PrimeNetEncoder - HDHomeRun Prime Network Encoder

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I just remotely logged into this Sage Server this morning, and using the HDHomeRun Config (GUI) was able to verify that one of the two Prime tuners simply wasn't present. It took a complete power cycle of the Prime to get it back up. When I requested a look at the logs that Silicon Dust was pulling from the tuners, they refused. These logs area apparently only available to them.

This is a weekly occurrence. Does anyone have any ideas on how to troubleshoot this issue, that results in halted recordings?

I would get a Cat6 cable and use that and plug it into a different port in the switch. It sounds like you have either a defective Tuner... or Cable or Port. Before replacing the tuners I would try a different cable and or port.

PS also run a vacuum over the holes on top of the Prime unit.

[JustFred]

@KryptoNyte - Since the HDHR gui isn't able to see the tuner, that seems to pretty much rule out an issue with Sage and/or DCT. I'm assuming the Prime has the latest firmware and you're using the latest HDHR drivers. If so, you may be dealing with a tuner h/w issue. With the tuner in the failed state, does it respond to ping? If the problem happens only on a single tuner box, have you tried swapping the power supply? If the failure occurs on multiple tuners, are they all powered via a UPS? Maybe this is a thermal issue? I know that stacking the (old) HDHR's on top of each other is a recipe for failure.

[civerson4]

After adding the 2nd HDHR Prime, I am getting a number of "Recording Halted or Stopped" and "Tuner Reset" notices (the green/yellow and red error icons).

If I delete the new HDHR tuner, the original HDHR Prime works flawlessly. But as soon as I add even a single tuner on the new HDHR, I start getting these recording halted/stopped messages on both the new and original HDHR Prime tuner. Seems like I may have a conflict somewhere.

The section from my Sage properties file related to the HDHR Prime entries is attached as well as my PrimeNetEncoder property file. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by civerson4

After adding the 2nd HDHR Prime, I am getting a number of "Recording Halted or Stopped" and "Tuner Reset" notices (the green/yellow and red error icons).

If I delete the new HDHR tuner, the original HDHR Prime works flawlessly. But as soon as I add even a single tuner on the new HDHR, I start getting these recording halted/stopped messages on both the new and original HDHR Prime tuner. Seems like I may have a conflict somewhere.

The section from my Sage properties file related to the HDHR Prime entries is attached as well as my PrimeNetEncoder property file. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Your tuner #'s all say 0 tuner3.number=0 tuner4.number=0 tuner5.number=0 should be... tuner3.number=0 tuner4.number=1 tune5.number=2

tuner3.name=HDHomeRun Prime 13219718-0
tuner3.port=7003
tuner3.id=13219718
tuner3.transcoder.port=5030
tuner3.number=0
tuner3.enabled=True
tuner3.transcode.enabled=False
tuner3.transcode.deinterlace=True
tuner3.transcode.bitrate=4000
tuner3.transcode.preset=ultrafast
tuner4.name=HDHomeRun Prime 13219718-1
tuner4.port=7004
tuner4.id=13219718
tuner4.transcoder.port=5040
tuner4.number=0
tuner4.enabled=True
tuner4.transcode.enabled=False
tuner4.transcode.deinterlace=True
tuner4.transcode.bitrate=4000
tuner4.transcode.preset=ultrafast
tuner5.name=HDHomeRun Prime 13219718-2
tuner5.port=7005
tuner5.id=13219718
tuner5.transcoder.port=5050
tuner5.number=0
tuner5.enabled=True
tuner5.transcode.enabled=False
tuner5.transcode.deinterlace=True
tuner5.transcode.bitrate=4000
tuner5.transcode.preset=ultrafast

[civerson4]

Thanks. After 5 minutes, this appears to have been the problem. I am setting up a bunch of test recordings now. Really appreciate the help.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I would get a Cat6 cable and use that and plug it into a different port in the switch. It sounds like you have either a defective Tuner... or Cable or Port. Before replacing the tuners I would try a different cable and or port.

