First 5 min missing, finally saw it happen!

[OttoNP]

Every now and then, I would have the first 5 min of a show missing. I finally saw it happen tonight. I had two high def shows set to record tonight, one on 62.1 and one on 7.1, both at 10 pm. Right at 10:01, I went to check both and found that the show on 62.1 showed no signal for the first 5 min and then clicked on. As a result, I believe the problem is trying to tune two channels at once at same time. I'm going to schedule some on purpose and see if I can it to predictly repeat I'm using two HVR-1600 with over the air high definition. It has only ever happend on digital tuners. Has occurred with all sage versions i've used at some point, so starting with support of the hvr-1600, this was on 6.3.5. I reported this same issue before and was told to try this:

seeker/fast_mux_switch=false

what does this property do and why would it help?

does it make sense that it would affect tuning two channels at once?

I don't think it happens everytime, seems to happen to me about once a month...i hate problems like this...

[djseto]

I had the same problem last night. Anyone have any more clarification?

[titanium]

I also lost the first five minutes of Everybody Hates Chris last night. This happened at 8:00 PM EST. I was only recording one show on the digital tuner in my 1600 card.

[OttoNP]

I don't have any updates on this. I think it may be because the station failed to tune the first time and then reattempted 5 min later...

weird case was when the 5 min was in a show directly after another show that used the same tuner, i guess it retunes even if the show is on the same station. I have also had a case where it was the only tuner recording at the time.

Sage help us out...

Also, still have no idea what that property does.

For me it happens about once every 6 months, which would be one hell of a debug log. I have tried to make it happen by scheduling two recordings at once, etc... but have not been able too.

But please, someone tell me what


seeker/fast_mux_switch=false

does!

[djseto]

This happened again to me tonight when recording Prison Break and American Gladiators at the same time in HD using my Hauppauge HVR-1600 cards. The same thing happened last week for Prison Break. I did change the fast_mux property to false and that didnt help. Any other suggestions?

[djseto]

When I went to watch American Gladiators, at the 5 min 40 second mark, the video skips and I clear lose some portion of the recording. Not alot, but probably 10-20 seconds. I have to think this missing portion coincides with the fact that I dont get video from Prison Break until about 5 minutes and 5 seconds. I scheduled two other HD shows that start at the same time to record this evening and I did not get this missing 5 minutes thing....weird. No one has any solution or suggestions?

[kevine]

My Prison Break was fine. 1 or 2 stutters during the entire broadcast. However, on the next program (Terminator:SCC) I lost anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute or 2 about 10 minutes into the program. Just jumped.

[sacrament055]

I've seen a similar problem running 6.3.5 but in my case it was on the SD content. I only had 1 HVR1600 active until I was running 6.3.5. I finally moved my other directv receiver to my Sage server and activated the 2nd HVR1600 at that point. In order to try and resolve this I removed all java versions except the latest, updated my HVR drivers to the latest hauppage drivers and updated my Sage to 6.3.6 and so far yesterday things seemed better but I'll keep an eye on it and post my results.

[jcato]

I thought it was just me. Never had this happen until recently. The last two recordings of Terminator were missing the first 5 minutes. I'm not sure if anything else was recording before or at the same time. This is with a HDHR.

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by OttoNP

weird case was when the 5 min was in a show directly after another show that used the same tuner, i guess it retunes even if the show is on the same station. I have also had a case where it was the only tuner recording at the time.

Detailed Setup>Customize>Always Tune Channel

You might try setting that to no.

[frontlinegeek]

I have also seen this happen and I am on a dual firewire tuner setup with Motorola STBs.

[Mark57]

Originally Posted by CollinR

Detailed Setup>Customize>Always Tune Channel

You might try setting that to no.

This happened to me last night. I have two HVR-1600's and I do have "Always Tune Channel" set to no. All the shows were OTA HD. In my case it appears to always happen to the show being recorded immediately after the channel change when on the same tuner. To illustrate, I'll build the record schedule for everyone's mental image . . . .

