Recording Errors, Laggy Source Setup

[chairmanmao]

Sage 9 has been working well for months, but recently started generating a whole slew of errors while attempting to record certain channels.

In beginning to diagnose the problem, I updated to the latest version (9.1.6.747; java 1.8.0_131). That didn't fix the problem, however.

I am using OpenDCT (latest version) to interface Sage to a pair of HdHomerun Prime cable card-enabled tuners. The OS is Windows 10 Pro 64 bit, with 16GB of RAM.

My cable TV provider is Comcast, which has a reputation, at least in my area, of changing their security stuff in such a way that it messes up either the HDHomerun tuners or OpenDCT. But I'm not sure how to assess whether that has happened.

Oddities I've noticed:

- Sluggish transitioning among the Setup Video Sources menus

- Can't preview channels, but no error message is produced (i.e., the process appears to be initializing correctly, I get a 100% signal strength reading, but no video or audio preview appears)

- multiple recording errors on at least some channels

- log file error messages:

Wed 9/6 9:43:36.443 [main@5ede7b] Error discovering servers:java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Receive timed out
Wed 9/6 9:43:37.474 [main@5ede7b] ERROR in network encoder server discovery of: java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused: connect

Wed 9/6 9:45:14.027 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] Error communicating with encoding server:java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "ERROR failed request"
Wed 9/6 9:45:14.033 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] Error in MediaServerConnection of :java.io.IOException: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
Wed 9/6 9:45:14.038 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] java.io.IOException: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
Wed 9/6 9:45:14.038 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read0(Native Method)
Wed 9/6 9:45:14.038 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:14.039 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.readIntoNativeBuffer(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:14.039 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:14.039 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:14.039 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sage.MediaServer$Connection.readLineBytes(MediaServer.java:241)
Wed 9/6 9:45:14.039 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sage.MediaServer$Connection.run(MediaServer.java:1410)
Wed 9/6 9:45:14.039 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sage.Pooler$PooledThread.run(Pooler.java:254)
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.036 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] Error communicating with encoding server:java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "ERROR failed request"
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.042 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] Error in MediaServerConnection of :java.io.IOException: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.048 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] java.io.IOException: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.048 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read0(Native Method)
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.048 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.048 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.readIntoNativeBuffer(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.048 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.048 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] at sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.048 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] at sage.MediaServer$Connection.readLineBytes(MediaServer.java:241)
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.048 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] at sage.MediaServer$Connection.run(MediaServer.java:1410)
Wed 9/6 9:45:16.049 [MediaServerConnection@148088f] at sage.Pooler$PooledThread.run(Pooler.java:254)
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.038 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] Error communicating with encoding server:java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "ERROR failed request"
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.045 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] Error in MediaServerConnection of :java.io.IOException: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.051 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] java.io.IOException: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.051 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read0(Native Method)
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.051 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.051 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.readIntoNativeBuffer(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.051 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.051 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.051 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sage.MediaServer$Connection.readLineBytes(MediaServer.java:241)
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.051 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sage.MediaServer$Connection.run(MediaServer.java:1410)
Wed 9/6 9:45:18.051 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sage.Pooler$PooledThread.run(Pooler.java:254)
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.064 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] Error communicating with encoding server:java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "ERROR failed request"
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.071 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] Error in MediaServerConnection of :java.io.IOException: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.076 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] java.io.IOException: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.076 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read0(Native Method)
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.076 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.076 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.readIntoNativeBuffer(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.076 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.077 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.077 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sage.MediaServer$Connection.readLineBytes(MediaServer.java:241)
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.077 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sage.MediaServer$Connection.run(MediaServer.java:1410)
Wed 9/6 9:45:22.077 [MediaServerConnection@14594dd] at sage.Pooler$PooledThread.run(Pooler.java:254)
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.071 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] Error communicating with encoding server:java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "ERROR failed request"
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.076 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] Error in MediaServerConnection of :java.io.IOException: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.081 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] java.io.IOException: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.081 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read0(Native Method)
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.081 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.082 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.readIntoNativeBuffer(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.082 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.082 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] at sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.read(Unknown Source)
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.082 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] at sage.MediaServer$Connection.readLineBytes(MediaServer.java:241)
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.082 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] at sage.MediaServer$Connection.run(MediaServer.java:1410)
Wed 9/6 9:45:24.082 [MediaServerConnection@1eb3da2] at sage.Pooler$PooledThread.run(Pooler.java:254)

(that last set of error messages repeated a few times)

Advice or suggestions welcome!

