Strange missed recordings

[wscrivens]

In the past couple of weeks we have had recordings fail despite everything seeming "normal". Last night we had a recurrence and I was able to capture the log files, which are attached. The symptoms are typical of what ahs been happening repeatedly (but not every recording session fails).

At a little after 1700, being paranoid based on past experiences, we checked the pending recordings to be sure "Special Report with Brit Hume" would be recorded at 1800. It showed on the pending list so we went to dinner, and when we came back at 1930 GBPVR was showing the screen saver but would not respond to the remote, mouse, or keyboard, so we rebooted with the power switch. When it came back up, it showed that the recording had failed. We re-scheduled to record the show at 0200 this morning and that succeeded.

Looking at GBPVRRecordingService.exe-1.log (in almost total ignorance of what I was looking for) showed an error at 12:21 yesterday and no entries after that. I don't know what more to do to try to troubleshoot this, but it has become a recurring problem and I would appreciate some help.

Thanks,
Walt

[HtV]

It's probably a good idea to zip and post the logs, so someone can take a look at them.

[wscrivens]

OOPS! I forgot to attach them to the post :o

Here they are, and thanks for the nudge!

Walt

[sub]

The recording service wasnt running at the time the recording was due to occur. Its a particularly odd error message that I've not seen before, which seems to be something going wrong in one of .net's background management threads. Unfortunately google doesnt seem to turn up any solid clues.

While I've not seen the same error, we have seen similar errors caused by virus scanners or firewall software (which attempts to iunsert stuff in the process to monitor activity). Maybe this is the same sort of thing.

2008-08-29 12:20:21.318 ERROR [4] FATAL UNHANDLED EXCEPTION:: System.ApplicationException: Overlapped I/O operation is in progress. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800703E5)
at System.Threading.TimerBase.ChangeTimerNative(UInt32 dueTime, UInt32 period)
at System.Threading.TimerBase.ChangeTimer(UInt32 dueTime, UInt32 period)
at System.Threading.Timer.Change(Int32 dueTime, Int32 period)
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Lifetime.LeaseManager.LeaseTimeAnalyzer(Object state)
at System.Threading._TimerCallback.TimerCallback_Context(Object state)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.runTryCode(Object userData)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.RuntimeHelpers.ExecuteCodeWithGuaranteedCleanup(TryCode code, CleanupCode backoutCode, Object userData)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
at System.Threading._TimerCallback.PerformTimerCallback(Object state)

[wscrivens]

HMMM...
I see what you mean. Querying Technet with "HRESULT: 0x800703E5" yielded information about a Microsoft Exchange cluster server that wasn't performing right on failover. Hardly helpful in this instance.

I had a look at the system logs - don't know why I didn't think of that sooner! - but, there is not much to help me:

From the Application Log:
The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( .NET Runtime ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: .NET Runtime version : 2.0.50727.1433 - Application ErrorApplication has generated an exception that could not be handled.

Process ID=0x7a4 (1956), Thread ID=0xf0 (240).

Click OK to terminate the application.


----

From the System log:
The GB-PVR Recording Service service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

-----
following that link, suggested I ran sc query to find out more:

output from sc query:

SERVICE_NAME: GB-PVR Recording Service
TYPE : 10 WIN32_OWN_PROCESS
STATE : 4 RUNNING
(STOPPABLE,NOT_PAUSABLE,ACCEPTS_SHUTDOWN)
WIN32_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
SERVICE_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
CHECKPOINT : 0x0
WAIT_HINT : 0x0

-----
Of course the recording service was running again by then! I will put that command in the "Program to run upon failure" for the recording service and see if we catch anything the next time this happens.

BTW, one option when a service fails is to restart the service. I have ticked that box, too. Hope that's OK.

Walt

[wscrivens]

Another update/question. I found the posting in the survival guide:

Recording service crashing
NOD32, Panda Antivirus, WebRunner and Net Limiter (and some other software) are known to be incompatible with .NET 2.0 Remoting, which is used by GB-PVR. If any of these apps are installed on your machine, they will cause the Recording Service crash, so they may need to be uninstalled before installing this update. Its possible you may just be able to set an exclusion of the GBPVRRecordingService.exe process - but I'm not sure if this is possible with all these apps.

To help you identify if you have this problem, when the recording service crashes, the following message is at the end of the GBPVRRecordingService.exe.log file:

Code:
9/4/2006 3:02:39 PM.625 ERROR [7] FATAL UNHANDLED EXCEPTION:: System.AccessViolationException: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.
at System.Net.UnsafeNclNativeMethods.OSSOCK.WSAGetOverlappedResult(SafeCloseSocket socketHandle, IntPtr overlapped, UInt32& bytesTransferred, Boolean wait, IntPtr ignored)
at System.Net.Sockets.BaseOverlappedAsyncResult.Compl etionPortCallback(UInt32 errorCode, UInt32 numBytes, NativeOverlapped* nativeOverlapped)
at System.Threading._IOCompletionCallback.PerformIOCo mpletionCallback(UInt32 errorCode, UInt32 numBytes, NativeOverlapped* pOVERLAP)
UPDATE: Microsoft now has a hot fix available for this common incompatibility between firewall software and the .NET 2.0 Remoting. You can read about here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923028/en-us and download the hotfix from http://www.gbpvr.com/Hotfix_Net2_KB923028.zip

The symptoms are not the same but you mentioned this as a possibility. Do you know if this hotfix was included in SP3 - i have that installed on my PVR machine. Also I am using Blink Personal as my A-V. I could not find any issues with Google.

Walt

[sub]

Do you know if this hotfix was included in SP3

No, I dont know.

These both affected background threads that werent running GB-PVR specific code, and both related to Overlapped I/O, which makes me think they may be related. Since this error is slightly different, it also may not be resolved by that hotfix. If you dont find any other resolution, you could see if the problem goes away when you remove Blink from the equation.

[wscrivens]

Thanks, Sub.
I can research the hotfix more when I get to work on Wednesday. In the meantime, I will be watching the log files closely and I have the GB-PVR Recording Service set to restart at the first failure and then on the second one to record sc query "GB-PVR Recording Service" to a file. I'll post more when I have additional info.

Walt