The strangest IR problem i've ever seen

[ericscottf]

Hi all

the old info:
as a few of you know, i'm suffering from once-per-week dying of my usb-uirt. Sage thinks everything is okay, but stbkeepalive thinks that there is a problem and logs it. No amount of unplugging/replugging brings the UIRT back to life. I have to reboot.

The new info:
It would seem that every time this happens, one of my two cable boxes enters a zombie state, where it won't respond to buttons on the remote or its front panel. The other cable box responds fine (tho not to the UIRT, which is still dead). To get this box working again, i must pull the plug and wait, then replug.

So, as extremely unlikely as it may seem, and BOY does it seem unlikely, there is an event happening on a ~1wk basis that takes out my UIRT and one of my two cable boxes (they are slightly different models, a QIP2500-1 and QIP2500-3 from FIOS. The -1 is the troublemaker).
Since the units are not tied together electrically (not directly, anyway), i'm really thoroughly confounded.

It should be noted that i do not have the original fios router running, so these boxes receive no MOCA internet connection. This has worked fine for years, with these exact same boxes, all the way back to my replaytv days in 2006. My first guess if this were a problem would be a bad internet connection, so nothing on that.

My next move will be to attempt to get FIOS to replace the box with a newer one.

Any other suggestions? Can anyone present a plausible scenario where something takes out both the cable box and the UIRT? My only guess at the moment is the UIRT is entering some kind of freak out stage that is dumping some kind of bad IR into the boxes and one box is taking it hard and shutting down. This seems insane, i know. I'm very open to a better explanation!

[sic0048]

I've "lost control" of my USB-UIRT before with another program (CQC automation system). It is no where near once per week, but it is a problem that several people on the CQC forums have seen. I loose control about once every 4-6 months.

I just sharing this to let you know that it might not be a SageTV specific problem. It might be the USB-UIRT itself (either hardware or drivers).

I don't have any solutions unfortunately. Perhaps posting on the USB-UIRT forums might shed some light on the situation.

[ericscottf]

I am nearly certain the problem is not sage's fault. The reason i'm posting here is because this is the most active forum i know where the UIRT is discussed. The UIRT forum is just full of ads, no help there. I emailed UIRT support a few times, but he rarely gets back to me and when he does, I reply and never hear back.

It is a shame, really, as it is otherwise a great product.

My next attempts are going to be to swap out the cable box and maybe reformat the computer. I just got done completely wiping all traces of UIRT drivers from the system and did a reinstall.

Any other ideas?

[ericscottf]

Okay

I replaced the cable box (SD Verizon fios QIP-2500)
24 hours have passed, no problems with the usb-uirt.
these things are not connected in any reasonable way!
I'm going to give it a little more time before i declare this problem cured (not solved!) and move on.

All i can possibly conceive of is that when the cable box crashed, it sent garbage to the HD-PVR (even tho the recorded videos were of the screen saver and looked fine -- the box just didn't respond to any buttons, remote or front panel), which somehow borked the USB bus and, in turn, messed up the UIRT?

I really don't like that as an answer, but i'm at a loss to think of anything else remotely possible. Anyone have another idea, even a crazy one?

[ericscottf]

Even longer amount of time, no problems since i swapped out the cable box.

everything is happy, no crashes, no problems.

Any ideas?! Anything would be entertained. 10000 internet points to anyone with a decent theory on what was going on.

For the record, the UIRT guy was really cool, shipped me a new unit w/o charging me. Credit where credit is due.

Eric

[sic0048]

I have no idea! Like you said, there shouldn't be any connection from the box back to the USB-UIRT. So even if the box freaks out, I'm surprised that it would affect the USB-UIRT.

Did you run the box on the "new" UIRT and still have the problems until the STB was replaced?

[appelm]

This doesn't directly address all your symptoms but I have had problems with USB-UIRT receiving interference from other devices when the USB cable is too close to other cables, particularly electric cables. I would have to restart the server for the USB-UIRT to come back to life. The solution was to carefully locate the USB-UIRT cables away from any other cables.

[ericscottf]

Since the problem takes between 12 and 24 hours to manifest, i don't want to attempt to narrow down by reproducing. I have to return the cable box asap, too.

I'm going to chock it up to
Cable box dies in a funny way
Mucks up video out signal
bad signal angers HD-PVR
HD-PVR angers USB bus in an obscure way that doesn't affect my usb drives but breaks UIRT

i'm afraid that's where it is going to have to stay.

FWIW, wires and all are in pretty much exactly the same spot, it has been just a few hours short of a week since i replaced the cable box and did nothing else, and the problem has not repeated.

Hey, at least everything is working now.
And once again, the UIRT guy was really cool about shipping out a replacement unit when we couldn't point the finger elsewhere.

Eric