HD200 Powers down unexpectedly

[Remo]

This is driving me nuts. I have an HD200 with the latest firmware. Over the last few weeks it's begun just shutting down on it's own. I'll start it up, choose a music file and then the red LED goes off. The green network LED stays on, not dropping the connection. If I then power on from the remote the red led lights for a few moments, then shuts off. I have to unplug the power completely for it to recover.

Once recovered, I go to the music, choose a file, and boom, same thing. It only seems to be doing it with Music, I haven't had it do it yet with video. Sometimes, if I've chosen several MP3s, say an entire album, it'll play the first one then shut down.

I've tried Will's suggestion from this thread and it hasn't helped: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58181

I have the HD200 on my wired network, accessing the music on a PC running SageTV 7, last version. I don't have the version numbers handy but I checked both the HD200 firmware and the client in the last few days and they were the latest versions available.

I've had this configuration for months, nothing's changed except regular Windows 7 updates on the SageTV machine.

Any suggestions?

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Remo

This is driving me nuts. I have an HD200 with the latest firmware. Over the last few weeks it's begun just shutting down on it's own. I'll start it up, choose a music file and then the red LED goes off. The green network LED stays on, not dropping the connection. If I then power on from the remote the red led lights for a few moments, then shuts off. I have to unplug the power completely for it to recover.

Once recovered, I go to the music, choose a file, and boom, same thing. It only seems to be doing it with Music, I haven't had it do it yet with video. Sometimes, if I've chosen several MP3s, say an entire album, it'll play the first one then shut down.

I've tried Will's suggestion from this thread and it hasn't helped: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58181

I have the HD200 on my wired network, accessing the music on a PC running SageTV 7, last version. I don't have the version numbers handy but I checked both the HD200 firmware and the client in the last few days and they were the latest versions available.

I've had this configuration for months, nothing's changed except regular Windows 7 updates on the SageTV machine.

Any suggestions?

One of my Squeezeslave plugin's customer reported an issue on playing MP3 files natively on SageTV here, not sure whether the issue was crashing the unit, but I though worth mentioning. Also, regarding the MP3 does it happens with all MP3 or have you identified a possible good candidate already?

Another possible area you might want to investigate is your network connection, in fact the extender checks quite regularly the connection to the server and if anything happens to the network connection or if the server takes more time than usual to reply the extender soft power off automatically.

You mentioned that this configuration was reliable for months and suddenly the issue start happening and the only thing different are regular Win7 updates. Can you please go back to the updates list and look for something recent that looks suspicious to you? Have you upgraded to latest Java version? Some people reported issues with Java recently.

Eddy

[Remo]

Thanks for the reply.

Some MP3's work, others don't. I've not been able to find any commonality between those that do and those that don't.

I'll take another look at the server, make sure there isn't something new running that might cause a problem. I can try booting it clean, safe mode with networking and see if that makes any difference. As far as updates, wow, where to begin? MS pushes out so many updates with no detail, "fixes a problem that could compromise your PC.......".

The network is all wired, cat6, 1000GB routers. The only possible issue is there are two routers involved. The server goes to a router in the basement which connects to a living room router. I have enough cable to direct connect to the basement router, see if that makes a difference.

I found a post on enabling debug mode and I've done that. Of course once I did that I couldn't get it to fail

I'll have some time tonight to play with this.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Remo

Thanks for the reply.
Some MP3's work, others don't. I've not been able to find any commonality between those that do and those that don't.

I think this is a general problem with SageTV in the music domain, I personally never had any issue, but my music collection is entirely FLAC.

I'll take another look at the server, make sure there isn't something new running that might cause a problem. I can try booting it clean, safe mode with networking and see if that makes any difference. As far as updates, wow, where to begin? MS pushes out so many updates with no detail, "fixes a problem that could compromise your PC.......".

Yes, it can be difficult, however I reckon that Java updates are more the likely, do you have Java automatic updates enabled?

The network is all wired, cat6, 1000GB routers. The only possible issue is there are two routers involved. The server goes to a router in the basement which connects to a living room router. I have enough cable to direct connect to the basement router, see if that makes a difference.

