Problems with recordings - seems to be multiple recordings at once (1 Viewer)

[Ronski]

We seem to be experiencing problems recording, and I hope somebody can help. I'm extremely short on time, and if I spend too much time 'on the pc' I get get grief from the wife, and when programs don't record I get grief so I can't win, but at least with catch up TV we can still watch the programs.

I Have a WHS2011 system with a quad tuner with just MP1 TV Server running on it, and various PC's around the house with MP 1 installed to allow watching of TV and recordings. The server spec is in my profile.

On Sunday (7 Feb) night at 20:00 there was at least two, possibly three programs set to record, and none of them recorded although they showed in the guide as recording, there wasn't even any files created. Live TV worked fine, and at about 22:15 I installed 1.13 on the server thus upgrading from 1.12

Last night there was three programs set to record at 20:00, whilst files were created they were corrupt and couldn't be played, there was also a program set to record at 21:00 and this has recorded ok.

I can't find the Watchdog program on the server, so have simply zipped up the logs folder, I hope this contains enough info for someone to be able to help.

Sorry if the above is a bit rushed, just posting this before rushing off to work.

 

[mm1352000]

Thanks for the report Ronski

In the case of the 7 February recordings, I'm sorry to say that I'm unable to investigate. It appears that your update to 1.13 wiped the older log files. Therefore unfortunately I have nothing to go on.

In the case of the 9 February recordings, I can see TV Server starting the 20:00 recordings as scheduled. There are some continuity errors in the TsWriter log during those recordings, which essentially means that the stream that TV Server received from your tuners was missing chunks. That may be why they're unplayable.

How big are each of the 3 recording files?
Are you sure that the "The Secret Life of the Zoo" recording is unplayable?
How full is the H: drive that you're recording to?
Do you run any software that could have been heavily using the H: drive?
Do you run any security software (Windows Defender, anti-virus etc.), and if yes, have you checked to ensure that it is configured to trust TvService.exe and not scan recording and time-shift folders? (Note that depending on the software, you may have to re-configure or update configuration after updating TV Server.)

I can see 2 recordings starting at 21:00:
[2016-02-09 20:57:14,978] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record Channel 4 HD 20:57-22:00 The Supervet
[2016-02-09 20:57:15,239] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record BBC One HD 20:57-22:00 Happy Valley

There are more continuity errors in the TsWriter log file between ~20:57 and 21:03.

Are you certain both of these recordings are okay?

 

[Ronski]

Thanks for taking the time to look, I had initially thought the earlier logs were in the old log sub folder, but it would appear not.

I have had this problem in the past, and it seemed to be related to when recording 3 or more programs at the same time, but when I manually recorded more that 4 programs at once it worked fine, but it seems to have happened again.

19:57 Holby City - 94,631KB. This doesn't play in MP, but if played in VLC it is very blocky at times, but otherwise mainly grey or black screen with some sound.
19:57 The Secret Life of the Zoo - 4.99GB. This appears to have recorded properly, I've skipped through it and didn't notice any problems
19:57 Sugar Free Farm - 557KB - if played in VLC it plays about a second of audio with no picture.
20:57 The Supervet - this appears to have recorded properly, I've skipped through it and didn't notice any problems
20:57 Happy Valley - this appears to have recorded properly, I've skipped through it and didn't notice any problems

I don't run any antivirus on my server I just occasionally use Malwarebyte to do a manual scan, which I just did and no threats found.

Drive H is actually a drive pool created by StableBit DrivePool, and the free space is 4.63TB, I also use StableBit scanner and that reports no problems and all drives as healthy. The timeshift folder is on a SSD which is not part of the drive pool. No software that uses the drive heavily is installed.

We do get some blockyness or poor pictures, but this is very occasional and normally when the wind is strong and I guess blowing the dish around, we never have long drop outs of the signal.

Is it possible to tell if it's one particular tuner that's affected, or perhaps one of the 4 frequency ranges of the satellite signal?

 

[mm1352000]

I had initially thought the earlier logs were in the old log sub folder, but it would appear not.

Yeah, the log files in the old sub-folder are essentially empty.

I have had this problem in the past, and it seemed to be related to when recording 3 or more programs at the same time, but when I manually recorded more that 4 programs at once it worked fine, but it seems to have happened again.

TBS tuners sometimes have a problem in that when [for example] tuner D is loaded, it may stop any streams from tuners A, B and C. Without taking all day to explain why it happens and how your system's symptoms fit, I think this may be what's happening to you. This theory would explain everything I've seen in your log files so far, as well as the quoted comment above. To resolve, I suggest you enable preloading for all your tuners. You can find the preload setting here:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...nfiguration/02_TV_Servers#Edit_Tuner_Settings

 

[Ronski]

I've applied the preload setting and left it set to stop card. Thank you very much for your help and hopefully this will resolve the problem, I'm impressed with the help I've received with this and have made a donation to the cause.