HDHomeRun freeze up on 4/15

[phelme]

Anyone else run in to this? I missed lots of recordings yesterday because my HDHR was frozen. I was concerned I might be having a power supply issue, but apparently lots of HDHRs were taken out by SD's own servers last night.

http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6820

[Opus4]

Yes, this was posted elsewhere, but not under an HDHR topic here in the hardware forum if I recall correctly.

The HDHR needs to be at least power cycled and there is an update from SiliconDust here: www.silicondust.com/downloads. I'm not sure whether it would happen again if you don't update the HDHR software & firmware.

Mentioned on their forum here.

I also just realized that their channel editor no longer creates .scn files when the HDHR is used as an OTA tuners (it does when used for QAM tuning). So, when used as an OTA tuner connected to an antenna, all scanning is now done in SageTV.

QAM tuning still uses the 2-stage scan in the HDHR software + the quick scan in SageTV.

- Andy

[Wirenut]

Yep. Same here. I've had zero troubles until 4/15. Then "no signal" stuff. And the tuner hung there and wouldn't release.... required a hardboot.

So I downloaded the updates from SiliconDust and everything seems good again. Although I think Time Warner has changed some channels around on me, at least the Clear Qam ones.

I was running 20081231 firmware, btw.

So I'm gonna do a re-scan with the HDHR software and see if I can find the moved... or maybe missing channels.

Wirenut

[Polypro]

Add me to the HDHR list! Funny thing was, I just updated to the 4/11 stuff that day...ooops. I knew there was a problem when I couldn't get the preview thumbnail to appear (another way Sage could tell there is a problem). I shut down Sage and had the HDHR updater on screen notifying of another update. I was able to catch the eviction on Survivor and the Office was salvaged. +1 on the request.

P

[jkohn]

Apparently the HDHR's do background channel scans when idle and then 'phone home' the lineup information to SD servers. They made a server change that caused HDHR's to lock up when they phoned home. I'm pretty pissed about this, we missed several recordings because of it (we're behind on our TV watching after being out of town, so I didn't notice this was happening on Wed and missed everything on Thurs night as well).

[matt91]

yeah, weird. I *happened* to be at my server at the moment, and just happened to notice that there was no network activity when I knew that the tuners should have been in use. So I rebooted the PC and the HDHR and only lost 7 minutes of a couple of shows. Nothing too devastating.

Up until 20 seconds ago, I assumed that I had screwed something up. Good to hear it wasn't me!

I'll have to update the unit, I guess.

[hemicuda]

Guess it hit everybody running older software/firmware? I only missed a few shows. I have a PCIe card 'meritted' between the HDHR tuners and Sage picked it for about 1/2 the shows after the lockup. Guess I'll be doing a full server software update this weekend.

[cncb]

Too bad we don't have integrated Hulu support yet so we could all easily catch the missed episode of Lost .

[Brent]

So you folks who had the HDHR problems (not sure why it's in this thread but I digress), had you all updated your HDHR firmware before the failure?

I ask because I recorded Lost and several other shows that same night using my four HDHR tuners (all four were active that night) and had zero problems. I'm not using the most recently released SiliconDust firmware though.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Brent

So you folks who had the HDHR problems (not sure why it's in this thread but I digress)...

I moved the ongoing HDHR discussion to this topic.

... , had you all updated your HDHR firmware before the failure?

I ask because I recorded Lost and several other shows that same night using my four HDHR tuners (all four were active that night) and had zero problems. I'm not using the most recently released SiliconDust firmware though.

I hadn't updated mine in months either & noticed the non-recoridng about 15 minutes into Lost. (I caught the missed portion on ABC's site.)

Was your HDHR set to talk to SiliconDust's servers to report lineup info? According to the info on their site, it was related to that. And before anyone starts talking about phoning home & privacy issues, please read the discussion on their forum.


Edit: Oh, and since OTA tuning setup has changed for the HDHR, I've updated the instructions:
HDHR setup for Windows

- Andy

[limiter]

I did not have a problem with lockups and wondered why until I read your post. My HDHR is connected directly to a second network card so I am assuming it cannot phone home in that scenario? I'm just guessing.

