Disable auto-restart recording service, green light stuck on and no standby problems

[pvruser]

i'm using a wake.cmd script with GBPVRWake.exe to restart the cards by calling devcon.exe whenever the computer comes back from standby. however to do this it has to stop the service and restart it 15 or so seconds later when it's done restarting the cards.

the problem is that Slimm GB-PVR is complaining that the service crashed and it restarts it sometimes before restarting the cards is done.

is it possible to add a delay into the crash-restart script so that it waits 30 seconds before restarting especially if its not recording yet? that would help a lot.

you could have 2 values: one for when it's supposed to record and it crashes, the other one for when it's not recording anything and it crashed. the second case is the one i need help with.

the other problem i'm having is that when i select a delayed standby the machine doesnt go to standby, it just hangs in the "recording" stage with the "green flashing circle". i have not managed to get it to work yet.

hope you can add this -- its a great add-on to GBpvr!
Thanks!

[Mister Slimm]

i'm using a wake.cmd script with GBPVRWake.exe to restart the cards by calling devcon.exe whenever the computer comes back from standby. however to do this it has to stop the service and restart it 15 or so seconds later when it's done restarting the cards.

the problem is that Slimm GB-PVR is complaining that the service crashed and it restarts it sometimes before restarting the cards is done.

is it possible to add a delay into the crash-restart script so that it waits 30 seconds before restarting especially if its not recording yet? that would help a lot.

you could have 2 values: one for when it's supposed to record and it crashes, the other one for when it's not recording anything and it crashed. the second case is the one i need help with.

Fiddling with your Registry is potentially dangerous. Make sure you have a System Restore point set. I am in no way responsible for borking your machine.

There is a registry value to enable and disable the Auto Restart Recording Service. Details on this key, other keys and the values that are understood are found in the Documentation which should be installed in the GB-PVR Start Menu group.

Code:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Slimm Solutions\Slimm GBPVR\AutoRestartRecordingService

This key is set to the string True or False.

You could set up a couple of .reg files (go to the above key in Regedit and export it and edit it in Notepad) and then use Regedit with the /s option to disable and enable it in your script as appropriate.

the other problem i'm having is that when i select a delayed standby the machine doesnt go to standby, it just hangs in the "recording" stage with the "green flashing circle". i have not managed to get it to work yet.

If Standby is not enabled, does the green flashing circle stop okay? Could you confirm that your machine has Standby enabled and it works normally from Start->Turn Off Computer? Perhaps you could zip up your logs (Tools->Report error) and post them and I'll see if anything obvious sticks out. I use the Delayed Standby feature myself a lot so I can compare your logs to mine.

Thanks.

[pvruser]

Thanks for the reply. I cant access the help file because of an error i get "Cannot open the file: mkMSITStore:C:\program files.... \SlimmGBPVRDoc.chm" (attached image).

my restart script now works when i disable "AutoRestartRecordingService".

My latest recording just failed this afternoon. i put the PC in standby before leaving for work this morning at 8:33am. then it automatically restarted and probably did not manage to completely run the devcon before SlimmGBPVR restarted the service. nothing was recorded this session until i restarted the service and ran my devcon script. here is part of the error log:

2007-07-26 08:33:01.890 INFO [1] Updating Shutdown menu
2007-07-26 08:33:01.890 VERBOSE [1] Updating Shutdown menu: Getting Menus\Shutdown configuration
2007-07-26 08:33:01.890 VERBOSE [1] Updating Shutdown menu: immediate shutdown menu items
2007-07-26 08:33:01.890 VERBOSE [1]
2007-07-26 08:33:01.890 INFO [1] Updating Stop Recording menu
2007-07-26 08:33:01.890 VERBOSE [1] StopRecording menu updated
2007-07-26 08:33:01.890 INFO [1] Updating Conflicts menu
2007-07-26 08:33:01.890 VERBOSE [1] PowerManagement.SetThreadExecutionState reset to ES_CONTINUOUS
2007-07-26 08:33:17.515 INFO [1] Event SystemEvents_PowerModeChanged
2007-07-26 05:28:57.921 WARNING [1] Tuner Status failed (count=38): was GB-PVR config run within the last few seconds? IsRunning=False
2007-07-26 05:28:57.921 WARNING [1] Tuner Status failed (count=38): has GB-PVR recording service crashed? IsRunning=False
2007-07-26 05:29:00.250 WARNING [1] Tuner Status failed (count=39): was GB-PVR config run within the last few seconds? IsRunning=False
2007-07-26 05:29:00.250 WARNING [1] Tuner Status failed (count=39): has GB-PVR recording service crashed? IsRunning=False
2007-07-26 05:29:02.406 WARNING [1] Tuner Status failed (count=40): was GB-PVR config run within the last few seconds? IsRunning=False

all this time the green tray button was flashing and it was telling me that it will be recording the next show in -23minutes (since it was stuck 23 minutes into that show without recording it...)

