SageDCT w/ Prime: Halts

[flavius]

I'm getting those halts regularly, a number of them each day. They come in three flavors:

1. A piece, or multiple pieces of the show are missing, otherwise the recording seems fine.

2. First view minutes of a show are completely missing, after that it's only audio.

3. First view minutes of a show are completely missing, after that the show is.

I think I have read here that a faulty power source can cause this? Any other known causes? I have seen Halts before, since I own one of the original HDHomeRuns for a number of years now. However, those were always caused by no data, since I actually didn't get the channel it was trying to record from.

I have SageDCT 2.1.8 running in a Windows 7/32bit VM running on my Mac, using 11-25 HDHomeRun software. Besides those halts, it works really well.
The attached log captures an error of the second kind.

babgvant, could you take a look at the log?

Thanks!

[King of Bayonne]

Are you using the optional PBDA capture mode in SageDCT?

I too was experiencing a rash of Halts (in my case, with a Ceton card). The two culprits turned out to be (1) marginal signal levels at the card due to dodgy splitters, and (2) trying to use PBDA capture.

Unchecking the PBDA capture mode option in SageDCT eliminated many issues I was having.


KoB

[diodeut]

I also had a big problem with halts. It turned out it was the signal level. I took out a a splitter and made sure it was 1 cable run. This seemed to clear up the issue

[skylane]

I was having a lot of issues with halts as well. I think my issue was related to hard drive speed, as I'm using a lower power 2 terabyte SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 for both my Windows 7 drive and to store some of my recordings. I increased the buffer sizes and the halts have disappeared (I think I have had 1 in the last month instead of multiple ones a day before the buffer change). I set my write buffer to 16384 and my RTP buffer to 524288.

[flavius]

This past week I found some time working on my problem with the Prime. I put in a signal booster: according to the prime web interface almost all channels are at 100% all the time or slightly below that. However, I was still experiencing those halts.

Then three days ago I went to babgvant's site again since I had heard of a new SageDCT version and saw the image of all the default settings and changed my RTP Buffer to 65531 (down from the default 131k). After that I started stressing the system with lots of concurrent recordings.

No halts so far.

Does this result make sense? Can reducing the RTP Buffer help with halts?

[doncote0]

Originally Posted by flavius

Then three days ago I went to babgvant's site again since I had heard of a new SageDCT version and saw the image of all the default settings and changed my RTP Buffer to 65531 (down from the default 131k).

Can reducing the RTP Buffer help with halts?

Yes, I believe it can.

I reduced my RTP buffer to 65536 and changed my write buffer to 8192. My halts went away.

[flavius]

Another three days without any halts. I'm actually starting to believe now that my problem is fixed.

[Sparhawk6]

Thanks for the suggestions re the RTP and Write buffer. I too experience halts, about once or twice a day. I am going to try these options.

[Sparhawk6]

I got one HALT error yesterday. But the frequency of the errors seems to have gone down.

[scoful]

Where do you set the buffer sizes you're talking about?
I'm getting quite a few halts as well.

[flavius]

SageDCT Config, Settings tab.

[scoful]

Originally Posted by flavius

SageDCT Config, Settings tab.

I figured that out - I thought they were Windows settings.

I'll look it over tonight to see if I'm still having issues.



On a side note - has anybody used a Ceton InfiniTV4 USB in conjunction with an HDHR Prime?
I was considering adding another cablecard tuner and 4 sounds better than three...

[phelme]

I'm trying reducing the buffer size too (RTP buffer - 65536, write buffer - 8192). What I notice so far is that the CPU load of SageDCT goes up past 20% for me when all tuners are recording through Sage when doing this.

Originally Posted by flavius

Then three days ago I went to babgvant's site again since I had heard of a new SageDCT version and saw the image of all the default settings and changed my RTP Buffer to 65531 (down from the default 131k). After that I started stressing the system with lots of concurrent recordings.

