PVR is failing (RANT)

[Torque]

I'm about to the end of my rope with this, so I apologize upfront for my irritated attitude :o

Something is causing the RecordingServer to quit sending the channel changes to the USB-UIRT in the middle of it, which ultimately means recordings are failing not because the channel didn't completely change but because the recording service just went off into lala land. Tonite, we were watching LiveTV when I went to bring up the live guide at about 6:56pm and GBPVR just closed... no error, nothing, I see the desktop. I reopen GBPVR and we start watching the currently recording "My Name is Earl" (started at 6:55). Had to pause the TV for a few minutes for a fone call. By the time we finished Earl, we tried to watch The Office (which was supposed to start at 7:30) but noticed that it hadn't started recording yet... was still pending, yet the time was 7:38. I exit GBPVR and see that that tuner is sleeping. Lovely. Restart the recording service to try to salvage what was left of that show and hope I caught the other show that was still recording during a commercial

GBPVR.EXE-2.log indicates a crash at 6:56pm
GBPVRRecordingService.exe-1.log indicates it tried to transmit the channels to the USB-UIRT but never finished at 7:30pm and just wasn't doing antyhing when I restarted the service at about 7:40.

Then if it isn't missing recordings, either the GBPVR.exe or recordingservice.exe will randomly peg the CPU at 100% once or twice a week and I have to restart the recording service to fix it.

Ever since the switch to .net 2.0, I have just had an unreliable POS for a PVR. I complete rebuild and it worked fine for a few weeks, then I'm back to crap. The plugins that set a PC based PVR apart from a DVR... yeah, I haven't used in the last 4 to 5 months for fear I'd mess up the box even more than it already is by installing them (weather, video archive, etc). I could see if I used this box for other things and cluttered it up with crap... but this is a dedicated box that sits by the TV and is used for nothing but PVR duties.

So I'm ready to start over with new hardware (motherboard, cpu, ram, HDD) and use the existing two PVR150s and USBUIRT. But I'm really unsure at this point whether I should just throw in the towel and fork over the $$$ I'd spend on the new hardware for a DVR and subscription... easily 1-2 years worth. Or maybe I should go back to using a pre .net 2.0 version as I was okay with the quirks it had. I was just tempted with all the new fancy features and the rest is history. I had fun designing the ContourHC skin, and have occasionally been working on another, but I can no longer say to friends and family "hey check out my new skin or new features" because every time something quits working during the presentation or while they're trying to use it on their own. If you would have asked me a year ago, I'd have sat your ass down on the couch and ran you through all the cool features and shown off my uber skinning skills LOL

For those of you that have made it this far thru my novel, maybe some of you have tried a DVR from Comcast or Dish Network. If so how is it? All we want is season recordings, from atleast two sources, of our favorite shows and the ability to timeshift occasionally. What are some of the downsides to them? I don't care about saving the recordings to a computer, commercial detection, DVD ripping, music library ... we've lived without for 5 months, we're fine with that. ...Or do you think I should just start over (again) and try some new hardware??

[sub]

Something is causing the RecordingServer to quit sending the channel changes to the USB-UIRT in the middle of it, which ultimately means recordings are failing not because the channel didn't completely change but because the recording service just went off into lala land. Tonite, we were watching LiveTV when I went to bring up the live guide at about 6:56pm and GBPVR just closed... no error, nothing, I see the desktop. I reopen GBPVR and we start watching the currently recording "My Name is Earl" (started at 6:55). Had to pause the TV for a few minutes for a fone call. By the time we finished Earl, we tried to watch The Office (which was supposed to start at 7:30) but noticed that it hadn't started recording yet... was still pending, yet the time was 7:38. I exit GBPVR and see that that tuner is sleeping. Lovely. Restart the recording service to try to salvage what was left of that show and hope I caught the other show that was still recording during a commercial

GBPVR.EXE-2.log indicates a crash at 6:56pm
GBPVRRecordingService.exe-1.log indicates it tried to transmit the channels to the USB-UIRT but never finished at 7:30pm and just wasn't doing antyhing when I restarted the service at about 7:40.

Then if it isn't missing recordings, either the GBPVR.exe or recordingservice.exe will randomly peg the CPU at 100% once or twice a week and I have to restart the recording service to fix it.

I'm willing to bet these are all the same issue, all somehow related to use of the USB-UIRT.

Ever since the switch to .net 2.0, I have just had an unreliable POS for a PVR. I complete rebuild and it worked fine for a few weeks, then I'm back to crap. The plugins that set a PC based PVR apart from a DVR... yeah, I haven't used in the last 4 to 5 months for fear I'd mess up the box even more than it already is by installing them (weather, video archive, etc). I could see if I used this box for other things and cluttered it up with crap... but this is a dedicated box that sits by the TV and is used for nothing but PVR duties.

