OpenDCT: An open source digital cable tuner.

[AlphaCrew]

So I thought the update went fine. no problem re-registering the CableCard, no problems setting up new video sources and removing old ones BUT

"No video signal" when actually Turning a channel in SageTV.

This was the same exact problem I had when I re-installed OpenDCT a few weeks ago and had to revert the entire drive back to get back up and running.

I can't do that this time as it would negate the work setting up the new card.

I'm really hopping this is an easy fix..

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Logs attached.

[Telecore]

I did what you are attempting, a long time ago - went from a Ceton 4 PCIe to a Ceton 6 PCIe - you have an error in your OpenDCT log file - I'm not an expert but it looks to me like OpenDCT is not getting any video. You can open a browser to 192.168.200.1 on your Sage server and see info. about the Ceton card - see if it is tuning the channel you selected and if the cable card is set up, etc. If you want to see my OpenDCT config files, I can provide. Are you using 64 bit Java + 64 bit OpenDCT? Could be a java issue. One other thing - if you re-install OpenDCT, you need to stop the sagetv service, stop the opendct service, re-install, run as console 1x, wait for it to finish, close window, then start the OpenDCT service, then start the SageTV service. For me, OpenDCT updates/re-installs usually went without problems.

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by Telecore

I did what you are attempting, a long time ago - went from a Ceton 4 PCIe to a Ceton 6 PCIe - you have an error in your OpenDCT log file - I'm not an expert but it looks to me like OpenDCT is not getting any video. You can open a browser to 192.168.200.1 on your Sage server and see info. about the Ceton card - see if it is tuning the channel you selected and if the cable card is set up, etc. If you want to see my OpenDCT config files, I can provide. Are you using 64 bit Java + 64 bit OpenDCT? Could be a java issue. One other thing - if you re-install OpenDCT, you need to stop the sagetv service, stop the opendct service, re-install, run as console 1x, wait for it to finish, close window, then start the OpenDCT service, then start the SageTV service. For me, OpenDCT updates/re-installs usually went without problems.

1) I'm able to tune the channel (unassumingly successfully - Reports "PLAYING") on each of the tuners on the Ceton browser page.

2) I am using using the 64bit version of both Java and OpenDCT (I believe both 32 and 64 bit Java are install on my system)

3) I performed the OpenDCT update exactly as you have pointed out.

I don't remember ever having this problem when 'updating" OpenDCT in the past. When I ran into this problem a few weeks ago, restoring the OpenDCT or SageTV folders would NOT correct the problem. Nothing I tried, short of recovering the entire C drive fixed it.

What I've noticed is any channel that has a copy protection of "None" will play.

However if it's "Copy Free" (00) I get the "No Signal" issue and If it's "One Copy" (0x02) I get the "Copy Once" notice. (Which is expected)

[Telecore]

Originally Posted by AlphaCrew

What I've noticed is any channel that has a copy protection of "None" will play.

However if it's "Copy Free" (00) I get the "No Signal" issue and If it's "One Copy" (0x02) I get the "Copy Once" notice. (Which is expected)

That is indeed, strange. Make sure that you have the most recent firmware on the Ceton card. I seem to recall that there's another type of copy protection besides the CC flags and Ceton had a firmware update to ignore it. My card is at firmware 15.1.13.152 and HW revision 6252.

[EnterNoEscape]

I see entries like below coming from the SageTV server:

GET /nice%20ports%2C/Tri%6Eity.txt%2ebak HTTP/1.0

I'm not sure where all the garbage is coming from. You may have something going on with the SageTV side of things that's sending HTTP requests over the ports used for network encoders. I also see SMB connection attempts over the same channel coming from what looks like SageTV. Something is very confused and might be gumming up the works.

It appears that the RTP traffic from the InfiniTV is being blocked from OpenDCT. OpenDCT is not reporting that it received anything on the expected UDP port and eventually retries the connection to no avail.

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by Telecore

That is indeed, strange. Make sure that you have the most recent firmware on the Ceton card. I seem to recall that there's another type of copy protection besides the CC flags and Ceton had a firmware update to ignore it. My card is at firmware 15.1.13.152 and HW revision 6252.

Telecore,
Have you have any issues with 15.1.13.152? Somewhere (maybe thegreenbutton.tv?) I saw some comments that that version may not have been stable and to use 14.10.3.163.

