First 5 min missing, finally saw it happen!

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by djseto

really? NOBODY can help...?

You said you were already part of another discussion about this, so if there were no ideas for you there, it doesn't surprise me if there are no new ideas from other users in a new thread for the same topic. If I were sure which other thread you were referring to, I might merge the threads for you.

The only things I know to try are in the FAQ I pointed you to -- the property change & poor signal issues for digital tuners. Other than that: this is a user-to-user forum, so try contacting support if no users have a suggestion.

- Andy

[djseto]

This is the old thread: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29816

Merge them if you wish. From the lack of responses, it doesn't seem like anyone has anything to contribute.

[Capt Dean]

I've had this begin hapening too with SD recordings, and even when only 1 show is set to record. I think it started when I changed my default bitrate. So when one show records at a higher bit rate, the next recording that is to record at a lower bitrate has the 5 minute gap, and vice versa. I'm testing to see if my theory holds. Using Happauge 350 encoders. I have set all recordings to be at the same bitrate.

[Cabalsan]

Oddly enough, i had this happen to me last 2 weeks in a row for Big Bang Theory here. First time I thought was a fluke. But happened again last monday.

it's the end of the season, so not sure if I can get it to replicate anytime soon!

-Cab

[OttoNP]

Wife was angry because this happened again...I think it is a reception issue for me (I have tried so many antennas, boosters, etc...), but I would just like to repeat my plea about getting the tuner to try again in less than 5 min...can I change this anywhere? It really seems to have gotten better since the digital switch...but it would get sweet to only lose 1-2 min instead of 5...

It happens to me so infrequently now after all my reception work that if I could just limit the impact of it I would be happy. I have giving up on eliminating the issue completely...

[djseto]

What version are you running? I had this happen once or twice in the last few months, but things only dropped out for a minute so I thought they had changed the retry to less than 5 minutes...

[djseto]

This is still happening to me and now it's almost every other day. Thanks to some changes in the latest release, I only miss the first minute, but I still want to know what the underlying cause is. Anyone else having this issue still?

[robogeek]

A couple of possible causes would be signal strength problem (too strong/too weak) for QAM and ATSC reception, failing capture card, or capture card drivers need to be updated. If you're not seeing anything in SageTV Setup->System Messages indicating an error when these recordings don't start on time, I would suspect you have one minute stop padding set for a favorite in the previous time slot of the recording that failed to start on time and the 'Remove padding from back-to-back recordings' option is disabled. Or possibly someone inadvertently set one minute negative start padding on the affected favorites which would cause them to start one minute late.

What kind of TV tuners or capture devices are you using? If you have a mix of tuner and capture device inputs (analog cable/QAM/ATSC/composite/svideo/component), does the failure affect shows on all tuner or cature device inputs or just certain inputs? What are the specs (processor/RAM) of your SageTV server? Maybe the SageTV debug log will have some clues. If you don't have debug logging enabled, enable it and post a log from when a recording failed to start on time.

[djseto]

When the issue happens, I get the standard "Halt Detected in Recording.." system message. There is no padding before or after any recordings I have scheduled.

Signal Strength should not be an issue. All my tuners show 80-85% signal strength for all my HD channels. I am not using OTA for HD. I have (2) Happauge HVR-1600 cards that are getting the cable feed from Time Warner Cable. I believe time warner is using unencrypted QAM to send the local HDs over the coax feed into my house.

My server is a dual core AMD Athalon64 x2 4200 running at 2.21 GHz w/ 3GB of RAM. I've been running this server for 3 years now. I used to get the Halt Detect errors every once and a while, but now it's several times a week. It appears to happen on random channels. I attached a log. The error happens at line 11,622 (or search for Mon 1/24 20:01:13.063 ).

[robogeek]

The halt detected error means the tuner card (or tuner card driver) isn't tuning the channel and/or sending the video to SageTV. Some things that could be possible causes would be a failing tuner card, misbehaving drivers, or signal strength too low or too much noise that is preventing the tuner from locking on to the channels. I would guess it's probably borderline low signal strength or noise that is messing with the ability for the tuner to lock on to the channels. If you don't have the latest drivers, update those first from the Hauppauge web site. Then I would backup the SageTV directory and try a channel rescan. If the problem persists, then I would try removing as many coax splitters as possible between the main line coming into the house/apartment and your tuner to see if that helps. Beyond that, I would probably file a support request to see if the SageTV Support can suggest anything else to try if nobody else has any ideas.

[gmartin100]

After many years on BTV, I swithed to Sage TV three months ago. I love the features, comskip, multi-media, etc.. But recording reliability so far sucks; I get at least 5 shows a week where the first few minutes are missing. I get the system messages saying "Lost signal. atempting reset" etc.. Once in a while which is more upsetting, the wrong channel is recorded, or in another instance, I got the spanish audio.

Conclusion, HD tuning in Sage appears to be flacky compared to BTV. QAM support seems weak. In all the years on BTV I never experienced any of these issues.

Configuration: Intel Quad, 6GB memory, HDhomerun, Hauppauge WinTV 885 (SD and HD).

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by gmartin100

... HDhomerun, Hauppauge WinTV 885 (SD and HD).

I bought a GOOD cable amp, and my QAM tuning on the HDHR has been rock solid.

Never used a Hauppauge WinTV 885.

Are all recordings from all tuners the same?

[Savage1701]

ONLY happens to me randomly with my HD-PVR. Go figure. Never with my ATSC OTA tuners.