tbsCIapi.dll causes DVBViewer to crash at random

[jeffreyvanesch]

Hi All,

 

Since a couple of days I'm noticing that at random moments DVBViewer is continuously crashing and afterwards closing while either trying to watch a live channel or running a frequency (range) scan.

Taking a look at the Windows Event Logs it turns out that the tbsCIapi.dll is responsible for causing these random crashes.

 

Running on Windows 10 using a TBS 5580 USB Tuner combined with a Quantis CI+ module.

Please see the attached Support.zip for more details about this.

support.zip

[Griga]

Same experience here with a TBS 5580 USB, with some variations depending on the PC and the CAM. The tbsCIapi.dll (developed by TBS) is a known source of instability anyway.

 

Some time ago I got the device for testing purpose, but I couldn't make it work properly, with or without CI/CAM. The driver loses data to easily, causing discontinuities (drop-outs, artifacts...most likely due to a bad buffering strategy in the driver), plus occasional crashs as soon as the tbsCIapi.dll is involved... attempts to find work-arounds in the DVBViewer code were to no avail. TBS got a report from me, but nothing happened.

 

Yesterday, after having read your post, I tried again. First I found that the TBS 5580 was almost unusable when connected to a PC with an old DualCore CPU under Windows 10. The stream delivered by the driver was too fragmentary, with and without CI/CAM.

 

Then I changed to a faster PC with i7 CPU under Windows 8.1. Here the stream that arrived in DVBViewer was more complete, but still interrupted by discontinuities. Both encrypted and unencrypted channels were affected. The drop-outs vanished after unticking "Has CI Module" in the DVBViewer hardware options. It disables watching encrypted channels, of course (tbsCIapi.dll is not loaded anymore). With "Has CI Module" I got occasional crashes, and even worse, decryption ceased to function after switching between some encrypted channels, until I performed a kind of reset with Playback -> Playback Off, which releases the tuner and associated stuff like tbsCIapi.dll.

 

Then I tried another CAM, yielding an undisturbed stream. However, the other issues remained.

 

Other DVB devices equipped with the same CAMs do a solid a job here (particularly Digital Devices PCie and DVBSky USB), without drop-outs and crashes. So I think it's up to TBS to fix it. Dunno if they will ever do it...