DVBT Radio Service Wont Start

[smiler]

I have just moved to Windows Vista Home Premium x64 and I have pretty much got all of GBPVR migrated to the new OS. However the DVBT Radio Plugin service refuses to start saying that the service failed to respond in a timely fashion.

A bit of investigation in to the problem leads me to beleve it is related to the way that the service identifies the default GBPVR directory. I think this could be the problem because the error message that is returned when i try to manually install the service is:

Code:

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an obj
ect.
   at BGowland.DVBTRadio.DvbtrService.GetGBInstallDir() in C:\Documents and Sett
ings\gbpvr\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\DVB-T Radio\DvbtrService\Dvb
trService.cs:line 40

A few things to mention,GBPVR is installed in vista 64's default program files directory, i.e 'Program Files (x86)' rather than just program files. I tried to install it in the standard location but the GBPVR MSI package always ends up installing it in the default x86 version of the directory. :confused:

DVBT Radio did used to work fine and only stopped working on the transition to the new OS.

Any ideas you guys have on this would be great

[bgowland]

You're right about where it's failing. Looking at the code, it's trying to read the Windows Registry to find out where GB-PVR has been installed.

The suggestion is either that the HKLM\Software\devnz registry key doesn't exist or that the 'GBPVR InstallDir' value is missing. Are you familiar with RegEdit? If so, could you check to see if the key and value are there and let me know.

I know the plugin works on Vista but I think it may only be the x32 version that people have tried so far.

[smiler]

Thanks for the quick reply, i have taken a look at the registry and sure enough there is no entry for gbpvr at all!

It seems that the entries in the registry are only related to the 64 bit apps, this means VISTA decided that as a 32 bit app GBPVR is not allowed access?

I guess it might be a bug with the GBPVR Installer on vista 64. I have turned off vistas UAC to allow GBPVR to work at all but this really is a bit strange.

As a test I will try to insert the registry entries that are required from my xp machine at the correct location, and see if the services fires up.

[bgowland]

Hmm - strange.

It always worries me when this sort of change is made to an OS. If it allows the installation of 32-bit apps, you'd think that Vista x64 would have backward compatability particularly for HKLM\Software which is crucial for many apps.

Anyway, the only registry entry needed for my plugin is the 'GBPVR InstallDir' string value.

Let me know if there are any other problems.

[smiler]

I have merged the entries in to the registry from the GBPVR installation and sure enough the service starts up

Unfortunatly, I am now investigating why the client is not working, this seems to be a bit more complicated, at first the logs showed that the ip ports were being blocked by my firewall, a quick change sorted that, however it now seems that there is an exception being raised deep in the code that i can't find a solution to.

The problem is when I select the DVBT Radio option from the main menu the screen seems to flick past the options to a blank page which stays there for minutes without doing anything :confused:

I have attached my logs and if you get a moment I would appreciate any input

Thanks

[bgowland]

It looks to me as if the firewall may still be blocking things.

The failure is when the dvbtr client is requesting channel information from the service. I can see the client making the call but the ServiceMessageHandler log doesn't show it received it.

Check your firewall settings again and maybe turn it off temporarily. For reference, the client/server connection uses localhost:3112

[smiler]

Thanks i'll take a look

[smiler]

Well i get a bit further now and there seems to be a .net remoting system exception everytime a message is tried to be sent. I.e. shown below:

Code:

