Never-ending recordings

[Mister Slimm]

I am currently having a problem with recordings that never end. The file grows and grows past the end of the recording time but, here's a weird thing, when I try and play some of the files in PowerDVD, it's only a handful of minutes long. (This seems to apply to any recordings that start after the anomaly first occurs.) The only way to restore things is to stop and restart the recording service.

I am running GBPVR v0.97.09 (this did not occur under 9707 but, and I stress this, I am not saying that GBPVR is at fault). The GBPVR install is clean. GBPVR v9709 was uninstalled, the GBPVR folder deleted from Program Files, GBPVR v9709 installed afresh.

My system has four tuners: two on a Hauppauge PVR500, two on a Terratec Cinergy 2400i. Both have been working reliably for several months.

I am using a Cyberlink mux for BDA recordings. This has been working reliably for several months. I use PowerDVD to watch the recordings.

After hunting around on the forums I found possibly related problems and installed the GBPVRCom...dll and GBPVRRec....exe from the LiveTV / Quick Record post.

This is one of those disagreeable problems that I cannot reliably reproduce on purpose. It has happened twice today. These are the logs from the second occurrence.

The system was set to record Due South on ITV3 from 7-8, then Fortune Files on TMF from 8-8:30.

At 8:15, Due South was still recording. The two GBPVRRecordingService logs both state that a StopRecording request fired as expected but they have no effect. Trying to stop the recording using GBPVR does not work. All future recordings will also continue forever. Showing the tuner status states that the digital tuner is still recording Due South. The only way for things to sort themselves out is to stop and restart the recording service.

In between this happening at lunch time and this evening, three programmes recorded fine off abc1 (this lunch time problems occurred on recordings on abc1 and itv3).

It is my intention to uninstall v9709 and reinstall v9707 to see if the problem persists.

[AlanC]

I appear to have the same problem. It has happened before but seems more frequent now I have moved to 97.13 (from 96.12) . I have Cinergy 2400i and Hauppauge Nova-T running on Windows XP professional. I use Cyberlink MUX and view files with GB-PVR. My recorded files do not continue growing, but stop after 2 to 8 minutes. My Freeview signal suffers from occasional interference. Log file show no "StopRecording() finished".

[sub]

Next time it happens, zip and attach the logs, and a note about what you recorded and I'll take a look.

[Mister Slimm]

Agreed, they look like never-ending recordings because the recording service has crashed and the little light never goes off but they are in fact, completely cacked-up recordings of disagreeably short length. Frequently, just enough for you to start getting into the programme, then wham! It finishes. Cruel.

I think I have found the cause but it makes little sense and is almost certainly not a GB-PVR problem. I have the Terratec twin tuner card, two tuners on one card, with one aerial cable. I do not imagine this applies to tuners on separate cards.

If the same channel is tuned differently for each tuner (for example, if five is on - imaginary number here - 626000 on tuner 1 and 626166 on tuner 2) then recordings that occur after a recording on that channel will cause the recording service to crash. The different tuning results appeared because GB-PVR's BDA detection window came up with different results each time I ran it.

On mine, the recording service log displays no error and is identical to the recording service log when nothing has gone wrong. The -native log was also exactly the same as one without problems. Sometimes, Microsoft will pick up the error and produce a delayed Dr Watson report, usually on a reboot or session end/session start cycle. This is a little bizarre, because setting the recording service to restart if Windows detects it has crashed does nothing.

Therefore, I think that the problem is with the Terratec drivers and not with GB-PVR.

However, there is a solution. Before doing any of this, I suggest you make a copy of the "Program Files\devnz\gbpvr" folder so that you can restore your setup to its current state if necessary.

Please remember, I am not sub, and make no guarantees as to my knowledge being accurate. This has worked for me.

You will have two scan-N.cache files in your gbpvr/BDA folder (where N is a internal GB-PVR capture source identifier). This file can be opened in notepad. If you're lucky, the channel names therein are channel names and not "unknown1" etc (like mine were). Rename one of them to "Copy of scan-N.cache" then make a copy of the other one and rename it to replace the file you renamed. Now you have two tuning information cache files with identical information.

Load the GB-PVR config file and look at the tuning information for each of your digital tuners by clicking edit on the Capture Sources page. It's usually the first big number that is different on each tuner. Make a note of the ones that are different then go in and remap the digital channels. The entries in your current scan cache are at the bottom of the combo box whereas any current values known by GB-PVR are at the top. So scroll to the bottom of the combo box, then find the channel name from the bottom up. These channels names are the same as the channels in the right hand pane and are the ones taken from the scan-N.cache file.

