HDHR Extend Issues on newer versions of NPVR

[craigrs84]

I just wanted to report that the newer versions of NextPVR seem to have a problem with HDHomeRun Extend (transcoding unit).

For me, on certain channels there is about a 90% chance that the channel won't load and the only thing that that displays is a black screen (the other 10% it might load fine). This also impacts recording, if I play back a saved file that was recorded, it is also a black screen when played back through NPVR. The file seems corrupted, if I play the saved file in Kodi it just crashes instead of black screen. Note: I don't think the black screen is at all related to missing decoders, I sorted that out long ago.

I downgraded to NPVR version 3.6.6 and everything works fine on this version. Anything above version 3.6.6 has issues though. I've experimented with this multiple times so am fairly confident in my findings.

One thing I haven't tried yet is to turn off transcoding and see if that helps any at all (just as an experiment). If I get some time I'll try that out.

Thanks.

[sub]

Can you please supply a short sample recording? Put it somewhere like dropbox or onedrive, and let me know the download link.

[craigrs84]

Here's some examples: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cqqlxp9u5k...tball.zip?dl=0

1st file recorded fine, 2nd failed with file size = 0KB (about 10 seconds in length), 3rd file failed with size = 246KB (about 20-30 seconds in length)

All from the same channel. Version 4.0.4

[craigrs84]

I also confirmed that the problem occurs regardless of whether transcoding is turned on or off.

Could it be related to a weak signal? If so, I just don't understand why it consistently works fine in version 3.6.6.

[craigrs84]

Some more info: The pattern I'm seeing is this: the first channel listed on each frequency loads fine without issues, but the secondary channels that share the same frequency have issues... (see "Channels" table near bottom of this post)

i can usually tell when the bug is about to occur because it takes slightly longer to load, the ...please wait... message displays slightly longer than normal. Occasianlly NPRV locks up & crashses after the black screen is displayed when I try to exit the channel.

something else i noticed: when i record tv on channel 7.1 using tuner #1... next i play live tv on channel 7.2 or 7.3 or 7.4 using tuner #2, then it will only play audio and no video on channels 7.2, 7.3, & 7.4. the screen is still black like in the other cases, but it's slightly different because I can hear audio, in most cases I can't hear audio when I see the black screen. (or maybe it's not even really using tuner #2, maybe it's still trying to use tuner #1 since those channels share the frequency?) in any case it doesn't work correctly for me.

I've tested all these same channels in the HDHomeRun app and it loads them fine - the problem seems isolated to NPVR.

Thanks in advance for your help!

------------------------------------------------------

Channels:
7.1 - Freq:28 SID:3 - works consistently
7.2 - Freq:28 SID:4 - often fails with black screen
7.3 - Freq:28 SID:5 - often fails with black screen
7.4 - Freq:28 SID:6 - often fails with black screen

9.1 - Freq:9 SID:3 - works consistently
9.2 - Freq:9 SID:4 - often fails with black screen

14.1 - Freq:46 SID:3 - works consistently
14.2 - Freq:46 SID:4 - often fails with black screen
14.3 - Freq:46 SID:5 - often fails with black screen

15 - Freq:15 SID:1 - works consistently
15.1 - Freq:15 SID:2 - works consistently as far as I can tell (doesn't fit pattern)
15.2 - Freq:15 SID:3 - works consistently as far as I can tell (doesn't fit pattern)

20.1 - Freq:20 SID:1 - works consistently
20.2 - Freq:20 SID:2 - occasionally fails with black screen

25.1 - Freq:7 SID:4 - works consistently
25.2 - Freq:7 SID:5 - ocassionally fails with black screen

31.1 - Freq:30 SID:3 - works consistently
31.2 - Freq:30 SID:4 - often fails with black screen
31.3 - Freq:30 SID:5 - often fails with black screen
31.4 - Freq:30 SID:6 - often fails with black screen

44.1 - Freq:45 SID:3 - works consistently
44.2 - Freq:45 SID:4 - often fails with black screen

47.1 - Freq:47 SID:3 - works consistently

[sub]

You're probably going to look at the HDHomeRun utilities to see what it says about the signal etc when it's having one of these failures with the subchannels.

[craigrs84]

It looks like most the channels I'm having issues with have a pretty solid signal. So I don't think my problem is caused by weak signal. Here's an example from one of the problematic channels (channel 44.2):

Tuner 0 Status
Virtual Channel none
Frequency 659.000 MHz
Program Number 4
Modulation Lock 8vsb
Signal Strength 100%
Signal Quality 98%
Symbol Quality 100%
Transcode Profile mobile
Streaming Rate 8.296 Mbps
Resource Lock 192.168.2.1