here is the log after service restart when recording continued for the last 7 minutes of the 6:30-7pm show:

2007-07-26 06:53:15.968 WARNING [1] Tuner Status failed (count=1126): was GB-PVR config run within the last few seconds? IsRunning=False
2007-07-26 06:53:15.968 WARNING [1] Tuner Status failed (count=1126): has GB-PVR recording service crashed? IsRunning=False
2007-07-26 06:53:16.734 INFO [9] Event recmonGBPVR_TunerStatusChanged. You now have 0 active tuners.
2007-07-26 06:53:16.734 VERBOSE [9] RecordingFactory.loadSchedule()
2007-07-26 06:53:16.734 VERBOSE [9] getValue cached value: /settings/AutoRemoveMissingRecordings : true
2007-07-26 06:53:17.250 VERBOSE [9] PowerManagement.SetThreadExecutionState reset to ES_CONTINUOUS
2007-07-26 06:53:17.250 INFO [1] Updating Recordings menu
2007-07-26 06:53:17.250 VERBOSE [1] Custom ItemText={StartDate} {StartTime:t} {TitleSubTitle}
2007-07-26 06:53:17.250 VERBOSE [1] Custom ItemToolTip={ChannelName} {StartDate} from {StartTime:t}-{EndTime:t}
{Description}
2007-07-26 06:53:17.250 VERBOSE [1] RecordingsMenu_UpdateFreeDiskSpace
2007-07-26 06:53:17.250 VERBOSE [1] RecordingsMenu_UpdateFreeDiskSpace= (about 91 hrs available)
2007-07-26 06:53:22.640 VERBOSE [1] RecordingsMenu_Update details

[..]

2007-07-26 06:53:22.796 INFO [1] Updating Shutdown menu
2007-07-26 06:53:22.796 VERBOSE [1] Updating Shutdown menu: Getting Menus\Shutdown configuration
2007-07-26 06:53:22.796 VERBOSE [1] Updating Shutdown menu: delayed shutdown menu items
2007-07-26 06:53:22.796 VERBOSE [1]
2007-07-26 06:53:22.796 INFO [1] Updating Stop Recording menu
2007-07-26 06:53:22.812 VERBOSE [1] StopRecording menu updated
2007-07-26 06:53:22.812 INFO [1] Updating Conflicts menu
2007-07-26 06:53:22.812 VERBOSE [1] PowerManagement.SetThreadExecutionState set to ES_SYSTEM_REQUIRED & ES_CONTINUOUS
2007-07-26 06:54:14.578 INFO [1] Updating Stop Recording menu
2007-07-26 06:54:14.593 VERBOSE [1] StopRecording menu updated
2007-07-26 06:55:33.734 INFO [1] Updating Stop Recording menu
2007-07-26 06:55:33.734 VERBOSE [1] StopRecording menu updated
2007-07-26 07:00:00.421 INFO [9] Event recmonGBPVR_TunerStatusChanged. You now have 0 active tuners.
2007-07-26 07:00:00.421 VERBOSE [9] RecordingFactory.loadSchedule()
2007-07-26 07:00:00.421 VERBOSE [9] getValue cached value: /settings/AutoRemoveMissingRecordings : true
2007-07-26 07:00:00.453 VERBOSE [9] PowerManagement.SetThreadExecutionState reset to ES_CONTINUOUS
2007-07-26 07:00:00.453 INFO [1] Updating Recordings menu
2007-07-26 07:00:00.453 VERBOSE [1] Custom ItemText={StartDate} {StartTime:t} {TitleSubTitle}
2007-07-26 07:00:00.453 VERBOSE [1] Custom ItemToolTip={ChannelName} {StartDate} from {StartTime:t}-{EndTime:t}
{Description}
2007-07-26 07:00:00.453 VERBOSE [1] RecordingsMenu_UpdateFreeDiskSpace
2007-07-26 07:00:00.453 VERBOSE [1] RecordingsMenu_UpdateFreeDiskSpace= (about 91 hrs available)


i'll apply the changes with the reg file and i'll be monitoring it for the next few days then let you know if it works OK.