21/11/2008 19:23:52.689 DvbtrClient created.
21/11/2008 19:23:52.689 Getting GB-PVR settings...
21/11/2008 19:23:52.691 Creating message client...
21/11/2008 19:23:52.691 Reading channel data...
21/11/2008 19:23:52.695 SendMainServiceCommand() command: DVBTR_GET_CHANNEL_DATA
21/11/2008 19:23:53.749 SendMainServiceCommand() threw exception: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
Server stack trace:
   at System.RuntimeTypeHandle.CreateInstance(RuntimeType type, Boolean publicOnly, Boolean noCheck, Boolean& canBeCached, RuntimeMethodHandle& ctor, Boolean& bNeedSecurityCheck)
   at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceSlow(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean fillCache)
   at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipVisibilityChecks, Boolean fillCache)
   at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.RemotingConfigHandler.RemotingConfigInfo.StartupWellKnownObject(String asmName, String svrTypeName, String URI, WellKnownObjectMode mode, Boolean fReplace)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.RemotingConfigHandler.RemotingConfigInfo.StartupWellKnownObject(String URI)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.IdentityHolder.CasualResolveIdentity(String uri)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.MethodCall.ResolveType()
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.MethodCall.ResolveMethod(Boolean bThrowIfNotResolved)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.MethodCall..ctor(Object handlerObject, BinaryMethodCallMessage smuggledMsg)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryMethodCall.ReadArray(Object[] callA, Object handlerObject)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectReader.Deserialize(HeaderHandler handler, __BinaryParser serParser, Boolean fCheck, Boolean isCrossAppDomain, IMethodCallMessage methodCallMessage)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Deserialize(Stream serializationStream, HeaderHandler handler, Boolean fCheck, Boolean isCrossAppDomain, IMethodCallMessage methodCallMessage)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.CoreChannel.DeserializeBinaryRequestMessage(String objectUri, Stream inputStream, Boolean bStrictBinding, TypeFilterLevel securityLevel)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.BinaryServerFormatterSink.ProcessMessage(IServerChannelSinkStack sinkStack, IMessage requestMsg, ITransportHeaders requestHeaders, Stream requestStream, IMessage& responseMsg, ITransportHeaders& responseHeaders, Stream& responseStream)

Exception rethrown at [0]:
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type)
   at BGowland.DvbtrLib.IMessageHandler.GetChannelData(Object data)
   at BGowland.DvbtrLib.DvbtrClient.SendMainServiceCommand(DvbtrRemoteCommand command, Object data) in C:\Documents and Settings\gbpvr\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\DVB-T Radio\DvbtrLib\DvbtrClient.cs:line 424
21/11/2008 19:23:53.749 ReadChannelData() threw exception: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.   at BGowland.DvbtrLib.DvbtrClient.ReadChannelData2() in C:\Documents and Settings\gbpvr\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\DVB-T Radio\DvbtrLib\DvbtrClient.cs:line 192

Unfortunatly it does not seem to be a firewall issue, I have disabled the firewall service and netstat shows the correct ports are listening and that a link is established to each other.

I have a hunch that it might be related to .net/vista permissions and maybe to do with trying to access localhost. I wonder if using 127.0.0.1 rather than localhost would prevent vista trying to be too clever. I have googled that vista does doo something special with localhost as apposed to the local address loopback, just a guess though.

It is a shame if it is impossible to overcome this issue because this is an excellent plugin and it adds great functionality to GBPVR

[bgowland]

I have a hunch that it might be related to .net/vista permissions and maybe to do with trying to access localhost.

I'm not sure.

I do know that there are at least two other Vista users who have had the plugin working although I don't know what editions of Vista they are. If 'localhost' is handled in the expected way on some Vista versions but not others, it could be the problem.

You'll have to bear with me and I'll send you a link to a new version. Unfortunately I've introduced a bug which trashes the DvbRadio.db3 file when the service is stopped and I can't find what I've changed to cause this.

Time for a beer to clear my head.

[smiler]

Thanks for your reply,

I do know that there are at least two other Vista users who have had the plugin working although I don't know what editions of Vista they are. If 'localhost' is handled in the expected way on some Vista versions but not others, it could be the problem.

Yeah, it does seem to be something different on this version of vista, maybe it is because it is vista home premium 64? It does seem to be locked down very heavily... :mad:

A new test build to change to 127.0.0.1 would be excellent, it is certainly worth a try to see if it is a permissions issue. I might even see if i can write a prototype app in c# to try to connect to the service and see if i get any security issues and can understand what is going on.

Thanks again for your help, it is nice to talk to someone that actually wants to try and help you solve problems.

Enjoy your beer, always good to speed up coding