(They're all favorites and have no padding)

Tuner #1 had four back to back shows from 6pm - 9pm. The first two (Two and a Half Men) were on one channel 34.1 at 6 and 6:30pm and then was scheduled to switch to 9.1 @ 7pm to record CSI: NY and CSI @ 8pm also on 9.1.

Tuner #2 was set to record Lost on 5.1 @ 7pm - 9pm.

The first 5 minutes of CSI: NY on Tuner #1 @ 7pm was not recorded.

Two things were happening at 7pm. Tuner #1 was switching from 34.1 to 9.1 and tuner #2 started recording on 5.1.

I'm wondering if this is just a HVR-1600 issue? Any thoughts are appreciated. My 1600 drivers are up to date.



PS, yes I do have the suggested setting from Andy's FAQ for the seeker/fast_mux_switch=false.

Also my signal strength is 98% on all the HD OTA channels.

[OttoNP]

I have had many theories about two consecutive shows, shows starting at the same time, shows on certain tuners...etc...

Lately I have been trying to recreate the problem with no luck...it seems to happen to me randomly about once every 2 months. Last night I had it get smallville at 8-9, supernatural at 9-10, lost from 8-9, and lost from 9-10, it treated lost as two separate shows. So, I had two HDTV shows start at the same time twice and not only that, I also had another SD show taped. So, I had both hvr-1600 start hdtv with one starting SD at the same time with no problems...I don't know how anything could be more taxing than that...also, we were watching high def at the same time and commerical skip was running...I was very happy...

my current leading theory (and what I will believe until something tells me different) is that sometimes for whatever reason, the hvr-1600 can not tune the channel. in this case, you lose the 5 min. my source percent is very high as well for all my OTA channels.

The one time I saw it happen, it did said no signal on the screen. After stopping and starting the recording again the signal was in the 9x% strength...

Here is my question to Sage:

It seems that if it can not tune a channel initally it tries again in 5 min, is this parameter configurable? If I could change this to like 1 min or 10 sec, then I would only miss the first 10 sec or 1 min once every two months. I have tried the two above fixes at same time and separate with no results...

[carlgar]

OttoNP, I think you are close. Last time I saw it happen, I studied the log. I came to the conclusion that 2 shows started at the same time on the same device (HDHome). I think the tuning of the second tuner caused a problem with the first.
After 5 minutes another task (that probably runs every 5 minutes) detected that the tuner had stopped. It then restarted the stopped tuner. I had over issues so I did not get around to submitting it to support. I have not seen the issue since.

[Mark57]

I've turned on logging and will do some experiments that match last night's scenario to see if I can reproduce it with garbage shows instead of the good stuff. This is my third occurance but like you guys, it doesn't happen very often.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by Mark57

I'm wondering if this is just a HVR-1600 issue? Any thoughts are appreciated. My 1600 drivers are up to date.

I've recently raised this issue to support and have sent them a couple of different log files that captured the issue. I have an HD HomeRun tuner and I've been told by support that the issue is caused by the HomeRun. If you (or others) are having trouble with the 5 minute issue on a different tuner (like your HVR-1600), I would urge you to raise the issue to support so that it has more visibility.

I know the Sage folks don't normally review these forums, so if you do not raise the issue to support, then they may be unaware that you are having an issue.

I get this problem quite frequently on my HD HomeRun (perhaps once a week or more) and I would love for Sage to handle it in some way (even if only to check sooner than 5 minutes after the recording begins to make sure everything was tuned correctly).

[Mark57]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

I've recently raised this issue to support and have sent them a couple of different log files that captured the issue. I have an HD HomeRun tuner and I've been told by support that the issue is caused by the HomeRun. If you (or others) are having trouble with the 5 minute issue on a different tuner (like your HVR-1600), I would urge you to raise the issue to support so that it has more visibility.

I know the Sage folks don't normally review these forums, so if you do not raise the issue to support, then they may be unaware that you are having an issue.

