Green screen of death

[bastafidli]

Hi, I am experiencing something which already got in our family name "Green screen of death". I have backed up couple of CDs via latest EAC into flac format. All CDs play perfectly via WMP and all but one play perfectly via Sage as well. The last one is the problem. When I try to play a song from it (click on the flac file and say play now), the screen turns completely green (the same as when flashing the firmware) and the extender doesn't react anymore on any of the remote control buttons or buttons on the front page. The only thing left is to power it off and on. At first (few days ago) it seems only some of the songs were causing it (I started playing couple of them to test), but now every single one from this CD locks the extender (the other CDs still play just fine).

Any idea what is going on and is anybody else experiencing this? I am running on what I think is the latest firmware (1226). Thanks.

[bastafidli]

I have updated to the latest firmware (running with 6.3.6rc on Linux) and two things happened

1. The files which was causing the green screen now doesn't do it anymore and instead after Sage attempts to play it, it gives me PlaybackException. Once I get the exception, it attempts to play it automatically again and I get the exception again.
2. The files which were playing before just fine don't play anymore and give me the green screen of death!!!

Any idea what is going on?

[reggie14]

I just updated my firmware today and now I'm having lots of problems with imported video file playback. Basically, mpeg4/divx/xvid files won't play. I get a playback exception. H.264 files usually play, but I occasionally get the green screen.

[bastafidli]

Support has suggested me to upgrade to the latest version, since they were able to play the file I have sent them without any issues with it.

I have upgraded to 200801208 0 and to 6.3.7 running on CentOS. I have extensively tested the playback of that one album and have to say that it completely randomly caused the green screen. This is what I experiended:

The first song (the song I sent them) played, then I played 6 or so more songs and then the next one caused GSOD. I restarted extender, tried to play the first song again and it haven't even started, got only spinning circle. Shutdown extender on remote, restarted sagetv server and started extender again. Tried to play the song, it caused GSOD. Restarted server and power cycle extender tried to play the first song, it played, tried to play the next, it caused GSOD. Restarted server and power cycle extender tried to play the first song and it caused GSOD and this time the extender restarted itself without me doing anything, and so on and so on

[_Demo_]

Could you try to remove any album art from the files with problems and see if it fix them?

Thanks

_Demo_

[bastafidli]

Hi Demo,

Last night I have sent to the support one entire folder with all the tracks in it. I have written an email to George about it. Hopefully he will have more luck with it now when he has multiple examples. As I mentioned I have several sets of flac files and all were compressed the same way (EAC) with the same tool (mp3 tag edit?) used to add album art (I have separate thread that when I just had folder.jpg in the directory, it was ignored, the only way to get the album art to appear was to embed it to the file). 3 of the folders always played without any issue, 1 of them never played (december firmware). Now with the january firmwares it is anybodys guess which track will cause the GSOD, I have seen it when playing various folders with flac files, but never playing mp3, avi or mp4. As you have suggested I will probably tonight try to create some flac files without album art and see what happens.

Thanks

[bastafidli]

Hello Demo,

I think you are onto something. I have reripped that particular cd and created two folders. One without embedded image with just folder.jpg alongside the flac files and one with the embedeed image. I am currently running 6.37 with the latest firmware 20080204. The new flac files without embedded images play just fine. The new flac files with the embedded images do not play, but at least the extender doesn't crash this time and just looks like it is trying to play them but does nothing. I can interrupt it with the stop key. So we are making progress, it seems like the latest firmware solved the GSOD but it still doesn't play the files. It might be related to the image used, since all my other flac files play even with embedded images.

Thanks

[bastafidli]

So 6.3.8 + the firmware 20080204 brings back the GSOD but only on that one CD with embeded images. All the other CDs with embedded images play just fine and the same CD without embedded image plays fine as well. Also when the GSOD occurrs, the extender no longer reboots itself. The GSOD goes away, but the screen remains blank and the extender appears to be stuck and not doing anything (red lefd + 2 green led are on) until I power cycle it.