DVB-T EPG grabber blocks tuners, TV Server will not be able to use them again (1 Viewer)

[doveman]

@doveman
I labelled your post off-topic because enabling/disabling certain channels to enable the PC to go to sleep is entirely irrelevant to the problem at hand.

Please re-read the topic, first post, and my first post -->here<-- for the details of what this thread is about.
I'll summarise in other words for your convenience. The problem is that use of the EPG grabber prevents reuse of the tuner for anything. Timeshifting, recording. Everything. This is known as deadlock. The tuner is totally locked and it makes MP unresponsive as well.

Enabling/disabling channels may or may not be a valid workaround... but this is a bug-report. We're trying to investigate and find real solutions to the problem.

Bug reports are treated differently to other threads in the forum. We commit ourselves to investigate problems reported here, and in return we absolutely 100% require logs and full information. While bug reports are open for public input, we do have a more strict view and process when dealing with them. I'm sure your intentions were good but speculation about a second poster's issue before they've posted logs and after I've inferred that certain logs are required is not appreciated.

Ultimately this is igalan's bug report and I'm here to investigate his problem. If other people think they have the same problem that is fine, but please let them post logs as I requested so I can confirm.

So... I'm sorry if you felt that label was rude, but I genuinely feel like you either have not understood the topic of the thread or don't understand that we hold posts in bug report threads to higher standards.

Fair enough, obviously I didn't realise how strict you are about dealing with bug reports.

I realise igalan's problem isn't that his PC isn't going to sleep but just thought it might be a variation on the bug I experienced when the grabber was stuck in a constant loop and maybe that was locking his tuner. Disabling channels in the grabber isn't a workaround for UK DVB-T by the way, it is necessary to only have one channel selected for the grabber to work properly and avoid it getting stuck in this loop.

Anyway, I know now that my attempts to assist aren't appreciated so I'll be more careful in future. Thanks for taking the time to clarify your position.

 

[mm1352000]

I realise igalan's problem isn't that his PC isn't going to sleep but just thought it might be a variation on the bug I experienced when the grabber was stuck in a constant loop and maybe that was locking his tuner.

Personally I do not recognise this as a "bug" because the grabber is not "stuck" in any loop (though it may appear to be so). If you configure the grabber to grab on all channels then... well, it will grab on all channels until it has received EPG from each channel. So to be clear, I'd call this a misconfiguration.

Disabling channels in the grabber isn't a workaround for UK DVB-T by the way, it is necessary to only have one channel selected for the grabber to work properly and avoid it getting stuck in this loop.

When I said "workaround" I was referring to the use of this technique as a means to deal with the [different] problem described in this thread.

However, in direct response to your comment, I would also say that if the grabber is preventing you (or people that use DVB-T in the UK) from using your (their) tuner(s) for other things... *that* is a bug (which should be reported separately). It would be a bug because normally user tune requests are prioritised over the EPG grabber. In other words, even if the grabber is grabbing almost continuously due to misconfiguration, MP/TV Server should still respond successfully to your attempts to view/record channels.

I note that I recall dealing with a related issue for you in the days of MP 1.2.x. That issue has been (or should have been) solved in MP 1.3+. If there is still an issue, you should report it.

Anyway, I know now that my attempts to assist aren't appreciated so I'll be more careful in future. Thanks for taking the time to clarify your position.

Reading between the lines here, it seems like I've caused offence where it was not intended.
<sigh>
Your attempts to help are appreciated. As I already said, I'm sure your intentions were good.
Equally I hope you understand my labelling of your post as off topic was not a personal attack or in any way intended to be rude. I use labels as a practical way to cut down on the time it takes to respond in the forum and as a rating of post content (in its context). In this specific case it was intended to be taken as "this advice is not a solution to the problem reported by igalan".

Here is the problem (as I see it): interjections with information that are not directly relevant to a problem can cause threads to get off topic and go off on tangents... like this thread is doing right now. I am particularly sensitive to this when it comes to bug reports.

So rather than offering lots of general advice or jumping to [potentially incorrect] conclusions about a problem up front, I'd appreciate it if you could hold such advice until further information had been provided and the relevance of your advice becomes clear.

 

[doveman]

Personally I do not recognise this as a "bug" because the grabber is not "stuck" in any loop (though it may appear to be so). If you configure the grabber to grab on all channels then... well, it will grab on all channels until it has received EPG from each channel. So to be clear, I'd call this a misconfiguration.

I agree that it's not really a "bug", more that it's not obvious from TV Server config that only one channel should be ticked (for UK DVB-T users at least) which can lead to misconfiguration (it's natural for users to see "Grab EPG for these channels" and think they need to tick the ones they want and tick "Store data only for selected channels") and then it ends up grabbing the entire EPG from each channel and because this takes so long, it then starts again from the first channel again as soon as it's finished grabbing from the last channel. I haven't tested if this still happens recently and as it only happens when misconfigured, it's not worth spending any time on to see if it can be fixed. Perhaps a way to help avoid this confusion would be to put a warning/link on the TV EPG Grabber tab which would open a wiki page explaining how it should be configured for different countries. I'm sure this information is probably already in the Wiki somewhere but I expect users tend to only look at the Wiki when they're confused about something and it appears to be obvious what should be ticked on this tab, so they probably won't think they need to look for advice but unfortunately what appears to be obvious is wrong in some situations.

When I said "workaround" I was referring to the use of this technique as a means to deal with the [different] problem described in this thread.

Yeah I know, I was just clarifying that this technique is needed for UK DVB-T, mainly just in case someone read this thread and thought that there's a bug that needs to be fixed for UK DVB-T, when there isn't.

