JoeH Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 Switching channels tonight the Recording Service crashed completely. The Web Interface was no longer responsive. Channels could not be viewed. I stopped the service but then could not restart it without rebooting the computer. While the service was crashed (before I stopped the service) I took a support.zip snapshot. Here it is! Link to comment
JoeH Posted November 6, 2010 Author Share Posted November 6, 2010 I have found a possible cause for the Recording Service crash. I have three Floppy-DTV's installed. Today I noticed that the problems seem to always be related to ONE of these cards, which is sometimes having problems. I don't know yet if it is a hardware or driver problem, but I have confirmed that it is giving problems even when I turn off the Recording Service. I would guess that what could be happening is that the Recording Service is expecting some sort of response / behaviour from the Floppy-DTV which it is not getting, which causes it to crash. Link to comment
Nealeb Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 (edited) I am seeing the same thing. I have already mentioned this (last reply) but I'm not sure that that is exactly the same problem mentioned in that thread. In my case, the recording service seems to stop responding to anything - cannot be stopped as a Windows service (Windows just reports "Stopping" but it never stops), DVBV cannot connect to it for live TV, web interface to the recording service does not respond, and recordings are not made. Only a reboot can fix it, which is a bit of a problem when I am using the PC as a PVR with sleep/resume. I am including another support.zip file as the problem occurred again yesterday evening. The recording service appears to stop writing to the log file at 07.11.10 22:10:01.086 which was about the time that one recording finished although another recording should have still been continuing (left a zero length .mpg file); the next entry comes from when I rebooted. At least it is reassuring to know that someone else is seeing the same problem - it's not just me! I am using a completely different TV tuner card (Kworld dual PCI DVB-T) so I would guess that it is not a hardware fault? I believe that I am running the latest vendor driver for Win7. support.zip Edited November 8, 2010 by Nealeb Link to comment
JoeH Posted November 8, 2010 Author Share Posted November 8, 2010 Nealab, in the past I have encountered the same problem you mention when the Recording Service won't even stop - it just says "Stopping" but never stops, although I haven't seen it recently. Another thought - even if my crash was caused by a momentary hardware problem (note - the card I have which gives problems only does so occasionally), the ideal would be that the Recording Service act like the DVBViewer client. I have never seen the client crash, even when my card which sometimes acts up is acting up! Link to comment
Nealeb Posted November 10, 2010 Share Posted November 10, 2010 When the recording service has hung, I have tried killing the process via Task Manager but never been able to restart the service afterwards. So it's back to the reboot! It's a pity as the recording service works very well apart from that, and I never saw the problem with XP and a previous version of the RS. One day it will be fixed... Link to comment
JoeH Posted November 11, 2010 Author Share Posted November 11, 2010 FYI, I think I have fixed my "hardware" problem - there were a couple of cables which were slightly loose in the FloppyDTV cards (which have a lot of internal cables...). Link to comment
Nealeb Posted November 14, 2010 Share Posted November 14, 2010 FYI, I think I have fixed my "hardware" problem - there were a couple of cables which were slightly loose in the FloppyDTV cards (which have a lot of internal cables...). But has it fixed the "software" problem? Any more hangs since? Link to comment
JoeH Posted November 14, 2010 Author Share Posted November 14, 2010 I'm not sure - I turned off the Recording Service when the hangs became common, hoping to turn it back on when the next release came out. That is currently my plan, so I'll report back on it a week or so after I install the next release. Link to comment
Nealeb Posted November 26, 2010 Share Posted November 26, 2010 (edited) I was having a look at the release notes for Recording Service, looking for inspiration or clues, and found mention of the thumbnail generator tool. It appears to run after a recording and, somehow, chooses a frame from that recording to create a thumbnail image. Hadn't heard about this before so I had a play with it. Interestingly, sometimes it worked, but sometimes it just seemed to hang, not doing a lot, and never finished. So I disabled it (using the suggestion in the release notes by renaming it) and I have not seen an RS hang since. I'm not saying that this is the problem but it is plausible. Say the RS calls the thumbnail generator after each recording and waits for it to finish. But if the thumbnail tool never finishes? You might see this effect. I'm making a lot of assumptions here, but disabling something that I never even knew existed and that doesn't seem very useful anyway can't do any harm! It's certainly true that I live in an area with patchy Freeview reception and I know that sometimes my recordings have