I take you're using the switch only on board of the router in the basement? Unless specific circumstances you don't need two routers in the same network, can you please elaborate more on your network configuration? Do the routers have the PnP enabled?

I found a post on enabling debug mode and I've done that. Of course once I did that I couldn't get it to fail

Enabling the debug mode is an excellent idea, however it does introduces some slight delays that can potentially interfere with your testing and change your system timings a little bit...

Eddy

[Remo]

Originally Posted by routerunner

I take you're using the switch only on board of the router in the basement? Unless specific circumstances you don't need two routers in the same network, can you please elaborate more on your network configuration? Do the routers have the PnP enabled?
Eddy

The cable modem is in the basement, where I also have the Sage server and a NAS. The cable modem goes to a switch co-located in the basement that has the server and the NAS connected also. From that switch I also have cat6 running to two other switches in different parts of the house. One's in the living room and has a PC, the HD200, and BD player connected to it. The other is in the back of the house where I have my two main PCs located. The one in the back of the house provides the wireless signal for my laptops.

This is the arrangement I've had, with variations, for several years. This exact setup has been in place for about 9 months, long before the problems began.

I don't recall if PnP is enabled. Whether it is or isn't however it hasbn't changed since this setup was installed.

Re Java, no, auto updates aren't enabled but I do the updates when they show up.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Remo

I don't recall if PnP is enabled. Whether it is or isn't however it hasbn't changed since this setup was installed.

The reason of this question is because Windows has the habit to reconfigure your router if, for instance, has to enable/disable ports on your firewall, which can be useful for some users any way...however, I would personally disable the uPnP functions of your router.

Re Java, no, auto updates aren't enabled but I do the updates when they show up.

I believe this could be a good candidate to your issues...do you recall whether your problems started after a Java update? BTW, having the Java updates enabled or updating every time there is a Java update available, doesn't make much difference, do you agree?

There has been some SageTV issues which are related to upgrading Java as recent and some people reported that in the forum. It looks like the best Java update so far being 1.6-30. Can you please revert your Java version to that and see whether your problem disappear? Also please remember to stop the SageTV service before doing any Java upgrade...

I forgot to ask you, but have you installed/upgraded any plugin recently?

EDIT: You might also want to check your current Java heap usage and maximum limit. There are plenty of posts in the forum that tells you how to change/increase the Java heap size.

Eddy

[Remo]

I found one album that will consistently cause the problem so used that same album for testing. I browse to it, choose "Play the songs now" and every time the HD200 powers down.

I tested after each of these changes (rebooting the HD200 each time), crashes every time.

1. Set JAVA HEAP SIZE to 1024 in HKLM/Software/Frey..../Sagetv
2. Uninstalled JAVA 1.7, cleaned temp files and registry using CCLEANER, installed Java 1.6.0_30.
3. Ran a cable from the basement to the HD200, cutting out the second switch.
4. Noticed a discrepancy in the MP3 tag of the album. Artist and Album Artist were different, SageTV was picking up the Album Artist. Corrected the tag, had Sage rescan imported media.

I didn't expect that last one to make a difference but I'm desperate

I also played the same files on the server without any issues.

On the HD200 the JAVA Heap size is now 312/529/1038. (Why isn't that last number 1024??)

Edit: I also looked at the debug log off the HD200 but I didn't see anything that looked like it had anything to do with the crash. Of course I have no idea what I'm looking for either. I couldn't find a debug log on the server.


" having the Java updates enabled or updating every time there is a Java update available, doesn't make much difference, do you agree?"

I know, I used to wait, Google for problems, before doing MS, JAVA, etc. updates. Now I'm lazy, too many updates, so I just click "OK". Still, enabling "Automatic Updates" doesn't feel right, I'm losing that last bit of control. Not logical, just a peculiarity.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Remo

I found one album that will consistently cause the problem so used that same album for testing. I browse to it, choose "Play the songs now" and every time the HD200 powers down.

Excellent, please stick with it for the time being, less variables to the equation the better.

