MVP stopped connecting

[davey_fl]

Has been working fine for a couple of months - yesterday it couldn't find the server despite many unplugs/resets. I rebooted the Sage server and it found the machine again, but now it gets stuck on "Contacting Servers" and never moves past that - any ideas?

Thanks

[rtengvad]

Maybe your log file can bring some light on the problem.

rtengvad

[jwmcclung]

Weird, I have 3 MVP's and they were all working great until today. All of the sudden all three don't work any longer, basically the same issue as the previous post. I cannot find a Sage server. I have rebooted everything many times and still no luck. Any ideas? Where are the log files stored?

Any help is appreciated.

[rtengvad]

In your sage.properties set

debug_logging=TRUE

The log file is called sagetv_0.txt. You find it in the sage folder

[stuckj]

It appears I'm having the same problem. I've been using a MediaMVP client with my SageTV server for a few months now and it's worked beautifully. I turned it on one night and it decided to just not connect. Keeps giving me a "failed to locate GUI server" error. I'm pretty sure I didn't change anything. Here's my specific info:

AMD Athlon 3200+
Windows 2003 Enterprise Server
2 GB RAM
SageTV (in service mode) with placeshifter
Hauppauge PVR-250 MCE capture card
MediaMVP (rev 2.03)
Multi-homed network configuration (172.16.140.0/24 and 192.168.15.0/24)

The placeshifter client still works fine both on the local network and from the internet (with port forwarding on my router). This only affects the MediaMVP client. I tried playing with settings in Sage, but couldn't find anything that would suggest a problem. Just for kicks, I fully uninstalled and reinstalled SageTV (after backing up my old directory), but that didn't help. I also tried disabling SageTV and turning on the hauppauge MediaMVP software. It CAN connect to that so I don't think my MediaMVP got fried or anything like that. Oh, also my MediaMVP is one of the wireless ones. I tried both the wireless and wired connection (since it has both) with the same result for both. No connection. Just the "failed to locate GUI server".

Per the previous poster's suggestion, I enabled debug_logging. I've attached the log. It appears that Sage is recieving the MediaMVP packet and sending a response. It's just that nothing seems to happen after that. :-P

Any suggestions. This is rather frustrating. I had some trouble initially setting up the MediaMVP client due to an invalid mvp.bin in my original sage installation (which, BTW, I think Sage should have in their faq...took a bit of forum searching to figure that one out. I made the suggestion, but it still does not appear to be there).

Thanks in advance,
-Johnny

[stuckj]

Oops,

Forgot to attach the log. Here goes.

[stuckj]

Ok,

So it figures that right after I posted my last messageI get it working. :-P This forum lead me to check out my network a little more (http://forums.gbpvr.com/archive/index.php?t-5741.html). It seems the MediaMVP is very finicky with DHCP. According to that thread, Hauppauge's software has some workaround that makes it act like a DHCP server (not quite sure how that works since DHCP is broadcast...why doesn't it foobar other clients?).

But anywho, my fix was to hardcode an IP address for my MediaMVP in my DHCP server in the router (using DD-WRT on a Linksys Wireless G router). I then rebooted the router and Sage (after the router finished booting) and it worked.

My GUESS of what caused this is that the DHCP server wasn't responding fast enough for the MediaMVP. Although, this is kinda weird as the router showed the MediaMVP as having an IP. And the MediaMVP didn't indicate a network problem. Also weird since it just started not working out of the blue.

But, I think it's safe to say that this error was due to some type of networking issue. I think Hauppauge needs a little work making their MVP more robust, however.

-Johnny

[rtengvad]

Hi Johnny

That worked for me too. Thanks for the tip!!

rtengvad

[stuckj]

No prob,

Glad it worked for you.

-Johnny

[hemicuda]

I ended up doing the same to mine (slackware DHCPd), but I'm not 100% sure that's what fixed things. I posted a couple of wireshark snapshots in another thread. One using the Sage server the other using the MVP s/w.

[stuckj]

I'm not convinced it was DHCP that fixed it either. It's possible just changing the IP address fixed it. Could be that Hauppauge doesn't have a very stable DHCP client. Maybe it was rejecting the IP for some reason.

