Multiple Silicondust tuner problem

[Rich A]

I'll take up the removal of the files with the guys over at SiliconDust on their forum. In the mean time, I'm sorry to say that I still have problems. This all started when I tried to "re-purpose" the HDHR dual tuner that was set up and dedicated to run with BeyondTV. And so far we have got to here.

The last thing I did was set up a simultaneous recording session where I had five shows recorded on five different channels all at the same time. That seemed to work. I did not wait for the shows to end, but rather just canceled the recordings after about 15 - 20 minutes. And when I checked they were all recorded just fine. No errors at all.

But later during a regular recording session (pending recordings) I had 6 shows set to record from 4 different channels for shows at different durations (1/2 and 1 hour shows) over a 3 hour period. And I ended up with three of them being recorded just fine and three others with the usual "No data found but .. (If I remember the error correctly)

BUT .. now that I look at the devices list again, I see that the 5 tuners have 2 different sets of model numbers. Three are properly referred to as HDHR Prime tuners and two of them are also referred as "prime" tuners. Now I know the Prime cable card device has three physical tuners. The problem is that I selected the only two tuners that I could actually add channels to. None of the rest of the "phantom" tuners ever found channels. I thought I was golden .. but maybe not? It still seems I do NOT have access to all five tuners. Yet HOW was I able to manually record from five different channels at the same time without an error. So I have to believe this error with zero length recordings etc. is unrelated to my phantom tuner list. Tonight is a big recording night, so in an hour I guess I'll see if it records at least three of the 10 or show it's set to record.

This is really really getting bizarre. I wonder which channel recordings I missed tonight? Arrrghhh. Since this started I have had to look to the Internet to watch the channels I missed. And usually the stations don't show the most recent replay of a show until it's over a week old. Sigh .. More later on this .. I'm thinking about a fresh install of NPVR and all the hardware from scratch at this point. With over a hundred shows in my recording list that may be a bit of work. Sigh ..

- Rich

[Rich A]

Tonight around 10:30 PM I fired up the home theater and sat down to see the evening's recordings were doing. It was not good. All of the six scheduled shows were flagged as "failed". Well actually 4 were failed and 2 had 1/2 hour of recording left. However they also were not recording. The error was the same for all of them. I forget what it was exactly but it was reporting that the recording service was stopped or could not start. I don't remember because I spent the last few hours just trying to get NPvr to work at all.

I could NOT delete the failed recordings. I could not start a new recording or watch Live TV. I would assume that is because of the Npvr server being "stopped". I shut down everything and rebooted. Still no joy. Removed all the plug-ins. In task manager the Npvr recording service is "stopped". I can not restart it. A lot of things are "broken" and don't work any more.

So I checked the hardware and after an hour of checking the PC is fine.

[ga_mueller]

I've had similar problems with my DCR-2650 (similar to HDHomerun Prime). When a failed 0 byte recording occurs (no data delivered error), the recording service stops, you can't delete the failed recording, and you cannot delete other good completed recordings! When all of the "active" 0 byte recordings are finished, you can finally delete them. Or you can set Windows time forward to when all of these failed recordings are finished, restart the recording service, and delete all of the crap.

I've set up the recording service to restart after it stops, so subsequent recordings will occur OK, but as long as failed zero-byte recordings are "recording", you cannot do anything about it. I have an in-line amp for cable, so signal strength and quality are OK.

I posted about this a while back with logs, but as there were no replies, I assumed I was the only user with this problem...

[Rich A]

Thanks for the note. I deleted part of my post #22 after venting my frustration. After re-reading it I calmed down enough to tackle the install again. (this time with a cup of coffee keeping me awake)

Things go better when you aren't falling asleep at the switch. <grin> I'm happy to say everything is back to almost normal. It's up and running again. And I thought I only have the original HDHR Prime working. The good news is that all those "phantom" tuners are gone !!

At first I thought I still had problems because the HDHR Dual was still showing up mislabeled as a "Prime" tuner. But after a second test of all the tuners I think even those tuners in the HDHR Dual seem to be working now. I am now able to record five channels at the same time. 3 tuners from the HDHR Prime and 2 tuners from the HDHR dual.

So all the phantom tuners are gone. And the remaining tuners seem to all be working fine now. The only left is to wait until tonight when I have very busy 3 hours of recordings scheduled. 10 channels in those three hours. That will confirm everything is working finally.

I have several other minor issues to check but they aren't affecting the over-all operation. After I get some shut eye, I'll go through everything.

Thanks for the help .. Rich

I've had similar problems with my DCR-2650 (similar to HDHomerun Prime). When a failed 0 byte recording occurs (no data delivered error), the recording service stops, you can't delete the failed recording, and you cannot delete other good completed recordings! When all of the "active" 0 byte recordings are finished, you can finally delete them. Or you can set Windows time forward to when all of these failed recordings are finished, restart the recording service, and delete all of the crap.

I've set up the recording service to restart after it stops, so subsequent recordings will occur OK, but as long as failed zero-byte recordings are "recording", you cannot do anything about it. I have an in-line amp for cable, so signal strength and quality are OK.

