HD-200: Playback exception error on all media until unplugged from power

[mkanet]

My sageTV HD200 works great as a sageTV client; but once a week or so it gets into a condition where ANY media that's played; including TV streaming, produces a playback exception error. The only way to fix this is to unplug the device from power and replug it. I've had this problem as long as I've owned the device. Other clients are not affected; and, does not get fixed if I restart the server. Even when I press power button on the extender remote control (when there's a single green light) and turn it back on, it still doesn't fix the problem.

My friend who has an HD200 as well on a completely different sageTV setup has all the same symptoms. We have both tried various firmware; and sent several debug logs to sageTV support; but keep getting the run-around.

These symtoms sounds too specific for it to be a freak coincidence on two different HD200 for two different people. I'm curious if this is by design or typical behavior. I'm no electronics genius, but, every time I've seen similar behavior on different electronics (where unpluging a device from power is necessary) it was because of the hardware malfunctioning; requiring a replacement of the unit. Maybe someone has heard of this problem? I would like to get to the bottom of this problem; especially since this is my own extender.

[brewston]

I see this problem very occasionally, normally after trying (and failing) to play a corrupted video file. I tend to delete them to weed them out

I don't necessarily agree this is HW though, all the power button on the remote does is stop/start the miniclient, it does nothing to the underlying OS. You may want to try connecting via telnet to the HD200 and issuing a reboot to see if that clears it - if it does it could be the device driver for one of the onboard chips being wedged or something.

[bunch92]

Got that issue once last month for the first time. Fingers crossed it does not happen again ....

[mr_lore]

Happens to me mostly when I play shady downloaded wmv files, very rarely though, I'd say less than 5 times total on all 3 of my hd200s. Seems consistent throughout different firmwares and 'build' times of the hd200, hasn't happened yet on my hd300.

[mkanet]

I think brewston is right. It seems that playing files the HD200 cant playback can trigger this problem. Such as, when I try playing an old MOV file (which is playable using a Mac, Quicktime, or a Quicktime directshow decoder); but isn't playable by my HD200.

What puzzles me is this sounds like a reproducible problem on HD200s. How come nobody has mentioned this before? When me and my friend have submitted bug reports to SageTV Support, we both got responses that suggested they have never heard of this problem before. I find that very hard to believe. I guess we're way past getting this fixed in the firmware anyway.

How would you guys suggest the most "wife-friendly" way to recover from this or avoid it? I don't see how I can prevent corrupted or unplayable files from being available to the HD200 media player. If there's no way to prevent this from happening, maybe there's a clever way to issue a reboot. I use a Universal remote control "WR7". Wayneb, or anyone, can you please recmmend a device that can powercycle the HD200 using my WR7 IR based remote control? If my remote control had X10 capability, I could do it; but, unfortunately I dont. Maybe I have to switch remote controls?

[brewston]

I've never tried this, but if you run SageMC, you could maybe create a menu option to run an external command which is a batch file to telnet into the HD200 and issue a reboot

Or, maybe you could create an icon on your Wife's laptop to do the same

[pjwerdna]

Ive had this issue on both HD100 and HD300.

Im fairly certain it occurs when the file being played is not a clean stream.

Many of my recording have dropouts etc on them as I live in a low signal area. Most of these play fine other than the pictre breaking up occiasionally. But sometimes Ill get a file that gives a playback error that only a power off of the extender wil fix or the extender will simply stop playing and eventually power off (I think it actually crashes). Playing back the same file gives the same problem at the same place. However running the file through Video-redo with no edits seems to fix the problem.

Either my signal has improved, or the Betas for the HD300 seem to have improved things.

[wrems]

I've been seeing it more and more on my hd200 too. I started a thread in the Phoenix forum a couple of weeks ago since I thought maybe it had to do with Phoenix but wasn't sure. It only seems to be with dvd's in video_ts format but it seems to be consistent on my system.

I'd be interested to know if any of you do what I outlined in the following thread get the same results:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56043

[mkanet]

I read what you put on the link, but I dont see anywhere except in the title about playback exception error. In the forum post, you just describe that the extender locks up while showing the screensaver. The extenders reported here don't lock up. We can still navigate through the extender's STV menus and option; just not playback video; producing a playback exception error if trying to playback any kind of media; including TV.

Originally Posted by wrems

I've been seeing it more and more on my hd200 too. I started a thread in the Phoenix forum a couple of weeks ago since I thought maybe it had to do with Phoenix but wasn't sure. It only seems to be with dvd's in video_ts format but it seems to be consistent on my system.

I'd be interested to know if any of you do what I outlined in the following thread get the same results:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56043

[mkanet]

Hi Brewston, I've used to use sageMC to execute batch files. But now, I use the default STV. My wife doesnt have her laptop open each time she watches TV.

I installed the External Apps plugin for sageTV 7 and have it pointed to the telnet scripting tool on the server to reboot the extender. It now reboots the extender from the sageTV menu. Thanks for the idea! We'll see if that does the trick when the error comes up again.

-MKANET

Originally Posted by brewston

I've never tried this, but if you run SageMC, you could maybe create a menu option to run an external command which is a batch file to telnet into the HD200 and issue a reboot

Or, maybe you could create an icon on your Wife's laptop to do the same

[kkapp]

i have the same issue, not normally when playing regular dvd "TS" folder but mkv's and blue rays... seems to happen when i pause or ff or something..

i have the same issue but only seems to be when playing mkv or full blue rays. more so if I pause, or ff or something. plain ole sagetv 7

[gplasky]

I fixed this issue by deleteing the client.properties file for the HD200 and the backup file and powering up the HD200 and quickly setting it back up. Took all of a couple of minutes. Haven't had that issue again and it's been about 5 days.

Gerry

[pdessart]

Originally Posted by mkanet

[...] I installed the External Apps plugin for sageTV 7 and have it pointed to the telnet scripting tool on the server to reboot the extender. [...]

Mkanet -
What telnet scripting tool are you referring to? Where can one find this tool?

Thanks,
Peter

[mkanet]

Hi Peter, I use the free tool called: Telnet Scripting Tool 1.0

Attached, is a sample batch file with respective telnet script to reboot an HD200.

BTW: It seems like this problem only happens on the HD200. I haven't seen it since I upgraded to an HD300. It seems the HD200 isn't near as resilient as the HD300 for handling unrecognized file formats.

[K O]

This happens to me when playing R5000 TS streams that are, I assume, corrupt, invalid, or otherwise incorrect at that point in time. Power cycling is the only fix. Occassionally I have to power cycle the server too to get the playback exception -1 error to stop.

Both my HD300 and HD200 devices have done this since I first purchased them, and I've tried numerous firmware on each to no avail.

It's extremely annoying, and the device should be capable of soft-resetting or doing SOMETHING to recover from the error rather than acting like a brick.

It's one of the few things that reduces the WAF of SageTV.

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by pdessart

What telnet scripting tool are you referring to? Where can one find this tool?

Thanks,
Peter

Or you could use this: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35464

p.s. It also works on HD300s...