HD300 - Heat and Lock-ups

[pplatteborse]

Hi all,

I have seen one or 2 threads on this but thought I'd had my experience with the HD300 and see if anybody else relates to it.

I've had my HD300 for over 4 weeks now and the first few weeks were flawless (replaces my older 200 and connects to sage 7 latest beta). Starting this week-end I started having playback issues were it would suddenly lock up in the middle of an AVI playback (not even HD, regular TV recording). I tried to update the flash to the latest but to no avail. I thought it might be my wireless or sagetv server so I went back to the HD200 with the same recordings, same USB wireless adapter (bought from Sage 802.11n encore) and had no problems whatshowever.

Anybody else experiencing lockups with the 300 ?

Thanks for your help

[SpecialK]

I have 2 HD300s and one works fine and the other has been problems for weeks and weeks.

I have tried a new cable run and a different switch to no avail.

I am going to swap them around and see if the problem follows.

To me it looks like an ethernet issue or something.
When it happens to me I am always trying to fast forward or rewind a show or even live tv.
The unit is not actually locked up, I can still navigate the menus and the guide but nothing will play until a hard power cycle.

If you look at the ethernet lights on the back of the HD300 and the switch port it's plugged into it is always going crazy. Once power cycled this stops too.

I have tried every firmware version for the HD300 and nothing is any better than another.
Also have tried all betas from .16 to .20 and nothing is better.

[pplatteborse]

Indeed I noticed the same symptoms: still can access menu, it even allows you to play a movie at times but will only display a black window while playback is going on
I should also add I tried playback from a usb stick and get the same results so it is not entirely related to network interface

Regards

[Griff]

I am having similar problems - my HD300 keeps freezing. I have to cycle the power by unplugging in order to get it to respond. If it is not happening to all of them, I am thinking it must be a hardware issue, rather than something that can be corrected with a firmware update.

[darrylc]

I am using my HD300 in extender mode and get lock-ups after about 10 minutes. Usually after a minute or two the HD300 powers down on its own. If it doesn't power down on its own, I need to unplug it. I can turn it on and go back to watching a movie for a few more minutes and then it locks up again. I am using WHS setup and can watch the same files over a WD TV Live with no errors at all. The unit doesnt feel very hot. The lock-ups occur while playing .m4v files, DVD folders and while playing a tv episode via play-on. Does this sound like a hardware issue or something else? Like maybe my setup is off.

[Ken C]

I had similar lock-ups with the HD300. Even submitted a bug report. However, since updating to the latest HD300 beta firmware, not a one. Maybe it's just coincidental, but it's been several weeks now with no problems. Try the firmware update and see if it helps.

[_Demo_]

Please send us bug reports with debug logs so we can track those issues if you still have them.

Thanks

[Oddwunn]

I am getting lockups on my HD300 in standalone mode when playing back movies. The problem seemed to be pretty much random, so I decided to try and nail down when it would freeze and lock up by playing the same files back on my HTPC. From what I have seen so far, the HD300 seems to lock up when it encounters a video anomaly. That is, when I play back (on the HTPC) the spot where the HD300 locks up, there always seems to be some sort of video glitch or macroblocking taking place. The HTPC negotiates these problem spots a lot better...it displays the problem and then moves on, while the HD300 seems to lock up when it encounters the same problem. In my very uninformed opinion I think that the SageTV developers need to figure a way for the HD300 to handle errors in video (and maybe audio) more gracefully, but even if the errors can't be handled better, then at least make sure that the HD300 gets by the error and keeps playback going instead of locking up.

[wildgoose]

I also experienced a few lockups lately on my HD300. While it all resolved after I power cycled the unit, I do want to share one bit of interesting observation.

When I first connected the HD300, I plugged in the HDMI cable first (as I usually plug in the power cable last). I immediately heard a high pitched charging noise, as if the device is charging some capacitors through the HDMI power it receives. It lasted about 10 seconds, before I realized what was going on. Once I plug in the power adapter, the charging/buzzing sound went away. The other end of the HDMI cable is a receiver.

When the unit locked up and I wanted to do a reset, disconnecting the power doesn't seem to do it. The network light is still blinking with the power disconnected. Disconnecting everything (power, hdmi, network) seems to do the trick and no lights.

I now disconnect everything if I need to reset the device, and connect the power first before I connect the HDMI connection. Seems more proper as I don't want the device to get charged through the HDMI connection.

I feel like this is a hardware design issue. Once the power is removed, the device should power down, the LAN jack and HDMI should not continue to operate...

[joe123]

Originally Posted by wildgoose

I also experienced a few lockups lately on my HD300.

I thought I was alone in this, but my HD300 has also been locking up. My HD300 has been locking up a lot more than our old HD200.

