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

[daddyd]

Progress...yeah, me and the family have gotten a lot closer - we only watch 1 TV at a time now. Try explaining to a 3 year old that she has to watch "normal" (cable) TV, not all her DVR'ed shows becuase mommy is behind on Greys/Glee/Melrose Place/etc...

[daddyd]

An update:

Removed - reinstalled Sage -> same issue
Bought new dlink gig switch - > same issue
Bought new dlink router (655) -> same issue
Uninstalled and reinstalled internal ethernet cards ->same issue
Reinstalled Windows ->same issue
Moved all recording to another hard drive ->same issue
Formatted c: and completed clean install of Windows and Sage ->no improvement

No matter what I do, once I try to watch more than one extender - watching anything ie Live TV, ripped DVDs, recorded TV (either HD-100 or HD-200), one of them freezes (easily seen by watching "link" led stop blinking). I can't usually watch more than one for more than 20-30seconds.

I am going crazy.

This needs to stop.

[robogeek]

Have you tried submitting an official SageTV Support request?

Try posting another SageTV server debug log reproducing issue. This time give us a play-by-play of exactly what you're doing and when you're doing it...something like: "I started SageTV at 3:40pm, turned on HD200 #1 at 3:41pm, started playing live TV at 3:42pm, turned on HD200 #2 3:45pm, etc." It'll make it much easier for us to follow what's happening in the logs.

[robogeek]

A couple of other thoughts... Are the recording drives formatted with 64K blocks? Are they almost full? I would also check the health of the recording drives using a program like SpeedFan to check the SMART info to be sure the drive isn't experiencing abnormally high read/write errors (bad IDE/SATA cable, controller, or failing drive) or reallocation events (failing disk).

[daddyd]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will dl smart fan and have a look. Later tonight I will run a debug file with the details you suggested - I have finally got to a point where my daughter can watch a little TV, I would definitely lose any chance of the "father of the year award" if I purposely crap out the system.

[daddyd]

Ok. The following outlines what I did:

17:20 - started sage server
17:22 - turned on sage #1 (HD-100)
17:23 - started to watch live TV (4-1)
17:24 - turned on sage #2 (HD-100)
17:25 - selected a recorded TV show on sage #2 (Private Practice)
show played fine for 20-25 seconds then it was freeze for 20-30 seconds then play fast for 20 seconds then freeze....and so on. Live TV on sage#1 continue to play fine.
17:29 - stopped recorded playback on sage#2
17:30 - started playback of a DVD rip on sage #2 (Aeon Flux)
movie played fine for 30-40 seconds then it froze. Every once in a while the pitcure would move a frame or 2 but it didn't play. Live TV on sage #1 continued fine.
17:32 - stopped play back of Live TV on sage#1
17:32:20 - Movie Rip on sage #2 started to play fine
17:33 - stopped movie and powered down sage #2
powered down sage#1
power down server

Attached is the Sage Log.

I will re-run the test with different extenders (the HD-100 and the HD-200) to see if the results are any different.

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by daddyd

Ok. The following outlines what I did:

17:20 - started sage server
17:22 - turned on sage #1 (HD-100)
17:23 - started to watch live TV (4-1)
17:24 - turned on sage #2 (HD-100)
17:25 - selected a recorded TV show on sage #2 (Private Practice)
show played fine for 20-25 seconds then it was freeze for 20-30 seconds then play fast for 20 seconds then freeze....and so on. Live TV on sage#1 continue to play fine.
17:29 - stopped recorded playback on sage#2
17:30 - started playback of a DVD rip on sage #2 (Aeon Flux)
movie played fine for 30-40 seconds then it froze. Every once in a while the pitcure would move a frame or 2 but it didn't play. Live TV on sage #1 continued fine.
17:32 - stopped play back of Live TV on sage#1
17:32:20 - Movie Rip on sage #2 started to play fine
17:33 - stopped movie and powered down sage #2
powered down sage#1
power down server

Attached is the Sage Log.

