MediaMVP Troubleshooting...

[mnemonic76]

This thread is intended to be a collaboration, or a knowledgebase. PLEASE HELP FILL IN THE BLANKS!


Sounds like there is a lot of possible pitfalls with the MediaMVP... however, there are also

a lot of 'pieces' to the puzzle that must fall into place to make GB-PVR happen on a

MediaMVP.

I am hoping to fill in the blanks here a little to help MediaMVP users do their own

troubleshooting prior to placing the distress call on the forum.

Please help fill in the blanks (with as much detail as possible) with information pertainent

to the successful connection of a MediaMVP to a GB-PVR server...

I will start with the OBVIOUS, and please, don't assume anything else is obvious:

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU APPLY POWER TO A MEDIAMVP?

If there is no ethernet connection to the MVP:

The screen says "Checking Ethernet Connectivity..."

-Is this just to see if the voltages are there at the RJ-45 jack to tell the MVP is it

connected to another Ethernet device such as a hub/switch or to another network interface

card (NIC) via a crossover cable?

After you connect the MediaMVP to a switch (with no active MVP server or DHCP server):

The onscreen message alternates between "Contacting MediaMVP Bootserver..." and "Contacting

DHCP Server..."

If you connect a DHCP server (probably a router with an integrated DHCP server in most

cases) the same message appears... apparently THIS is not the DHCP server it is looking

for...

What is the MediaMVP looking for exactly?

After completly uninstalling/reinstalling the Hauppauge MediaMVP software (version 2.3)

there are 3 processes running on my WinXP machine...

HcwSMS.exe

MVPStart.exe

and
DglSvcMain.exe

What do these do?

If you end the HcwSMS process with the DglSvcMain process running, it immediately is

restarted...

If the MVPStart.exe process is running (no HcwSMS.exe or DglSvcMain.exe) the onscreen

message will only say :"Contacting MediaMVP Bootserver..." it no longer toggles to the other

"Contacting DHCP Server..." message.

That's as far as I got today... gotta go...

[mnemonic76]

<Bump>

Ok, guys... those of you more seasoned members of the forum must know a little more about the inner-workings of the MVP than I. There have been over 120 something views of this topic! I bet there are a few people wondering some of the same things as me.

If this has been discussed in another thread/wiki, PLEASE - by all means let me know and I will shut up and go read! Otherwise, I'm going crazy here, and I can only troubleshoot as far as I know what's going on...

From reading some posts over on the SHS forums, I have gathered that the MVP looks for one of the services running on the server as a DHCP server, and then loads a boot image (from the dongle.bin file). But if an MVP is able to connect to the server to get past the "Loading application..."/"Starting application..." portion of the startup, then what is the next message "Contacting servers..." supposed to mean? Also, if I direct connect to a laptop (using a crossover cable) the laptop says "Network cable disconnected" at this point... and the link light on the back of the MVP is blinking, as if the link is on/off/on/off.

Any and all info is GREATLY appreciated, and I would love to take the time to write up a troubleshooting/tech wiki for the MVP if I can get some concrete info.

Thanks,
mnemonic76

[sub]

I've no idea how it relates to the messages shown on the screen, but the general sequence of events when powering up the MVP is as following.

1) Try to get IP address from DHCP server
2) If no DHCP server found, try to get IP address from DCHP server which is built into hauppauge software but listening on a non-standard port.
3) Do a UDP broadcast to find machine with Hauppauge MVP software. Machine will respond with IP address of server, and port numbers for various services the MVP can user.
4) Bootp/tftp used to download dongle.bin from your machine
5) start the dongle.bin image and applications contained within it. (probably says "starting application" here)
6) connect to machine get image of menu (probably says "contacting servers" here).
7) menu shown. Start up is now complete.

[mnemonic76]

Sorry for the slow turnaround on this, but thanks sub for the input.

Here's the reason I started this thread: I have SCOURED again, and again (and I will yet AGAIN...) this forum, the SHS forum and the hauppauge uk forum on the subject of the dreaded "Contacting servers..." endless cycle.

My server is running Windows 2000 Professional, I have a win pvr 150, and already have recorded many hours of programs. I have the beta 2.4 running WITH the gdiplus.dll (a requred, but not included dll - thanks to someone over at shs forums)

I have seemingly random success, but mostly failure after failure.

Originally, the server was an entirely different machine running WinXP pro. Runninf version 2.3 of the MediaMVP software, and GBPVR. All working great! I even had the fiancee using it.