--John

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by Telecore

That is indeed, strange. Make sure that you have the most recent firmware on the Ceton card. I seem to recall that there's another type of copy protection besides the CC flags and Ceton had a firmware update to ignore it. My card is at firmware 15.1.13.152 and HW revision 6252.

Thanks, I'm running the same firmware and HW version as you. I did re-flash just in case, but no dice.

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

I see entries like below coming from the SageTV server:

GET /nice%20ports%2C/Tri%6Eity.txt%2ebak HTTP/1.0

I'm not sure where all the garbage is coming from. You may have something going on with the SageTV side of things that's sending HTTP requests over the ports used for network encoders. I also see SMB connection attempts over the same channel coming from what looks like SageTV. Something is very confused and might be gumming up the works.

It appears that the RTP traffic from the InfiniTV is being blocked from OpenDCT. OpenDCT is not reporting that it received anything on the expected UDP port and eventually retries the connection to no avail.

Thanks for taking a look, This is what I've tried so far.

1) I have performed a clean uninstall and install of Java (machine is running both 32 and 64 bit).
2) I reinstalled SageTV (64) and moved my old properties and wiz files to new install.
3) I have issued a "reconfiguration" request from Verizon's CC automated system.
4) I have uninstalled and reinstalled the Ceton windows driver.
5) Re flashed firmware to latest (had the latest already but I'm desperate.. :-) )

I'm attaching 'clean logs'.

1) I first started OpenDTC, waited a few min, then
2) Started the SageTV service, then tuned a channel with a CCI of "None" for a min (video started),
3) I stopped and tuned a channel that has a CCI of 00 Copy Free, with the same "No Signal" response.

I'm not sure how to debug this from here, any help would be much appreciated.

[AlphaCrew]

So I'm watching the communications via Wireshark and this is what I've noticed.

1) CCI "None" everything works and communication is flowing like crazy.
2) CCI "00" Copy Free -- "No Signal" but communication is flowing like crazy
3) CCI "0x02" One Copy -- "Copy Once" notification but there is very little intial communication and then it stops

The CCI "00" produces a zero byte file and is deleted.
The CCI "0x02" Produces a 10kb file, presumably for the "Copy Once" segment.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by AlphaCrew

So I'm watching the communications via Wireshark and this is what I've noticed.

1) CCI "None" everything works and communication is flowing like crazy.
2) CCI "00" Copy Free -- "No Signal" but communication is flowing like crazy
3) CCI "0x02" One Copy -- "Copy Once" notification but there is very little intial communication and then it stops

The CCI "00" produces a zero byte file and is deleted.
The CCI "0x02" Produces a 10kb file, presumably for the "Copy Once" segment.

So now I'm seeing that data is coming in (and the weird entries are gone), but FFmpeg can't seem to figure out how it's formatted. One time it did succeed, but the stream was stopped less than a minute later. All other times, it was still trying when it was stopped. You could change consumer.dynamic.default=opendct.consumer.FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl to consumer.dynamic.default=opendct.consumer.RawSageTVConsumerImpl and see if you get a file then.

[Telecore]

Originally Posted by jpwegas

Telecore,
Have you have any issues with 15.1.13.152? Somewhere (maybe thegreenbutton.tv?) I saw some comments that that version may not have been stable and to use 14.10.3.163.

--John

No issues - it's been so long since I updated the Ceton, I don't even know how many years its been - I actually have two Ceton PCIe6's both running this firmware (1 with MediaCenter)

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

So now I'm seeing that data is coming in (and the weird entries are gone), but FFmpeg can't seem to figure out how it's formatted. One time it did succeed, but the stream was stopped less than a minute later. All other times, it was still trying when it was stopped. You could change consumer.dynamic.default=opendct.consumer.FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl to consumer.dynamic.default=opendct.consumer.RawSageTVConsumerImpl and see if you get a file then.

Again, I can't thank you enough for looking into this. I would have no idea where to start.

I Changed to RawSageTVConsumerImpl

Attached Logs

1) Made no difference
2) Did notice that tuning to a channel is MUCH quicker.
3) I tried several times and I noticed that now the file size grows, and SageTV does not error out, with a tuner error.
4) The file is deleted once I stop watching

Do you think this is a FFmpeg issue, should reinstall it?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by AlphaCrew

Again, I can't thank you enough for looking into this. I would have no idea where to start.