I will re-run the test with different extenders (the HD-100 and the HD-200) to see if the results are any different.

The log doesn't look bad. It doesn't look like the SageTV server is complaining about anything being wrong. The only other simple things I could suggest would be to be sure the firmware on the extenders are all updated and maybe try shutting down SageTV and move all of the files in the SageTV\clients directory to someplace safe to reset the SageTV settings for all of the extenders. Then restart SageTV and test the extenders. If it still doesn't work, you can shutdown SageTV and copy the files back to the clients directory to restore the old settings so you don't have to manually configure each extender again. And then I'd say it's time to request official support from SageTV Support. Looks like you've done just about everything you can to eliminate the most common causes. The only things you might be able to try if you haven't done so already would be to swap the network card in your SageTV server with a different one (preferably one that has its own onboard processor instead of relying on the motherboard CPU), check/swap/replace the hard drive cables, and check the power supply capacitors of your HD100s to be sure they aren't failing.

If you think you may have some past remnants of plugins from the previous install lurking around, you could try another reinstall of SageTV. Make a full backup of the SageTV folder so you can revert back to it if things get messed up. Uninstall SageTV, then delete everything in the SageTV\JARS folder, and delete all of the SageTV .properties files and their backups from the SageTV folder. Then reinstall and reconfigure SageTV, but don't install any imports yet, and see if multiple extenders are working. If you run through the config wizard and use the same settings and directories, you shouldn't lose your recording list. If things get messed up, you can revert back by shutting down SageTV and copying the backed up SageTV folder back. As long as you reinstalled the same version, you can just copy the folder back without having to uninstall and reinstall SageTV again.

[Deacon Crusher]

I had a problem with hi-bit rate file playback on extenders for a long time and although I haven't confirmed (by breaking and fixing a couple of times in a controlled environment,) it looks like part of the problem was that some of my gig switches weren't auto sensing a proper 100 meg full duplex connection on the extender ports. Once I resolved that things have been pretty golden at my house. And in my office over the years we've certainly seen a wide variety of odd behavior that ended up having this same problem (improper auto sense on network speed/duplex) as the root cause. If you can get your hands on one of the half-smart web managed switches that let you hard wire specific ports for specific speeds that might help.

good luck.

[daddyd]

Mr. Crusher:

You my friend are a very smart man....

I changed my router and Ethernet speed and duplex settings from Auto to 100mbs full duplex and it appears that my problem has been resolved.

I just had all 3 HD-100's and the 1 HD-200 running a combination of HD live TV, HD Recorded TV and a HD Movie Rip with no playback issues.

This feeling of watching all the little LEDs blinking in unison is indescribable!

I and my entire family thank you for your valuable input.

[davephan]

Great suguestion Deacon Crusher! I've run into that problem at work many years ago with systems falsely autosensing down to 10 meg from 100 meg. It's been so many years I forgot about that possibility.

Daddyd, you should take a disk image of your system now that it is working again. If something bad happens again, at least it will be easy to roll the image back to eliminate some of the possible problems, and maybe fix the problem quickly.

Dave

[Deacon Crusher]

Glad to be of service.

Took me months of occasional fiddling to get my much less serious issue resolved. So, it's nice to get more pay off for the work.

Thanks and enjoy Sage. It's really a great series of products or budding holistic suite of media madness.

Originally Posted by daddyd

Mr. Crusher:

You my friend are a very smart man....

I changed my router and Ethernet speed and duplex settings from Auto to 100mbs full duplex and it appears that my problem has been resolved.

I just had all 3 HD-100's and the 1 HD-200 running a combination of HD live TV, HD Recorded TV and a HD Movie Rip with no playback issues.

This feeling of watching all the little LEDs blinking in unison is indescribable!

I and my entire family thank you for your valuable input.

[daddyd]

4 days of family bliss... This is fantastic.

Thanks again for everyone's help. All 4 extenders are working well. I will save an image of the system to ensure I can always get back.

Mods can we modify the title to show this issue has been resoved?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

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

Woohoo.. I was right! hehe