I used ethereal to check out the packet traffic over the network and verified that the SageTV server really was sending the MVP response over the wire to the MediaMVP. It appeared the MVP did know what it's IP was since the MVP broadcast packets came from the dynamic address assigned to the MVP every time it was searching for a server.

One oddity I noticed is that sometimes the broadcast packet was malformed (according to ethereal, at least). It was usually the first couple of server search attempts sent out from the MVP on the first bootup after a hard reset (i.e., unplugging it).

[rtengvad]

Yes, I was also a bit to quick in my reply

Lets hope the new beta will sort out things

rtengvad

[mbrown3]

I'm having the same problem after MVP working for months with no problem. However, in terms of the fix you all posted, I have no idea what you're talking about! Can someone walk me through how to do what you all did to get it working again. My computing skills are quite advanced when it comes to hardware, OS, programming, but I know next to nothing about networking. Thanks in advance for any help.

[polen]

Originally Posted by stuckj

I'm not convinced it was DHCP that fixed it either. It's possible just changing the IP address fixed it. Could be that Hauppauge doesn't have a very stable DHCP client. Maybe it was rejecting the IP for some reason.

I your log file shows your MediaMVP having the IP 172.16.140.147

Sun 9/24 23:33:09.494 MiniUI got connection from Socket[addr=/172.16.140.147,port=1577,localport=31099]
Sun 9/24 23:33:09.964 MiniPlayer is adding to its map:005056c00008
Sun 9/24 23:33:09.967 MiniUI got connection from Socket[addr=/172.16.140.147,port=1578,localport=31099]
Sun 9/24 23:33:10.814 MiniUI is adding to its map:005056c00008
Sun 9/24 23:33:10.814 Creating new UI for client:005056c00008
Sun 9/24 23:33:10.950 Error in MediaServerConnection of :java.io.EOFException

and your server to be

Sun 9/24 23:30:46.565 addr: /127.0.0.1
Sun 9/24 23:30:46.565 addr: /192.168.15.101
Sun 9/24 23:30:46.566 Miniserver running on 192.168.15.101

So your MediaMVP was having issues with your DHCP server and not getting an IP from it.

For others just do a search for Mini in the SageTV debug log.

-Polen

[jwmcclung]

I have 4 MVP's (3 wired and 1 wireless although they are all physically wired). I have been running Sage for quite a while now with no real issues. I decided to reboot my pc this morning and voila... none of my mvp's work now. I have looked through this post and as many others as I could find but still no real luck in finding the problem.

Here are the steps I have tried thus far.

1) Turned all of the MVP's off.
2) Turned off my firewall in WinXP.
3) Restarted the Sage service.
4) Rebooted my LinksysG router.
5) Tried starting just one MVP at a time, no luck. They do seem to get an IP address as far as the router is concerned.
6) I have turned on debugging in the sage.properties file although nothing seems to get logged.

I have spent too much time and money on this project to give up but I am really starting to get frustrated with the MVP's and how touchy they seem to be. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[jwmcclung]

I figured it out. I had something going on with my ethernet port on my pc. Everything seems fine now.

[mdnttoker]

Originally Posted by jwmcclung

I figured it out. I had something going on with my ethernet port on my pc. Everything seems fine now.

So what'd you do to fix it?

[jwmcclung]

I uninstalled another application that created a virtual loopback port on my ethernet adapter. Removed it, rebooted and all is well again.

[mdnttoker]

Originally Posted by jwmcclung

I uninstalled another application that created a virtual loopback port on my ethernet adapter. Removed it, rebooted and all is well again.

I had a similar problem after installing one of those online backup programs (I think it was AOL Xdrive, not sure though).

Let this be a warning to everyone out there

-Dan

[vlchild]

Since there were so many people that had this happen all at once, including me. I wonder if the actual root cause is a Microsoft patch that we all happily downloaded and installed. I say this for three reasons.

1. Many people had it happen at the same time.
2. It happened to me after I installed a series of backdated patches.
3. I have seen M$ patches do similar things in the environment I manage.

just my $.02