I posted about this a while back with logs, but as there were no replies, I assumed I was the only user with this problem...

[ga_mueller]

So I guess I am really the only one with this problem... :o

[ttfitz]

So I guess I am really the only one with this problem... :o

Nah, I've seen similar (or the same) sort of thing with my DCR-2650, I just figured that when things go south (from all appearances it's the USB connection going funky), EVERYTHING goes kinda south, and I haven't worried much about it.

[Rich A]

So I guess I am really the only one with this problem... :o

I'm sure you are aren't alone. In my case a complete removal and re-install of everything "NPvr" cleared up a few problems. Like you the most recent problem I was working on was where I'd have failed recordings with zero byte length AND could not delete them at all, (unless I went to the system level op system and manually erased them.

That problem is gone. Last night was my big test with the newly installed NextPvr. I had around 11 or 12 shows due to record all on a mix of channels (All digital some Clear QAM and some unscrambled by the HDHR Prime cable card tuners). And all of them were within a 3 hour span. When done all but two recorded perfectly. I have as of yet to examine the logs on those. However although those "No Data found", zero length files could be removed from NextPvr via the normal means. No problem. Both my HDHR Prime and HDHR dual are working. Why I'm still getting an occasional failed recording is now something I still have to work out.

Some years back I was VERY much involved with Video capture, authoring and encoding. And I've seen all kinds strange things. Like, RF coming down the wire (be it fiber optic or copper) has some interesting things that can be counter-intuitive. For example, a power amp in line with your distribution can create problems for some digital (and analog) tuners if the signal source is too HIGH. And all lines in your distribution need to have balancing in-line attenuators to insure that each device at the end of their individual coax feeds have the same signal level. Without going into great detail one of the first things I would do is eliminate power amp by disconnecting it's input and output and putting a jumper in place. Then check the lower channel and higher channels by doing normal recording. If you are still having a problem with the amp jumped out, then at least you confirmed one potential problem.

Me ?? I'm still getting the Zero length failed recording, but now it's pretty intermittent and much less often. While I was having lots of failed recordings I believe that was because two of my tuners that showed up as working were in fact not. I found that by starting 3 recording (which were picked up with the Prime) and the trying to view a 4th channel. In short any attempt to do anything with any more than the three HDHR prime tuners failed even though those other two tuners in the HDHR Dual were supposedly working. Now since I've re-installed everything from scratch, I can manually run 5 recordings at once.

Also now I can actually delete any failed recording using the normal NPvr procedures. While troubleshooting this I first physically removed all but the HDHR Prime and ran several tests to insure at least THAT was working normally. I wonder if you have "other" tuners also being used?

By the way. My procedure to get things working again was to:

Remove all Npvr plug-ins, etc.
UnInstall NextPVR
Do minor cleaning of the registry.

Then installed NextPVR from scratch ..

The most surprising thing that happened (that was actually nice) was that all my settings and stuff from the old install just popped back in place. All my recordings were intact and all recording parameters were still good. In fact there was almost no configuration for me to have to setup. I have a lot of things set up like various dedicated recording folders and drives, and such. And everything was in place just has I had last used it. Only now all my tuners were actually working and I was able to delete failed ones.

I guess there were things left over (where ? ) in the registry or maybe even in the areas of the system that NextPVR uses. Usually when I remove a program from a system I also clean up all the "crumbs" left over in the various folders and in the register. One of the things I liked about BeyondTV was that you could back up all the BTV parameters and settings and they could be put back in the case of a re-install. It seems that NextPvr might do that automatically as well.

- Rich

[ga_mueller]

2/12 failed recordings is, in my opinion, unacceptable.

[Rich A]

I absolutely agree. Right now it's the only thing I'm working on. So far though, the failures have been reduced a lot. That is because there were two separate issues causing those failures, the first issue caused by 2 of the tuners not even being available and the second cause .. still not resolved as those 2 tuners are indeed now working correctly.

I'm curious if your failed recordings can be traced to a specific tuner or even a special channel? I have to get a few more nights of recordings over a weeks time and document this, but in my case I think there is some redundancy going on. I have to look at the logs yet. I'm thinking when the failure occurs it's because all three of the prime tuners are in use and so the HDHR Dual comes into play .. and it may have a bad connection or intermittent tuner in it. After looking at the logs I think I'll change around the order of preference for the tuners. Right now I have the three prime tuner set up as tuners 1,2, and 3. and the HD Dual set up as 4 and 5. IF the problem is an intermittent with the HDHR Dual tuner(s) then changing them to the highest priority should increase the number of failures. Does that make sense ? Maybe that data will show up in the log though .. and I can see if the specific failure can be attributed to a specific tuner. Naw .. that would be too easy .. <grin>

[ga_mueller]

I've not seen any particular channels failing more frequently, it seems pretty random. Since I only have the two tuners from the 2650 available, I don't have the flexibility that you have in terms of setting tuner priority. I haven't checked to see if one of the tuners causes the failed recordings... this is a good idea and I'll keep track from now on as to which channel and tuner fails.