HD Extender locks up on occasion?

[MTuckman]

Just thought I would jump in and offer my experiences...

I have seen occasional lock ups in the last couple of days, ever since I moved the Sage Server to a new PC which is running Vista Home Premium (see signature for details). It happens when we are viewing videos that I ripped form DVD's and converted into either XVID-AVI's or H.264 MKV files. A couple of the videos are 720p material but most are standard def stuff. (We aren't watching any recorded shows as I haven't re-hooked up either the PVR-500 or the HDHomerun.)

Once it freezes, within a minute or so I am able to hit the stop button and get it to return to the menu. The interesting thing is when we restart the video it will restart within a couple of minutes from where it froze. It doesn't happen repeatedly at the same point within the videos so I don't think it is the files.

I have debugging enabled but I haven't seen anything obvious like thread hangs detected or Vista TCP Stack issues, etc.

I am going to submit a support ticket and send off the debug log and see if support sees anything.

At this point I am pretty sure it is not the HD extender and am leaning towards either Vista, the network card, or the network cable. As soon as I have some time today I am going to see if I can reproduce it on demand. If so I will move the PC downstairs and run a shorter and newer network cable and see if it happens then.

[electron]

I thought I was safe, but I have had 2 lockups now since I received my unit a little over a week ago). Not too big of a deal, I just wanted to share the information in case it helps narrowing this down. Like last time, I was watching an XVID-AVI (HD, but no AC3), and a total freeze occured. Did a hard reset, and I was able to continue watching, without any issues. The extender resumed about 1-2 minutes after where the freeze occured (to me, that's the interesting part since the previous poster mentioned this as well).

A little while later, I also noticed that SageTV kept recording live TV, eventho no extenders were turned on (and I wasn't watching live TV when the lockup occurred), and I couldn't figure out a way of stopping it, so I did a reboot which resolved the issue. Not sure if this is related to the lockup, but worth a mention.

My server is a brand new XP install, all patches, latest JAVA update, running the default STV.

[Taddeusz]

I have mine freeze every once in a while. Not very often though. Most of the time it's while I'm playing back a converted DVD. Mine are all anamorphic SD H.264 with AC3 or DTS audio. It happens maybe once a week, if even that. I'd say it's closer to once every two weeks.

[hemicuda]

Got this:

Mon 3/17 23:51:28.933 ERROR updating locator system of:java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out: connect

(correction, happens about every 30min)

last night before a 'soft' lockup. Power button on the remote worked to get things going again. that's the only error I saw immediately before sage logged the reconnect of the client.

Might not be related but it logged a whole string of:

Mon 3/17 23:02:22.162 I/O error reading in push thread:java.io.EOFException

earlier.

[briands]

Originally Posted by MTuckman

Once it freezes, within a minute or so I am able to hit the stop button and get it to return to the menu. The interesting thing is when we restart the video it will restart within a couple of minutes from where it froze. It doesn't happen repeatedly at the same point within the videos so I don't think it is the files.

I saw a similar issue tonight... right after a manual commercial skip. The video played for a minute... then it froze. I immediately checked the log from the server... nothing there. I went back to the extender and I noticed the remote was working, but the video was frozen. The timeline was still counting. When I hit stop and restart from the popup menu, the video was still frozen and again the timeline was moving. Two stops back to the video menu and restarting and the video continued from the point (I am estimating here) that the video would have been to had it continued to play.

This is different than the previous lockup that seemed to lock out the remote and front panel buttons. Of course, maybe that would have cleared too if I were more patient...

[nebulink]

I wish this Sage would squash this bug. I was hoping this was something specific to Vista so I could instal XP and be done with all the lockups. this is really becoming a pain in the @ss.

[carlgar]

I think this problem is going to be very difficult to track down. This morning while using the older firmware I encountered the original problem twice within 2 hours. At least support no longer thinks it is a hardware issue. I am currently running the current firmware and using an XP OS as a server to the HD extender to rule out Vista as being the cause of the problem. I believe this thread already rules out Vista but could be multiple causes.

[btrcp2000]

fwiw, i have been running my other extender with the 12242007 (don't quote me on that number, but it's whatever fw it had out of the box) without one lockup for several days now. wife is even using it again.