I Changed to RawSageTVConsumerImpl

Attached Logs

1) Made no difference
2) Did notice that tuning to a channel is MUCH quicker.
3) I tried several times and I noticed that now the file size grows, and SageTV does not error out, with a tuner error.
4) The file is deleted once I stop watching

Do you think this is a FFmpeg issue, should reinstall it?

Try making a copy of the file before you stop the recording so we can take a look at it. I suspect we're going to find out something is wrong with the stream.

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

Try making a copy of the file before you stop the recording so we can take a look at it. I suspect we're going to find out something is wrong with the stream.

Here it is.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!Au3gzKAQDK0wgdx9...01kMg?e=VmXwsT

[jpwegas]

Is anyone using OpenDCT (I'm on Linux but not sure it matters) with a Ceton InfiniTV 6 ETH where OpenDCT is running on a separate server from the SageTV server?

I was trying out this configuration and thought it would work with upload ID enabled, but I get a lots of errors like (more complete log attached):

INFO   | jvm 1    | 2020/09/19 21:53:05.638 | 21:53:05.566 [FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl-102:DCT-Ceton InfiniTV Ethernet (00-80-8a-42) Tuner 1] ERROR NIOSageTVMediaServer - SageTV replied NON_MEDIA!
INFO   | jvm 1    | 2020/09/19 21:53:05.839 | 21:53:05.819 [FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl-102:DCT-Ceton InfiniTV Ethernet (00-80-8a-42) Tuner 1] ERROR NIOSageTVMediaServer - SageTV replied NON_MEDIA!

OpenDCT is downloading the stream from the Ceton. I can see in the logs that ffmpeg identifies the expected format of the file. And if I disable using upload ID, it saves the file to the OpenDCT host's /var/media/tv/, which SageTV can't see of course, but the saved files are the correct format and play fine in other tools like VLC.

The Ceton OpenDCT config is using opendct.consumer.DynamicConsumerImpl and consumer.dynamic.default is set to opendct.consumer.FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl

Is there something I need to change on the SageTV side to enable the upload ID feature?

--John

[AlphaCrew]

It's like beating a dead horse, if it's broke, break it some more.

So my system has been 'down' since the 17th and the more I tired to fix it; the more broken it became. I got to the point of loosing all functionality with all my tuning devices.. go figure...

I decided to update the BIOS (stupid is, stupid does), as I look back this may have been a blessing but it felt like a curse at time.

Thankfully my back up system (Arcronis) had made a full backup right before things just got plain silly.

I decided to recover to the point when I only had CCI 00 and 02 not working. Since the bios was updated after that point in time, I still had to deal with putting my network back in place, while I was at it, I decided to update the network adapters drivers.

A much longer story, shorter.... in a long shot I tuned the Discovery channel and to my surprise it worked. I then started 6 recordings and everything worked.. I have NO idea what the problem was or what actually "fixed" it. At this point I'm just hoping it stays working..

When I said, "Feel like I'm about to poke an angry bear with this move..." I had no idea how angry that bear would turn out to be. Next time someone needs to kick me in the teeth before I start.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by AlphaCrew

It's like beating a dead horse, if it's broke, break it some more.

So my system has been 'down' since the 17th and the more I tired to fix it; the more broken it became. I got to the point of loosing all functionality with all my tuning devices.. go figure...

I decided to update the BIOS (stupid is, stupid does), as I look back this may have been a blessing but it felt like a curse at time.

Thankfully my back up system (Arcronis) had made a full backup right before things just got plain silly.

I decided to recover to the point when I only had CCI 00 and 02 not working. Since the bios was updated after that point in time, I still had to deal with putting my network back in place, while I was at it, I decided to update the network adapters drivers.

A much longer story, shorter.... in a long shot I tuned the Discovery channel and to my surprise it worked. I then started 6 recordings and everything worked.. I have NO idea what the problem was or what actually "fixed" it. At this point I'm just hoping it stays working..

When I said, "Feel like I'm about to poke an angry bear with this move..." I had no idea how angry that bear would turn out to be. Next time someone needs to kick me in the teeth before I start.

I reviewed the recording and it was what I expected. The details about the codecs were present, but nothing else. I'd need to check with a packet analysis tool, but my first guess is that the content was not decrypted and we have seen this before, but I can't recall why.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by jpwegas

Is anyone using OpenDCT (I'm on Linux but not sure it matters) with a Ceton InfiniTV 6 ETH where OpenDCT is running on a separate server from the SageTV server?

