Recordings fail

[Bstephens]

After many months of happy service, a few days ago I noticed several recording fails. 

While I was investigating, I was prompted to upgrade to Impish. That failed and now I can only boot ubuntu 20.04.3 in recovery mode.

Nextpvr starts. I can open a channel from a browser and receive a signal after restarting Nextpvr one time. But every subsequent try fails. 

I reloaded the tuner drivers from their PPA. No help. 

Logs attached. 

Bob

[mvallevand]

Are you sure it isn't just a problem with certain channels and not a pattern problem? KTXH and Movies! seem to be failing regularly but others seem ok.

A good check for the signal strength of your existing configuration without a full scan is

dvbv5-scan -a 0 /var/opt/nextpvr/adapter0-ATSC-channels.conf

dvbv5-scan -a 1 /var/opt/nextpvr/adapter1-ATSC-channels.conf


Martin

[Bstephens]

The pattern seems to be:
1. Restart Nextpvr
2. Open a channel stream (any channel that is active, KPRC, Start, etc.) It successfully receives streaming data.
3. Try to open a "problem" channel, like Movies. It times out and fails.
4. After that it will not open any channel even the previously successful ones (KPRC).

I have not had time to confirm that the pattern holds for the Pluto extra, but I will later this evening. If Pluto fails in a similar fashion, I guess that would eliminate a problem with the tuner drivers.
Bob

Bob

[mvallevand]

It take a very, very long time to timeout, perhaps you aren't waiting long enough,

Martin

[Bstephens]

Perhaps I am not giving it a lot of time. But scheduled recordings are failing hours later. It surely doesn't take 6 or 8 hours to recover from trying to access a failed tuner channel.

Here's what happens when I test with Pluto in the mix:
1. Open any live Pluto stream. Success.
2. Open an empty Pluto stream. Blank, "starting device, please wait." Naturally. There is nothing there.
3. Open any live Pluto stream. Success again. So far, this is what would be expected.
4. Open any active TV tuner channel. Success.
5. Try to open Movies or one of the failed tuner channels. "Starting device, please wait." Nothing after many minutes.
6. Try to open an active TV channel. Nothing. "Starting device, please wait." Nothing after many minutes.
7. Try to open a previously successful Pluto channel. Nothing. "Starting device, please wait." Nothing after many minutes.

Is something going on with the tuner or drivers that hoses Nextpvr? It only affects the live stream. Recorded streams playback fine.

I will rescan the channels and see if that helps. It ought to at least reduce the failed OTA channels.

Bob

[sub]

Ok I’ll take a look. Obviously shouldn’t do that.

[mvallevand]

First IMO there is no value introducing the discussion about Pluto without logs to support it.

Second I agree that is an issue on bad stations that sub needs to look at but at the same time, if you know the problem is playing two channels, it starts with the old joke "Doctor, Doctor it hurts when I do this"

Re-scanning ATSC is not recommended if you have bad signals. You will end up with other problems.

These log entries are definitely bad when there is no signal, the device wasn't stopped and for some reason NextPVR creates a writer.

Code:

2021-12-08 22:04:37:417 [DEBUG] status 00 | quality 00 | signal ffff2928 | snr 0000 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | pre_ber 00000000 | per 00000000 |
2021-12-08 22:04:37:442 [INFO] Creating writer for: LIVE&/home/stephens/recordings/live-Movies!-82252-2.ts (live mode)
2021-12-08 22:04:37:443 [DEBUG] mutex would be: Global\NPVR-mutex-879c22cc02a4c585d85211fb3c5ae844
2021-12-08 22:04:37:443 [DEBUG] Created shared memory
2021-12-09 11:38:51:132 [DEBUG] Ctrl-C...shutting down

In that time, this resulted in failed recordings.

This is equally bad we just don't know when it was killed.

Code:

2021-12-09 11:50:42:470 [DEBUG] status 00 | quality 00 | signal ffff2540 | snr 0000 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | pre_ber 00000000 | per 00000000 |
2021-12-09 11:50:42:495 [INFO] Creating writer for: LIVE&/home/stephens/recordings/live-KTXH-DT-2963-2.ts (live mode)
2021-12-09 11:50:42:496 [DEBUG] mutex would be: Global\NPVR-mutex-e63c6bf49e06deaddb587a2cbb168397
2021-12-09 11:50:42:496 [DEBUG] Created shared memory

Martin

[sub]

Give this updated DeviceHostLinux file a go, and let me know if helps. Unzip it and replace the existing file of the same name.

[mvallevand]

I had back luck yesterday because my stations were all playing ok. I just was able to duplicate the issue and the new behaviour seems to work, it drops out much faster and the tuner is freed up so good job. Hopefully @BStephens will see the same result.

Code:

2021-12-10 17:21:52:359 [DEBUG] waiting for signal lock
2021-12-10 17:21:52:507 [DEBUG] status 01 | quality 00 | signal 5f15 | snr 007d | ber 00000000 | unc 0000007d | pre_ber 00000000 | per 00000000 |
...
2021-12-10 17:21:58:966 [DEBUG] status 01 | quality 00 | signal 5b6d | snr 007d | ber 00000000 | unc 0000007d | pre_ber 00000000 | per 00000000 |
2021-12-10 17:21:59:009 [DEBUG] status 01 | quality 00 | signal 5b6d | snr 007d | ber 00000000 | unc 0000007d | pre_ber 00000000 | per 00000000 |
2021-12-10 17:21:59:034 [ERROR] Failed to start stream

The only thing is I am not sure if the server knows how to deal with this.

Code:

2021-12-10 17:21:59.040    [ERROR][6]    Unexpected error on LocalRecorder.StartStream(): System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (500) Stream Unavailable.
   at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
   at System.Net.WebClient.GetWebResponse(WebRequest request)
   at System.Net.WebClient.DownloadBits(WebRequest request, Stream writeStream)
   at System.Net.WebClient.UploadBits(WebRequest request, Stream readStream, Byte[] buffer, Int32 chunkSize, Byte[] header, Byte[] footer)
   at System.Net.WebClient.UploadDataInternal(Uri address, String method, Byte[] data, WebRequest& request)
   at System.Net.WebClient.UploadString(Uri address, String method, String data)
   at NShared.LocalRecorder.StartStream(ChannelMapping channelMapping, String target, String& reason)
2021-12-10 17:21:59.040    [ERROR][6]    Unable to StartStream(): The remote server returned an error: (500) Stream Unavailable.

Martin

[sub]

Yep, those are the error messages I expect to see in nrecord log (which is returned as a failure to start channel). Are you seeing an issue?