HD-PVR lock-up roll call

[Brent]

Andy,
Have you contacted Hauppauge about your issues with the HD-PVR? Not sure if they could help, but you never know.

[HelenWeathers]

I'm curious what operating systems people are on. If I have time tomorrow I'll hook both units up to my Vista pc and see if it is any better that the XP pc.

[sleonard]

For the record none of mine have locked up during a recording. I come home from work and tune a chanel and it is already locked up. If it is OK when recording starts it seems to be OK all the way through.

Andy's device sounds more like the classic overheating issue that I experienced on the original 3 that I had before RMA.

S

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Brent

Have you contacted Hauppauge about your issues with the HD-PVR? Not sure if they could help, but you never know.

I've told people to contact tech support often enough that I know to contact them when needed. I'm now trying to get more info in case that helps SageTV or Hauppauge narrow down what is happening -- my question isn't just for my own curiosity because some of the SageTV developers talk to Hauppauge at levels higher than tech support.

I've already had one of my 2 units replaced at the suggestion of Hauppauge's top people. That replacement unit locks. My 2nd original (non-replacement) unit locks. I lost count of how many units sleonard said he's gone through & he still has locks. I know of at least one other person who has replacement units that lock. I have a hard time believing that I'm unlucky enough that out of thousands of units produced, I happened to get 3 bad ones out of all the good ones, especially since their serial numbers are not consecutive. But, you never know about such statistics, so I'm asking what other people are experiencing... maybe I really am just unlucky, or maybe there is some problem other than the initial heat issue.

That's why I am asking everyone: are your HD-PVRs locking? And how many units are you using?

The locks I'm getting are not frequent at all, but I do keep checking the things because once it happens, nothing else will record until the thing is reset.

Oh, and I'm using XP Pro SP2.

- Andy

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by sleonard

For the record none of mine have locked up during a recording. I come home from work and tune a chanel and it is already locked up. If it is OK when recording starts it seems to be OK all the way through.

Are you sure about that? Have you checked for partial recordings, or recordings that have been deleted in the logs because SageTV determined they were corrupt?

The reason I ask that is because a recording this afternoon looked like it failed at start & the previous recording was OK, but I think my logs show a recording between them that failed in the middle & was deleted... still trying to figure that out for sure, though. Edit: Nope, I think it failed at the start of a recording this time. The in-between recording that was deleted failed immediately & the one before that fully recorded, so I get failures in the middle of shows or at the beginning.

- Andy

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I've told people to contact tech support often enough that I know to contact them when needed.
- Andy

I kinda thought you'd say that, but I've always wanted to recommend it to you to just turn the tables

I voted no problems with a single HD-PVR. My HD-PVR was one of the first ones so it has no fans. I have it running fairly often and have done some pretty extensive testing including checking the resulting files after recording non-stop for several nights in a row.
The only problem I've seen with HD-PVR recordings is my cable box shut off by itself twice in the past month - can't blame that on the HD-PVR. I'm using XP SP3 on this PC with SageMC STV.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Brent

I kinda thought you'd say that, but I've always wanted to recommend it to you to just turn the tables

I'll have to admit that I almost said I hadn't thought of that just to see what the response would be.

- Andy

[Opus4]

Are there really only 3 people using multiple HD-PVRs?

Does anyone have multiple units w/o locks?

- Andy

[Dave.ca]

I am currently running a three HDPVR system. I previously ran a single unit system, without incident, for about three weeks, and a two unit system with a lockup after about a week. I have now locked up with the three unit system after about 24 hours.

As I was unaware of lockup issues with other users, I simply power cycled the HDPVRS the first time, hoping it was a fluke. I did no investigation.

I did, however, know about the issue when I upgraded my system to 3 HDPVRS and so did some checking when it occured again.

First, I went into Setup Video Sources and examined each source in Colour Calibration. I found that my first and second source were display black screens. I found that my third source was displaying video.

Next, I exited Sage and launched TotalMedia Extreme. Two of the three HDPVRs where displaying black screens. One was still functioning,

I exited TotalMedia Extreme and power cycled all three HDPVRs. This was a quick power cycle, off-on, no real time between.

I relaunched TotalMedia Extreme and all three HDPVRs were working.

I exited TotalMedia Extreme and relaunched Sage. Using Colour Calibration I confirmed that all three HDPVRs were working within Sage.

Observation 1: I am very disappointed that I barely went 24 hours before lockup. I thought I would be able to power cycle every 24 hours as a tempory solution. This may not work if lockup slips below that threshold.

Observation 2: The unit that did not lock up was the third unit added to my system. Recall that under my one unit system I had no lockups, yet the lockup free unit was one of the two that locked up under the three unit system. This may indicate that the problem is not hardware based.

Observation 3: When I power cycled the HDPVRs I intentionally did not leave time for a cool down. That they operated immediately may indicate that this is not a heat issue.

Observation 4: I believe that Hauppauge is on record as stating they do not support multiple HDDVR installs at this time. Could this point to a driver limitation?

I am currently using the HDPVR driver 1.0.3.47. I see a driver 1.0b on the Hauppauge web site (http://hauppauge.com/site/support/support_hdpvr.html). I guess I'll try installing this and see what happens.

My setup: Sage 6.4.5.179, Java 1.6.0_04, 3 Hauppauge HDPVRs USB video input, firewire channel changing, three Explorer 4250HD stbs.