I tested after each of these changes (rebooting the HD200 each time), crashes every time.

1. Set JAVA HEAP SIZE to 1024 in HKLM/Software/Frey..../Sagetv
2. Uninstalled JAVA 1.7, cleaned temp files and registry using CCLEANER, installed Java 1.6.0_30.
3. Ran a cable from the basement to the HD200, cutting out the second switch.
4. Noticed a discrepancy in the MP3 tag of the album. Artist and Album Artist were different, SageTV was picking up the Album Artist. Corrected the tag, had Sage rescan imported media.

I didn't expect that last one to make a difference but I'm desperate

Regarding point #3, I would rather cut off the router, providing you don't need DHCP, so common switch between your SageTV server your NAS and HD200 together only.

I also played the same files on the server without any issues.

This sounds a decoding issue to me...it shouldn't happen as the HD200 is perfectly capable of transcoding the MP3 natively, but can you please check whether the SageTV transcoder process is running during the playback on the extender?

Edit: I also looked at the debug log off the HD200 but I didn't see anything that looked like it had anything to do with the crash. Of course I have no idea what I'm looking for either. I couldn't find a debug log on the server.

On the server debug log you need to look for miniclient (with relevant MAC address) disconnection messages

I know, I used to wait, Google for problems, before doing MS, JAVA, etc. updates. Now I'm lazy, too many updates, so I just click "OK". Still, enabling "Automatic Updates" doesn't feel right, I'm losing that last bit of control. Not logical, just a peculiarity.

It does perfectly make sense not blindly follow all the updates, if is not broken don't try to fix it! I carefully review all the updates before updating the system and skip accordingly. Some times the "latest" doesn't mean "the best".

Last thing, your min/max heap size levels are worryingly high if you have just an extender running at the moment, I think you're running too many plugins. I suggest to cut down to the basic and add the plugins one by one.

Eddy

[Remo]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Regarding point #3, I would rather cut off the router, providing you don't need DHCP, so common switch between your SageTV server your NAS and HD200 together only.
Eddy

I'll try that tonight.

Originally Posted by routerunner

This sounds a decoding issue to me...it shouldn't happen as the HD200 is perfectly capable of transcoding the MP3 natively, but can you please check whether the SageTV transcoder process is running during the playback on the extender?
Eddy

How do I check if the transcoder is running? When I check Resource Monitor on the server it just shows SageTV.exe and SageTVService.exe.

I thought I might have the answer. When I looked at the encoding info for this artist it was the ones encoded at 320kbps that crashed. Ones at 256 or 192 played ok. Unfortunately that didn't hold true when I looked at other 320kbps files by other artists.

Nonetheless, when I re-encoded one of the offending songs at 128kbps it played fine.

Do you know of any utility that can dump the encoding info for multiple files at once? I used MediaInfo from the K-lite pack but you can only look at one file at a time with that. I want to dump all the info to a spreadsheet and see if I can find a common denominator between the ones that crash and the ones that don't.

Originally Posted by routerunner

Last thing, your min/max heap size levels are worryingly high if you have just an extender running at the moment, I think you're running too many plugins. I suggest to cut down to the basic and add the plugins one by one.

Eddy

I had a number of plugins, removed them all. The HEAP info is now 218/316/1038. It didn't make any difference in regard to the problem.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Remo

How do I check if the transcoder is running? When I check Resource Monitor on the server it just shows SageTV.exe and SageTVService.exe.

No, is not running, you should see a SageTVtranscoder.exe otherwise

I thought I might have the answer. When I looked at the encoding info for this artist it was the ones encoded at 320kbps that crashed. Ones at 256 or 192 played ok. Unfortunately that didn't hold true when I looked at other 320kbps files by other artists.
Nonetheless, when I re-encoded one of the offending songs at 128kbps it played fine.

I think you found the real issue and I reckon it has always been there...320kbps is not that high, it might be possible that the CBR vs VBR is the key factor...

Do you mind send me the offending MP3? I'll PM you with my email address

Eddy

[routerunner]

Thanks for the audio file which I confirm it plays nicely on my HD200 in both SageTV and Squeezeslave mode.

