Client problems

[jd1940]

I'm a long time user of NPVR but haave been having so many problems since the Win 10 Au I'm beginning to look for alternatives. The client especially has become problematical, especially with recorded playbacks. They stutter for awhile and then freeze the playback, requiring a restart. Downloaded files occasionally freeze also, requiring a restart. And, of course, there's the problem of recordings just failing to start after a couple of days and requiring a reboot to function again.

I notice others are having the same problems but few if any solutions have been provided. If anyone has come up with any solutions for these problems I'd sure like to hear about it. I am going to try the different video renderer I read about but that's about all I've found.

I am starting to play with Kodi for use instead of the client. I have a working version that has most of what I want with the exception of the recording and program guide. The Kodi wiki info is woefully short of info on this subject so if any of you who I know are using Kodi can direct me to a good explanation of attaching NPVR to Kodi I'd appreciate it. I already have NPVR linked and showing on the menu as TV but I don't see the epg or any way to record.

I'm attaching logs of both the client and server which hopefully will shed some light on the problems. The 1503 is the server.

And now, after installing 3.8.3. tonight (server and client), none of my add ons work: Movies, Weather, Radio. It just never ends!

[HarryH3]

Microsoft screwed the pooch with Win 10 and then made it worse with the Anniversary Update. They just keep breaking more stuff. I can't use KODI as a client at all with Win 10 because I have multiple network interfaces for VPN's and Virtual Machines. KODI worked fine on Win 8.1 but Microsoft broke the way Windows presents interfaces in Win 10 and has yet to fix the tool that is supposed to let you set the interface priority. So now KODI grabs onto the virtual NIC setup for my VM's instead of grabbing the main one for LAN access. Changing priority in Win 10 results in NO change. So blame Microsoft. They're using us as their software assurance team and taking their sweet time fixing all the new problems that they create. They really seem to have lost their way...

[Barry10]

Up until release 3.7, my system was solid as a rock. After installing 3.7, updates were provided to correct many of my issues. I have been on Windows 10 for about 8 months and it has worked well with NextPVR. Only issue I ran into and still have is after upgrading to the anniversary version, NextPVR has had an issue with DWM and if you don't reload after watching a movie or TV show, then you lose about 4 gig of memory. Wait long enough and you get out of memory errors from windows. So I started using Kodi as the player and use the NextPVR client for TV shows and recordings. No failures yet, it has worked flawlessly! Only setup I made in NextPvr was Check clients in setting, and enable web server, then do the add on in Kodi V17 for nextPVR. Change the host name to 127.0.0.1 or the name of your computer, but the 127 address runs faster since it does not have to network, Restart NextPvr recording service and it came right up. I also use schedules direct which shows up in Kodi. I tried changing decoders and directX updates, but for me the memory problem stayed. Never see the memory issue with Kodi or VLC, can play TV shows, movies, etc.. without any issues. Only change I made in Kodi was bumping the TV listings to 12 days, and re-doing my Harmony 350 remote. Kodi's remote control interface needs some work, took me a while to figure out how to skip forward and backwards without multiple time intervals. But it is working and I am using the Beta 2 version. Still several resize issues but no out of memory errors. NextPvr is so much easier and provides everything I need in the PVR and recording area, just can't play things without running out of memory. 8 gig is not what it use to be.

[HarryH3]

Meanwhile I have zero problems running NPVR on an old Core2Duo system with 4GB of RAM installed (and Windows reporting that only 3.25 GB is usable). OS is Windows 7 Pro and has been solid as a rock for years. Some nights it seems like my wife is recording everything on TV. All 3 tuners recording for 3-5 hours, back to back.

Several years back (might have even been when I still had GB-PVR running) I would sometimes get failed recordings because the recording service had stopped. It only happened after the system had been up for several days. I copied a script from this site that would check that no recordings were taking place. If it didn't find any, the system would reboot. I have it set to run in the PostEPGUpdate script. No more strange problems since then.

