Sudden restarts NOVA-T USB and PVR350

[Dom]

I have a PC with a HAUPPAUGE PVR350 card inside it, and have recently added a HAUPPAUGE NOVA-T USB2.

I have read that others have had conflicts between the two - and I have completely stripped the NOVA-T from my system and reinstalled it, but I am still getting sudden restarts.

It happened last night, in the middle of the night, when GB-PVR was trying to record something.

here are some extracts from my logs:
GBPVRRecordingService.exe.log
09/11/2005 02:04:00.015 INFO [23] Found new programme requiring recording: Rock School
09/11/2005 02:04:00.031 VERBOSE [23] Changing to channel (GBPVR.Backend.Common.NullTunerController): 10
09/11/2005 02:04:00.047 VERBOSE [23] Requesting IRecordingSource to start recording: E:\GB-PVR video\Rock School\Rock School_20051109_02050235.mpg
09/11/2005 02:04:00.047 VERBOSE [23] BDARecordingSource about to start recording oid:1 channel:T:C57,762000,0,0,8~P:8448~V:773~A:774~PMT:265~N:>E4
09/11/2005 02:04:02.307 VERBOSE [23] Programme is now recording
09/11/2005 02:04:02.307 VERBOSE [23] RecordingFactory.save()
09/11/2005 02:04:02.307 VERBOSE [23] Save(): Updated existing scheduled recording
09/11/2005 02:04:02.322 VERBOSE [23] Adding E:\GB-PVR video\Rock School\Rock School_20051109_02050235.mpg to parallel processing queue
09/11/2005 02:04:02.322 VERBOSE [23] RecordingFactory.getExtrasForGroup(10)
09/11/2005 02:04:02.322 VERBOSE [23] getDatabaseConnection() creating new connection


and the native version:
02:04:00.047 INFO BDARecorder:::StartRecording(Hauppauge Nova-T USB2, 1, E:\GB-PVR video\Rock School\Rock School_20051109_02050235.mpg, T:C57,762000,0,0,8~P:8448~V:773~A:774~PMT:265~N:>E4)
02:04:00.078 INFO Initializing DVB-T tuning request.
02:04:00.078 INFO tuning@1
02:04:00.078 INFO tuning@2
02:04:00.078 INFO tuning@3
02:04:00.078 INFO tuning@4
02:04:00.078 INFO tuning@5
02:04:00.078 INFO tuning@6
02:04:00.078 INFO tuning@7
02:04:00.078 INFO tuning@8
02:04:00.078 INFO tuning@8
02:04:00.078 VERBOSE getSetting(BDAMultiplexer)
02:04:00.280 VERBOSE ConnectPins: 'MPEG2 Transport' to 'MPEG-2 Stream'
02:04:00.296 VERBOSE getSetting(EPGProcessingMode)
02:04:00.296 VERBOSE Mapping Video PID 773
02:04:00.296 VERBOSE Mapping Audio PID 774
02:04:00.312 VERBOSE Initialzing Cyberlink mux
02:04:00.312 VERBOSE Setting IID_IMpgMuxer
02:04:00.312 VERBOSE Setting IID_IMpgMuxer3
02:04:00.312 VERBOSE Setting IID_IMpgMuxerInfo
02:04:00.312 VERBOSE Finished initialzing Cyberlink mux
02:04:00.312 VERBOSE ConnectPins: 'Video' to 'Video In'
02:04:00.312 VERBOSE ConnectPins: 'Audio' to 'Audio In'
02:04:00.312 VERBOSE ConnectPins: 'Output' to 'Input'
02:04:00.436 VERBOSE locked=0 present=0 strength=0 quality=-100
02:04:02.073 VERBOSE getSetting(ListGraphFilters)
02:04:02.073 VERBOSE Graph contains the following filters:
02:04:02.073 VERBOSE - MPEG-2 Sections and Tables
02:04:02.073 VERBOSE - BDA MPEG2 Transport Information Filter
02:04:02.073 VERBOSE - GB-PVR Writer
02:04:02.073 VERBOSE - CyberLink MPEG Muxer
02:04:02.073 VERBOSE - MPEG-2 Demultiplexer
02:04:02.073 VERBOSE - Hauppauge Nova USB2 DVB-T TV Receiver
02:04:02.073 VERBOSE - Microsoft DVBT Network Provider
02:04:02.073 VERBOSE getSetting(SaveGraphFiles)
02:04:02.307 VERBOSE BDARecorder::StartRecording() finished


The system died and restarted at 02:18 and then again at 02:35. There were similar files to these when the recording restarted.