I was trying out this configuration and thought it would work with upload ID enabled, but I get a lots of errors like (more complete log attached):

INFO   | jvm 1    | 2020/09/19 21:53:05.638 | 21:53:05.566 [FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl-102:DCT-Ceton InfiniTV Ethernet (00-80-8a-42) Tuner 1] ERROR NIOSageTVMediaServer - SageTV replied NON_MEDIA!
INFO   | jvm 1    | 2020/09/19 21:53:05.839 | 21:53:05.819 [FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl-102:DCT-Ceton InfiniTV Ethernet (00-80-8a-42) Tuner 1] ERROR NIOSageTVMediaServer - SageTV replied NON_MEDIA!

OpenDCT is downloading the stream from the Ceton. I can see in the logs that ffmpeg identifies the expected format of the file. And if I disable using upload ID, it saves the file to the OpenDCT host's /var/media/tv/, which SageTV can't see of course, but the saved files are the correct format and play fine in other tools like VLC.

The Ceton OpenDCT config is using opendct.consumer.DynamicConsumerImpl and consumer.dynamic.default is set to opendct.consumer.FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl

Is there something I need to change on the SageTV side to enable the upload ID feature?

--John

That's a new one. My first guess would be some firewall issue, but we are getting a reply from the SageTV server so probably not. If you have more than one SageTV server, try turning the one you're not using off. Maybe it's talking to the wrong server which I believe can produce the NON_MEDIA error. The other possibility is the SageTV server itself doesn't have permissions to write the video to disk.

[jpwegas]

I've been playing with getting a Generic Pipe working and failing.

I have OpenDCT running on the SageTV host with an InfiniTV and I can see the InfiniTV device in Sage and record from it, so my OpenDCT <-> SageTV communication is working. But the pipe config is failing me.

My opendct.properties device for my test device is:

sagetv.device.-518298344.consumer=opendct.consumer.DynamicConsumerImpl
sagetv.device.-518298344.custom_channels=
sagetv.device.-518298344.device_name=DCT-HDPVR2 Samsung-1
sagetv.device.-518298344.encoder_listen_port=9001
sagetv.device.-518298344.encoder_merit=0
sagetv.device.-518298344.encoder_pool=generic_pipe
sagetv.device.-518298344.fast_network_encoder_switch=true
sagetv.device.-518298344.last_channel=-1
sagetv.device.-518298344.stopping_executable=
sagetv.device.-518298344.streaming_executable=/usr/bin/perl /opt/sagetv/hdhomerun/samsung_wrapper Samsung-1 %c%
sagetv.device.-518298344.transcode_profile=
sagetv.device.-518298344.tuning_delay_ms=0

If I run the streaming executable manually, it tunes the device and I get an MPEG-TS stream to stdout as required by OpenDCT.

I see things in the OpenDCT wrapper.log file like:

INFO   | jvm 1    | 2020/09/21 23:20:44.931 | 23:20:44.836 [GenericPipeLoader-44] INFO  SageTVManager - The capture device 'DCT-HDPVR2 Samsung-1' is ready.
INFO   | jvm 1    | 2020/09/21 23:22:18.502 | 23:22:18.457 [ChannelManager-90] INFO  ChannelManager - The static channel lineup DCT-HDPVR2 Samsung-1 (generic_pipe) will remain unchanged.
INFO   | jvm 1    | 2020/09/21 23:24:24.924 | 23:24:24.881 [SageTVManagerShutdown] INFO  SageTVManager - The capture device 'DCT-HDPVR2 Samsung-1' is being unloaded.

But when I "Add New Source" in Sage, I don't see the new device.

Is populating custom_channels required? I don't want this pipe device to have any "new" channels, I already have a TV provider lineup configured in Sage for this device.

Been trying various things for a while now and I'm stumped.


--John

Edited: To be clear, this is with OpenDCT running on the same host as SageTV, and is a separate problem from the NON_MEDIA problem I mentioned in the earlier post.

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

That's a new one. My first guess would be some firewall issue, but we are getting a reply from the SageTV server so probably not. If you have more than one SageTV server, try turning the one you're not using off. Maybe it's talking to the wrong server which I believe can produce the NON_MEDIA error. The other possibility is the SageTV server itself doesn't have permissions to write the video to disk.

Not a firewall issue, they are both attached to the same switch. Neither host has a host firewall enabled.

And only one SageTV server running on the network at the moment.

This is my main SageTV server, won't it save the stream to one of the default recording directories? I know the Sage can write to those.

--John