PS also run a vacuum over the holes on top of the Prime unit.

Originally Posted by JustFred

@KryptoNyte - Since the HDHR gui isn't able to see the tuner, that seems to pretty much rule out an issue with Sage and/or DCT. I'm assuming the Prime has the latest firmware and you're using the latest HDHR drivers. If so, you may be dealing with a tuner h/w issue. With the tuner in the failed state, does it respond to ping? If the problem happens only on a single tuner box, have you tried swapping the power supply? If the failure occurs on multiple tuners, are they all powered via a UPS? Maybe this is a thermal issue? I know that stacking the (old) HDHR's on top of each other is a recipe for failure.

Good ideas, guys. I'll give 'em a shot next time I'm over that way. Thanks.

[theguru]

I just purchased a new HDHR three tuner and found this new method very easy. With this in place now I am getting absolutely no problems with the stream stopping. Using a Hauppauge 1600 I was getting them at least weekly.

I put in the hard drive timer app that was mentioned in this thread as well so I'm not sure which made the difference, but it seems rock solid now.

Truly amazing. Great job!

[RangerZ]

I have had no decrease in recording halts since I upgraded HDHR firmware in June (20150615).
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=200

Since the upgrade I have new problems with my OTA HDHR-US especially with AV sync, flickering of the overlay with the time line up and loss of animation in the menus when tuned to OTA channels. PrimeNetEncoder is a runnable class.

I thought I would throw hardware back on the table and see if anyone who is or is not having the freezing issue has similar hardware.
D-Link DGS-2208 switch
Netgear GS-105 v3 switch
Netgear GS-108 v3 switch
Intel CT GB Lan Adapters
Linear DA-8200BID (8 Port Powered Coax Splitter)
DD-WRT and OpenWRT based Routers

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by RangerZ

I have had no decrease in recording halts since I upgraded HDHR firmware in June (20150615).
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=200

Since the upgrade I have new problems with my OTA HDHR-US especially with AV sync, flickering of the overlay with the time line up and loss of animation in the menus when tuned to OTA channels. PrimeNetEncoder is a runnable class.

I thought I would throw hardware back on the table and see if anyone who is or is not having the freezing issue has similar hardware.
D-Link DGS-2208 switch
Netgear GS-105 v3 switch
Netgear GS-108 v3 switch
Intel CT GB Lan Adapters
Linear DA-8200BID (8 Port Powered Coax Splitter)
DD-WRT and OpenWRT based Routers

May I ask what the OTA HDHR-US has to do with the PrimenetEncoder? are you using the OTA HDHR-US with the PrimnetEncoder?

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by RangerZ

I have had no decrease in recording halts since I upgraded HDHR firmware in June (20150615).
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=200

FWIW, I was having lots of recording halts until I diagnosed a bad stick of RAM using memtest.

-uberpixel

[RangerZ]

The HDHR-US should have nothing to do with the prime encoder, and I probably should have omitted it with respect to relevance to the thread, My bad. It was part of the SiliconDust Firmware upgrade and caused new and unrelated problems.

Memtest, probably a good idea. I already went through the error logs and can find no correlations.

[KryptoNyte]

EDIT: I'm going to go ahead and lead this post with an admission that this machine is still running SageDCT, so maybe this thread isn't the right place to discuss the halted recordings.

Using an Asus Router, this one I think:
https://www.asus.com/us/Networking/RTN66U/

I also have ALL Sage related hardware plugged directly into the Netgear GS-108 switch (not sure which version), which boils down to:

(1) cable to the router
(1) cable to Sage Server
(1) cable to Prime 3-tuner
(1) cable to Prime 3-tuner
(1) cable to HD300
(1) cable to HD300
(1) cable to HD200

All cables are Category 6, with the Primes/Sage Server cables factory manufactured, the rest of the cables built on site.

