finally around a corner into another wall and through all the wall joists... not something I can do without taking the drywall down and that is not an option).

Could you use ethereal/wireshark and make a capture of what your setup does when the mvp boots? You might have a different problem occuring then taltman. Basically the capture should be able to give us an idea of what is occuring.

[taltman]

Originally Posted by _Demo_

Did you edit the sagetv log? It should do at least 10 timeouts before doing retry count exceeded.

_Demo_

Hi Demo & Fallen,

I didn't edit the sagetv log. I can upload another one in a few days after I return from a business trip. In any case the point I wanted to make is that using SageTV doesn't work yet using Hauppage software does.

This clearly indicates to me that SageTV has a problem, not my wireless network.

I'll attempt to upload more data to help debug the issue. Which MVP.bin file should I be using?

/Tal

[Jester]

I second taltman's point. My wireless setup works with Hauppauge software so why is SAgeTV crashing? If it's that sensitive to whatever is making it blink then we should be warned before we purchase it and move a buch of equipment, order tv catds, etc.

I re-read the sticky announcement of the wireless mvp and reminded myself that teh promise was made that it could just be connected and woola!

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by taltman

Hi Demo & Fallen,

I didn't edit the sagetv log. I can upload another one in a few days after I return from a business trip. In any case the point I wanted to make is that using SageTV doesn't work yet using Hauppage software does.

This clearly indicates to me that SageTV has a problem, not my wireless network.

I'll attempt to upload more data to help debug the issue. Which MVP.bin file should I be using?

/Tal

Could you confirm that you don't have the blink problem but that the sagetv application doesn't load on the mvp? (you don't see the sagetv loading screen)

Thanks

_Demo_

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by Jester

I second taltman's point. My wireless setup works with Hauppauge software so why is SAgeTV crashing? If it's that sensitive to whatever is making it blink then we should be warned before we purchase it and move a buch of equipment, order tv catds, etc.

I re-read the sticky announcement of the wireless mvp and reminded myself that teh promise was made that it could just be connected and woola!

Could you confirm that you only see the sagetv loading screen and that it goes to black then show it again with the latest mvp.bin at http://download.sagetv.com/~jeanfrancois/alpha/mvp.bin ?

Which router are you using and what is your network configuration?

Thanks

_Demo_

[Jester]

D-Link MIMO router and it is blinking at the loading screen. I've tried three different mvp's with no change in results.

It won't even work in the same room 10 feet away but it works fine in wired mode and it works fine on Hauppague software in wireless mode. I'm at a loss at how the Hauppauge software will boot wirelessly and the Sage software will not! It tells me that it's not a signal or setup issue, but I am guessing.

[rtengvad]

Hi Demo

I tried the last mvp.bin on my wired mvp. I still can't get smooth playback but have small digital squares freezing in the pictures every 5 seconds or so. Could it be a PAL thing?

rtengvad

[Fallen Kell]

Originally Posted by Jester

D-Link MIMO router and it is blinking at the loading screen. I've tried three different mvp's with no change in results.

It won't even work in the same room 10 feet away but it works fine in wired mode and it works fine on Hauppague software in wireless mode. I'm at a loss at how the Hauppauge software will boot wirelessly and the Sage software will not! It tells me that it's not a signal or setup issue, but I am guessing.

Do you have MIMO disabled or enabled? I am just wondering because I have seen it decrease performance if it is enabled and the devices that connect to it are not MIMO capable (same holds for Linksys's "speed boost" which is really pretty much the same thing as MIMO, they just didn't want to use the same marketing name). This won't fix your problems, but just something that will overall increase your wireless speeds.

I can say that you can attempt to do what I did, if your router is capable (not sure, I have a D-Link MIMO around here somewhere, I will hook it up and let you know for sure). Basically the thing I did was find out both Mac addresses to the wireless mvp and I setup my DHCP server that is in the router to give the same static IP address to any device that uses either of those Mac addresses.

If you have a router that supports the DD-WRT software you can do this by following these easy steps:

1) On the "Setup -> Basic Setup" page, under the "Network Address Server Settings (DHCP)" section, make sure DHCP Types = "DHCP Server" AND that "Use DNSMasq for DHCP" is NOT checked.

2) Get both of the Mac Addresses for the wireless mvp from a network capture tool like Ethereal/Wireshark

3) On the "Administration -> Services" page, under the "DHCP Server" section, click the "add" button a couple times so that you have at least 2 sets of boxes.

4) Add the each MAC Address into the appropriately named boxes, then give the mvp a hostname (I used "mvp1"), and an IP address that is outside the range of your DHCP address (on the front settings page it will have that information under "Start IP Address" so make this a value that is outside that range).

See my below screen capture. I am not sure if this really will make a difference to anyone or not, but what it will do is give your wireless mvp the same ip address on your network all the time. You can also do this with other systems, like servers so that you will always know what the IP address...