a fair number of errors in them - maybe the thumbnail generator can't cope with that? If I'm feeling brave one day and don't have any important timers lined up I might try re-enabling it, then looking to see if its process is running when I get an RS hang. Next step would be to kill the thumbnail process and see what happens. Edit - in an unusual burst of inspiration, I have just had a look at the debug log that I posted above. The very last entry in the log before I had to reboot to restart the service says, "...Createthumb...". Coincidence? If you look through that log searching for "createthumb" and then look at the timestamp on the following log entry, you see that if there was no immediate "success" message then there is a long gap - because RS had hung and I had to reboot. Every time! If I look back at an old log I see exactly the same thing. That's more than a coincidence, I think! Finger of suspicion pointed clearly at "Createthumb". I don't think that I shall bother re-enabling it for testing purposes - I think that I have found my problem. Fortunately, one that I can easily solve without any side-effect. Just disable the thumbnail creator (vthumbs.exe in the DVBViewer application folder). Edited November 26, 2010 by Nealeb Link to comment
majstang Posted November 26, 2010 Share Posted November 26, 2010 Well, if you had done some searching around in the Recording Service threads there is several posts pinponting vthumbs.exe causing RS crashes. For example this thread: http://www.DVBViewer.tv/forum/topic/40360-recording-service-crash/ Did honestly thought this issue was fixed, but apparently not. Good to know though if upgrading RS in future the vthumbs.exe will be reactivated. Link to comment
aht961 Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 (edited) Switching channels tonight the Recording Service crashed completely. The Web Interface was no longer responsive. Channels could not be viewed. I stopped the service but then could not restart it without rebooting the computer. While the service was crashed (before I stopped the service) I took a support.zip snapshot. Here it is! I am having exactly the same problem here and could not sort it out. I have got 2 fireDTV cards, and during changing channels from tuner 1 to tuner 2 (both have different subscription cards), the RS crashes. It cannot be restarted and cannot be killed using the Task Manager. Only reboot helps. Thereafter it functions for a while, but then the same problem once again. Without RS, DVBViewer functions as it should be and both tuners and subcription cards do their job. Without RS, though, the recording functions of the DVBViewer are too limited. Any suggestions? (I removed the thumbs.exe - that does not help either). Edited April 2, 2011 by aht961 Link to comment
majstang Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Why do you have different driver versions for your firedvt:s? Link to comment
aht961 Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Why do you have different driver versions for your firedvt:s? I have noticed that as well. However, it does not hold true. Please see the file attached here. This info is obtained using the tuner's support tool, which indicates that both tuners have the same fw as well as same drivers (5.0 (6070-3000)FireDTV_support.txt). Link to comment
majstang Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 I have noticed that as well. However, it does not hold true. Please see the file attached here. This info is obtained using the tuner's support tool, which indicates that both tuners have the same fw as well as same drivers (5.0 (6070-3000)FireDTV_support.txt). It is hard to ignore there is something troublesome with the drivers anyway. I would clean them out thouroghly and reinstall and see to it the support tool reports it accurate. Link to comment
JoeH Posted April 2, 2011 Author Share Posted April 2, 2011 Just to follow up on this thread - since I fixed the FireDTV hardware issue I mentioned I haven't had a single crash. The Service is working really well (I'm currently using the latest version). Link to comment
aht961 Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 (edited) FYI, I think I have fixed my "hardware" problem - there were a couple of cables which were slightly loose in the FloppyDTV cards (which have a lot of internal cables...). I don't see any problem with the cables. There is one cable for power, one for firewire and another for antenna, and they are all tightly fit, so seems ok to me. I had RS running in another setting with a USB tuner without major problems but occasional crashes. I hope that I could find a solution, since I am not willing to go back to another live-TV software. All have their shortcomings, these two (DVBViewer and RC) seem to me to be the best so far. But... Edited April 2, 2011 by aht961 Link to comment
JoeH Posted April 2, 2011 Author Share Posted April 2, 2011 @aht961 - just to confirm what you said, those are the cables I was speaking about. In my case they were a little bit loose. Link to comment