Keep doing this until all the channels have exactly the same information in them.

Next, to test, go to GBPVR, switch to Live TV and step through all the channels. If any of the channels don't work, load your renamed scan cache copy and see if the two lines from there (five and five(1), for example) are different. If they are, copy them into both your scan-n.cache files and replace the current entries. Then go to Config and use these new values.

I hope you have understood this somewhat tome-like explanation.

Once you have got everything working, make a copy of your scan-N.cache files and put them somewhere safe so you can use them again on a clean install or when GB-PVR needs to retune. However, that is a topic for another day.

[Mister Slimm]

Cinergy 2400i and Hauppauge Nova-T

This means you will have more than two scan-N.cache files. I am unsure as to how you can tell which two apply to the 2400i. I think the number in the filename reflects the order you added them in so if the numbers 3,4,5 and you added the Hauppauge first, that would be 3 and the two Terratec would be 4 and 5. However, this is just a supposition.

[AlanC]

Different problem then! I don't scan for channels. I have a reference SCAN-n.cache file (all the channels I want, cleaned up) which I copy for all the devices. I do wonder, however, what happens if two tuners are on the same channel, since they all come off the same wire (the out of the Nova-t is plugged into the Terratec)

[AlanC]

Next time it happens, zip and attach the logs, and a note about what you recorded and I'll take a look.

Overnight run left one recording still in pending list (The First Head Transplant[sic]). The EPG had been updated and breakfast Tv watched live. Logs taken from this point. The recording would not cancel but did stop when the recording service was restarted. The recorded file had stopped growing and was 48.40 minutes long, not the expected 65 + 3 minutes.
Interesting detail was that at 23.15 somebody was watching this same program on another device and was bumped off when a new recording was starting.

[AlanC]

Next time it happens, zip and attach the logs, and a note about what you recorded and I'll take a look.

Looks like two or more problems. The recordings were:-
Outbreak part 1 recorded OK
Outbreak part 2 recorded OK (correct length) but appeared to be still recording at 8am - stop recording issued at 23:32 but no stop recording finished.
Dead Mans Shoes recorded and was still recording from channel at 8am (9gb file) no stop recording issued at 0:40am
Update EPG ran at 6am, found Nova and Cinergy#1 in use.
I have now uninstalled Norton virus checker to see if that helps.
P.S. sorry for delay in producing evidence, I have been away for a week, during which a power cut stopped the machine.

[sub]

I can see it encountered a problem trying to stop the recording:

22:59:00.781 VERBOSE - GB-PVR PSI Parser
22:59:00.781 VERBOSE - CyberLink MPEG Muxer
22:59:00.781 VERBOSE - GB-PVR Flow Status
22:59:00.781 VERBOSE - MPEG-2 Demultiplexer
22:59:00.781 VERBOSE - Cinergy 2400i DT Capture 1
22:59:00.781 VERBOSE - Cinergy 2400i DT Tuner 1
22:59:00.781 VERBOSE - Microsoft DVBT Network Provider
22:59:00.781 VERBOSE getSetting(SaveGraphFiles)
22:59:00.875 VERBOSE BDARecorder::StartRecording() finished
23:32:00.015 VERBOSE BDARecorder::StopRecording()
06:08:03.171 INFO BDARecorder:::StartRecording(Hauppauge Nova-T (90002), 1, c:\gbepg.mpg, T:C42,641834,0,0,8~P:99~V:99~A:99)
06:08:03.203 INFO Initializing DVB-T tuning request.
06:08:03.203 INFO tuning@1

There no matching "BDARecorder::StopRecording() finished" line that should follow immediately after.

I used to have a problem like this with my Twinhan DVB-S driver causing a crash when it tried to stop recordings. This sounds very similar. My problem was luckily resolved with the next Twinhan driver release though.

[AlanC]

I am using a Cyberlink mux for BDA recordings. This has been working reliably for several months. I use PowerDVD to watch the recordings.

A week without a fault! Getting rid of the Norton (Symantec) virus checker eliminated the long recordings and returned the system to the reliability I had with .Net 1. Changing to Microsoft DVR-MS BDA mux fixed the 'short' recordings (as advised by Sub on another thread).
P.S. I used to use Power Cinema, as supplied by Terratec, to watch recordings but life became easier when I uninstalled it and used GBPVR with Overlay Manager and 'Intervideo NonCSS' decoders as supplied by Hauppauge with WinTV.