[Jester]

I can't add the device twice as you show and I can't add an address outside the range. The router gives me grief messages. My router is a D-Link DI-634M. It reports that the MVP is at 36Mb communication rate and 76% signal strength. I still think it's a bug in Sage.


I downloaded wireshark but have no idea how to use it.

Any ideas?

[Fallen Kell]

Ok, if you have Wireshark installed, open it up, and and click on the "Capture" menu, then click on "Interfaces" under that menu. It should list any/all network cards that are on your computer. Pick the network card that you use to connect to your lan, and hit the "Capture" button that is next to it. A new window will open up showing an overview of the capture as it is occuring (basically it will list the kinds of packets it is capturing and the total count of those packets). Now go and boot up your MVP. When it gets to the part where it stops working properly wait 10-20 seconds so you can get information about what is happening network wise, and then hit the "Stop" button.

Now it will show detailed information about what was captured. You can save it to a file under the "File" menu and then post it here.

[Jester]

Am I exposing stuff about my network if I post the file here? Would it be better to send it privately to you?

[pawn]

Sorry to jump in, but could someone tell me the status of this problem without having to sift through the dozens of posts on the subject?

I upgraded from v4.1.3 last week to v5.04 and now have this blinking boot screen issue. Everything worked flawless for months before the upgrade. I have a wired MVP and use TurboDHCP to supply an IP consistent with my local LAN network.

Thanks.

For what it's worth, I tried teh alpha mvp.bin in this thread with no change: flashing bootup screen.

Edit:

More info: I have reverted to the mvp.bin, clients directory and remote.properties.defaults from my v4.1.3 installation and nothing works, although everything worked under 4.1.3. This leads me to believe it's a SageTV core issue, not something in the mvp.bin, but what do I know?

Also, there's this from my sage.properties file:

mini_discovery_port=31100
miniclient/authenticate_local_connections=true
miniclient/buffersize=32768
miniclient/debug_push=false
miniclient/pawn/pwd=a3164cd9138f68147d3c5598461c1ab
miniclient/pawn/stv=C\:\\Program Files\\SageTV\\SageTV\\STVs\\SageTV3\\MusicBrowser.xml
miniclient/users=pawn,true;
minimum_tv_file_size=500000
minimum_video_memory_for_dx9=20000000
miniserver/automvp=true
miniserver/clients=
miniserver/delay_between_connections=15000
miniserver/gateway=192.168.0.1

That last line is strange since my subnet is 192.168.1.0. The server is 192.168.1.2 and teh MVP's IP from DHCP is 192.168.1.104. I have no idea what that gateway is supposed to be or I'd change it.

[Jester]

No problem. It appears that you are in the same boat as me. I'm betting a lunch that it's a Sage issue as well.

If it's a simple test, try yours wired and see if it works. Mine does but that misses the point of wireless MVP.

[pawn]

Originally Posted by Jester

No problem. It appears that you are in the same boat as me. I'm betting a lunch that it's a Sage issue as well.

If it's a simple test, try yours wired and see if it works. Mine does but that misses the point of wireless MVP.

Mine is actually a wired MVP.

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by pawn

Mine is actually a wired MVP.

Can you post a debug log? Your issue is not related to the other ones.

Thanks

_Demo_

[_Demo_]

I have uploaded a new version of the alpha mvp.bin, you can download it on this link :
mvp.bin

Let me know if it helps.

Thanks

_Demo_

[Fallen Kell]

I'll let you know as soon as I get home from work.

[Fallen Kell]

Originally Posted by Jester

Am I exposing stuff about my network if I post the file here? Would it be better to send it privately to you?

You can expose some information about your network, I won't lie to you there. The main thing to just check that you don't expose is your external IP address and the Mac Address of your external WAN link on your router. They really aren't specifically security related, but they just announce that you are the user who is at that IP, so that if someone wanted to specifically target you for some reason or another they know where to start looking. The reality is though that your network is already being bombarded by automated scans and probes already if you have a DSL, Cable, or other high speed network connection, and your security will have already been breached if there was a vulnerability.

I blurred out the Mac address in that photo because it is on one of my websites that other people might easily notice.

[rtengvad]

Hi Demo

The latest mvp.bin still gives me the same playback stutter. Looks like small drops in network capacity every 5 seconds or so.

But boots up my wired mvp very fine so seems to solve my black screen/high tone boot up problem

rtengvad

[pawn]

Originally Posted by _Demo_

Can you post a debug log? Your issue is not related to the other ones.

Thanks

_Demo_

UUUUUuuuuuuughhh. While preparing the log for you, I realized the problem:

"Wed 7/12 17:16:47.329 Error w/ MiniUI socket of:java.io.IOException: MiniClient does not support Blowfish or DES yet authentication is required for it's connection!"

This is because I had this set:

miniclient/authenticate_local_connections=true

This was set at the advice of Sage support staff because Placeshifter is not asking for authentication for remote users, likely due to my use of a linux box as a router (being detected as a connection on the local LAN).

Thanks.