[jd1940]

The site link didn't come through on your post. I'd be interested in seeing a batch script like that. It might be a solution to the problem.

[HarryH3]

I don't recall what thread I found it in, or who wrote it, but it runs every night just fine for me. PostUpdateEPG.bat, from the Scripts directory located at C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts

Code:

echo off
REM Reboot if not recording
set NSHelper=c:\"program files (x86)"\npvr\nscripthelper.exe

:check
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%i in ('%NSHelper% -isinuse') do SET condition=%%i
echo %condition%
IF %condition% =="NOT RECORDING" goto reboot

:delay
timeout 60
goto check

:reboot

echo "About to reboot"
shutdown /r

Just be aware that this script runs EVERY time the EPG is updated, so if you are testing and click "Update EPG" in the settings screen, then the EPG will update and then your server will reboot. :eek: I have my EPG update set to run at something like 4:17 AM.

[Reddwarf]

I don't recall what thread I found it in, or who wrote it, but it runs every night just fine for me. PostUpdateEPG.bat, from the Scripts directory located at C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts

Code:

echo off
REM Reboot if not recording
set NSHelper=c:\"program files (x86)"\npvr\nscripthelper.exe

:check
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%i in ('%NSHelper% -isinuse') do SET condition=%%i
echo %condition%
IF %condition% =="NOT RECORDING" goto reboot

:delay
timeout 60
goto check

:reboot

echo "About to reboot"
shutdown /r

Just be aware that this script runs EVERY time the EPG is updated, so if you are testing and click "Update EPG" in the settings screen, then the EPG will update and then your server will reboot. :eek: I have my EPG update set to run at something like 4:17 AM.

Yoa are not running comskip after recordings? I noticed that your script is not looking for any comskip process running before it reboots...

[HarryH3]

Yoa are not running comskip after recordings? I noticed that your script is not looking for any comskip process running before it reboots...

Yes I do run comskip, but I can't think of a time that I have actually had a recording taking place in the 4AM time block anyway. I used to have the EPG update set earlier, but recording conflicts would sometimes schedule recordings of cable shows to record at their second showing, in the midnight to 2AM timeframe, and indeed, comskip would not complete its run before the reboot. I just moved the EPG update time. I don't even know what's on at that time of the morning, other than infomercials.

However, would adding these two bolded lines make it also check for comskip? I'm not even sure where the value for %%i is coming from. :eek:

set NSHelper=c:"program files (x86)"\npvr\nscripthelper.exe
set Compskip=c:\users\public\npvr\Comskip\comskip.exe

:check
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%i in ('%NSHelper% -isinuse') do SET condition=%%i
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%i in ('%Comskip% -isinuse') do SET condition=%%i

echo %condition%

[Graham]

FOR /F "tokens=*" %%i in ('%Comskip% -isinuse') do SET condition=%%i

Nice try but it won't work. The FOR command is saying ... Run the batch command at "in (blah -bling)" and examine the messages that the command would have sent to the screen ... In my silly example, it is as if we ask the FOR to run the command "blah" with a parameter of "-bling" ... This is only useful if the "blah" command is programmed to recognise and respond to the parameter "-bling".

Sadly, comskip is not programmed to recognise the parameter "-isinuse".

[jd1940]

Thanks. I've set that up. Hope it solves the recording problem.

What is everyone using for a MPEG 2 codec since we lost the Microsoft codec when upgrading to Win 10? I'm using Cyberlink PDVD 13 which works fairly well except it won't close out a recording, just remains on the last screen until you delete. I'm going to assume the stuttering is Win 10 unless someone has a codec that's not stuttering with 10 Au. I've also noticed NPVR doesn't start as it used to after a reboot. I have to click the Start service button in order to get the NPVR logo to show up in the task areas at the bottom left of the task bar. Any idea why? I've done several reboots and that hasn't solved the problem.