Crash/Lockup at end of recordings

[new350user]

I have been using GB-PVR for a couple of weeks and really like it, but have frequent crashes when a recording ends. Windows 2000 completely locks up and I have to reboot after the crash. Sometimes I can go a couple of days without a crash, but sometimes it crashes twice a day.

I am using a Hauppauge PVR-350 with the TV-out hooked to the TV. These crashes occured with GB-PVR 95.11 and the new 94.13. Live TV also crashes frequently when I press the stop button, but pressing Pause first, waiting a few seconds and then pressing Stop, seems to prevent Live TV from crashing. I had similar problems with Live TV using a SageTV trial, but scheduled recordings never crashed, and Live TV crashes only took down the SageTV app, not the entire Windows 2000 OS.

The last thing in the GBPVR.exe.log is:

12/1/2005 1:34:06 AM.762 VERBOSE [4] Direct Access got: 98246655 (255) - repeated over and over, then a partial line -
12/1/2005 1:34:06 AM.842 VERBOSE [4]

The recording service log only shows the start of the last recording.

I would really like to keep using GB-PVR if this crash can be resolved.

[sub]

Sorry, but I no longer actively support or develop features for the PVR350 tv out. Its just more trouble than its worth. There are bugs in the drivers that I just cant work around.

On this specific bug, some people get this problem, some people dont. I'm not sure why.

[new350user]

Thanks for the quick reply, sub! I would be happy to disable the TV-out of the PVR-350 if that would fix the end-of-recording crash on scheduled recordings. I don't understand how the TV-out issue is related to scheduled recordings that will not be watched until later. My main concern is the crash on scheduled recordings, not the issue with Live TV, which seems to be fine as long as I press Pause and wait a few seconds before hitting Stop. I only mentioned the Live TV issue in case it had some bearing on the scheduled recordings crash.

[stefan]

Try switching to software decoder for a while and see if things get better. I didn't have that particular crash-at-end-of-recording bug, but a bunch of other issues, and all of them went away when moving to software decoding.

[new350user]

Try switching to software decoder for a while and see if things get better. I didn't have that particular crash-at-end-of-recording bug, but a bunch of other issues, and all of them went away when moving to software decoding.

I have an NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti with TV-out which I will try in the PVR machine this weekend, but I really can't see how a scheduled recording writing to the hard drive has anything to do with TV-out being enabled on the PVR350, since I am not attempting to watch anything at all when it crashes.

I think I may have found the problem. My old Pentium III only has 384K of RAM and the maximum swap file size was 3 times that. Today I got an out of memory error in GB-PVR when the swap file filled up. I have increased the swap file to 5 times the size of RAM and will see if it still crashes.

[capone]

Would ram/swap have anything to do w/ watching or time changes (live or TS)?

I'd be a little surprised, as a 2hr movie would be 2x those combined on mine, and watching Headline News (3-5hr time block) would blow up the system every time.

[new350user]

Capone, I was very surprised to find that my system had run out of virtual memory. I don't run anything on this machine other than GB-PVR, McAfee firewall and virus scan that are free with Comcast cable, Microsoft AntiSpyware, and HDDlife to warn me if my hard drive is dying. The machine was just rebooted yesterday, so if there is a memory leak, it is a very fast leak.

I record a lot of stuff - 7 programs just last night and this morning. So maybe GB-PVR just uses alot of memory, or maybe it has a leak?

[capone]

It could be a leak, or older versions of things like My Pictures or My Music that held items like randomizations in ram. I used to be able to blow up GB all the time w/ those because I have thousands of pix/mp3s.

I'm just curious if there was any impact on the size of the ram/virual/swap and changing files because I have a somewhat rare/random error when programs switch sometimes.

[capone]

edit: BTW, why all the online protection stuff for a GB-only box? I can see the firewall if you're not behind a router, but antiV and spy software? If you're not running programs or browsing, you don't need them. If you are, and have common sense and know what not to do, you're also ok if you're doing it on a limited basis.

I have all that stuff on my main systems, but not on dedicated boxes like pvr.

[new350user]

Capone, I do have an old Linksys router, but don't completely trust the firewall in that router, and prefer to have a software firewall in place too. My wife and daughter might occasionally check their email using the web browser on that system. Otherwise I wouldn't worry about antivirus or antispyware on that machine.

I don't have any pictures or music on the machine, and don't use Active Desktop. I use Windows Classic folders, not enabling web content in folders. Seems like I saw where some crashes were caused by using that option, but I could be wrong about that.