No halts so far.

Does this result make sense? Can reducing the RTP Buffer help with halts?

[scoful]

I seem to be getting more and more halts. It's always the first tuner, yet I can tune on that tuner and even the channels that the halts are logged on without any problem. It seems to be Sage's favorite tuner to use and I'm not sure, but I think it tends to happen when all three Prime tuners are recording (or at the very least two of them).
It's hard to see what happened when you can't look at the parallel recording schedule history! Why can't it show that? It would make it a lot easier to see what conflicts need to be resolved too. The system messages always just say 'Such and such was not recorded due to a conflict' but I can't ever tell what show is trumping it (sorry that's a completely different topic).

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by scoful

I seem to be getting more and more halts. It's always the first tuner, yet I can tune on that tuner and even the channels that the halts are logged on without any problem. It seems to be Sage's favorite tuner to use and I'm not sure, but I think it tends to happen when all three Prime tuners are recording (or at the very least two of them).
It's hard to see what happened when you can't look at the parallel recording schedule history! Why can't it show that? It would make it a lot easier to see what conflicts need to be resolved too. The system messages always just say 'Such and such was not recorded due to a conflict' but I can't ever tell what show is trumping it (sorry that's a completely different topic).

Read this post-this will help you understand what may be causing the halts and how to fix it. Disabling Interrupt Modulation on the NIC was the big fix for me.
Troubleshooting the Prime

As for the second issue I have noticed this to. I am wondering if Sage is having a hard time understanding it is three seperate tuners and it should not be having these conflicts. What helped me get around this is actually designating the channel for the favorite. This may not work for everyone but I do not have the conflicts anymore.

Gerry

[scoful]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Read this post-this will help you understand what may be causing the halts and how to fix it. Disabling Interrupt Modulation on the NIC was the big fix for me.
Troubleshooting the Prime

As for the second issue I have noticed this to. I am wondering if Sage is having a hard time understanding it is three seperate tuners and it should not be having these conflicts. What helped me get around this is actually designating the channel for the favorite. This may not work for everyone but I do not have the conflicts anymore.

Gerry

Thanks for the tips. I'll give it a try. My server has an integrated broadcom adapter so if it continues I'll add an Intel card in and see if that takes care of it.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by scoful

Thanks for the tips. I'll give it a try. My server has an integrated broadcom adapter so if it continues I'll add an Intel card in and see if that takes care of it.

Regardless of the NIC I found the biggest chager for improvement were the settings. You may need to disable some of the offloading or enable/disable hardware error corerecting, etc. Once you have that figured out then decide if you need to invest in an Intel NIC. (Granted they are around $25.)

Gerry

[phelme]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Disabling Interrupt Modulation on the NIC was the big fix for me.

Well, that's fascinating. I recently got an Intel NIC and if i turn that option to anything other than Adaptive, including off, I get nothing but a jumbled mess of a recording. According to the SageDCT logs, all the RTP packets are arriving out of sequence in any other setting.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by phelme

Well, that's fascinating. I recently got an Intel NIC and if i turn that option to anything other than Adaptive, including off, I get nothing but a jumbled mess of a recording. According to the SageDCT logs, all the RTP packets are arriving out of sequence in any other setting.

Are you looking at the right option. Under the Advanced Tab Interrupt Modulation is either Enabled or Disabled. Under Performance Options is Interrupt Modulation RATE-not the same and mine is as Adaptive.

Gerry

[phelme]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Are you looking at the right option. Under the Advanced Tab Interrupt Modulation is either Enabled or Disabled. Under Performance Options is Interrupt Modulation RATE-not the same and mine is as Adaptive.

Gerry

I don't have Interrupt Modulation as a toggle under the Advanced Tab, only Performance Options. Where you're right, it is labeled as RATE. And on 2nd look it is Moderation, not Modulation. I guess that is not a feature of my NIC. So, never mind.