System can't handle more than 1 extender (Resolved)

[daddyd]

Ok, this is all my fault. I had everything running great for months, then I was a little curious about Sage MC, BMT, Movie wall, etc... I struggled to try and get it all to work and I finally gave up. Now whenever I start up more than 1 extender ( 3 HD-100's and 1 HD-200), the other one that is playing (live TV or recorded TV or stored movies, HD or SD) freezes. No spinning wheels or anything, it is just frozen. If I give it time it may/may not play again. What some time happens is it will play really fast, then start playing normally, but the other extender then craps out. I am getting really frustrated. I have (tried) to uninstall Sage and re-install but it doesn't get any better.

The following details my system, Windows Vista 32 (non UAC), latest released versions of server and extender firmware. My Vista machine has all the movies/tv/tuner cards in it, the gig port is hooked into a Dlink 655 router with a cat 6e and there is another cat6e from the router into a Netgear Pro-safe switch. All extenders are hardwired into the switch with cat 6 cables. I have tried putting the extenders right into the router with no improvement. I have also swapped out the switch with a Dlink but again nothing.

Looking at the performance graphs it does not look like I am stressing out either the hard drive, CPU, or network. I have bumped up my Java Heap to 1gb with no improvement. I have even moved my recordings over to another hard drive and this did not make any difference. I have looked at the logs and see the hangs but it does not seem it indicate any errors.

Help....

[Fuzzy]

have you verified that the upped java heap size is being utilized? What are your memory use numbers (Setup -> Help -> System Info) xxx/xxx/xxx.

[freedml]

My suggestion #1, Unplug the HD200 from the network and see if that lets more than 1 HD100 work at a time...

[daddyd]

I confirmed the java heap - it shows over 1gig as the max.

I unplugged the HD-200 and started back up, it still exhibits the same issue.

One thing I noticed though, the link led initally flashes quite quickly on the HD-100, when I start up another one and start playing media the link led on the first unit sometimes stops (or at least slows to a very intermittent flash), once this happens the media stops, where as the second HD-100 is flashing and the media continues to play.

I was trying to watch port usage and it does appear that the extenders all try to interface with the server through 31099 - would this cause a problem?

I have attached a copy of my debugging log. I unplugged the HD-200, started up the server, started up 2 of my HD-100's. The first one I started to play a recorded HD TV show, the second I started to play a movie (utilizing different hard drives). Once I started the movie, the TV show stopped. It hung for a while then it started to play really fast (with a lot of led activity), once it started to do this the movie stopped (with little/no led activity). The log does show some hangs but I really don't know what to make of it.

Thanks for the help so far.

[freedml]

Ok, You tried one set of 2 HD100s, now try the other two possible combinations of 2 HD100s to eliminate network interface hardware gone bad in one of them. I had this happen to one of my 3 HD200s...

Of course, I assume that if you run just one HD100 it works fine indefinitely...

[Fuzzy]

Sounds like a networking issue of some sort. What router are you running?

[daddyd]

Usually when I just run one it is fine, I still occasionally see a slight hang (progress time bar stops moving and sticks on the screen for a few seconds longer than usual) every once in a while but other wise play back of media is fine.

I am using a Dlink 655 router. I have tried disconnecting the switch (24 port netgear prosafe switch) from it and just have my mediacenter and 2 extenders and still see the same issue.

[daddyd]

I just reviewed the port usage again.

I see that both extenders utilize local port 31099 and both use the same remote ports 1058/59. Could this be a problem?

Also, the HD-100's I am using to help debug this issue are located in my equipment closet. The cat 6 cables used are store teminated and about 6 ft long.

[amg]

Port 31099 on the server machine is the port the sagetv server will listen on for all placeshifter and extender connections, this is normal.

[daddyd]

Ok.

I think I have tried everything. I have factory reset my router, I have swtiched ethernet ports out of my mother board, I have swapped out the switch, I have uninstalled and reinstalled Sage, I have tried various combinations of extenders - with no improvement. I can telnet into the HD-100's and I can tell exactly when it is going to freeze (it shows "HDMI 0" over and over again) It is almost maddening.....

