Orphaned TCP Ports after NPVR Crash

[aarondr]

For various reasons I've had the NextPVR process crash. However I can't get the web interface back up, mostly because the TCP port appears to be orphaned. Viewing TCPView and netstat in windows show that the port is 'Listening' but no process is attached to the port. I can telnet to the port but no response, just sits there open. Nothing in the logs, but my guess is that the TCP port isn't being properly released upon termination. I'd attach the logs, but there is nothing in them (and it's inconvenient to zip and attach right now), and the web.log doesn't appear to be updating when starting NRecord or NPVR. Is this a bug?

[mvallevand]

My guess is that you are just having an issue understanding UAC and trying to view processes without permissions. Also don't expect telnet to work on the NRecord ports.

Martin

[aarondr]

I'm logged into Windows Home Server 2011 as Administrator - UAC off. TCPView listed <non-existent> as the process with a PID that didn't show up in the list of processes in ProcessExplorer. FYI - Running 2.6.2

- UPDATE - OK, UAC was on, but I never remember any prompts... so maybe I am missing something here. I'll keep watch again for the problem I've disabled UAC going forward.

[mvallevand]

They run as Local System, not Administrator. Try Windows task manager, show processes for all users.

Martin

[johnsonx42]

I've seen issues like this before too, where NRecord won't start properly because one or more of the ports it needs are still held open by a previous instance of NRecord, yet NRecord is definitely not running. The only solution I've found in such cases is to reboot. I'm sure this is a Windows problem, not an NPVR problem.

[aarondr]

I wasn't able to reproduce over the weekend, but the wife's need for this thing to 'work' (what the heck?) and I've been using the XBMC client on Openelec with lots of freezes and failures - sometimes crashing the recording service - so this made me fall back to my windows 8 install w/ WMC for now . The service is running as System (default install), and I can guarantee that no process was running. The behavior is just like what johnsonx was confirming - no process, port open, no response. My guess is that there is an unmanaged handle to a port that is left dangling out there if a process doesn't shut down cleanly (or crashes in a particular way). I know how these things can be (I'm a .NET/Java dev so I mostly working in the 'managed code' world, but I have done enough unmanaged work to understand that resources can sometimes get left open).

Unfortunately I haven't found a way to actually clean up the port other than rebooting, even using TCPView. My WHS uptime is important, so I'm suspending using NPVR until I get more time to really diagnose what's going on (XBMC as well).

I will say - this application is GREAT - so no hard feelings here (just think my openelec + xbmc frodo 12.1 + HDHomeRun Prime + WHS + nPVR setup was a ambitious for my first TV/PVR experience). Top this all off - HDHomeRun DLNA streaming doesn't play well with frodo 12.1 :-(. (Sorry venting) So I'm stuck with WMC, which is at least working well.