Then something unknown occurred... and voila! It won't work anymore... except sometimes, and I don't know why.

I am back to just testing the hauppauge mvp server (without GBPVR) for troubleshooting, and I am only going in circles! I have stop/restarted uninstalled, deleted the mvp directory, and reinstalled, tried the direct crossover cable connection, removed my dhcp server from the switch... on and on...

The strangest thing is that I have had it conect and work TOTALLY fine, only to unplug the mvp to test if it will reconnect, and it WONT!!

Contacting servers...


PLEASE HELP! I am going completely NUTS!

[sub]

Sorry I dont know. Maybe your MVP is knackered...

[colin]

Have you installed any new software on your server?
Have you installed and run ethereal to see what is happening over your network?
Do you use VPN? VPN was a big curse for me until someone pointed out it has its own internal firewall which royally screwed things up for me.

As Sub has pointed out below, the steps to boot an MVP are basically a network boot. Have you ever used *nix and done a network install?

Cheers,
Colin.

[Kevina]

Mnemonic,
Sorry to hear you're having such problems. I'm here to tell you that you are not alone (not that this will comfort you much, though!) I was running version 2.3 of the Hauppauge software on my Windows 2000 SP4 server, and all was well. I went to Hauppauge's site and downloaded both versions of the 2.4 software (released and beta versions). I installed each in turn, and was unable to get my MVP to connect with either 2.4 version installed. I then sent a note to Hauppauge support asking for help. I've yet to receive a response (it's been about 3 weeks!)

I then scoured boards and forums for an answer, and discovered that I was not alone. There were numerous users posting the same problems with Windows 2000 SP4 and version 2.4 of Hauppauge's software. I went back to 2.3, and viola! all was well again.

Sorry I don't have a fix, other than rolling back. I can tell you that it apparently works OK on an XP system, although I have not tried this myself.

Hope this helps,
Kevin

[onestar]

Sorry for the slow turnaround on this, but thanks sub for the input.

Here's the reason I started this thread: I have SCOURED again, and again (and I will yet AGAIN...) this forum, the SHS forum and the hauppauge uk forum on the subject of the dreaded "Contacting servers..." endless cycle.


Originally, the server was an entirely different machine running WinXP pro. Runninf version 2.3 of the MediaMVP software, and GBPVR. All working great! I even had the fiancee using it.
.....
The strangest thing is that I have had it conect and work TOTALLY fine, only to unplug the mvp to test if it will reconnect, and it WONT!!

Contacting servers...


PLEASE HELP! I am going completely NUTS!

Okay not a solution but observations from my end

1. Check if another DHCP server is running feeding addresses different from the machine. Would expect that to fail on the rectangle blocks window.

2. Contacting service, when both the hauppauge server software and GBPVR software are running, sometimes it completely gets lost. Switch of the hauppauge software (or the other I suppose) and restart the GBPVR recording service. BTW hauppauge server will only talk on one IP address (if you have more than one network installed), GBPVR will talk on both.

3. Version of dongle ? I read that each version communicates differently, so what level are you using. Don't know how the server knows which way to communicate.

4. Contacting servers, I believe thats when it starts trying to communicate with the GBPVR/Hauppauge server software.

5. The MVP software, seems to give up after an initial fail(s), never seems to be able to start again, once lost, even though the screen keeps "contacting server" - requires a power reboot. I normally find if it has looped 3 times on that contacting screen, needs a power cycle.

6. Check gbpvr.exe.log, sometimes a log is written, might say contacted or not. MIGHT. sometimes I cant find any log entries, but if you do, then might be of help.

7. Sometimes the MVP doesn't seem to be able to reconnect with the server after a disconnect, or recycle. Wait a minute and try again. Sometimes works fine. Don't know why.

[pulp]

So do I need to turn off the DHCP server on my router for the MVP to work? (i.e. will it only accept a DHCP address from the Hauppauge server?)

It seems like with the router DHCP, it keeps rejecting the IP address it gets.

[bluesxman]

So do I need to turn off the DHCP server on my router for the MVP to work? (i.e. will it only accept a DHCP address from the Hauppauge server?)

It seems like with the router DHCP, it keeps rejecting the IP address it gets.

No. To get GBPVR working without running the Hauppague services, it will need a IP address assigned to it by a DHCP server. My router provides my MVP an IP address.

As to why yours isn't working, I don't know. You say it's rejecting it - how do you know this? Are you running a network monitor, if so perhaps posting the output might assist in solving your problem.