Does any one see anything that looks out of wack in my debug file?

I guess the family and I will only be able to watch 1 TV at a time......

[daddyd]

A fundamental question - how do the extenders pick the remote ports they are going to use (I now know the local extender/placeshifter port is constant 31099)? Sometimes they will overlap ports, sometimes they use their own.

[robogeek]

Someone with a very similar problem ended up having a DHCP issue: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42942

Does your DHCP server allow you to reserve addresses? If so, you can define the MAC address for each of your extenders and assign them a fixed IP address to prevent any potential IP conflicts.

[daddyd]

Using wireshark I see that the IP's are good. I have gone in anyways a assigned static IP address's to the extenders (the server had already been done). Watching the feedback from wire shark, I see a bunch of TCP window is full errors, and a bunch of other items highlighted in black (which I assume is bad).

Anyone have a generic seeting guide for my ethernet port - ie, enable jumbo packs (size??) , TCP check sum (enable/disable/TX only, RX only, TXandRX), throttling, etc... Maybe I have screwed something up there???

I guess I will keep playing with it. Maybe my router is just taking a dump....

[Fuzzy]

well, it could just as easily be your switch as it is your router. We have seen problems here on the forum with poor switching causing strange behavior with sage. Sage, as an overall system, is so dependant on proper delivery of packets, that any delay will cause issues. If your switch or router are bogging down, choking on the data, then it can cause problems. It seems that since sage expects to be running on a reliable, local network, it doens't handle network problems gracefully. Since you've gone to static IP's for the extenders and Sage server, perhaps you should first try removing the router from the equation by bypassing it. Run everything through the switch. See if it works that way. If it still has problems, try using just the router, and eliminate the switch. Odds are, one of those are your problem.

[MattHelm]

You don't have any DHCP servers running other than the router, do you? I've heard of something like this that causes something like that.

I'd hook one up, go to your routers IP list, see it's address. Hook each one up one at a time, and check again. Make sure have a DIFFERENT IP address.

[BBCritical]

I have this exact same issue with one HD100 and one HD 200. I also have the DIR-655. I just purchased a different switch thinking that it may be the issue but if someone is watching the HD200.. the HD100 will inevitably freeze. I have DHCP set for both extenders as well. Any resolution on this would be fantastic....

[Pelicanjoe]

Hey Daddyd,

Stupid question... Did you uninstall the BMT software and make sure it is not running anymore? Also, are you running Comskip? I found on my system (Intel P4 2.6GHZ with 2 GB Ram) that if I run any other program, it pauses and freezes (my Java heap is set at 1 gb as well). I even had to disable most of my features on the antivirus. By the way I have 2 HD200. For ComSkip, I had to change it so that it did not run during the day. I found that even if it runs at low priority, I get the pauses when we watch both HD200s. I'm also thinking about putting in a Gigabit ethernet connection in my server (my router is already a gigabit switch). I'm kind of wondering the disparity of pushing all feeds at 100mbps from the server to multiple sources that can accept at around 50+mbps.

Good luck!

Joe.

[freedml]

I had a similar problem, but it was with ComskipMonitor, not Comskip itself. I switched to DirMon2 and everything is fine. But, yes, turn everything else off, even antivirus, for testing purposes.

[daddyd]

I think I uninstalled BMT. I actually tried to uninstall all of Sage. Unfortunately it still must leave some things in the system becuase I did not have to re-enter my product act. code or my extender license's. I went throug the program utility to uninstall. I then when back in and ensured all Sage directory's were gone - both in my root and in my user folders.

I do not have com skip on, I actually just run the normal interface (not MC).

I guess I will keep playing with my network settings.

[BBCritical]

Originally Posted by daddyd

I think I uninstalled BMT. I actually tried to uninstall all of Sage. Unfortunately it still must leave some things in the system becuase I did not have to re-enter my product act. code or my extender license's. I went throug the program utility to uninstall. I then when back in and ensured all Sage directory's were gone - both in my root and in my user folders.

I do not have com skip on, I actually just run the normal interface (not MC).

I guess I will keep playing with my network settings.

Any progress?