Multiple MVP Issue

[ZaDDaZ]

I know its probably annoying for everyone else to see this all the time, but I would like to thank you Sub for doing such an excellent job on GBPVR.

I finally had some "free" time and decided to try to upgrade to 0.97.7. Well, the upgrade seemed to go fine. I got the message in my event log about ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.dll not being installed, but it did install it. I can run GBPVR on my server without any problems and playback seems fine. However my server is in a closet and not connected to a TV. I use 3 Media MVP's. It has been very hit and miss as to wether I can get them to connect. In attempting to determine what is the problem, I was using TCView from SysInternals. It seems like the different MediaMVP's are connecting to the same GBPVR.exe process. I don't know all the inner workings of GBPVR, but when I do get a MediaMVP connected, it establishes 2 connections to the same GBPVR.exe process. When I see connections from different MVP's to the same process, it never works. I assume one of these connections is the control/VNC channel and the other is the media streaming/data channel. I am attaching a section of TCPView.

I have no firewall enabled and I am running on Windows Server 2003 and I have converted the database as well and have disabled all plugins and deleted all files from my plugins folder (although this doesn't seem to affect this issue from what I can see). I am using the standard dongle.bin as well.

If I start up a single MVP server and only have one MVP plugged in, all seems to work just fine.

I have looked through the logs and can't see anything that would indicate what the issue is. They only seem to show a single MVP MAC/IP address.

[SuMo]

Did you change in the config-> MVP tab : numbers of servers to autostart=3 ?

[ZaDDaZ]

Did you change in the config-> MVP tab : numbers of servers to autostart=3 ?

Indeed. Actually, I used to run with 4 instances for the occasional disconnect. When it would happen, there would be another GBPVR.exe process ready to step forward get the Media MVP back up immediately.

Right now, I have set autostart to 1 and only have 1 MVP powered on and this seems to work flawlessly. All of my MVP are older and definately not any of the new fangled ones I've been hearing about.

Do you have more than 1 MVP? I was thinking it was about time for another donation...

[ZaDDaZ]

I've had 3 MVP's for about a year now and things have always worked fine. I'll have some time tonight to power off all the MVP's, reboot the server and power up the MVP's.

I'd like to explain the picture a little bit if you're not familiar with TCPView. The left column is the process image name followed by the process identifier (PID). The third column is the local address:port and the fourth column is the remote column:port. This is indicating that the MVP from my bedroom and the MVP from my den are both connected to the same instance of GBPVR.exe.

[ZaDDaZ]

I will try that. I'll power everything down and back up. I am using all older MVP's and they are all hardwired. I have a gigabit switch and all 3 MVPs and the server are connected to it. All of the network equipment is on UPSs and has not been recycled for over a year. From a networking standpoint, rebooting these devices should only assist if they have incorrect MAC address cache tables or something, which isn't the case since the MVPs are able to connect individually and I am not moving cables to different ports. I may revert back to the previous version and verify that a single instance of GBPVR.exe should not be connected to by multiple MVPs.

[ZaDDaZ]

OK, I powered everything off (my house was quite quiet) and back on. Not an easy task with all this junk in my house, but whatever.

I configured 4 MVP servers and restarted GBPVR and waited for all 4 to spin up and see them waiting for connections in TCPView. I have only done testing with a single MVP so far and this is strange.

I saw it first connect to two separate instances of GBPVR.exe, but the GUI came up and I was able to select a video and play it. However, after pressing stop, the GUI did not show back up. Powered the MVP down (power button, not unplug), the GBPVR process takes a while to detect the disconnect and one of the processes dies and another is spun up by the recording service.

Next test, power up the same MVP. I see it connect to two instances of GBPVR and the GUI comes up again (2 for 2!). So I play a video again and it works and hit stop and get a black screen. So I thought, what if it just can't draw the screen, but is still connected because the connections in TCPView show they are still valid. So I hit OK twice on my remote and the video starts back up. I believe that validates my assumption (hey, no comments) but doesn't help much. Power off the MVP and try another test...

After another GBPVR spins up and is ready, power on the MVP. I have left it for about 5 minutes while writing this post and it is now connected to 3 of the 4 instances of GBPVR. I am trying to dig through the logs, but the problem is that I can only see one of the GBPVR.exe logs. I would guess that each instance is trying to write to the same file and only the first one is able to, so I can't see how they are all interacting with each other. Here is a connect from an MVP from the one log that I can see:

Code:

5/18/2006 11:24:11 PM.564    INFO    [6]    MVP mac address: 000DFE008789
5/18/2006 11:24:11 PM.579    VERBOSE    [6]    MVP initConnection()
5/18/2006 11:24:11 PM.579    VERBOSE    [6]    MVP initConnection() - protocol version sent
5/18/2006 11:24:11 PM.579    VERBOSE    [6]    MVP initConnection() - protocol version ack: RFB 003.003

That is the proper MAC address and all, but that is the only connection I see in this log. Is there a way to get each instance logging to separate files?

I am hesitant to roll back to the previous version mostly because of lazyness, but really I don't have enough time. Can anyone with the previous version and multiple MVPs get TCPView from http://sysinternals.com/ and see if they exhibit the same behavior?

Could this be happening because I have Windows 2003 server and not XP. It seems that most people are using XP, but I happen to have a MSDN subscription and I use my server for development as well sometimes and it just makes sense. Would it help if I connect my debugger to each instance of GBPVR running on the server? I might be able to see trace and/or console messages if there are any.

Just hit play on an Arthur and it is working, but it won't respond to any video commands like skip, pause, FF... My guess is that those commands are going back to the process that is connected to the control channel, which then alters the stream being sent. But since the stream is being sent from another instance of GBPVR, the stream is unchanged. When I hit stop, the MVP knows that button and stops receiving the stream, but the instance of GBPVR with the control channel doesn't get that notification and therefore doesn't redraw the screen.

I have to say, this is fun stuff! Tipster, sir, you're not seeing MVPs connecting to different instances?

Back to my workaround of only allowing 1 instance of GBPVR to run and one MVP plugged in at a time...

[pens18aj]

here is what I see with 2 MVP's on mvp1=2.152 mvp2=2.101
[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

[ZaDDaZ]

here is what I see with 2 MVP's on mvp1=2.152 mvp2=2.101

It looks like your MVPs are each connected to their own instance of GBPVR. I saw this happen once or twice with multiple instances of GBPVR running. Could you set the autostart to 4 or something higher and see what happens?

[replaytv]

I have 3 MVPs concurrently running on v.97.7 with not problem here. I have a fresh install of v.0.97.7 with VA, Slimm and MVP icons plugins installed.

Dan L.

Also changed to 4 autostart MVP servers with good results default dongle.bin coming with v.97.7

[joecru]

Hi Guys I am getting the same problems with 097.7 and Win 2003 Enterprise server edition. Can only get one MVP to connect etc. have 4 MVP which worked fine on Win XP and old ver GBPVR. But if I install Hauppauge software everything works fine. I can listen to music in the kitchen, watch a video in the lounge, and play another video in the bedroom no problems all at the sametime. I have tryed various dongle.bins with no joy. If theres anything you need me to try give me a shout. I would really like to get this working with 97.7 and Win 2003 Server :confused:

Regards
Joe

OS Win2003
4 x MVPs
Intellistation Z Pro dual processor
PVR 350