GBPVR 0.98.8 unresponsive for long time

[mageus]

GBPVBR hangs frequently

- When starting, the hard drive will get constant access for 30-60 seconds, and GBPVR is unresponsive.
- After that, when switching between any action or plugin, GBVPR is unresponsive for about 30 seconds.
- However, plugins (live tv, tv guide) work fine after this.

- No problems with the config app
- Live preview mode enabled
- Not using any remotes for now
- All the Hauppage software works just fine.

System:
Athlon XP 64 3200
1GB RAM
Haupp PVR 150, latest drivers (PVR 150 2.0.43.24108 Lite CD recently posted)
WXP SP2

Looking at the GBPVR.exe log you'll see there are two gaps:
10:48:56 - 10:49:11
10:49:11 - 10:50:13

TIA.

[sub]

- When starting, the hard drive will get constant access for 30-60 seconds, and GBPVR is unresponsive.

10:48:56 - 10:49:11

The first one can be easily explained: When you start GB-PVR, it immediately starts loading the TV guide in the background. You cannot view the TV Guide until this loading has completed. If you try, it'll have to wait until the load completes. For most people this background load only takes a few seconds, but if (worst case) you're in the US and have hundreds of channels and two weeks listings then it might take a while.

Accoring to your logs, it took 15 seconds before your machine had completed this background load and you were able to view the guide. During this time you'd also expect to see quite a bit of disk activity.

Any screen other than the TV Guide should have been available immediately - only a problem if you tried to go the TV Guide in this first 15 seconds, which is of course what you did in your log. Try going to some screen other than the tv guide...

If you're experiencing any delays elsewhere, please describe the exact steps that your performed, and post the logs again.

[mageus]

Thanx. Clearing my Zap2It lineup fixed the first problem.

Second problem still exists. Appears to hang for up to a minute. Then I noticed that if I switch focus out then back to GBPVR, it updates the screen. However, after trying a few functions, it finally just crashed and exited. here's what I did:

Start GBPVR
Click TV guide (comes up after several seconds of HD access)
Esc
Click Live TV (comes up quickly)
Esc (nothing happens for 60 seconds)
Click on desktop then move mouse over GBPVR, GBPVR returns to menu
Click on recordings - nothing happens
Click on title bar, switches to Recordings.
Esc - nothing happens
Click on title bar - GBPVR terminates.

Logs are attached.

[sub]

If you hadnt viewed any video, live tv in the test above, is everything responsive. ie, is navigating through all the menu screens fine?

I'm trying to narrow down where exactly the problem is occuring.

[mageus]

Good catch. I've narrowed it down.

Open GBPVR. Do anything other than Live TV, works fine.

Open Live TV (works fine).

Do anything else, and you have to force GBPVR to do a window refresh (such as move the window, change focus to and from GBPVR). If you alt-tab to something that covers the whole screen, and alt-tab back, GBPVR will only display part of the window, but displays the full window when you move the window bar.

Interesting experiment - I clicked TV Guide, then typed escape, then clicked Recording. Nothing happens visually (stays on the menu screen), but when I move the title bar, I'm in the Recording screen.
This confirms that the problem is with the window refresh.

I confirmed that this happens in windowed and full screen mode.

Also confirmed multiple times that this behaviour only starts happening after you've clicked Live TV.

BTW, CPU usage and memory/page file usage stay stable during all of this.

Can't get it to crash now doing this (don't know why it crashed before).

Happens whether or not the Recording service is running or not.

Here's what I did with the latest program launch:

- Open GBPVR
- Click Record
- Click What's playing
- Esc
- Click System
- Esc
- Click Search
- Type "law"
- Esc
- Click Live TV (works)
- Esc (screen stays same)
- Move titlebar (updates to Menu)
- TV Guide (no change)
- use arrow keys to move around in guide (no change)
- move title bar (updates to show correct position in guide)
- Esc (no change)
- move title bar (updates)
- Exit


Attached are the logs for that session.

Thanx for your help.

[sub]

Does it have the same problem if you watch some pre-recorded video, or is it only live tv that has the problem?

[mageus]

Does it with Live TV & prerecorded video.

I.E.:

- Use any option (TV Guide, Search Guide, System), works fine.

- Use the Recordings menu (but don't watch anything) works fine.

- Go into Live TV or Play a prerecorded show, exhibits the 'no window refresh' error.

Maybe this has something to do with the overlay manager? See my first post for my HW setup. I've got an eVGA GeForce 7600GT, NV drivers FW 91.31.

[sub]

15:11:25.171 VERBOSE Graph contains the following filters:
15:11:25.171 VERBOSE - Default DirectSound Device
15:11:25.171 VERBOSE - Video Renderer
15:11:25.171 VERBOSE - ffdshow Audio Decoder
15:11:25.171 VERBOSE - MPV Decoder Filter
15:11:25.171 VERBOSE - MPEG-2 Demultiplexer
15:11:25.171 VERBOSE - Encoder
15:11:25.171 VERBOSE - Capture
15:11:25.171 VERBOSE - Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Crossbar
15:11:25.171 VERBOSE - TV Audio
15:11:25.171 VERBOSE - TV Tuner

I'm guessing its got something to do with the ffdshow audio decoder. Can you try without it?

[mageus]

Should I uninstall the codec or is there a way to disable it within GBPVR?

[sub]

If you dont want to uninstall it, you could try specifying a different Audio Decoder on the Playback tab of the config app (rather than relying on 'system default'), then check its not listed in gbpvr.exe-native.log.