MVP boot problem - stops at "Contacting Servers"

[bluesxman]

Have you tried a network trace using ethereal or something similar. It does sound like GBPVR and the MVP just aren't talking...

[nia]

Tipstir,

Building the old box failed on me, so in desperation I simply installed .NET and GBPVR on a machine that has had tons of different pieces of software installed. It is still running XPSP1.

This machine has no video-card, codecs or anything installed, and has never seen a Hauppauge driver.

And it brought up the GBPVR-interface on the MVP on the very first try!!! :eek:

So now I will look deeply into the network traffic on the malfunctioning PVR-PC as I guess that must be part of the explanation...?

Anyway - bluesxman pointed me to ethereal that I will try to use to get some hints as to what is going on and where the difference may lie.

It couldn't be something SP2-related as everyone seems to have that up running just fine...?

/Niels

[nia]

Well you need to have a PC cleaned, like a new refreshed PC, tried that before with a PC with SP1 and tons of software, later down the line I had to clean out the box and re-image it.

Well - that is also what I eventually would do. The effort above was just to see if I could get anything up and running here, and now I know I can

But I SOOO would love to find that bit that is turned the wrong way on my current machine keeping it from serving the MVP :mad: . Now I know everything can run nicely, why won't my current machine just cave in to the fact and start behaving...

If it ends up with a reinstallation, I need to search for threads on migrating recordings etc. to a new machine since I want to keep the recordings I already have made during the last ½ year. :eek:

Thanks anyway to you and everyone else for your continued support.

/Niels

[Guy]

Hi Niels,

I've had similar problems and it came down to IP addressing and DHCP (in lack of a DHCP server, my MVP defaulted to 192.168.1.1 conflicting with my router, resolved eventually by carefully ordering how everything gets powered up). I'm sure you've probably tried a lot of these things, but here's a few things that helped me figure out what was going wrong with my network:

1. GBPVR.exe log (I notice in your logfile attached to first messagel that not even the initial signal that MVP exists has hit GBPVR...worrying....also noticed you have hardcoded the GBPVR box to be 192.168.1.100, which is also the first address that the router will try to give the MVP, if the router loses contact with your pc and 'forgets' that the GBPVR PC has this IP - this could cause problems - try changing the PC's static IP to something the router will never conflict with)

2. the two logfiles in the mediaMVP hardware sub directory

(between 1&2 you can at least see the IP address that the MVP thinks it has, rather than what your DHCP server says it has, as they can be different if there has been some form of conflict)

3. A tool like ethereal to find out what traffic is actually coming out of your MVP/GBPVR box (I fixed my problem before I used ethereal in anger, but it looks like a seriously good tool for working out comms issues).

4. The order of bootup of your various pieces of kit seems to be critically important (this was, fundamentally, my downfall). As far as I can make out the order of bootup needs to be (make sure that all boxes/MVPs are completely unplugged for a couple of minutes before starting this):

A. turn on your router (or whatever hardware you are using as a DHCP server)
B. turn on any switches/hubs attached to the router
c. turn on the pc that is running gbPVR and/or the hauppauge software
d. lastly turn on the media mvp's.


5. The last thing you'll need is a huge amount of patience, unfortunately.....

Good luck with everything...it really does sound like a networking issue of some kind

guy.





between these two

[nia]

Hi All.

I finally got around to reinstalling on a brand new 400GB ( ) disk from a fresh XPSP2.

Right out of 'the box', i got the MVP working.

Migrating the recordings from the old setup seemed unsuccessful. Copying the .mdb and config.xml left me with the same old problem (see start of this thread).

In desperation I tried just copying the .mdb over, and except for a few configuration settings that I had to rekey, everything - including the MVP - was running with all of my old recordings!

Happy with the fact that this was probably some bad line somewhere in the old config.xml file that had made it all stop working, I started reinstalling some of the plugins I had used before.

Alas - the next morning when trying to use the MVP, the problem had resurfaced :eek:

Well - reinstalling to get a fresh config.xml and copying the .mdb got me back in the game again. So now I am about to start researching what plugin out of the ones installed is the sinner. I installed the following (in one batch):
Comics, News, ShutDown, Weather (and xrecord, but that wasn't on my old install).

At least I have now narrowed the problem down, eliminating network and firewall issues.

Thanks to all who contributed. I'll be back here when I have identified the plugin sinner...

Brgds,
Niels

[MVa]

Hi,

I experienced similar start up problems after upgrading to the latest GB-PVR -version, i.e. after the upgrade the MVP simply did not boot. Cleaning the installation completely and after GB-PVR re-install everything worked fine again until I added plugins. After comparing my plugins and nia's list above, I found out that the only common plugin was the weather module. Therefore, I installed all my old plugins on top of a fresh GB-PVR installation and voilá - the system is up and running again.

=> at least in my case the sinner is the weather plugin
that does not want to cooperate with the latest GB-PVR version

Regards,
Mikko

[saintalan]

Nothing new here, just my experience.

In order to use other media servers, I now (have to) have a login user account. I also have GBPVR server in start-up folder.

What I found was that the MVP worked fine on start up UNTIL I logged in and then I had 2 instances of the server working, which meant I can't get passed the dreaded 'Contacting Servers'.

I have now returned the Config MVP servers to Autostart to 0 but still have it in Windows start up, and all is fine, other than, of course, now it doesnt start the server until I log in.

I guess I could try switching that scenario around also.

Cheers

Alan

[bobminter]

After fooling around with skins and plugins I managed to screw-up a perfectly good setup I have a 150mce and mvp running through a belkin router(wired)-had been using a wireless G access point but my son latched on to it for his ps2 :o so Ipulled a cat5 cable to it-the wireless worked as good as the wired. I have uninstalled and reinstalled everything but Xp- with no help.

Anyone care to look at a log or two and help me with this?

TIA

[nia]

Anyone care to look at a log or two and help me with this?

TIA

Well - as the initiator of this thread I do have some debugging experience :o

First, exit all GBPVR apps, rename the existing config.xml, and (here I'm actually in doubt and give you two options):
Try just to fire up the congig application and set your capture directories back to your settings along with any other things you previously had altered, and set the number of servers to autostart to "1" in the MVP Playback section.

Save/exit and check if there is a new config.xml. (this is the part I don't remember) If it isn't there, simply run an install on top of what you have and do tha above again.

Bottom line is, I have seen stuff from plugins in the config.xml ruining the MVP-functionality.

Don't worry about doing this operation. It will still know your old recordings and channel setup. That stuff is in the mdb-file I believe.

Good luck and report back on your findings,

Niels

[bobminter]

Well - as the initiator of this thread I do have some debugging experience :o

First, exit all GBPVR apps, rename the existing config.xml, and (here I'm actually in doubt and give you two options):
Try just to fire up the congig application and set your capture directories back to your settings along with any other things you previously had altered, and set the number of servers to autostart to "1" in the MVP Playback section.

Save/exit and check if there is a new config.xml. (this is the part I don't remember) If it isn't there, simply run an install on top of what you have and do tha above again.

Bottom line is, I have seen stuff from plugins in the config.xml ruining the MVP-functionality.

Don't worry about doing this operation. It will still know your old recordings and channel setup. That stuff is in the mdb-file I believe.

Good luck and report back on your findings,

Niels

I've already deleted all the gbpvr and mvp stuff and reinstalled 3 or 4 times all I saved is the logs , possibly the config. currently I've put on the Hauppauge factory apps, so I could use the hardware. seems like the plugins have trashed somthing outside the app.