The events in my System event log were event ID 6009 & 6005 at 02:18:17 and 02:35:32. I've read somewhere that the 6009 events can be caused by hardware driver problems.
There is a 230Mb file for this program with datre modified of 02:32


Can anyone offer help - I figure that the new device and conflicts with the old one is causing some kind of crash...

Thanks, Dom

[sub]

To be honest with you, when I see these types of errors mentioned (machines locking solid, or rebooting) there isnt really too much I can suggest. Its most likely a driver problem, and can probably only be fixed by Hauppauge.

[Dom]

Thanks for the quick response.
I guess that it must be a driver thing - I was hoping that you would see something in the logs that would help identify the problem. I couldn't see anything dramatic-sounding myself - but I guess you would have said. This rebooting has certainly only happened since I added the NOVA-T USB. It's very disconcerting when you're at the computer and it spontaneously power cycles.

OK, so it's a driver issue. Does anyone know how to get a PVR350 and a NOVA-T USB2 living in harmony? Or is it just the NOVA-T drivers?

I'd really like to get Digital TV working - apart from anything else, the picture quality is so much better. Any suggestions from anyone who's dealt with this hardware would be appreciated.

Dom

[gEd]

I have both of these devices and had a LOT of problems getting them working.

I am still having the odd crash atm but things are generally ok.

1. I had to uninstall the 350 drivers, reboot and re-install (including running hwclear etc).

2. The main problem is that the nova draws (IIRC) near to 500ma of power from the usb port which is at the limit of what a usb port can supply. Therefore I bought (off fleebay) a powered usb hub for about £10 GBP. This device supplies the necessary power to the nova-t and improved stability enormously.

3. the nova-t does not re-initialise itself when coming out of standby/hibernate. I have created wake.cmd (search) to restart the pc when resuming from standy (shutdown -r -t 0). This only takes 2mins max so I make sure that my "mins to record before start of show" takes this into account.

[edit]
4. get s&m stress test program to check out yor cpu and memory. Unless these are perfect, gbpvr is never going to work

http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/fclick/fclick.php?fid=301

hth

john

[Dom]

Well, there were too many comments about conflicts between the different Hauppauge gear and also about the USB device drawing too much power, so I took the Nova-T back.

I now have a Twinhan Alpha (USB DVB-T) which seems to work in Live TV mode, but the recording I just set up stopped after only 21Mb, and despite the fact that GB-PVR tray icon was green - I could see that the file wasn't being written to.

Hmm...

I guess I'll keep playing.

[gEd]

any errors in the logs when the recording hung? if not, try setting error logging level to debug.

[Dom]

Well, the logging level was set to debug, so here's the logs for when it happened (the second time in a row). This time it got to 34Mb.

Dom

[gEd]

The gbpvr.exe-native-1/2 log files are from after wife swap finished recording (apparently sucessfully). These log files would indicate what mux is being used and the graph that is created for directshow.

The logs indicate that the recording service was shut down. I assume that you did this manually after wife swap finished. Do a test again but do not shutdown the recording service once the recording service has finished. The gbpvr.exe-native-1.log file should have some info such as this in them:

