Client recording strangeness

[SLR_65]

OK, I got the pc client up and running and things seemed to be working fine.

Last night as a test I scheduled a recording at 11pm. I had a show going on LiveTV. I have three analog tuners so this shouldn't be a problem. It showed up as pending in the recordings list.

I turned off the tv and went to bed. This morning I found the recording had failed. I looked through the logs and couldn't find any errors, actually no events in that time frame at all.

I cleared the logs out and rebooted both the server and the client today since last night I had been playing with the client a lot (updating windows, updating the video driver, etc.) and have been playing.

There seems to be some odd stuff going on.

First the GBPVR icon in the lower right corner is sometimes black and when I click on show status it lists 8 empty tuners. Other times it's green, whether I'm recording a program or not, and clicking on show status does correctly report what the tuners are doing.

I haven't been able to get a recording to fail today, but I'm getting some odd things in the displays.

If I'm not watching LiveTV on the server and select three programs from the tvguide for quick record they do all record and they all show up in the pending que as recording. If I do the same from the client with no LiveTV being viewed on the server it does the same, i.e. it works fine.

However if I'm watching a LiveTV program on the server and have two programs recording (started from either the server or client) and then start a recording from the client things get a bit weird. It will kick the server out of LiveTV and exit back to the main menu. In the pending recordings tab it shows the program the client wanted recorded but shows it as pending rather than recording. It does record the program though. Also if while this is going on you try to enter LiveTv on the server it pops up the no tuners are available message and gives you the option to watch one that's recording or exit. However it only gives you the option to watch the two programs that are listed in the pending que as recording, the third program that was started while the server was watching LiveTv and is not being reported as recording in the pending que does not show up as an option to view.

Not really a big deal, but might it not cause a problem if someone tried to record too many programs at once and caused a recording conflict?

I still haven't figured out why the recording last night failed as it had two tuners available, but it may have been due to the updates that were done to the client and maybe the reboot fixed it. I'll keep playing.

Steve

[SLR_65]

Oh, I think I see what's up with the GBPVR icon on the client - I thought it would only turn green when it's recording, but it turns green whenever a tuner is in use . . . i.e. if the server is not watching LiveTv or recording it will be black, but if the server is watching LiveTv or recording it will turn green. I didn't realize watching LiveTv would turn it green. Makes sense now.

[SLR_65]

More strangeness . . .

I had three programs recording. From the client I tried to cancel those recordings while they were recording.

Twice it worked fine, but the third program refused to abort. I would select it and choose abort and the screen would go away and things would seem to freeze as I couldn't scroll down the list. After a bit I could scroll but the recording had not stopped. Repeated attempts would yield the same results.

From the server I could abort it though.

Worked on two recordings, wouldn't work for love nor money on the third. Always works from the server.

Strange . . .

[fuzzweed]

Is your client on a wired connection? I just wondered if it was wireless maybe it was getting the odd dropout transfering infomation.

[SLR_65]

I was wrong on the GBPVR icon . . . I rebooted and now it's stuck on black and 8 blank tuners again. Restarting the recording service, etc. doesn't help.

I can still fully access the server.

Scheduling programs seems to be working, but the bug where I can abort two recordings and not a third seems to be there still. I wonder if it's the HVR-1600 it has trouble halting? Wish the GBPVR icon was working so I could see what was recording what.

[sub]

I was wrong on the GBPVR icon . . . I rebooted and now it's stuck on black and 8 blank tuners again. Restarting the recording service, etc. doesn't help.

This happens when it cant talk to the server. Like firewall getting in the way.

[SLR_65]

Is your client on a wired connection? I just wondered if it was wireless maybe it was getting the odd dropout transfering infomation.

Yes, it's a wired connection.

[SLR_65]

This happens when it cant talk to the server. Like firewall getting in the way.

I dropped the firewall on both the server and client with the same results, sometimes it works and most times it doesn't.

I just made a discovery though. If it doesn't work when I boot it up if I go to the task manager and end the tray application and then go to the gbpvr program directory and start the gbpvrtray.exe program manually then it works every time. 10 out of 10 times that it didn't work when it booted up and I used task manager to kill it and then reloaded it manually it worked fine.

I'm wondering if it's just loading too soon on a reboot? Anyway to make it load a bit later?

[sub]

I dont know.

[martint123]

I just made a discovery though. If it doesn't work when I boot it up if I go to the task manager and end the tray application and then go to the gbpvr program directory and start the gbpvrtray.exe program manually then it works every time. 10 out of 10 times that it didn't work when it booted up and I used task manager to kill it and then reloaded it manually it worked fine.

I'm wondering if it's just loading too soon on a reboot? Anyway to make it load a bit later?

This happens to me with a client that has had many, many different network cards in it and the network takes a long time to stabilise after a boot.

I've found the tray app doesn't seem to sort itself out afterwards and needs stopping and restarting to be happy. I played at one time with a batch file from the startup folder to get the tray app running and it consisted of PINGS to the server - these are slow and timeout if it can't see the server and once it sees it they speed up. Problem went away then.