Unable to start the BDA device - error

[skinny]

I've been using GB-PVR for more than 4 years on & off, in January I finally built a dedicated HTPC, it's been running almost flawlessly for months. This week I read that Prime TV was now available on Freeview, great, no more analogue TV for me. However, when I tried to Map digital channels to EPG channels, I get this error...

"GB-PVR was unable to start the BDA device you have configured. Check the device is configured properly, and not already in use"

I've tried a number of things, Re-register Filters, Re-register quartz.dll, Re-install GB-PVR (repair mode), Deleted Cache files form the BDA folder, removed and re-installed Hauppauge drivers, installed Windows update Vista SP2, and a few other things I can't remember, but I've run out of ideas, can anyone help please?

Log files attached
[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

[sub]

2009-08-21 06:27:38.166 INFO BDARecorder:::StartRecording(Hauppauge HVR-2200, 2, c:\test.mpg, T

The problem is happening because its passing in a bogus tuning request.

Delete the *.cache files in "c:\program files\devnz\gbpvr\bda" then try again. I know you say you've done that, but that looks like the cause to me. If that doesnt help, delete the gbpvr.db3 and cache files, then start the app and recreate your capture sources etc.

[skinny]

Too fast Sub, thanks for the hint
I deleted the cache files, buy the same error occurs, with the same message in the log. I guess I have to do the re-configure thing.
Bit of a nuisance as the family has become dependant on this now
Thanks

[sub]

Otherwise you can look in your gbpvr.db3 database, SOURCE_CHANNEL_MAPPING table, to see if one of the channels has a mapping to "T:", then delete that mapping.

[dennit]

Otherwise you can look in your gbpvr.db3 database, SOURCE_CHANNEL_MAPPING table, to see if one of the channels has a mapping to "T:", then delete that mapping.

You don't have many posts, so if you are new to this, you can use SQLiteSpy to do this. Before you try it, make a backup copy of your gbpvr.db3 file. Look in the column marked "tuning_request" in the table that sub has indicated.

[skinny]

Thanks dennit, that saved me asking the question
I used SQLiteSpy but the Tuning Requests for all the Digital channels are long strings starting with T:
The only inconsistency I can see is the TV3 channels have this string L:eng(AC3)
whereas all the others have L:000(AAC-LATM)
I guess I will have to reconfigure everything some time when I can wrestle the system off the family

[dennit]

Thanks dennit, that saved me asking the question
I used SQLiteSpy but the Tuning Requests for all the Digital channels are long strings starting with T:
The only inconsistency I can see is the TV3 channels have this string L:eng(AC3)
whereas all the others have L:000(AAC-LATM)
I guess I will have to reconfigure everything some time when I can wrestle the system off the family

What sub was telling you was that the logs showed a tuning string being sent to your tuner that was bogus/invalid. The tuning string you see in the database is exactly one line from the cache file for this source in your gbpvr/bda subdirectory.

When I scan for channels, I often just copy the entire string from the cache file directly into the tuning_request field for that channel. This lets me skip the mapping step entirely. I did this when I had hundreds of channels to map.

If your problem is just that you can't map a channel, you can try this:

Make a backup copy of your cache file for this source.

Rescan this source in config (that will generate a new cache file and overwrite the old).

See if you can actually see the video in config for the channel of interest. If so, the tuning is correct.

Then open up gbpvr.db3 and the cache file for this source and carefully copy the tuning string from cache to db.

The trick to doing this correctly is to know that the field "channel_oid" in the table SOURCE_CHANNEL_MAPPING matches to the field "oid" in the table CHANNEL. You can open two tables simultaneously using CTRL-N in SQLiteSpy.

Otherwise, starting afresh would make sense. Good luck.

[skinny]

Thanks again dennit,
I spent several hours last night completely reinstalling and reconfiguring GB-PVR. It seems to be working well.
There were a couple of other issues I didn't mention above as I didn't think they they were related. Occasionally a programme wouldn't record or would record only a few minutes, and when I tried to add a new channel to the PVR-350, it complained that drivers were not present, although it was otherwise working OK. I haven't added the PVR-350 back into the list of capture cards yet, but I suspect that problem will have been fixed now. I guess there must have been some corruption in the GBPVR.db3 database.