HD Extender locks up on occasion?

[carlgar]

That sounds like a different issue. You should probably report it to support. This issue is a complete freeze of the HD extender which includes sound. The picture only turns black if the extender turns itself off. Usually the image just freezes. I have seen this issue on every firmware version I have tried. I don't know yet about the current beta one I just updated this morning.

[dwycoff]

I am also getting lockups on the extender watching SD shows. Video freezes and power reset to fix. Latest non-beta HD extender code. Sage 6.3.10.166 - Java version 1.6.0_05 - XPSP2.
Doug

[jaminben]

I've just started to get random lockups on one of my extenders. My other extender continues to work during the lockup even when both extenders are viewing the same live channel. The screen freezes and audio stops.
Sometimes I can press stop and it will then continue ok for a while other times it needs a power cycle. I havent swapped the extenders over yet as it would be a major hassel.

Both extenders have the latest beta firmware and the server has 6.4.4 beta with Java version 6.5. Everything was working great until today.

I'm hoping someone may have an idea how to fix this before I start swapping hardware around.

Cheers

[carlgar]

I think I have a very good idea of what the problem is. But only the people with access to the code can find and correct the issue itself. I think the problem should have been found by now but with a random problem it is difficult to know for sure how long it should take. I think it is 2 different issues, one of them should be easy to find and fix. But once it is fixed it may make finding the first problem even harder. It is also possible that the cause of the problem has been found and is not fixable with software. Which means this problem will just stay in limbo until the warranty is up on the HD extenders. I do not think this is likely but it is possible. I do not consider issue to be a show stopper but it is a nuisance. I have seen the problem twice in the last 2 days.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by carlgar

I think I have a very good idea of what the problem is. But only the people with access to the code can find and correct the issue itself. I think the problem should have been found by now but with a random problem it is difficult to know for sure how long it should take. I think it is 2 different issues, one of them should be easy to find and fix. But once it is fixed it may make finding the first problem even harder. It is also possible that the cause of the problem has been found and is not fixable with software. Which means this problem will just stay in limbo until the warranty is up on the HD extenders. I do not think this is likely but it is possible. I do not consider issue to be a show stopper but it is a nuisance. I have seen the problem twice in the last 2 days.

Do tell. What do you think the two problems are?

[MeInMaui]

I noticed that my HD100 would lock up fairly regularly during the photo screen saver in SageMC (requiring a cold reboot). I switched to a different screen saver a couple of weeks ago and haven't had a single lockup since.

Aloha,
Mike

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by Brent

Do tell. What do you think the two problems are?

The first or primary problem is a very tight loop that last about 3-4 minutes. This is probably caused by a loop counter that is expecting a small positive value but gets a very large one or a negative value. This loop prevents the HD Extender from responding during the loop. The failure to respond causes the server to shutdown the ethernet connection which causes the second issue. When the ethernet connection is broken the HD Extender has to be restarted. This issue has been reported to Sage and you can see it by just disconnecting the ethernet cable for a few minutes. I have not bothered testing it see it has been corrected with the Beta firmware. I think fixing it would change the nature of the first issue. The first issue would then just become a 3-4 minute hang that could be missed if run unattended.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

I noticed that my HD100 would lock up fairly regularly during the photo screen saver in SageMC

I dont have that enabled

thanks for the reply though

[Djc208]

I've only seen a lockup with music playback. Playing a WMA file and the extender just froze, had to cycle power on the back of the extender. No problems with the server. Never had an issue with video playback.

Running the latest beta firmware.

[Ken C]

Thought the lockup issue was cured when I updated to the latest Java, no lockups for over two weeks. But, no, they're back, one last night and one the night before. Has anyone heard anything from Sage ?

[carlgar]

I saw the posts about the the issue being solved. I thought it was possible because I did not recall seeing the issue for several days. I then made a point of watching for it and I did see it again. That is one of the issues with a random problem, you can't be sure if it is really fixed or not. When I am able to run for 7 full days without see it I will consider it fixed until I see it again.
I only use the HD extender to view video recordings that I have made using HDHRs or PVR500s. The people who have not seen the problem could be lucky or they just do not use the HD extender enough. When the problem is found it may be obivious why some people do not see it. Right now I have a station that has bad spots in their broadcasts. I have no idea if that causes problems in the HD extender but it could.
I have not heard anything official from Sage, but I did get a private message from _demo_ about my speculation of the cause. I think it is possible that this problem has been assigned to him to solve. I got the impression that support is still trying to blame this on a ethernet communication error. I think they need to fill the code full of printf type code until they find the problem area. I do not think you should expect any official comment from Sage until the problem has been found and corrected. You can have hope that it has been fixed every time new firmware is released for the HD extender. I doubt if any server changes would make the issue disappear unless it turns out to be related to a bad video capture. It is not a direct video capture error because I can replay the same video without issue. It could be a memory corruption error where a hang is seen long after the video that caused the corruption has been played.

[infocus13]

I am having the same lockup issues as described in this thread. 2 or 3 times a day now. Is there any point in filing a support request for this? Or is this something that Sage are well aware of by now?

[Zippster]

Dam if I wanted lockups and reboots, I would have stuck with Windows.

[infocus13]

I've just submitted a new support request for this issue. Is there anything that anyone has done to eliminate this issue succesfully?

Also, how do I test to ensure 100% that I do not have an IP conflict on my network?

[carlgar]

To be 100% sure of no IP conflict you would need to know the IP address being used by every device. A good place to start is with the DHCP server if it will show the IP addresses assigned to the devices.
A IP conflict normally results with a problem occurring at specific intervals, such as every 10 minutes.

[infocus13]

Ok its not an IP conflict then... I've checked the windows logs on the server too & there's no IP conflict errors.

I'm running my hd100 connected to the server via a netcomm GB switch and a cat 6 cable. The server is connected to the internet via a WLAN connection to a linksys router/modem. The server gets its IP from the router via the WLAN. The wireless and wired connections on the server are bridged in windows.

The weird thing is that when I have the server and the hd100 connected, I cannot see both of them in the DHCP client table on my router. Usually it is just the hd100's IP address and MAC that I can see and not the server, even though both are connected and are working? I wonder if this is a symptom of the crashing problem and whether I should look into it more?

[toricred]

You have your server using DHCP? I've always assigned static IPs to my servers. I think that might be worth a try at least. I haven't had lockups in a long time, but I don't know what I did to eliminate them.

[infocus13]

Thanks Toricred.

What benefit does a static server IP provide? If I set the server as static, should I leave all clients (including hd100) as dynamic?

Also, is the only place to set a static IP via network connections in windows? Do I need to "tell" my router that I've set the server as static?

Thanks in advance.

[hemicuda]

still happening on my setup. usually at night when it's idle, but once in awhile during shows. tried to check the jvm heap stats from placeshifter, but that info didn't show in the help screen. hd100 turned itself off after a couple of minutes and the remote was able to turn it back on.

Edit: from the HD100 help screen, JVM heap: 198/271/533MB

[infocus13]

Mine just turned itself off in the middle of a show as well. Up to this point, it only used to do it when it was idle.