Can't watch any channels, but scan works (2 Viewers)

RobNorthcott

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    Things are getting freakier now... the tuner card has disappeared completely from Windows and rebooting doesn't bring it back (can't power off because I'm connected remotely). I wonder if the card's connection to the PCIe slot is a bit flaky - I'll try taking it out and reseating it later when I get a chance and see if that helps - perhaps it's not purely a software problem after all. Hopefully it's not a motherboard fault... if the tuner is dodgy it's relatively cheap and easy to replace - motherboard would be much more of a pain :(
     

    RobNorthcott

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    OK, had the machine apart and reseated everything. I'm convinced it's not a problem with the tuner now because exactly the same thing happens with the USB DVB-T tuner as with the PCIe DVB-S. All tuners can run a channel scan but fail to start graph when trying to watch or record anything. I've also got a separate EPG grabbing program that uses the DVB-S tuner and that still works fine.

    Another odd thing I've just noticed is that MP can't delete recordings anymore. It looks like it's the tvservice that does that, and the log just says "could not delete recording" (logs attached in case anybody can see anything else I've missed). The tvservice is running as the normal Windows user (same as I log into the machine with), which is an administrator and has full access to the recordings drive (just a local SSD). I tried giving all users full rights to the directory just in case but that made no difference. I can delete files through Windows (which should be the same user as MP and tvservice are using).

    I suspect this is probably related to the "start graph" problem if there's some weird user rights stuff going on.

    MP is able to play back recordings and videos fine, just not from the tuners. I've tried moving the timeshift directory onto another drive (it's normally on a RAM disk) but that didn't help either.

    Anybody got any more ideas?
     

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    CyberSimian

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    The tvservice is running as the normal Windows user (same as I log into the machine with)
    Is that true? I was under the impression that because TV Server is a service, it runs under its own security context, and not the security context of the logged-on user.

    Since moving to a Windows 10 laptop a couple of months ago (from WinXP), I have found that file and folder authorisations seem to change for no apparent reason (i.e. not as a result of something that I did). In one case, one of my batch scripts failed because the logged-on user (me!) did not have execute access to a required EXE (despite that fact that the logged-on user was part of the administrators group). In another case, I did not have write access to a folder.

    As a member of the adminstrators group, I was able to use the "Security" tab in Windows Explorer to delete all of the existing authorisations, and then give myself unrestricted access. So not difficult to solve, but possibly puzzling to identify as the cause of the problem if not expecting a problem with authorisations.

    Anybody got any more ideas?
    There is the "nuclear fission" option:
    • Uninstall MP; delete all leftover MP folders; re-install MP.
    And there is the "nuclear fusion" option:
    • Boot from a Windows installer; format your "C:" drive; re-install Windows; re-install MP. Remember to back-up any important files currently on the "C:" drive before you format it.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    doskabouter

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    I'm still a bit puzzled by this:
    System.Management.ManagementException: Invalid class
    It could be that due to that, tvservice isn't able to initialize some parts of it, and that that is preventing proper playback/deleting etc
    It seems related to performance counters, see f.e. https://support.serverdensity.com/h...-Management-ManagementException-Invalid-class

    It could be that is is "normal" for win10, can't check that myself as I'm staying far away from win10
    @CyberSimian : can you check your logs for errors like that to rule out previous assumption?
     

    RobNorthcott

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    @CyberSimian , the tvservice runs as a system user by default, but I changed it a couple of years ago to run as the normal user so it access (and delete) files on my nas. Yes, reinstalling from scratch is the brute-force solution... I haven't quite given up yet though :)

    @doskabouter , you may be onto something there - I've been running MP on Windows 10 for years with no problems, and that error doesn't appear in any of the old MP log backups I've got. I'll look into that and see if that may be something to do with what's going wrong.

    Thanks again for the replies folks.
     

    RobNorthcott

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    Well it's not disabled performance counters on this machine, but it seems there are all sorts of causes of that error. It definitely wasn't happening before, so worth a bit more poking around I reckon before giving up and reinstalling the lot.
     

    CyberSimian

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    the tvservice runs as a system user by default, but I changed it a couple of years ago to run as the normal user so it access (and delete) files on my nas.
    Well, I have a NAS too, but I did not have to change TV Server in order to be able to copy files to it, and delete files from it. However, I use the NAS as an extension of "Videos", not as the "Recorded TV" folder (if that is what you were wanting to achieve). I run a script weekly to copy files from the "Recorded TV" folder to various locations, one of which is a folder tree on the NAS. As far as I recollect, a NAS is not recommended for use as the "Recorded TV" folder.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    RobNorthcott

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    Well, I have a NAS too, but I did not have to change TV Server in order to be able to copy files to it, and delete files from it. However, I use the NAS as an extension of "Videos", not as the "Recorded TV" folder (if that is what you were wanting to achieve). I run a script weekly to copy files from the "Recorded TV" folder to various locations, one of which is a folder tree on the NAS. As far as I recollect, a NAS is not recommended for use as the "Recorded TV" folder.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
    I'm not recording straight to the NAS (recordings directory is on a local SSD), but there are some old files that were moved to the NAS that for "family acceptance" reasons had to stay visible in the recordings menu in MP. But I couldn't give the system user that tvservice was running under rights to delete files from the NAS (without just making it a free-for-all), so it was suggested (in another thread on here I think) that I changed the service to run as the normal user, which has full rights to that NAS directory. That setup has been working fine for a couple of years now though.

    The "invalid class" error, on the other hand, does seem to have appeared recently along with the other strange behaviour. I may end up giving up and reinstalling from scratch, but it annoys me that I can't find the cause of the problem.
     

    doskabouter

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    I think the user the tvservice is normally running (local service account) as doesn't have any network access, so no opening up anything would help here.
    Running as a "normal" user is indeed the only way to have networked folders available.
    As for the invalid class... didn't find anything useful?
    And a rescan of channels, (after deleting all channels and restarting service, to make sure the restore of the settings doesn't interfere as far as channels are concerned) would that help, or did you already try that?
    If you're going to reinstall, you can just as well do some "destructive" tests
     

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