[carlgar]

Let me know if she goes more than 7 days without seeing a lockup. I had gone about 6.5 days (my record) until todays lockup. It could be dependent upon the amount of usage. I use my extender at least 12 hours a day. The 12/24 version was what I was testing.

[Rupp]

Well, tonight my new HD100 extender locked up twice within 10 minutes for the first time. The first time was when I had selected the Skip FF2. A total reboot and was back up and running. Then it just locked tight while watching Eli Stone. Have you guys put in any official support request for this? Are there any new FW versions being worked to prevent this?

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by Brent

Okay then. Just because I'm so good at breaking stuff, I'm going to run the darn thing 24/7 until I see it (up to 6 or 7 days) if I can get away with it at our house. I'm just curious if there is something different about my setup/environment from everyone here that is seeing this.

You have to go at least 7 days to be considered a success. Twice I was so sure I was going to get to the 7 day mark. Both times it failed at about 6.5 days. If you are lucky you will see a failure much sooner.

[dadams]

I think all of my lockups correspond to me hitting one of the FF buttons. When it happens I see the timeline kind of act funky when I hit FF, then the lockup. Most of the time I can hit the stop button, wait for it to stop, then resume the video.

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by dadams

I think all of my lockups correspond to me hitting one of the FF buttons. When it happens I see the timeline kind of act funky when I hit FF, then the lockup. Most of the time I can hit the stop button, wait for it to stop, then resume the video.

I think that is a different issue. That freeze can occur for up to 5 seconds that I have clocked. It seems to need to wait for the audio to catch up. I think this only happens when using the 2.5 min. skips. You should be able to skip forward or backward by 10 secords to unfreeze it. I have not reported it to support because I consided it a minor issue and I think other people probably have reported it. I have seen it mentioned in other threads.

[gibsonpa]

Originally Posted by dadams

I think all of my lockups correspond to me hitting one of the FF buttons. When it happens I see the timeline kind of act funky when I hit FF, then the lockup. Most of the time I can hit the stop button, wait for it to stop, then resume the video.

I have noticed this exact same lockup scenario. All of my lockups correspond to hitting the one of the FF buttons. Did it last night on recorded TV. It does seem to happen quite often, but as you describe a re-boot is not necessary...just hitting the stop button and then resume.

Other then the FF lockup issue, have not had any other "random" lockups.

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by gibsonpa

I have noticed this exact same lockup scenario. All of my lockups correspond to hitting the one of the FF buttons. Did it last night on recorded TV. It does seem to happen quite often, but as you describe a re-boot is not necessary...just hitting the stop button and then resume.

Other then the FF lockup issue, have not had any other "random" lockups.

I suggest that anyone who sees a freeze when using skip functions wait up to a minute to see if the problem corrects itself. If not, then it should be reported to support.
If you do not need to restart the HD extender, then I would consider it a different issue.

[nebulink]

I have been running MCE2005 with 5 extenders for 2 years and very rarely encountered lockups for the extenders. I never experienced lockups with the 360 extenders only with the linksys units. This makes me beleive it has something to do with the extender hardware.

Has anyone experienced lockups with the MVP's? I an new to sage but this could shine some light on things.

[carlgar]

The only known lockups with the MVP extenders were a result of the Vista TCP stack issue. That problem was fixed with the release of SP1 for Vista.

This thread is concerned with the STX-HD100 product that became available in Dec 2007. The first documented sighting of it by me was on Dec. 20,2007. It appeared at that time to be another Vista TCP stack related issue and that is what support told me. It was not until I was finally able to get a capture of the network on 2/27/2008 that it became known that there was a lockup issue.

[Brent]

Since I've not seen this lockup being described could someone tell me what it does when it locks up? Is it during playback and the playback just stops or is it the entire menu locks up with a frozen screen?

Could I stress test mine by just playing video constantly until I see a lockup?

[carlgar]

If you hit it, you should know it. It requires that you restart the extender to regain control. I have only seen it while playing videos.

You could stress test it by having it play live TV for 24/7. If you do not encounter it within 7 days, then I would say you have a bug free system. I don't run 24 hours but 6.5 days is my record for not seeing the issue.

[carlgar]

Today while while using Sage on a XP MCE OS I encountered the hang that appears to be related to using the skip on the remote. The IR, active and power lights were on. I had to use the power switch on the extender itself to regain control. I believe it to be the same random hang that just occured while using the remote.