Originally Posted by RangerZ

I have had no decrease in recording halts since I upgraded HDHR firmware in June (20150615).
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=200

Since the upgrade I have new problems with my OTA HDHR-US especially with AV sync, flickering of the overlay with the time line up and loss of animation in the menus when tuned to OTA channels. PrimeNetEncoder is a runnable class.

I thought I would throw hardware back on the table and see if anyone who is or is not having the freezing issue has similar hardware.
D-Link DGS-2208 switch
Netgear GS-105 v3 switch
Netgear GS-108 v3 switch
Intel CT GB Lan Adapters
Linear DA-8200BID (8 Port Powered Coax Splitter)
DD-WRT and OpenWRT based Routers

[RangerZ]

Well I have been struggling with various switch and cable configurations since my last post with no real improvement. I found a Silicon Dust Low Level Network test https://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5877 which ran substantially clean in most cases. The worst case was about 3 20 second periods of net work problems, but that dwarfs the level of video failures I get.

I now have a different piece of hardware (Dell E510) with a clean install of Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. It's a P4 hyperthread with 3GB of memory. I may be able to round up 4GB. I hope this will be good enough for a Windows 32-bit app.

I am looking for recommendations for the absolute minimum level of software to run this as my Server\client specifically with Prime Net Encoder. I may actually move it to the closet with the router/NAS and just run it as a server so I can get everything on a single switch.

The only tuners will be my two Silicon Dust tuners (Prime and HDHR-US). I do have DVD's in ISO format. The video card is an ATI with HDMI, and I will probably add a PCI-e E-sata card to expand the drive capacity as the case only holds 2 drives.

What Java version do you suggest?
What codecs\filters etc. do I need for what?

I have an extensive script of configuration, based on Missing Remote, much of which I am not sure I really need or want anymore. From that it appears I installed the following supporting software, and made some other system changes. General Sage config and plugins are not included.

• AC3 filter
• FDDShow
• Virtual clone drive => ISO DVD
• WMC Compatibility => unregsagefilterx64.cmd
• Total Media Theater Video Filter
• FDDShow
• ArcSoft TMT Video Decoder
• Java heap size change from 0 to 1024
• SageTVLauncher replaces ehtray.exe for Green MC remote button (I don't think I ever used the remote/button, just a mouse)
• disable ehtray.exe
• USB-UIRT => do not need this anymore, no ir tuners
• PrimeNet Encoder => Yes

Any suggestions are appreciated. Please let me know if you want to read my full install notes.

Thanks... RangerZ

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I have never seen that .... can you post your batch job. Also are you running at normal priority.

This is my batch Job. It have it in my PrimeEncoder folder.

CD /d "%~dp0"
c:
:loop
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\java.exe" -jar PrimeNetEncoder.jar
goto loop

So, I'm still having occasional (random) issues with PrimeNet.

I'm using the exact batch job as shown above. I didn't adjust the priority since I don't see how that is relevant for my issue. It starts just fine at a machine restart.

The last time this occurred, I checked under "Add Source" in SageTV and found that the tuner Functioning said "False". So I fired up HDHomeRun View and found that the tuners were all functioning just fine. Next I executed the PrimeNet batch file and found that the tuners were again recognized.

I also have brief hiccups that show up as temporary halts but are usually corrected again quickly. I wonder if these are enough to knock PrimeNet out of sync with the tuners and SageTV requiring a restart of PrimeNet.

If PrimeNet could automatically restart in response to these events it would probably be fine, but sometimes I lose an entire day of recordings if it drops in the morning and I'm out all day.

Any thoughts on what could be causing this or if my hypothesis seems accurate?

-uberpixel

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by uberpixel

So, I'm still having occasional (random) issues with PrimeNet.

I'm using the exact batch job as shown above. I didn't adjust the priority since I don't see how that is relevant for my issue. It starts just fine at a machine restart.