aht961 Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 (edited) JoeH: Are you using the "legacy" firewire driver or the Texas Instruments which installs as default in Win 7? I had problems in having the system to recognize 2 firewire tuners earlier, by going back to the legacy driver, I had fixed the problem. However this was the situation a while ago, I don't know if that is sorted out with newer Window upgrades? majstang: I have double checked the driver versions. Both tuners use the very same following driver. FireDTV_BDA_DVBC.sys 5.0.6070.3000 2002-2008 Digital Everywhere I don't know why DVBViewer's support tool picks up probably an older one (a leftover from earlier installations?). How can I locate that manually and remove? Edited April 2, 2011 by aht961 Link to comment
JoeH Posted April 2, 2011 Author Share Posted April 2, 2011 Yeah, I use the legacy driver. I wouldn't be surprised if the problem were fixed by now, but since I haven't seen any announcement about it and am working okay I haven't tried changing. You might want to double check your Firmware version on the FireDTVs as well, as there have been Firmware updates, at least with the S2. I really don't know where you could check on that, however, as I think the FloppyDTV site is now dead. One difference between our setups is that I use 1 FloppyDTV S2 and 1 FloppyDTV T, wheras you have 2 FloppyDTV Cs. Shouldn't make a difference, but there's always the possiblity that there is some problem present in the C version that isn't present in other versions. You could also check threads like this for ideas. Link to comment
aht961 Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 (edited) You might want to double check your Firmware version on the FireDTVs as well, as there have been Firmware updates, at least with the S2. I really don't know where you could check on that, however, as I think the FloppyDTV site is now dead. Thanks for quick reply. With regard to firmware, I have gone through from the very oldest to the newest firmare versions and reported the results in Digital Everywhere's "then" functioning forums. Only with this firmware I could get rif of the annoying glitches (interruptions) I have had with the newer ones which were eventually developed for EyeTV and Os X installations, but, for some reason, did not work with my tuners in my Win 7 environment. Edited April 2, 2011 by aht961 Link to comment
majstang Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 (edited) majstang: I have double checked the driver versions. Both tuners use the very same following driver. FireDTV_BDA_DVBC.sys 5.0.6070.3000 2002-2008 Digital Everywhere Yes, but it is too conspicuous the support tool reporting the wrong driver version for the very tuner that is malfunctioning. I don't know why DVBViewer's support tool picks up probably an older one (a leftover from earlier installations?). How can I locate that manually and remove? Yes, that should be it! You seem to have some leftovers from an older driver version (possibly a version not supported on Win7). Getting rid of the registry leftovers is when things starts to get very complicated. You can always start with uninstalling the current drivers for both cards. Then using registry cleaners is one way to go or simply searching the registry for "Digital Everywhere" and "FireDTV" and remove all these entries. Always do a registry backup before doing any changes in there. Edited April 2, 2011 by majstang Link to comment
aht961 Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 (edited) Yes, but it is too conspicuous the support tool reporting the wrong driver version for the very tuner that is malfunctioning. I had to uninstall/reinstall, removed all codes and reinstalled. Updated BIOS. Upgraded/downgraded the firmware for the FireDTV. Now RS support tool reports identical drives for the tuners. However, RS still crashes while changing channels from one tuner to the other one. It always follows the following scenario. First start the service: fast and no glitches. Tuned to free channels and could change between the channels from the same mux or tuner. Then I go to a payed subscription (subscription X) channel using the same tuner, still no problem, then go to the second tuner and to another payed subscription channel (subscription Y), either at this step or next (when switching back to the other tuner), it crashes. When it crashes, the icon at the tray is still "active", I can open the config page or could tick the "stop" option (but no streaming or web interface), when the icon turns off to gray. However thereafter, no chance to start the RS again except by killing via the task manager. It might be the IDENTICAL tuners (FireDTV), identical CI modules (technisat) it might be the firewire, or the fact of using 2 different subscription cards (Viasat and Canal +). I do not know. I cannot go pass phase 2 without crashing the RS. If I turn off the RS, DVBViewer could switch between the tuners, channels, subscription cards without any problems. Any suggestions? Lars, please? Could you see from the log when and why the RS crashes? PS: I have posted the support tool earlier, and nothing has changed since. However, if needed I can issue another one when I get home later today. Edited April 13, 2011 by aht961 Link to comment
aht961 Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 (edited) ... PS: I have posted the support tool earlier, and nothing has changed since. However, if needed I can issue another one when I get home later today. In case if any body wants to look at this, the new support.zip is attached. Edited April 13, 2011 by aht961 Link to comment
Recommended Posts