Still loosing the first 5 min. of scheduled recordings

[transco]

The two suggestions I found, and tried, were to check the signal level (SignalGH shows HDHomeRun Signal: 100%, Quality: 94%) and to make the following change: videoframe/fast_file_switching=false. It's strange that every recording starts exactly 5 minutes after the scheduled time (yes, the clock is correct). Any other suggestions? I guess I could hand-edit the start times to 5 minutes before the actual start time, but I'd rather not.

[freedml]

Do you have 5 min of red at the the beginning of the timeline?

[Spartan]

I have the same problem periodically, and yes, the "skipped" portion of the timeline has red in it.

[Cabalsan]

Mine started doing the exact same thing about ver 6.5.15. It's really random. I do get a few system messages now about a "halt" or something on a recording device. But it appears as if it recorded. I keep forgetting to check if it is the whole show or not, or it's missing the first 5. I just remember seeing the video preview window of that recording and did not actually hit play.

[transco]

Originally Posted by freedml

Do you have 5 min of red at the the beginning of the timeline?

Yes, the first 5 minutes (skipped portion) are red.

[robogeek]

You didn't mention which version of SageTV you're using or what firmware version you're running on the HDHomerun. If you're not running the latest HDHomerun firmware or the latest SageTV v6.5.18RC, I'd update both of those first. If it keeps failing to start recordings on time after updating SageTV and the HDHomerun firmware, then it would probably be time to submit an official bug report.

[HuMan321]

Originally Posted by robogeek

You didn't mention which version of SageTV you're using or what firmware version you're running on the HDHomerun. If you're not running the latest HDHomerun firmware or the latest SageTV v6.5.18RC, I'd update both of those first. If it keeps failing to start recordings on time after updating SageTV and the HDHomerun firmware, then it would probably be time to submit an official bug report.

What is the latest version of HD Homerun firmware? 04152009?

[transco]

As far as I know, that's the latest rev.

[transco]

I've double-checked and I'm running the latest HDHomeRun firmware and SageTV rev. It is strange, if I go channel surfing the channels come up immediately, same channels that have the 5 minute delay when recording. I also tried watching a channel as it was recording and the same thing, no signal for the first 5 minutes then it started recording and was viewable. Obviously it is not a weak signal situation. Besides the above, channels are coming in at 100% signal strength and 98% quality. Finally, if it were a weak signal, hard to believe it would magically start coming in perfectly after 5 minutes. There's definitely a bug in the SageTV software.

[carlgar]

It probably is a Sage bug but you need to report it to Sage to have the cause determined. They will probably have you enable native logging to get more information from the HDHR. The HDHR sometimes cannot respond quick enough because of network traffic. Sage has provided a work around by allowing the user to set the delay time that Sage will wait for the HDHR to respond. I use that feature because I have 3 HDHRs that can create a lot of network traffic. It is exactly 5 minutes because that is how often Sage checks that the tuner is working properly.

[transco]

Originally Posted by carlgar

Sage has provided a work around by allowing the user to set the delay time that Sage will wait for the HDHR to respond.

I don't remember seeing this setting. I have two HDHomeRuns on the Network. What did you set your delay to?

[carlgar]

You have to create a text parameter file for each of the HDHR tuners. One of my files is named:
Silicondust HDHomeRun Tuner 1010CXXX-0.par

Change the 1010CXXX-0 to the serial number of your HDHR tuner. The contents of my files are:
delay 600

Which causes 600 millisecond wait for a response. I think the default is 500.
You can enable the native logging by creating a empty file with the following name:
NATIVE_LOG.ENABLE


this will cause a native.log file to be created. You will see lines like the following in it:
06/15/2009 13:50:02 'Silicondust HDHomeRun Tuner 1010CXXX-1.par' is found.

06/15/2009 13:50:02 delay 600 ''

06/15/2009 13:50:02 Set parser delay time 600 on 'Silicondust HDHomeRun Tuner 1010CXXX-1'.

06/15/2009 13:50:03 QAM Cache is disabled

I don't think these are documented because Sage support should tell you if you need them.

[transco]

Does this file go in the data folder (same place as the HDHomeRun's .frq files are located)? I'm on a Mac and the directory structure is different than that of Windows.

[carlgar]

Under windows Vista with UAC off it does, but it is possible that none of this applies to the Mac. I really think you should contact Sage support and see what they want you to do.

[transco]

I thought it would be the data folder so tried that last night. I scheduled two recordings and both were perfect. This may indeed be the solution to my problem. We shall see...

I've been looking for a cheap PC to run STV. Most I've found are ship with Vista, but there are so many versions of it I have no idea which would work. Which flavor of Vista do you use?

[carlgar]

I use Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2 with the UAC disabled. You may have to apply a lot of tweaks to get it working just right. I also have the superfetch and NetworkThrottlingIndex disabled.