SageDCT w/ Prime: Halts

[scoful]

I tried settings changes - turned off throttling, turned off offloading options but still have the same problems. I'm going to try installing an Intel nic and use a crossover cable so there's no bandwidth issues - just the Prime on that connection.

It's really frustrating because every time I manually tune any of the channels in question it works fine! It's only when it's scheduled recordings.

[scoful]

I installed an Intel NIC.

Initially I went to set it up with a crossover cable directly to the prime. The prime does NOT allow a Static IP! I setup a DHCP server on my server bound only the the Intel NIC and was able to see the Prime in HDHomeRun setup, but SageDCT wouldn't see it anyway.

Next I decided to just set the Intel NIC as my primary NIC and disabled the onboard NIC. Setup SageDCT again and added tuners. One worked at first - then I added the other two and none would work. Cleaned everything out and started over. When I went to SageDCT to test each tuner I absolutely could not get tuner #2 to output a file.

I ended up removing tuner #2 from the tuner assignments and setup the other two which appear to be working - for now.

[phelme]

What seems to have cured my halts is a CPU upgrade. Since SageDCT is apparently as dependent on it as the NIC used. I went from a 2.4 GHz quad core to a 3.5 GHz quad core AMD (the max my old motherboard will support) and its made all the difference.

I can now run with the default 1024 byte write buffers, all tuners going, without going over 8% CPU. Haven't seen the "puffer fish" memory syndrome or a halt since. (Use to run between 20-30% CPU before).

[scoful]

Originally Posted by phelme

What seems to have cured my halts is a CPU upgrade. Since SageDCT is apparently as dependent on it as the NIC used. I went from a 2.4 GHz quad core to a 3.5 GHz quad core AMD (the max my old motherboard will support) and its made all the difference.

I can now run with the default 1024 byte write buffers, all tuners going, without going over 8% CPU. Haven't seen the "puffer fish" memory syndrome or a halt since. (Use to run between 20-30% CPU before).

The strange thing is that this was working pretty much perfectly. It seems to be getting progressively worse. I suppose my next step may be to setup SageDCT and the HDHR software on another computer and see if that helps.

[scoful]

I tried setting up SageDCT on a different computer but had nothing but trouble.

Last night I gave up and removed all of the Prime configuration from my Sage setup.

Tonight I decided to do some testing on my laptop (as I had originally done when setting up initially). QuickTV was able to use two of the tuners. When I would try to use the third tuner it would complain that the tuner was in use by my Sage server! Somehow Sage was tuning through the Prime - while it showed that it was tuning on my HDHR3. Reviewing things in my head, the original problem slowly crept up after installing the HDHR3.

I unplugged the HDHR3, cleaned up all of my configs and set SageDCT back up again on my Sage server (and cleaned everything off of the other computer) and setup the Prime again. It appears to be working normally now.

I haven't reconnected the HDHR3 yet. I think perhaps it's an issue of using two different utilities. I suppose the HDHomeRun software may just treat the tuners as a pool, automatically selecting a tuner from the pool, causing problems for SageDCT - like allocating a Prime tuner instead of an HDHR3 tuner. The Tug-O-War may be the result of the two fighting for control leading to all the halts? I'd think the best 'Fix' might be for SageDCT to handle all of the tuners unless there's some other way to prevent it.

Is anybody else out there running two different HDHR's like this?

[gplasky]

I'm running two of the HDHomeruns for over the air and one Prime-3 tuner. Using SageDCT for the Prime and all running on the same Sage server. I'm having none of the issues you are having. And occasionally I'll use Window Media Center on my Sage client to test out the Prime thru WMC while the other Prime tuners might be recording in Sage. If they were all in use by Sage WMC will just say no tuners available. First app to grab the tuner locks it. SIliconDust software is installed on the Sage server and the Sage client w/WMC.

Gerry

[scoful]

I'm going to let it ride like it is for a while and hopefully reintroduce the HDHR3 in a week or two. It was fine for a while and then seems to have progressively gotten worse. So far the only problem I've had in what's recorded since last night is one show that plays normal audio while video seems to skip very rapidly to the end in a matter of seconds. I've had that happen from time to time and converting the recording seems to usually fix it (although I'd rather not have to do that). No halts logged so far.

The only other thing that I can think of that I did differently was to 'reset' the SageDCT settings - hadn't poked that button before so I don't know if there was junk clogging something up there.

I presume you had the HDHR's in place first? I had the Prime first and added the HDHR3 later...

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by scoful

I'm going to let it ride like it is for a while and hopefully reintroduce the HDHR3 in a week or two. It was fine for a while and then seems to have progressively gotten worse. So far the only problem I've had in what's recorded since last night is one show that plays normal audio while video seems to skip very rapidly to the end in a matter of seconds. I've had that happen from time to time and converting the recording seems to usually fix it (although I'd rather not have to do that). No halts logged so far.

The only other thing that I can think of that I did differently was to 'reset' the SageDCT settings - hadn't poked that button before so I don't know if there was junk clogging something up there.

I presume you had the HDHR's in place first? I had the Prime first and added the HDHR3 later...

If you poked the reset button then it is possible different ports are now assigned to the tuners. You may need to copy the tuner text again and paste it into the sage.properties file.

Gerry

[scoful]

Originally Posted by gplasky

If you poked the reset button then it is possible different ports are now assigned to the tuners. You may need to copy the tuner text again and paste it into the sage.properties file.

Gerry

That's what I did - cleared everything out and started over again. I had generated new assignments before and put them into my sage.properties file but hadn't poked the 'reset' button before. It's been running fine for a few days other than the occasional oddity (like the hyper fast forward show and another that does a thing where it appears every several seconds a frame is replayed - like it drops a frame, but instead of holding the previous frame over it replays a frame from about 5 frames previous producing a strange backtracking jerkiness).

The only errors I've had have been from not having enough tuners from time to time.

[scoful]

I'll probably re-introduce the HDHR3 this weekend.