Problems with MediaMVP (Rev H3) and SageTV 5.0.1.89

[rmellor]

I just bought a MediaMVP last week and I'm having issues getting it to run properly for more than a day at a time.

Description of my situation & the problem:
Been running SageTV for a few years now. Still running SageTV V5.0.1.89 (I may be living in the dark ages, but it works great so I dont see a need to upgrade). I used to have my SageTV PC directly connected to my TV via s-video & audio cables. Just moved into an apartment where my PC is now in a different room than my TV, so I bought a Wireless MediaMVP off ebay. I ended up using it in WIRED mode since it sits next to my router. (My PC running SageTV connects to the network wirelessly from the other room).

Last week, hooked up the MediaMVP, seemed to work. Was flaky over the first few attempts. Would work, come back in a few hours and MediaMVP is frozen. MediaMVP on hard power reset seems to not see the server (scans, finds no server, re-scan, finds no server, and on & on) until I restart my server pc. After my server PC reboots then the MediaMVP finds it, odd. I then started a series of tests to diagnose the issue.

I turned off Windows Firewall on my XP server. So blocked ports can not be the issue.
I turned on logging in the server & client properties files (if anyone wants to look at the log files I can post excerpts).

APRIL 23-got it working around 7pm. Navigated the menus, played a test video clip. Then I soft power off (clicking the green power button on MediaMVP remote). 11pm-soft power on, finds server, immediately loads GUI. softpower off.

APRIL 24-8am, softpower on this morning-still works. Blips Loading SageTV - "The SageTV Media Center is booting up, please wait", then black for second, then "The SageTV Media Center is booting up, please wait" again, then SageTV menus load. Soft power off as I leave for work.

APRIL 24-7:30pm after work, soft power on, Loading SageTV "The SageTV Media Center is booting up, please wait" screen, hangs at this step forever.
I can ping 192.168.0.104 from server machine so MediaMVP still has an IP address. (192.168.0.104 is the IP the MediaMVP has been using ever since I plugged it in)
Server machine has Firewall turned OFF-so it cant be a blocked port
Now - clicking green power button at MediaMVP - no response. Not even responding to IR commands at this point. Blue Loading SageTV still appearing -"The SageTV Media Center is booting up, please wait". Remote not responsive. I then let it alone, 1.5 hours later, same screen.
Then I rebooted server machine, and did not touch MediaMVP (was still frozen at that loading screen). After my server PC reboot, I check to see if MediaMVP is still frozen at the "The SageTV Media Center is booting up, please wait" screen, it is not-it actually loaded the Main Menu of SageTV.

So a reboot of my server PC seemed to fix the problem. I have examined the logs and I dont see any obvious error, when it works I see the MediaMVP discovery packet msgs. When the MediaMVP fails to work I just see no log entries about it. I dont see any obvious failure messages either (between the last time the MediaMVP was working and the time that it has failed to work). I can post excerpts or the full logs if anyone wants to analyze.

It appears almost like the SageTV server service fails out or stops listens for incoming MediaMVP connections after while - and is fixed upon a reboot but fails out over time for some reason. So the problem may be server SageTV service and not MediaMVP (since reboot of SERVER fixed problem without touching the MediaMVP) Or something in server memory needs to be cleared/refreshed - and rebooting does this?

Here are exact version numbers & other info:

Info:
Software Version: SageTV V5.0.1.89
Java Version 1.5.0_10
Server IP 192.168.0.100
STV File: SageTV3-1.xml (Version 5.0.0.1 April 21, 2006) - I imported the Comskip addon

MediaMVP (v2.06 hauppauge firmware, displays this on blue boot-up screen)
Model: 86017
Rev: H3

Network Info:
Router: DLink DI-524 (wireless router)
Wireless model MediaMVP connected on WIRED connection to Router (not using MediaMVP's wireless capability)
Desktop Server PC running SageTV connected wireless to router (via PCI WiFi card)
Router has DHCP Static IP rule to always assign server pc the same address 192.168.0.100
No DHCP rule for MediaMVP but i can view the list of MAC address & IPs leased out, and MediaMVP always ends up using 192.168.0.104.

I have searched the forums and google for answers and found several posts but no solutions. Any help here would be appreciated. Should my scenario work? Is the MediaMVP the problem? Is SageTV v5.0.1.89 the problem? Is the mvp.bin file the problem (is there a more stable one to use for SageTV v5.0.1 than the default?) Is my router the problem (I dont think so since I can ping my MediaMVP all the time from my server machine at the same IP).

I would love for my MediaMVP setup to work, but its just not acceptable if I have to reboot my server PC every day to get things working.

Side note: I have experienced dropouts occassionally on other computers on the wireless network but they are brief and seem to fix themselves. The fact that that the MediaMVP has IP address and is ping-able and the fact my server has an IP, etc - seem to tell me that any drop outs are not the problem (if they fix themselves).

Any help is greatly appreciated
Thanks
Rob

[rmellor]

An Update:

APRIL 24 9:51pm rebooted server pc, then mediamvp is working, did softpower off, around midnight I did a soft power on, frozen at loading screen again. I go to bed.