Thats not my own experience, and certainly hasnt been the view I've got from others from feedback on the forum. Yeah the first release after switching to .net 2.0 was a bit rough, but subsequent releases have been well received.

Personally I think v0.98.13 and v0.99.5 have both been solid releases with very few issues, and much better than anything that has gone before it, but I understand what is like - all it takes is one issue that affects someone to make their experience really suck. All I can do is applogise and remind people that I try my best to make sure things work smoothly, but with a million different combinations of hardware and software out there its a near impossible task to make sure it works flawlessly for all.

I can entirely understand a users desire to no longer want to deal with the issues that can come with a PC based PVR, particularly if they've been having a hard time, but if you do end up trying again I'll take another look at the issues you've been enountering with your USB-UIRT. I can think of a couple of things that could be done to give more visibility of the cause of the problems you're encountering.

[Torque]

Thank you Sub for your response. I know it's something I'm doing wrong but I just haven't found any solutions to fixing it. I've been using GBPVR for almost two years and the first year and half were alot of fun. I miss that.

After a good nights rest, I woke up this morning, read your reply, and ordered some hardware. I'm gonna try again. I'm all ears on what I could check in the current system though so that I don't make the same mistakes when I rebuild the new one.

I'm going to make a topic in the general section asking for opinions on what drivers and codecs I should use with the hardware i'll be using... maybe I'm just not using the right combo and that's causing problems. Here's the link: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post166181

[sub]

Do you use your USB-UIRT as both an IR Receiver and IR Blaster, or just as a blaster?

[Torque]

No, just as a blaster. I have an MCE receiver I've used from the git-go. A while back I was one of the ppl that tried the USBUIRT as both rx and tx but GBPVR would quit receiving the inputs, so i just went back to the MCE rx. It's buried in the forum here somewhere, i'll find the thread if it'll help. here's the thread:
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...+receiving

[sub]

Torque, can you please try adding the attached utility to your gbpvr directory? It it is a standalone version of the USB-UIRT blaster, allowing us to isolate the recording service or frontend from any problems that occurring when we use the USB-UIRT.

First try running it from the command line to check its working for you, passing the device file and channel number as arguments. For example:

USBUIRTSend "C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\IR Definitions\USB-UIRT\Dish Network Receiver.dat" 123

If thats good, set you capture source to use the ".exe channel changer" and set it to this executable, with the device file and {channel} as arguments.

I think there has been something funny happening with .net garbage collecting the handle I'm using to access the USB-UIRT, so I've written this utility will also avoid this potential problem (its short lived, and also not using .net).

[rbelisle]

Sub,

I have been having trouble with my USBUIRT so I thought I would try your fix above. It worked from the command line, but doesn't seem to work when I set it in the config utility. I did append the {channel} replacing 123 as shown in your example, but no changing. Is there a way to troubleshot this?

[sub]

Can you zip and attach you logs?

[Torque]

Ok, I was able to successfully put in your exe and get it configured. Watching Live TV, the USB-UIRT still seems to work, so I think did everything right, if i didn't channel changing on the STB wouldn't work, right? I put:
"C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\IR Definitions\USB-UIRT\Dish Network Receiver.dat" {channel}
in the parameters box

After watching TV like I normally do but changing channels alot and then watching prerecorded stuff, GBPVR closed again (with no warning/errors/etc) while I was watching Live TV and then hit back to go back to the main menu. Nothing in Win Event logs.

So anyway, here's a link to my logs i posted in the other thread:
http://forums.gbpvr.com/attachment.php?a...1168066089

[sub]

Ok, I was able to successfully put in your exe and get it configured. Watching Live TV, the USB-UIRT still seems to work, so I think did everything right, if i didn't channel changing on the STB wouldn't work, right? I put:
"C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\IR Definitions\USB-UIRT\Dish Network Receiver.dat" {channel}
in the parameters box

Cool. I'm sure this will help with some of the problems you've been having (100% CPU in recording service etc).

After watching TV like I normally do but changing channels alot and then watching prerecorded stuff, GBPVR closed again (with no warning/errors/etc) while I was watching Live TV and then hit back to go back to the main menu. Nothing in Win Event logs.

So anyway, here's a link to my logs i posted in the other thread:
http://forums.gbpvr.com/attachment.p...9&d=1168066089

Does a file get created in c:\windows\minidump when this occured?