The HD200 would lock up once every 3-4 months. The new HD300 locks up 2-3 times per week

[Oddwunn]

I pretty much watch *only* Blu-ray ripped to .MKV, and with 2 units that I own, both of them lock up at least one time per movie. This is becoming very frustrating, as my HTPC, playing back the very same same files using Media Player Classic, play the files without issue. It has gotten to the point where I am going to stop using the HD300's until this problem is rectified.

BTW, why do you guys assume that the problem is related to heat? I know that the units run very hot, but I don't believe that heat has anything to do with the lockups, as the lockups can occur after only a couple of minutes of being on.

[_Demo_]

If you can reproduce hangs please send me a message with debug logs.

Thanks

[stevech]

can someone simply get them a video file with a glitch as discussed? Or don't the developers have such anomaly test case files? One would think that proper testing uses many error cases and not a perfect-world.

[Oddwunn]

If you can reproduce hangs please send me a message with debug logs.

Now that I have turned on debug logging, I haven't had a freeze since. This is crazy, as I am sure that turning debug logging on or off should have no effect on this problem, right? Then last night, for the first time in about 2 weeks, I got a partial freeze, but then the movie continued on without issue. I will send you the log, but it must be HUGE after being turned on for 2 weeks...or does it reset itself every time I switch the HD-300 off and then back on?

can someone simply get them a video file with a glitch as discussed?

I wish I could, but I can't find a place where the freezing is consistent. I thought I had found one case, the beginning of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, episode 2, where Spartacus is making love to his wife in a dream, but recently I am not having the same problem. It froze at the same spot 3 times in a row, but now I can't get it to freeze there again...

If it makes any difference, my server is running unRAID 4.5.6 over a gigabit LAN. When these freezes have occurred, no other LAN traffic of significance was taking place.

[Oddwunn]

Ok, I finally logged one of the freeze-ups tonight. The movie Scrooged froze about halfway through, though the HD300 did not lock up entirely. I was able to use the "back" button to back out of the movie and when I tried to play the movie again (the HD300 attempts to play back from where it left off), I got a "Sage.PlaybackException" error. I have attached the logs here. Please note that I had to rename "messages" to "messages.txt" in order for the board to accept it as a valid file type for uploading.

I hope this will shed some light on what is happening.

Thanks!

[rhinoman]

I'm getting these issues with at least three of my four HD300's, can someone tell me the path to find the correct log files?

[Oddwunn]

Read this:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...1&postcount=18

[csummit]

I have been using my HD300 to stream playback from a bluray folder rip across a wired network. It has been working fine for weeks. All the sudden yesterday my HD300 first skips and then act as if it was going into slow motion with no sound. I powered down and back up and it worked for the rest of the movie. Later that night it started the slow motion again on a different movie. I could navigate back to the DVD/Bluray menu list by using the back button but I could not get another movie to play, the interface was very sluggish, the folder.jpg files for the movies would not load and if I tried to playback other movies there was no video 95% of the time. If I did manage to get the video to work it was playing in slow motion again. I powered everything down on my network and the HD300 itself in case there was a network issue or HD300 issue and the next day, today, it still did not work. I removed my import library paths and re pointed the HD300 to my network location and the system worked fine again. Five minutes ago 20 minutes into a movie, a totally different movie, the same thing happened, movie first skipped then went into slow motion, user interface very sluggish folder.jpg not loading cycling power on and off did nothing. I then read this post and found that someone disconnected everything including HDMI and Ethernet cable and it worked so I tried and the unit started working again. I started the movie just before the lockup point and it played through fine, so far so good. I am presently using 20101007-0 firmware. I was using a beta before not sure the version but once there was a lockup, I checked for latest update and updated. Now I cannot figure out where to go to get latest beta firmware. I really don't think it will fix but I want to try it. I know I have to type something into the update screen but I can't find the post on here that tell me how. This is becoming very frustrating for me. I do not notice my unit getting hot at all. Seems like many people are having similal issues. Is ther eany resolution yet?

[csummit]

I just had it lock up. I felt the top of the HD300 and it seemed hotter than i ever remeber it. I powered down everything and removed all cables including ethernet and HDMI and powered back on and it is worknig again no problem. Before powering down I went back to the movie movie listing in hopes of saving the movie location but when I restarted, it picked up where I left off from a previuos movie session from the first lockup so it was in the wrong spot for this lockup but the correct spot for the last lockup. It seems to be related to the HD300 and not my network at all. Nothing changed in the network but a complete power down removing all cables fixed it instantly. I found the post on updating to beta firmware so I will try to update the latest beta firmware.

[rhinoman]

One of my HD300's is now very conistentently crashing. First movie after a reboot is fine, second movie crashes/freezes the machine a minute or two in. A hard reboot and the second movie plays fine to the end but the next movie will crash it again a couple of minutes in.

Log file attached

One of the other HD300's is also crashing at the same point but less regularly.