recording starting too soon over network at startup?

[ub435-q v2]

I'm using an HDHomeRun HDHR3-US tuner for QAM recording with nPVR 2.5.9. It is functioning fine with nPVR under normal use. However, I am having an issue when resuming a scheduled recording after a power failure (or restarting the PC too close to the start of a new recording). What happens is that the recording service starts the recording before (I assume) the network has fully initialized, so the tuner doesn't actually get called upon to record (no recording light on the device). NPVR acts like it is recording though (which ends with a zero byte file). If I catch this and restart the recording service, a new file begins that actually records from the device. I'm using this in Windows 7sp1 connected directly to a PCI ethernet card (using the onboard NIC for router/internet). I have an ASUS PCIe tuner that doesn't have this problem, and that's why I assume it's the network taking longer to initialize than the recording service.

Is there a way for me to delay this start of the recording so that the network has time to fully initialize before the recording service tries to start recording, or is there some other way? Thank you.

[sub]

I've never had to use it, but I think you can set dependencies in the Services control panel.

[Jaggy]

I strongly feel that NextPVR should actually check that it is receiving data after a certain time & if not try re-tuning & not go on merrily recording 0byte recordings....., this would also help with the problem I have occasionally with my DVB-S tuner momentarily glitching & stopping delivering data & all recordings after this time on this transponder being 0 bytes long until there is a break between recordings.

[Reddwarf]

You could try to set the recording service to "Start Automatically (Delayed)" in Services.msc

[ub435-q v2]

Thanks for the responses. I can't set anything in Dependencies, so that's out, and if you mean Group Policy... how the?... That would be one of those "Please walk me step by step" things. Automatic (Delayed Start) was an obvious option, but it took 2 minutes after startup finished to load. Way too long a wait when resuming a recording. If there was a way to change the delay for that entry, that would be the preferred option. Instead, I resorted to the following:

I changed the NPVR Recording Service startup type to Manual. Then I installed WinPatrol. I unchecked all the monitors in Winpatrol's interface since I have no interest in using those. Then I added an entry under Delayed Start tab for NPVRServiceControl.exe. I then clicked on Delay Options and set the Seconds to 10 and typed the word start in the Parameters box and changed Open As: to Minimized (unfortunately, the message window "started" still shows at startup). This fixed it for me so that it would start recording much sooner than with the Services startup type Automatic (Delayed Start) which took 2 minutes. Most importantly, the network and the HDHomeRun device were ready by that time.

It's not a big deal, but I have a question. Is there a way to force the message "started" to be hidden when the NPVRServiceControl runs? Like another command that can be added after "start". Please give the full parameter as I would type it, like "start %hidden%" or whatever. Or maybe a command to close the window. Thank you.

[Reddwarf]

You could just use the "net start..." command.

[ub435-q v2]

You could just use the "net start..." command.

Somehow I get the idea that you and I are not on the same page. Where exactly do I use the "net start..." command? Thanks.

[Reddwarf]

You asked about another way of starting the recording service. You can use

Code:

net start "npvr recording service"

from a batch file or from a command prompt.

[ub435-q v2]

You asked about another way of starting the recording service. You can use

Code:

net start "npvr recording service"

from a batch file or from a command prompt.

Ah! Thank you. That worked like a charm. Not like a Windows 8 charm, you know what I mean. I will explain what I did in case any others read this thread later and want more detail of... what I did.

I opened Notepad and pasted the above code into Notepad, then saved the file with ".bat" instead of ".txt" as the file type (name it whatever you want so long as you can find it later). Then I added the file as a Delayed Start entry in Winpatrol and then changed the Delay options to 10 seconds. No extra parameters were necessary since that is taken care of by the batch file. Then I removed the nCtrl (mentioned earlier) entry from WinPatrol. This file uses a command-prompt that automatically closes after starting the service which was preferred over the "Started..." pop-up from the other file.

[Reddwarf]

Good you got it sorted