Originally Posted by jkohn

Apparently the HDHR's do background channel scans when idle and then 'phone home' the lineup information to SD servers. They made a server change that caused HDHR's to lock up when they phoned home. I'm pretty pissed about this, we missed several recordings because of it (we're behind on our TV watching after being out of town, so I didn't notice this was happening on Wed and missed everything on Thurs night as well).

[QueOnda]

Thanks Opus for pointing out the fix and to the silicon dust forums. I've already submitted to have error message warnings to support but can you also push through your channels? If we had error messages on the screen, then I could have caught the problem sooner.

Hell, a simple "didn't record name of show on Tuner xyz" would be great. I notice it tried to record the show and had a 0MB file but of course deletes it after the show because no meat (i guess).

[jkohn]

And before anyone starts talking about phoning home & privacy issues, please read the discussion on their forum.

Phoning home is exactly what was happening, and the reason for the lockups. No personal data was being sent so I don't see it as a privacy issue, but it definitely turned out to be a reliability issue.

I did not have a problem with lockups and wondered why until I read your post. My HDHR is connected directly to a second network card so I am assuming it cannot phone home in that scenario? I'm just guessing.

If your HDHR's can't access the internet then you would not be affected since it appears the lockup happened while talking to the SD lineup server.

[flavius]

Originally Posted by Opus4

..I also just realized that their channel editor no longer creates .scn files when the HDHR is used as an OTA tuners (it does when used for QAM tuning). So, when used as an OTA tuner connected to an antenna, all scanning is now done in SageTV.
- Andy

Thanks for staying on top of this. I don't think they really know what they are doing - or they don't care.

[jafa]

Originally Posted by flavius

Thanks for staying on top of this. I don't think they really know what they are doing - or they don't care.

Hi,

We are constantly working to improve the user experience with the HDHomeRun.

SCN files are generated for Digital Cable operation in order to pass the channel names to SageTV.

In previous versions HDHomeRun Setup also generated SCN files for Digital Antenna, however this caused problems with DVBT operation and didn't benefit ATSC operation. SageTV should detect all the antenna channels correctly itself without the use of HDHomeRun Setup.

If there is a specific usage case where SCN files for antenna might be useful please let us know on the Silicondust forum or through a trouble ticket.

Nick

[DaveW42]

Originally Posted by jafa

Hi,

We are constantly working to improve the user experience with the HDHomeRun.

SCN files are generated for Digital Cable operation in order to pass the channel names to SageTV.

In previous versions HDHomeRun Setup also generated SCN files for Digital Antenna, however this caused problems with DVBT operation and didn't benefit ATSC operation. SageTV should detect all the antenna channels correctly itself without the use of HDHomeRun Setup.

If there is a specific usage case where SCN files for antenna might be useful please let us know on the Silicondust forum or through a trouble ticket.

Nick

It's great to see that you guys are monitoring this forum and looking out for SageTV users. Thanks!

Dave

[brb84]

While it sucks I missed a bunch of recordings this week, I can't express how relieved I am to have an answer for why. *updates firmware**

[TallMomof2]

Knock on wood, but since the last HDHR update everything has been running smoothly. Still would love to have some indication that the HDHR isn't working properly because when I get busy my recordings stack up and I can go days or weeks without watching recordings. And since my tuner priority is such that I have one HDHR ahead of the HD-PVR and other HDHR last, the HD-PVR isn't necessarilly the tuner of choice for QAM channels.

[briands]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

Knock on wood, but since the last HDHR update everything has been running smoothly. Still would love to have some indication that the HDHR isn't working properly because when I get busy my recordings stack up and I can go days or weeks without watching recordings. And since my tuner priority is such that I have one HDHR ahead of the HD-PVR and other HDHR last, the HD-PVR isn't necessarilly the tuner of choice for QAM channels.

I suggest you submit an "official" feature request... I did this today for this idea as well as a couple others that I have been asking for for a while.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

Knock on wood, but since the last HDHR update everything has been running smoothly.

I have not installed any of the latest updates, and I did have the lockup last week (just had to unplug and replug the units), but it's been working fine since with the same old firmware (12/31). Is there a reason that I should update the firmware? Seems like some people have been having issues with it...