Recording ended too soon

[sub]

Sub, what does this entry in ndigital host mean:
2012-11-23 09:42:22.032 [DEBUG][4] locked=0, present=0, strength=0, quality=0
Does it mean NPVR is getting no signal?

That means there was no signal.

Some cards synchronously tune, and will always know the signal status when this check happens soon after, if it has locked=0, then there was no signal and no data will ever be delivered. Some card asynchronously tune, and will usually know the locked status soon after, but sometimes not until after that signal check, so we cant be sure if your device has locked a signal or not. There is the possibility it hasn't.

In menu recordings, NPVR says "Recording service was stopped during recording". Can you see that in the logs? Is that this entry?
2012-11-23 09:42:22.409 [DEBUG][8] recording service dequeued request to cancel (2500)
Could it be caused by getting no signal? Could that in turn cause ntray to malfunction? Shouldn't that be seen in the logs?

That wasn't caused by lack of signal. It's a cancellation message coming from the front end UI. ie, you manually requesting cancellation of a recording.

How do acamd and newcs working together and with NPVR? Does NPVR ask acamd for signal, which listens to newcs for decryption?
If so, why would there be no entry in acamd logs if it was newcs that caused the problem?

NextPVR is responsible tuning the device, then telling the multidec plugin what channel it would like decrypted, then passing the broadcast data to that plugin. Any data it receives back from the multidec plugin is then written to disk. Talking to newcs is something internal to the multidec plugin, and NextPVR doesn't know about it happening.

[WKleeven]

That means there was no signal.

Some cards synchronously tune, and will always know the signal status when this check happens soon after, if it has locked=0, then there was no signal and no data will ever be delivered. Some card asynchronously tune, and will usually know the locked status soon after, but sometimes not until after that signal check, so we cant be sure if your device has locked a signal or not. There is the possibility it hasn't.

I have been testing the past hour and I am definitely seeing live tv while locked=0.

What about my last problem, post #90?

Could the whole problem have something to do with merged channels?
Maybe, just maybe, I'm seeing my problem only on merged channels.

[WKleeven]

I've got another one. I had been recording a very long show on an digital, encrypted (and merged) channel.
Recording started at 11:39:12, should have ended (including 15 mins postpadding) at 15:15.
Recording is a bit short, lasting 03:05:32 according to NPVR. That means that from 14:44:44 on, no more video is added to the file (and indeed I could see in windows explorer that the file stopped growing from then on).
There are no strange entries in NPVR-logs, but there are in acamd.log and newcs.log.

These are the last 2 lines in acamd.log:
14:44:22.564: Newcamd 0: ECM [138C][0604/00000000] Pro, CHID=000B (0.228)
14:44:22.565: [00] SendDCW Even: A3CFA2146EBC456F:

And this is the last part of newcs.log:
[ 14:44:22 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 3AA2
[ 14:49:16 ] [ Newcamd:15050 ] User gebruiker1 logged in, client: Generic
[ 14:49:17 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:49:37 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:50:02 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:50:27 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:50:52 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:51:17 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:51:42 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:52:07 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:52:32 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:52:57 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:53:22 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9
[ 14:53:47 ] [ Newcamd ] ECM -> gebruiker1 (OK) 0604 0000 2AF9

Now, what I don't know is whether newcs stopped first and then acamd, or the other way round.

I see that in newcs.log every line from the start of the recording until just before the "glitch" ends with 3AA2,
while from then on it ends with 2AF9. What does this mean? I think the channel changed from RTL8 to Veronica........??????

And I don't know why in newcs.log the last entry is before the end of the recording.

And now, after the recording stopped, I tried to record another digital show and there are no more entries in acamd.log nor newcs.log and the file size of the new recording stays 0 kB. When I try to play the recording (whilest recording) I get a black screen and time stamp on the left side of "-3579139." (with a character I can't see because it's half hidden behind time bar)

And why are there no new entries after 14:44:22 in acamd, since newcs has new entries after that time.

Any ideas?

[WKleeven]

I must admit that I haven't had dealings with smart cards since the late 90's (Sky analogue & Scandinavian D2MAC) but I was wondering, could the loss of recordings - particularly on long programs in the early hours - be due to the Provider changing encryption codes (Electronic Counter Measures)? Possibly by the time the Card Reader has loaded the new code (If it does) NPVR has deemed the recording failed / over.

I think you're wright! I am testing some more to be sure.

[WKleeven]

Sub,

Lao Pan is wright. At certain times a day (for example 10.45, 14.45, 19.00, 23.00) the ECM-codes change. When this happens during recording, NPVR keeps on recording but the file stops growing.

[Reddwarf]

That might be true. But lately I'v seen recordings cut short that isn't recorded via multidec (my dvb-t with HW cam), and I had several cases where Nrecord don't respond, which I find strange since I'm using out-of-process recording and have no analog tuners. But I haven't had the time to investigate yet.

[johnsonx42]

and I had several cases where Nrecord don't respond, which I find strange since I'm using out-of-process recording and have no analog tuners. But I haven't had the time to investigate yet.

If an NDigitalHost hangs, NRecord will hang waiting for it. When out-of-process digitial recording was first introduced, along with a couple of fixes, it actually could recover from failures (somewhere in the forum I actually documented several successful recoveries). But a release or two later, it quit working that way and now out-of-process recording doesn't seem to do anything useful other than sequester all the nitty-gritty recording logging into separate log files which is still nice.

[sub]

Sub,

Lao Pan is wright. At certain times a day (for example 10.45, 14.45, 19.00, 23.00) the ECM-codes change. When this happens during recording, NPVR keeps on recording but the file stops growing.

nextpvr doesn't see these ECMs, or play and part in processing them. This is all internal to the multidec plugin you're using and your card server. NextPVR just sees the multidec plugin as a black box.

[sub]

If an NDigitalHost hangs, NRecord will hang waiting for it. When out-of-process digitial recording was first introduced, along with a couple of fixes, it actually could recover from failures (somewhere in the forum I actually documented several successful recoveries). But a release or two later, it quit working that way and now out-of-process recording doesn't seem to do anything useful other than sequester all the nitty-gritty recording logging into separate log files which is still nice.

im sure it still works for scenario it aimed to fix, but we later spotted another scenario that could occur.

[WKleeven]

Sub I don't know what it means, but just for testing purposes I installed mediaportal and that program doesn't seem to have a problem with the changed ECM-codes (it records normal). Now I don't like mediaportal (and would like NPVR to work for me with this issue), but what does this mean?
EDIT: with MP using the same newcs.exe process and same acamd-settings.