If the same file with lower bitrate now plays fine it could mean less bandwith involved, however I dubt it can make such difference...

Any way, the network could be your next try, how did it go the network test without router?

Another thing, can you please try the playback after the SageTV service has been restarted?

Eddy

[Remo]

I didn't make the router change once I found that re-encoding the file resolved the issue. I've since found another set of files that caused a crash, I re-encoded them at the same bitrate, 320, and then they ran fine.

It seems apparent that there's something about the encoding of certain files that is causing the issue. I just have no idea what that something might be. This, an MP3 encoding issue, would also explain why I've not seen the problem with videos, which I assume use way more bandwith, especially the HD ones.

The most recent set of files I fixed used to play ok so somethings changed. I have the K-lite codec pack installed on the server, and update it occasionally, but since the HD200 does it's own transcoding that shouldn't affect things, correct?

Edit: "Another thing, can you please try the playback after the SageTV service has been restarted?"

I restarted everything multiple times the other night. Rebooted the server, stopped/started SageTV, stopped/started the service, rebooted the HD200 after rebooting the server, etc.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Remo

I've since found another set of files that caused a crash, I re-encoded them at the same bitrate, 320, and then they ran fine.

When re-encoding are you still using CBR as the file you sent to me or VBR (likely to be the default on most encoders)? What software are you using to re-encode, LAME?

Updating K-lite will be only for the SageTV software player usage, the extender doesn't need transcoding unless under specific circumstances, like playing DTS audio tracks on the HD200 for instance.

Eddy

[Remo]

Originally Posted by routerunner

When re-encoding are you still using CBR as the file you sent to me or VBR (likely to be the default on most encoders)? What software are you using to re-encode, LAME?

I used a new, to me, program to re-encode these. It's MediaCoder 0.8.13. I changed the defaults to LAME, 320kpbs and CBR.

Just for jollies I copied back the attachment I sent you and tried to play it again... crash.

I ran MediaInfo on both versions of the file and have sent it to you in email. The only real difference I see is the LAME version, 3.96 vs 3.99.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Remo

I used a new, to me, program to re-encode these. It's MediaCoder 0.8.13. I changed the defaults to LAME, 320kpbs and CBR.

Just for jollies I copied back the attachment I sent you and tried to play it again... crash.

I ran MediaInfo on both versions of the file and have sent it to you in email. The only real difference I see is the LAME version, 3.96 vs 3.99.

The fact that MP3 files are failing to play is possible as some other users reported that in the past, however I don't understand how is it possible that a file that used to play correctly now it refuses and "re-encoding" it make it play fine again, that sounds to me a file corruption issues, but again why the file that didn't play on your HD200 plays fine on mine? So, it cannot be a simple file corruption and even worse it doesn't play on the HD200 only which hasn't changed for long time. The only thing that can chance the HD200 behaviour (a part the firmware of course) is the UI which runs on the extender.

Have you tried to delete the extender .properties files (backup inclusive) and let the system to generate a new one?

[Remo]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Have you tried to delete the extender .properties files (backup inclusive) and let the system to generate a new one?

No, I'll give that a try and see what happens.

[snipeman]

I've had the exact same problem with a HD200 and music. Was there ever a definite answer to this problem?

I moved my house and just started playing music from this HD200, perhaps I've had this problem for a while.

I'm running Java V 6 update 31 on Win XP Sp3. I'm not that up on what is the best Java to run anymore..

I do have MP3s from different sources, some are most definitely encoded in different manners.

[Remo]

No, it still does it. Even after re-encoding a file it'll work for awhile and then, for no apparent reason, start crashing when I play that file.

I've pretty much given up. I don't use it to play music too much so it's an irritation, not critical. I've been considering a Roku as a replacement but so far the irritation level hasn't overcome my being a cheapskate and not wanting to spend the dollars.

[snipeman]

Thanks for the fast answer! Do you own any HD300's? I have one of those as well, and could swap their positions in my network. I wonder if a 300 has the same issue?

[Remo]

No, just the HD200.