APRIL 25 6:15am, after letting it sit overnight (left it at the loading screen), the MediaMVP is now actually at the SageTV GUI menus. I try to use the remote to move/up down, it is frozen. Within 10 seconds -It then shows the LoadingSageTV screen, goes to black, back to SageTV, and then loads the GUI and is responsive. Working. Leaving GUI up today while I go to work. (No server reboot required here).

So, this is interesting. Around midnight my soft power on showed me a Loading SageTV screen for several minutes so I went to bed. (I am pretty sure this was right around midnight on the dot but i cant verify). By 6:15am though it had fixed itself. Further, I looked into the logs to find:

sagetvclient_0.txt - nothing unusual, lots of NOOPS after initial starting of the SageTV program (at time of reboot)

sagetv_0.txt -
prior to 10pm: I see a successful MediaMVP connection
around 10pm (are these errors OK or are they very bad - leading to server not responding to next MediaMVP broadcast?):
Thu 4/24 22:03:30.848 Exception in the MiniUIClientReceiver of: java.io.EOFException
Thu 4/24 22:03:30.850 Killing UIMgr UIManager:localhost@@000dfe0c4262
Thu 4/24 22:03:30.851 Killed UI Timers
Thu 4/24 22:03:30.851 Seeker.finishWatch(UIManager:localhost@@000dfe0c4262)
Thu 4/24 22:03:30.851 VF processing job null nPlayin=false
Thu 4/24 22:03:30.852 VideoFrame thread is now exiting
Thu 4/24 22:03:30.853 Killed VideoFrame
Thu 4/24 22:03:30.854 Killed EventRouter
Thu 4/24 22:03:30.854 Killed Studio
Thu 4/24 22:03:32.854 Killed RootPanel
Thu 4/24 22:03:32.891 Disposed Window
Thu 4/24 22:03:53.563 Dropping old MiniPlayer connection because it's old from:000dfe0c4262

(In looking at other logs, i do see that "Exception in the MiniUIClientReceiver" often, but it seems to not really have negative impact - it seems to just be part of the "putting the MediaMVP to sleep due to softpower off of it" process).

around midnight (when I soft powered on the MediaMVP) - nothing in log

around 12:30am: SageTV sees broadcast from MediaMVP (Server got broadcast packet: java.net.DatagramPacket@75b9d9)
around 6:15am: SageTV sees broadcast from MediaMVP (Fri 4/25 6:15:24.328 Server got broadcast packet: java.net.DatagramPacket@1c283b5)

Did something happen/change between midnight & 12:30am? Why would it not respond at midnight but then respond at 12:30?

I attached both logs. Note that on my server pc reboot, it had a problem obtaining an IP immediately so there are a few errors in the very beginning of the sagetv_0.txt file due to this. Once my pc got its wireless connection going, then the SageTV logs show all is well (early in the log).

I wonder if perhaps a network issue to to blame for the midnight vs 12:30am gap? If either MediaMVP or SageTV server pc loses its connectivity for even a second (then repairs itself) - would this cause serious problems for the MediaMVP/SageTV server handshaking/connection? I am pretty sure I can always ping the MediaMVP from the server PC even when its 'hung' though. I think around midnight i did the ping and MediaMVP was ping-able from the server.

Hmmm. Also - I bought a LinkSys WRT54GL that I plan to load Tomato onto, so I will give that router a shot within the next few days - just to see if the D Link DI 524 is the problem.

[rmellor]

I did some more testing. It appears that my wireless server pc can't be pinged reliably. Actually, from my server pc (connected over wireless), i cant even ping another wireless laptop (192.168.0.107) on my network. I can ping the MEDIAMVP (192.168.0.104) which is wired to the router. My 2nd wireless laptop can not ping my server pc (192.168.0.100).

I then just did a 'netsh diag gui' from the cmd line and it ran some test tests. For my Wireless-G PCI Adapter on my server pc I got a FAILED. Looks like it passed everything except the DHCP Server test. It tried to ping the router, but only 3 of 4 pings made it. 1 was lost (25%). I guess that is enough to fail. I just manually pinged the router (192.168.0.1) and it worked fine all 4 attempts.

However, given all of the above i'm wondering if my network/wireless connection to the server pc is the issue here. I have a Linksys WRT54GL router on the way (should arrive today or tomorrow) so I will hook that up and give it a shot. Maybe my wireless router is the issue here (DI 524)?

[heffe2001]

I used to have a couple DI-524's in our office, and had all number of reliablity problems. We replaced them with a couple Linksys AP's (WAP-54G's I believe), and everything's worked fine ever since. I'd say avoid the 524 and get something more reliable..

[rmellor]

So I got rid of the DI 524 and replaced it with a Linksys WRT54GL. I also put the open source Tomato firmware on the WRT54 GL and its probably the coolest router firmware I've seen. It has tons of real time stats about your connections, connected devices, real time strength of connection, real time bandwidth, etc.

Anyhow, with the new WRT54GL running Tomato, its been running pretty well. It initially had issues finding the server, but then eventually I got it to find the server & load the SageTV app. From that point on, it has been pretty responsive & functional. I let it sit overnight, or during the day, come back, and it will either respond directly where I left off, or it will show the "Loading SageTV" screen and then load SageTV menus immediately.

So, so far so good. I think perhaps the flaky DI 524 was causing connection drop outs or something that caused most of my earlier problems.