However, in direct response to your comment, I would also say that if the grabber is preventing you (or people that use DVB-T in the UK) from using your (their) tuner(s) for other things... *that* is a bug (which should be reported separately). It would be a bug because normally user tune requests are prioritised over the EPG grabber. In other words, even if the grabber is grabbing almost continuously due to misconfiguration, MP/TV Server should still respond successfully to your attempts to view/record channels.

I note that I recall dealing with a related issue for you in the days of MP 1.2.x. That issue has been (or should have been) solved in MP 1.3+. If there is still an issue, you should report it.

No, I'm not having any issues since learning how to properly configure the grabber. As I said in my first post in this thread, I thought that the grabber should be overridden by other requests and it was probably unlikely that my suggested settings would therefore fix igalan's problem but as it appears that this override is not working for him as it should, I thought it was worth a shot for him to try my settings as I don't have this problem.

Reading between the lines here, it seems like I've caused offence where it was not intended.
<sigh>
Your attempts to help are appreciated. As I already said, I'm sure your intentions were good.
Equally I hope you understand my labelling of your post as off topic was not a personal attack or in any way intended to be rude. I use labels as a practical way to cut down on the time it takes to respond in the forum and as a rating of post content (in its context). In this specific case it was intended to be taken as "this advice is not a solution to the problem reported by igalan".

Here is the problem (as I see it): interjections with information that are not directly relevant to a problem can cause threads to get off topic and go off on tangents... like this thread is doing right now. I am particularly sensitive to this when it comes to bug reports.

So rather than offering lots of general advice or jumping to [potentially incorrect] conclusions about a problem up front, I'd appreciate it if you could hold such advice until further information had been provided and the relevance of your advice becomes clear.

I wasn't offended and I appreciate that you recognise that my intentions were good but you did say "speculation about a second poster's issue before they've posted logs and after I've inferred that certain logs are required is not appreciated." and as that's what I did in my misguided attempt to help then you've told me it wasn't appreciated. You've explained how serious you are about dealing with bug reports and I'm not really able to understand the logs, so even if I'd waited until they had been posted I wouldn't have been able to do any more than offer my advice to igalan based on what's working for me in case it helped him. As I said, I've taken what you've said on board and I'll be more reserved about offering advice in future unless I'm fairly certain that I have the solution to the problem.

I think my issue with the Off-Topic label is that this is commonly used on other forums as a way of putting down users or even as a formal warning system for posting about completely irrelevant stuff in a thread and whilst my advice might have been misguided and not the solution, I didn't feel it deserved to be marked OT. If it's understood on this board that it's not used in this context but to just indicate that "the advice given is not the solution" and that the OP shouldn't pay much attention to it, then that's OK and I won't be so sensitive about it in future

 

[igalan]

Sorry for not posting back, I haven't received any email notification since my second or third post, so I didn't knew new answers were being made.

Anyway, I disabled CRC check and EPG for Canal Catala Barcelona (as tipped by mm1352000.) With this set up I've had zero problems with the TV server for the last two weeks, where before it would misbehave every odd day.

So do I use the patched TsWriter.ax?

 

[nimrodel50]

Hi All I have the same exact problem, and doing what igalan did didn't help me at all. I will collect my logs and attach them here as soon as I can.

 

[Requiem]

Ok, now I have disabled grabbing again. The TV service freezes from time to time when grabbing is enabled (1.4pre), no idea why. Restarting it doesn't work, only a complete restart of the server works.
Furthermore, the grabber- and TV-Service error logs are zero-byte-files, so I cannot attach any relevant logs.

 

[nimrodel50]

Here are the logs, now I'm trying the new tswriter that is trying to fix that I will post if it helps.

 

[mm1352000]

Ok, now I have disabled grabbing again. The TV service freezes from time to time when grabbing is enabled (1.4pre), no idea why. Restarting it doesn't work, only a complete restart of the server works.

This is typical of the deadlock issue. It prevents the TV service from being started or stopped.

Furthermore, the grabber- and TV-Service error logs are zero-byte-files, so I cannot attach any relevant logs.

Hmmm, that is new to me. I've never seen that before.

 

[mm1352000]

Here are the logs, now I'm trying the new tswriter that is trying to fix that I will post if it helps.

I confirm you have the same deadlock problem as igalan.
Please do report your results with the TsWriter.

[edit: In case you're interested, I saw your deadlock start after grabbing on "25 TV"... five times!

[2013-05-29 19:14:26,654]
[2013-05-31 20:42:16,790]
[2013-06-01 21:08:51,820]
[2013-06-03 21:49:16,287]
[2013-06-05 19:59:11,323]

So maybe also try disable grabbing for that channel if the TsWriter doesn't help. Even if the TsWriter does help, disabling grabbing for that channel would be a good test.]

@igalan
That's really interesting. Thanks for reporting.
Maybe... just to really try to narrow down the issue... could you enable CRC checking again and see if that is the problem.
You'd be welcome to try the TsWriter if you like. Certainly there should be no harm from doing that, but in the interests of isolating the cause please test one thing at a time. If you're willing, the test list would be:
1. CRC checking enabled.
2. Re-enable grabbing for that channel, with CRC checking disabled.
3. Other TsWriter for all channels with CRC checking enabled.

 

[igalan]

Ok, I'm going to enable CRC check and see what happens. I also have this 25 TV channel, but EPG is disabled for it because it's on the same mux as Canal Català which was the one I had enabled to grab EPG. It seems that channels have EPG for every other channel in a mux, at lest it works that way in Barcelona.