17:58:04.328 VERBOSE Creating new graph
17:58:04.328 VERBOSE getSetting(PreferredAudioRenderer)
17:58:04.875 VERBOSE getSetting(PreferredAudioDecoder)
17:58:04.875 VERBOSE getSetting(PreferredDecoder)
17:58:05.078 VERBOSE FindFilterByName failed to locate filter: default
17:58:05.109 VERBOSE Using GB-PVR Parser
17:58:05.296 VERBOSE Rendering graph
17:58:06.609 VERBOSE getSetting(ListGraphFilters)
17:58:06.609 VERBOSE Graph contains the following filters:
17:58:06.609 VERBOSE - Default DirectSound Device
17:58:06.609 VERBOSE - Video Renderer
17:58:06.609 VERBOSE - Elecard Audio Decoder
17:58:06.609 VERBOSE - Elecard MPEG-2 Video Decoder
17:58:06.609 VERBOSE - GB-PVR Parser
17:58:06.609 VERBOSE - SOURCE
17:58:06.609 VERBOSE getSetting(SaveGraphFiles)
17:58:06.640 INFO DirectShowPlayerBase::playFile() done
17:58:06.640 VERBOSE DirectShowPlayerBase:etPlaybackRate(1.000000)
17:58:06.656 VERBOSE Restoring audio

what does the recording look like i.e. is it ok up until it aborts or stuttery?

BTW: Make sure you have read the couple of threads on the forum relating to the "Twinhan Alpha"

[Dom]

The other Twinhan problems are about channel scanning and BDA drivers and such - not my problem, as I've managed to get a good clear picture, I just can't get it to record. Or, at least it will record, but not for any period of time.

OK, so I've set up another program to record in order to get the right logs to post. I did it by:

• launching GB-PVR
  
• selecting the TV guide
  
• using 'Quick Rec' to start recording 'Friends', which was on at the time
  
• closing GB-PVR
  

The recording ought to be going right now, but I can see no activity on my hard disk access LED and the file's 0kb...
A new error, though - when I closed gbpvr, there was an ActiveWindow floating behind it with the video in it. I hadn't asked to play the video or anything...

Anyway, as nothing seems to be happening - here's the logs:

The GBPVRRecordingService.exe log has:
--
13/11/2005 20:32:43.443 INFO [23] Found new programme requiring recording: Friends
13/11/2005 20:32:43.459 VERBOSE [23] Changing to channel (GBPVR.Backend.Common.NullTunerController): 10
13/11/2005 20:32:43.459 VERBOSE [23] Requesting IRecordingSource to start recording: E:\GB-PVR video\Friends\Friends_20051113_20302100.mpg
13/11/2005 20:32:43.459 VERBOSE [23] BDARecordingSource about to start recording oid:1 channel:T:C57,762000,0,0,8~P:8448~V:773~A:774~PMT:265~N:>E4
13/11/2005 20:32:51.486 VERBOSE [23] Programme is now recording
13/11/2005 20:32:51.501 VERBOSE [23] RecordingFactory.save()
13/11/2005 20:32:51.501 VERBOSE [23] Save(): Updated existing scheduled recording
13/11/2005 20:32:51.673 VERBOSE [23] getValue() loading new key/value into cache: /settings/ProcessCommercialsDuringRecording
13/11/2005 20:32:51.673 VERBOSE [23] getValue: /settings/ProcessCommercialsDuringRecording : false
13/11/2005 20:32:51.673 VERBOSE [23] Adding E:\GB-PVR video\Friends\Friends_20051113_20302100.mpg to parallel processing queue
13/11/2005 20:32:51.688 VERBOSE [113] getValue() loading new key/value into cache: /settings/CommercialDetectionScheme
13/11/2005 20:32:51.953 VERBOSE [113] getValue: /settings/CommercialDetectionScheme : 1
13/11/2005 20:32:51.953 INFO [113] Parallel Processing thread starting...

The file is still 0kb, 8 minutes later.