[Shield]

My luck has been going the other way, even though I'm only running a single HD-PVR. When I initially was testing out the channel changing it locked often. If I have it change the channel every 1/2 hour or hour it's fine.
Haven't powered mine off and on in over a week.

For once I get lucky with hardware!

[HelenWeathers]

OK, today I hooked up both HD PVRs to my Vista Home Premium pc and have scheduled a solid string of recordings from 11AM to 4PM for each PVR with shows from 1/2hr to 2 hrs in duration, some changing channels at same time,
some changing during other PVRs recordings. Record lights on then off and back on at proper times on both units. Failure occured at 2hrs 10mins on PVR1 and at 2:13 on PVR2. System rebooted on it's own and came back up with the following error report:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 1a
BCP1: 00041284
BCP2: A89D5001
BCP3: 00007CB3
BCP4: 8A600000
OS Version: 6_0_6000
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini080708-01.dmp
C:\Users\Helen Weathers\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-36921-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\Helen Weathers\AppData\Local\Temp\WERACDA.tmp.version.txt

When system came back up both pvrs were black screened in sage. I decided to open arcsoft and both were black screened there too. Power cycled both pvrs.

I decided to try using both again on Vista (pvr1 w sage and pvr2 w arcsoft capture) both running fine for 2.5 hours now. Arcsoft triggering rec light sage is not.

[HelenWeathers]

Now I have been running sage and arcsoft side by side monitoring/watching the shows while I am recording them. After 3hrs 40+ mins the sage video starts sputtering and about 30 seconds I see the revolving circle in the middle of the sage display screen. The arcsoft screen is still fine. At 3hrs 45mins Windows gives me the following message: Sage TV has stopped working. Windows can check online for a solution.... yada yada yada. I click View problem details and get:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: SageTV.exe
Application Version: 6.0.13.1
Application Timestamp: 48920294
Fault Module Name: nvd3dum.dll
Fault Module Version: 7.15.11.7516
Fault Module Timestamp: 481c0c8f
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0000b392
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 4b88
Additional Information 2: bc92d49f19a89c81d5cb9ed4e2730fc0
Additional Information 3: 5880
Additional Information 4: aaac84d91239f54c45cbfd7606762f4b

Arcsoft continues to record on PVR2 with no problem.

[HelenWeathers]

Andy: IF YOU think we should, we could start a new thread called SageTV/HD PVR Success/Problem Report Thread with a new poll similar to the one here but including OS as part of the poll, ie:
XP, 1 HD PVR, NO lockups
XP, 1 HD PVR, Some Lockups
XP, 2+ HD PVR, NO lockups
XP, 2+ HD PVR, Some Lockups
Vista, 1 HD PVR, NO lockups
Vista, 1 HD PVR, Some Lockups
Vista, 2+ HD PVR, NO lockups
Vista, 2+ HD PVR, Some Lockups

I don't think there is an overheating problem anymore. Got to be hardware issue, drivers or Sage IMO. I'm new to this forum stuff and don't know how to start a poll or if it really should be started.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

Andy: IF YOU think we should, we could start a new thread called SageTV/HD PVR Success/Problem Report Thread with a new poll similar to the one here but including OS as part of the poll, ie:

It probably isn't worth it... I can edit a poll, but not many people are bothering to answer the current one, including a few who have posted about problems w/o selecting a poll choice... I know there are more than 4 people on the forum using multiple HD-PVRs. I always think the most-answered question in a poll would be "I don't feel like answering". Maybe I'll add that to the mix.

But, there are at least 2 now saying they have 1 unit that locks.

Anyway: I'm not sure why SageTV is crashing on you. You should file a bug report for help tracking that down. SageTV doesn't crash on me when the HD-PVR is locked. Even when the UI doesn't respond for a while, it responds just fine again after I power cycle my HD-PVR. Or, at least that has been my experience so far.

- Andy

[MeInMaui]

So far with one HD-PVR on WHS I haven't seen anything I'd classify as a lock-up. I have had a few recordings with some strange issues (something reminiscent of the old timeline bug, and some sound drop-out issues) but the recordings seem to always complete. This has been using the HD-PVR as my primary encoder since about two weeks after they were initially released (after I got my RMA replacement). This is one of the initial units with no fan.

Aloha,
Mike

[HelenWeathers]

I never have had a crash in XP. This was my first crash, and this was with Vista.

[Shield]

Isn't that a Nvidia driver related crash? What version of drivers are you using? WHQL?

[HelenWeathers]

nvd3dum.dll is an nVidia file. I am running the the latest driver on the 9600GT in the Vista computer. The driver is whql certified.

[Opus4]

One more question for the people having lock ups: Is the STB connected to the HD-PVR configured to always output a single resolution, or does it vary? i.e.: are all recordings, say, 1080i, or does the STB output other resolutions, such as 480i for SD?

- Andy

[HelenWeathers]

I have problems and my STBs are set for 720p only and only record HiDef programs from DirecTV receivers.

I would like to hear from users not having problems on what they are using to change channels: USB-UIRT, Haup Blaster, Firewire or serial cable. Users with single HDPVR and Multiple HDPVRs.

Thanks!

Heard from Sage today re bug report I submitted several days ago. Sent them log files and sysinfo file.