- Mark

[Narflex]

Those are generalized errors from the encoding server that you posted. You may want to look at the encoding server logs themselves to see where things are failing (which would be OpenDCT in this case).

To determine if it's a DRM issue from your cable provider, you can do that with the HDHomeRun app to see if the channels you normally view are now restricted due to DRM. Generally this kind of error happening out of nowhere and also having other sluggish performance is usually some kind of hardware problem, the most likely is a failing hard disk, so that's something I'd definitely check.

[chairmanmao]

Thanx, very helpful. I'll definitely check out the drives, as I recently had one of the two drives that hold my Sage recordings go belly up.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Narflex

To determine if it's a DRM issue from your cable provider, you can do that with the HDHomeRun app to see if the channels you normally view are now restricted due to DRM. Generally this kind of error happening out of nowhere and also having other sluggish performance is usually some kind of hardware problem, the most likely is a failing hard disk, so that's something I'd definitely check.

Unless a user disables it, OpenDCT will actually stream a video that tells you if the content is Copy Once or Copy Never when the source is a CableCARD tuner. Your suggestion about the hard drive might be more on the nose given the symptoms and the OpenDCT log will likely provide much more data on what else is happening that might not be helping the situation.

[chairmanmao]

Hi EnterNoEscape! Thanx for writing OpenDCT, it's a great piece of software.

Here's an update on my situation, which is better but raises some other questions I'm curious about.

I ran chkdsk thru the graphical UI (this is under Windows 10 64 bit) and found no problems on either the system drive or the drive that stores my Sage-recorded videos. I'm tentatively considering the drives okay, although the Sage recordings drive is a several year old Seagate unit whose sibling died a few months ago. At that time I ran the in-depth DOS-based Seagate drive tester against both Seagates -- the good one and the bad one -- and the good one tested fine while the bad one tested, uh, dead .

I then tried Narflex's suggestion of using the Silicon Dust UI to see if the "raw" streams were available and unencrypted...and ran into something odd.

I didn't have the Silicon Dust software installed on the system. Somehow, when I built it a few months ago, I forgot to install it. Yet Sage, and OpenDCT, were recording fine from the Silicon Dust tuners until very recently.

So I'm curious as to whether OpenDCT requires the Silicon Dust software to be installed, or does it just access the tuners directly?

In any event, I installed the latest Silicon Dust software and, what do you know, it appears to have solved the problems I noted. I have no idea why that should have happened, although I noticed that the install routine updated the firmware in my tuners. Maybe that fixed things.

In any event, I think I'm good. I hope . Thanx for your's and Narflex's feedback, and thanx again for OpenDCT.

[Monedeath]

OpenDCT doesn't need the SD software installed on the system for it to talk to SD tuners, it knows the protocols and doesn't need the go between like SageTV does.

That said, sounds like there may have been a CCard issue present which a firmware update fixed on the Prime.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Monedeath

OpenDCT doesn't need the SD software installed on the system for it to talk to SD tuners, it knows the protocols and doesn't need the go between like SageTV does.

That said, sounds like there may have been a CCard issue present which a firmware update fixed on the Prime.

Correct and I vote firmware update fix it too.

[chairmanmao]

Btw, quick related question: where are the OpenDCT logs stored?

[egeller]

On windows, OpenDCT logs are in C:\program Files\opendct\something-or-other. I moved to Unraid in February, so I'm answering this from memory. Find C:\Program Files and follow your nose. You will find it. The OpenDCT config is there somewhere also.

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by egeller

On windows, OpenDCT logs are in C:\program Files\opendct\something-or-other. I moved to Unraid in February, so I'm answering this from memory. Find C:\Program Files and follow your nose. You will find it. The OpenDCT config is there somewhere also.

In Windows, it is stored under "C:\ProgramData\OpenDCT\logs".

[chairmanmao]

Thanx for all the helpful responses!