HD-PVR lockup with first recording of the day, specific channel

[Peter_h]

So I have a very unusual problem.

For a few weeks now, my HD-PVR has been locking up and it seems to only be on one particular channel.

This channel is "The N". However, the weird correlation here is that it only happens if it has not been recording for a while and this is the first recording.

For example, this morning there was an airing at 7am, no recordings since last night at 9pm. I check the recording and the entire recording is frozen on the first frame of the show. I guess it is freezing on channel change. This is always what happens. The recording is frozen on the first frame of the show.

I go into guide and tune to a different channel, HD-PVR is working fine. Tune to "The N", it is working fine.

What is also very strange is, if there is a different channel scheduled to record before this channel, it works fine.

For example, first recording of the day, speed channel @ 8am, the N @ 9am. In this instance, everything will record properly.

I am running the last official release of SageTV 6.5.11 I believe.
HD-PVR with the 1.053 driver and firewire channel changing to SA 4250 HDC cable boxes.

I also added a timer that cycles power to the HD-PVR at 3am every morning.

I also added the delay_to_wait_after_tuning" to 4000. This fixed virtually all other lockups I was experiencing.

So, can anyone shed some light? Maybe point me in a direction where to diagnose?

Thanks,
Peter

[mayamaniac]

How does your cycling the power with a timer method work? Have you tested to see if it records properly after a power cycle?

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

How does your cycling the power with a timer method work? Have you tested to see if it records properly after a power cycle?

It's just a simple wall timer, the ones you use for christmas lights.

I implemented this way before as kind of a band aid. I would get a HD-PVR lockup about once a day. A power cycle always fixed it so I added this as a preventative measure. It just kills power at 3am every morning and then back on at 3:15am.

This coupled with the delay_to_wait_after_tuning" to 4000 fixed all the lockups I was having.

However, this one channel is driving me nuts.

I did test it when i first put it in, and scheduled a recording 10 min after the powercycled and it worked fine.

I can try to schedule something tonight after the power cycle to see if that is the cause but I doubt it is.

[Peter_h]

So I went home and tested it, set the timer on. An hour after it cycled, i had a recrding scheduled and it worked fine.

This morning, it recorded the problem channel with no issues.

I'm starting to think that I should adjust the "delay_to_wait_after_tuning". The 4000 is probably fine for the Hauppage IR blaster but I am using firewire and the channel changing is signifcantly faster.

The one common denominator is that I never get a "No Signal", it is a full recording but frozen on the first frame. So, that leads me to believe the lockup is channel change related.

Thoughts?

[Wally]

Aloha Peter,

I am having a very similar problem in that I also get the freeze up after about a second of playing a new channel. In my case it happens on multiple channels but mostly on a few and happens several times a day and happens in about 20% of my HDPVR recordings. After months of aggravation I traced it back to the SA 4250 box locking up after changing channels not the HDPVR or Sage. Try this the next time it locks up. Use the SA 4250's remote and try to bring up the guide menu or setup menu. In my case they show up over the frozen frame so I knew that HDPVR\Sage were working fine recording the output of the SA 4250. I did some Google searches and found a few complaints of this happening due to a bug in the SA 4250's firmware but there has been no fix so far. In my case I am going to swap my box for the older SA 3000 series box since I don't need the HDMI and see what happens.

Wally

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by Wally

Aloha Peter,

I am having a very similar problem in that I also get the freeze up after about a second of playing a new channel. In my case it happens on multiple channels but mostly on a few and happens several times a day and happens in about 20% of my HDPVR recordings. After months of aggravation I traced it back to the SA 4250 box locking up after changing channels not the HDPVR or Sage. Try this the next time it locks up. Use the SA 4250's remote and try to bring up the guide menu or setup menu. In my case they show up over the frozen frame so I knew that HDPVR\Sage were working fine recording the output of the SA 4250. I did some Google searches and found a few complaints of this happening due to a bug in the SA 4250's firmware but there has been no fix so far. In my case I am going to swap my box for the older SA 3000 series box since I don't need the HDMI and see what happens.

Wally

Thanks so much for that! Can you link me to where you found the info about the bug in the 4250's firmware?

If it really is the Box, that would not surprise me at all. We have 5 cable boxes in the house. We have gone through 6 bad ones in 2 years. 5 of which were before my venture into sageTV.

[mayamaniac]

I noticed that the firewire channel changing on my setup is very rapid also and thought it would be a problem, but it hasn't been a problem. I wouldn't mind slowing it down a bit though. Where do I change that setting? It's been a while since I set it up so I forgot everything I did.

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I noticed that the firewire channel changing on my setup is very rapid also and thought it would be a problem, but it hasn't been a problem. I wouldn't mind slowing it down a bit though. Where do I change that setting? It's been a while since I set it up so I forgot everything I did.

Are you talking about the sagetv tuning delay or the firewire change speed?

If Sage, it is in the sage.properties file.

mmc/encoders/<tuner number>/delay_to_wait_after_tuning

If you are talking about the firewirestb program, I'm not sure you can. Go to the directory and type in "channel ?" and see what is available.

From what I remember, the people that were adjusting the tuning speed were also recording via firewire and were using sgraphrecorder to set the delay which is not needed if you are only channel changing.

[Wally]

Peter,

Here's the link: http://albanyhdtv.proboards18.com/in...ad=1711&page=1

My first 4250 had all those problems including the rebooting every hour or so. The second one just has the freeze up. I just called TW cable and they didn't have any of the 3250's available and will contact me when they do to do a swap out. Of course they claim to have never seen this problem...The scary thing is that the above posts are over a year old and apparently still not fixed!

Wally

[Peter_h]

Thanks for that, I'm going to try to get it swapped out for a 3000 series box today.

I'll report back if I get it and if it fixes my problems.

-Peter

[Wally]

Peter,

You're in Honolulu too? Small world. I called Oceanic earlier and they don't have any 3250's at the Mililani or Kaneohe offices and have to wait until they get one to notify me. I have a friend in Kailua who also has Sage and recently got a 4250 and HDPVR and has the exact same problem.

Wally

[Peter_h]

Hey Wally,

Yeah, it is a small world. I live on the windward side in Kailua so it is definately good to hear that it is not only me but 2 other people in the same city.

I'm going to be checking the Kaneohe office in person. On many occasions, I have called and asked if they had something and they said no, and I show up and it is there. I have also asked them to notify me in the past and they never do.

I'll keep you posted.

-Peter

[dstanley]

I have two SA3250HD's and BOTH of these have exhibited this problem.
I thought for sure it was my hd-pvr's. But I too noticed that the 'banner channel change' can still pop up over a black screen.
I wonder if it is the firewire channel change that is messing up the boxes.
I am using a usb-uirt on two of my standard definition boxes - if I thought for a second that adding another usb-uirt would eliminate the problem then I would jump at it.
So I wonder if anyone has any clues if it could possibly be the firewire channel change that is causing our problems!?

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by dstanley

I have two SA3250HD's and BOTH of these have exhibited this problem.
I thought for sure it was my hd-pvr's. But I too noticed that the 'banner channel change' can still pop up over a black screen.
I wonder if it is the firewire channel change that is messing up the boxes.
I am using a usb-uirt on two of my standard definition boxes - if I thought for a second that adding another usb-uirt would eliminate the problem then I would jump at it.
So I wonder if anyone has any clues if it could possibly be the firewire channel change that is causing our problems!?

Actually a USB-UIRT can handle up to 3 zones so you could test on your system. The external jack can use a stereo mini-jack with 2 emitters connected and the one internal emitter.

Gerry