Thanks!

[pvruser]

ok i fixed the help file error, was some ocx that needed to be registered again... i'll check the help files now

[pvruser]

sadly its not fixed. i even got 2 services running at the same time! that messed up all my recordings till i rebooted the PC (could not kill the extra process).

so now i've permanently added the registry entry to NOT restart the service. we'll see how that turns out...

[Mister Slimm]

sadly its not fixed. i even got 2 services running at the same time! that messed up all my recordings till i rebooted the PC (could not kill the extra process).

That's highly bizarre and should not be possible. The nature of services mean you can only run a single instance at a time.

At least you can stop my program restarting it for you anyways.

With the auto-restart disabled, you may want to reduce your logging level as soon as you've finished trying to solve these issues (using Tools->GBPVR Configuration->General: Logging Level) as the Slimm GBPVR log might grow rather large if your machine isn't restarted over the course of some weeks. On Debug level, it will keep adding a note that the recording service isn't running every few seconds. Perhaps I should fix that?

Have you got a third-party firewall installed? That might be interfering with the communication between Slimm GB-PVR and the recording service. Though that would also stop the green light coming on.

When the green light is stuck on after a recording should have finished, can you go to Tools->Tuner Status and report what it says there?

Failed recordings are something you should post on the main GBPVR support forum about as it is unlikely to be related to Slimm GBPVR. Slimm GBPVR only asks the recording service what it is doing (you can see the answer by looking at Tools->Tuner Status) and has no other interaction with it. I can confirm that sub provides excellent support as he has helped me with my own recording problems.

[Mister Slimm]

With the auto-restart disabled, you may want to reduce your logging level as soon as you've finished trying to solve these issues (using Tools->GBPVR Configuration->General: Logging Level) as the Slimm GBPVR log might grow rather large if your machine isn't restarted over the course of some weeks. On Debug level, it will keep adding a note that the recording service isn't running every few seconds. Perhaps I should fix that?

You can ignore this bit! It turns out Slimm GBPVR doesn't put the error messages about the recording service not running if AutoRestartRecordingService is set to False!

Good job I checked.

[pvruser]

thanks a lot for your help! i disabled the "restart" feature and i did more experimenting. it looks like one of my cards (the twinhan 3250) looses signal for a moment and causes recordings to go on forever.

the tuner status says it's recording (not sleeping). slimmpvr says "ends in -XX minutes (minus XX minutes) when it's overdue.

i did post on the main forum and sub is helping out. i'm wondering now if it's from gbpvr or from the card's drivers. moving the antenna will fix the signal and a recording will continue by creating the second file for that show which also fixes the service. but if nobody is there to fix it or the fix is done after time has passed we get into that loop infinite loop...

thanks again!

[Deusxmachina]

You can ignore this bit! It turns out Slimm GBPVR doesn't put the error messages about the recording service not running if AutoRestartRecordingService is set to False!

I was wondering about that. This got rid of the pesky error messages popping up on the screen after a Slimm restart or a computer reboot. It'd be a big Windows box saying something like "tuners/recording was interrupted and is now restarted", and I'd HAVE to press the "ok" button to get it off the screen. Was very annoying.

While I'm here, am I missing the setting to have right-click Tools>Tuner Configuration update in real-time like the balloon does? Opening that window only shows what the tuners are currently doing but never changes if the window is left open. Having the balloons be permanent would almost work, but then they'd get in the way of the other taskbar icons. It's not a big deal, just would be nice.

[Mister Slimm]

While I'm here, am I missing the setting to have right-click Tools>Tuner Configuration update in real-time like the balloon does? Opening that window only shows what the tuners are currently doing but never changes if the window is left open. Having the balloons be permanent would almost work, but then they'd get in the way of the other taskbar icons. It's not a big deal, just would be nice.

Nope, you're not missing it. That menu option is just there to replicate the one in the original gbpvrtray.exe that is installed with GB-PVR. It is not intended to update in real-time but it's an idea.

If tuners are active, clicking the system tray icon will show the balloon and what is recording as will hovering over the system tray icon.