I get this problem quite frequently on my HD HomeRun (perhaps once a week or more) and I would love for Sage to handle it in some way (even if only to check sooner than 5 minutes after the recording begins to make sure everything was tuned correctly).

Thanks spacecadet. I've got my logging turned on now. I'm just waiting for it to happen again so I can have something substantive to give to support. I will raise the issue with them when it reoccurs. I posted here to get a feel for how widespread it was. I find it interesting that it's happening with an HDHR device as well since it's not a local device. That steers me away from thinking it was hardware.

I've tried all sorts of combinations to try and reproduce it but I've not hit the right combination just yet.

[OttoNP]

Happened again tonight, this will be my log of when it happens since I can not repeat it:

1/09/2008:
Recording 2 channels at once, 7.1 ad 62.1, 62.1 was missing first 5 min, TS#2, no preceding recordings

2/05/2008
Recorded 2 channels at once, 2.1 and 50.1, 2.1 was missing first 5 min, TS, was recording American Idol on 2.1 before the missing 5 min on same tuner. Later in night, 2.1 read at 97%. Rainy tonight. Other Notes: I did a computer restart just before and was watching old recording when these recordings started

Crazy since on 2/1 I recorded a ton at same time with no problems...I wonder now if restart could be playing role, I think I had also done restart last time, not sure why that would have affect..

[Mark57]

I happened to me again last night. This time I have logging and better observations. I've already contacted support but I'm posting the same info here so you can compare. Here's basically what I sent support . . . .

Missing 1st 5 minutes of some shows. This has happened multiple times. I have debug logging turned on so I do have a log file for you to look at. I also have the seeker/fast_mux_switch set to off and auto tune is off. I have a favorite set to record NCIS with a 6 minute front end padding and a 1 minute end padding. When I view the recorded file on the server, it started recoding at 18:54:00 like it was set to. Watching the content and the time bar, I can tell that right at 7pm there is a 5 minute gap in the recording as if it stopped recording from 7:00pm to ~7:05pm. This was recorded on OTA HD and I was watching the show on a different TV via cable so I know what content is missing. The first 5 minutes. I also notice the the recording was made in 2 files instead of one. I see that NCIS-LeapofFaith-5222461-0.mpg is dated 2/12/08 7:05:04pm and NCIS-LeapofFaith-5222461-1.mpg is dated 2/12/08 8:01 pm. It's obvious that something happened at 7:05pm.

In the log, I see all the entries to start the recoding at 18:54pm and then at 19:05:04 I see the following entry,

Tue 2/12 19:05:04.270 SEEKER HAS DETECTED A HALT IN THE ENCODER...TRYING TO RESET IT
Tue 2/12 19:05:04.271 VF.submitJob(VFJob[InactiveFile r=0.0 t=0 file=null ifn=F:\SageTV Recordings\NCIS-LeapofFaith-5222461-0.mpg])
Tue 2/12 19:05:04.273 stopEncoding0 called
Tue 2/12 19:05:04.307 Stopped graph res=0x0

I have 2 HVR-1600's and recently added a HVR-1800. This problem was happening before I added the HVR-1800

The HVR-1600 driver is 5/9/07 1.62.25129.0 and the HVR-1800 driver is 9/28/07 1.25.25271.0

I'm guessing the encoder failed at 7pm and was not detected until 7:05pm. I'm using the SageTV MPEG decoder.

I thought adding the padding would get me past this issue but it made no difference at all, besides wasting drive space.

PS, I did have other OTA HD and cable SD recordings going on at the same time this happened.

[carlgar]

I just got a fix from support for this issue using HDHRs. The following is what support thought my problem was:
"I figured out the problem, HDHR stream going through network has longer delay time when network or computer is busy, that confused a parser that is extracting channel information.
I postponed parsing start time to resolve this."

I don't know if this would have any effect on the HVR-1800 since it does not use networking. But it probably is related to timing.