As for the GBPVR.exe-native.log, there's no reference to the recording at all:
--
20:32:14.578 INFO Log started
20:32:14.578 VERBOSE getSetting(ShowClosedCaptions)
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE getSetting(UseFFDSHOW)
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE getSetting(EnableTeleText)
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE getSetting(HorizontalZoom)
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE Horizontal Zoom: 1.050000
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE getSetting(VerticalZoom)
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE Vertical Zoom: 1.000000
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE getSetting(HorizontalOffset)
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE Horizontal Offset: 0
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE getSetting(VerticalOffset)
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE Vertical Offset: 0
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE getSetting(LiveTVPrePlayDelay)
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE getSetting(OSDTransparency)
20:32:14.594 VERBOSE getSetting(AspectRatio0)
20:32:14.625 VERBOSE getSetting(AspectRatio1)
20:32:14.625 VERBOSE getSetting(AspectRatio2)
20:32:14.625 VERBOSE getSetting(AspectRatio3)
20:32:14.625 VERBOSE getSetting(AspectRatio4)
20:32:14.625 VERBOSE getSetting(AspectRatio5)
20:32:14.625 VERBOSE getSetting(AspectRatio6)
20:32:14.625 VERBOSE getSetting(AspectRatio7)
20:32:14.625 VERBOSE getSetting(AspectRatio8)
20:32:14.625 VERBOSE getSetting(TeletextRect)
20:32:14.625 VERBOSE MinimumFilePlaySize=200000
20:32:14.749 VERBOSE DirectShowPlayerVMR9() initialising...
20:32:14.749 VERBOSE getSetting(OSDTransparency)

The GBPVR.exe.log has:
--
13/11/2005 20:32:42.321 VERBOSE [2] Looking for capture source to record: Friends
13/11/2005 20:32:42.321 VERBOSE [2] Possible capture device: BDA:Twinhan Alpha USB DVB-T:1
13/11/2005 20:32:42.321 VERBOSE [2] Checking 'Digital' (BDA:Twinhan Alpha USB DVB-T:1)
13/11/2005 20:32:42.352 VERBOSE [2] RecordingFactory.save()
13/11/2005 20:32:42.352 VERBOSE [2] Save(): Inserted new scheduled recording
13/11/2005 20:32:42.383 VERBOSE [2] Requesting recording service schedule reload
13/11/2005 20:32:42.524 VERBOSE [2] flushDatabaseConnections()
13/11/2005 20:32:42.524 VERBOSE [2] RecordingFactory.loadSchedule()
13/11/2005 20:32:42.524 VERBOSE [2] getValue cached value: /settings/AutoRemoveMissingRecordings : true
13/11/2005 20:32:42.539 VERBOSE [2] getDatabaseConnection() creating new connection
13/11/2005 20:32:51.174 VERBOSE [2] No key mapping found for: ESCAPE
13/11/2005 20:32:51.532 VERBOSE [2] HideMouse ref=-1
13/11/2005 20:32:51.532 VERBOSE [2] MDB updated, forcing refresh of next recording panel
13/11/2005 20:32:51.532 VERBOSE [2] Loading recording list for next recording panel
13/11/2005 20:32:51.532 VERBOSE [2] RecordingFactory.loadSchedule()
13/11/2005 20:32:51.532 VERBOSE [2] getValue cached value: /settings/AutoRemoveMissingRecordings : true
13/11/2005 20:32:52.249 VERBOSE [2] ShowMouse ref=0
13/11/2005 20:32:53.091 VERBOSE [2] getValue() loading new key/value into cache: /settings/NetRadioBufferSize
13/11/2005 20:32:53.091 VERBOSE [2] getValue: /settings/NetRadioBufferSize : 96000
13/11/2005 20:32:53.091 INFO [2] NetRadio buffer size is: 96000


So I can see references to adding the recording in GBPVR.exe, and the recording starting up in GBPVRRecordingService.exe, but nothing in GBPVR.exe-native.log.

BTW - although I've got nothing appearing in the recording directory, GB-PVR is still showing a green tray icon with 'Recording Friends' on it, and if I try to start another recording, it asks me to choose between cancelling the Friends recording and cancelling the new recording.

Sorry - I know that this is all complicated, and that I should probably move this to a thread with a better title (not sure how), but I really appreciate any help. I'm pretty computer literate, but I'm quite stuck here.

Dom

[gEd]

>>A new error, though - when I closed gbpvr, there was an ActiveWindow floating behind it with the video in it. I hadn't asked to play the video or anything...

eek!
If a video player has somehow opened the file that gbpvr is trying to record to, I could image this causing probelms. You definately need to understand why this is happening (I have no idea, it sounds like some kind of weird autoplay thing. What player is it that opens?)