The last time this occurred, I checked under "Add Source" in SageTV and found that the tuner Functioning said "False". So I fired up HDHomeRun View and found that the tuners were all functioning just fine. Next I executed the PrimeNet batch file and found that the tuners were again recognized.

I also have brief hiccups that show up as temporary halts but are usually corrected again quickly. I wonder if these are enough to knock PrimeNet out of sync with the tuners and SageTV requiring a restart of PrimeNet.

If PrimeNet could automatically restart in response to these events it would probably be fine, but sometimes I lose an entire day of recordings if it drops in the morning and I'm out all day.

Any thoughts on what could be causing this or if my hypothesis seems accurate?

-uberpixel

If you did not change the Priority then anything that needs resources will take precedence over the primenetencoder. I do not see the point why you would not change the priority. If you are running below normal expect to be the last Item on the list for computer resources.

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

If you did not change the Priority then anything that needs resources will take precedence over the primenetencoder. I do not see the point why you would not change the priority. If you are running below normal expect to be the last Item on the list for computer resources.

Okay. I'll give that a try. Since it's a modification to the scheduled task at startup I thought the priority setting affected the priority by which that task would be allowed to run (which it does at startup without fail). But it would appear that the Priority setting instead sets the priority for the PrimeNetEncoder while it's running. Seemed weird that I should change the startup task priority, but now I think I understand that I'm declaring the priority by which PrimeNetEncoder should be evaluated on a continuous basis.

I'll report back if it's successful on my system.

Thanks!

-uberpixel

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by uberpixel

I'll report back if it's successful on my system.

Thanks!

-uberpixel

Hmm. If I change the setting to 4 (normal), I get "No Signal". Change back to 7 and it works.

Running Java 7.79 on WHS 2011.

-uberpixel

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by uberpixel

Hmm. If I change the setting to 4 (normal), I get "No Signal". Change back to 7 and it works.

Running Java 7.79 on WHS 2011.

-uberpixel

Do not know what else to tell you .. I do not use WHS maybe you should consider going back to SAGEDCT with the new FFMPEG update. The programmer seems to have abandoned this for now .. I was willing to step up and help anyone that needed help .... but I am really moving on from SageTV and into the HDHomerun DVR.

[jvl711]

Hi all,

I just wanted to let you guys know that there is a new version of PrimeNetEncoder in the works. I am currently testing a bunch of changes that should make the usage a little easier. I hope to have a beta out in the next week or two. Here is a list of some of the features.

1. Network Encoder Discovery (Users will no longer need to add tuners to Sage.properties manually. Sage can automatically get config info from PrimeNetEncoder)
2. Stream to SageTV MediaServer (PrimeNetEncoder does not need to have CIFS/SMB access to the sage server anymore)
3. ffmpeg probesize and analyzedurration are configurable (I have been able to shave off 2-3 seconds from channel change time tweeking these settings)
4. Support direct stream from HDHomeRun -> SageTV MediaSever (This might be useful for non-comcast customers who do not need ffmpeg stream fixes)
5. Change how stream is sent to and received from ffmpeg. (This has made the capture more stable for me. I have been able to remove the ffmpeg.delay and have had no problems with capture halts).

I know there are a lot of users looking for tuner locking features. I will try to get this in soon. I have been spending a lot of time on performance/stability/ease of use.

I also am looking into some other features which will only be usable in v9 of Sage. Some of the features will require changes to SageTV itself. I will let you guys know if those features become mature enough to discuss releasing.

Thanks,
Josh

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by jvl711

Hi all,

I just wanted to let you guys know that there is a new version of PrimeNetEncoder in the works. I am currently testing a bunch of changes that should make the usage a little easier. I hope to have a beta out in the next week or two.

This sounds great! Thanks for your work on this functionality. I look forward to a simpler implementation and the potential of a more robust system.

-Uberpixel