HDHomerun Prime says all tuners busy, MP says only using one (1 Viewer)

[Jamie Murdock]

MP refuses to record or watch with more than one tuner. The TV Config says two are idle, but I get no tuner available or "cannot create graph" when I try to use a second tuner. If I open HDHomeRun web admin, it says the PC with the MP server is using all three tuners and is taking data from them.

I have reboot and reset the HDHR tuners.

Not sure if this is related, but I recently renamed every channel to make the names more sensible. I changed the IMDB grabber to match. That seemed to work out OK. I do not know if this new trouble is related.

Thanks!
Jamie

 

[mm1352000]

Hello again Jamie

Let's clear up the easy part first. The channel name doesn't make any difference for the purpose of tuning, so the problem is unrelated to your renaming.

Now, in relation to the problem...

First, are you aware that in your latest log file TV Server only detects 2 out of the 3 PRIME tuners?
That may be one reason you are seeing the messages you're seeing, and leads to another question: have you installed the patch from here?
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...for-mediaportal-1.112585/page-63#post-1056643

That patch is intended to solve problems exactly like that, so if you haven't installed it then please do.

Second, do you run any firewalls?
If not configured correctly, firewalls can prevent the PRIME's tuners from unlocking when they become idle. Eventually you'll get into a situation where the PRIME thinks all of its tuners are in use (as shown in your screenshots) when TV Server isn't actually using them. Once a tuner is locked, TV Server won't use it. That's why you've got all the messages like this in your log file:
[2015-09-30 07:55:34,221] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [ERROR] - Exception :TvLibrary.TvExceptionGraphBuildingFailed: DRI CC: tuner appears to be in use
at TvLibrary.Implementations.Dri.TunerDri.BuildGraph()
at TvLibrary.Implementations.Dri.TunerDri.BeforeTune(IChannel channel)
at TvLibrary.Implementations.DVB.TvCardATSC.Tune(Int32 subChannelId, IChannel channel)


Regards,
mm

 

[Jamie Murdock]

Thank you mm.
I did apply the patch in July and believe it fixed missing tuners. I did notice the missing tuner but this was unusual.

I just turned off Windows firewall, but the I still can't use more than one tuner. I checked HDHR and it thinks only one tuner is in use now. The HDHR Setup utility has no problems using the other tuners, which was not the case before - they were flagged as busy.

Here are new logs.
thanks!
Jamie

 

[mm1352000]

I did apply the patch in July and believe it fixed missing tuners. I did notice the missing tuner but this was unusual.

Okay. In these latest log files TV Server has access to all 3 of your tuners again, so let's put this aside at least for the moment. The only other thing I'll add is to remind you that the patch needs to be reapplied after every MediaPortal upgrade or reinstallation.

I just turned off Windows firewall, but the I still can't use more than one tuner.

In order to free up your tuners you would also need to power cycle the HDHR. Did you do that?

I checked HDHR and it thinks only one tuner is in use now. The HDHR Setup utility has no problems using the other tuners, which was not the case before - they were flagged as busy.

I can't comment about HDHR Setup as it is completely separate to MediaPortal.

From a TV Server perspective, here's what happened since you restarted TV Server at 9:40 PM.
All 3 tuners were detected.
Immediately, TV Server tried to start recording "Modern Family" on channel "6 ABC WLNE".
At the time, the first tuner (3) seems to have been in use. I can't tell if that's an after effect from the earlier issues, or you were using it in HDHR Setup, or something else.
Anyhow, the second tuner (4) was usable so TV Server used that to complete the recording.
That recording completed 1 minute later (9:41 PM). Now TV Server is not using any tuners.
Next action was at 9:46 when TV Server started recording "E.0. Wilson -- Of Ants and Men" on channel "2 PBS WGBH".
Again, tuner 3 appears to be in use externally and tuner 4 works fine.
Immediately after starting that recording, TV Server also tried to start recording "Empire" on channel "11 FOX WNAC".
Tuner 3 still appears to be in use externally; tuner 4 is in use for recording as mentioned above; tuner 5 is tried for the first time, and it also appears to be in use externally. So, the "Empire" recording fails to start.
It's at this point that I see you try to start viewing "24 Discovery".
Tuner statuses are the same as before. Both tuner 3 and 5 are not being used by TV Server, but they appear to be in use externally so TV Server can't touch them... and tuner 4 is recording.
TV Server continues to try and start recording "Empire", but the tuner statuses don't change so the recording continues to fail. This is expected if you don't power cycle the tuner to reset all the tuner statuses.
In the meantime I also see you try to view "11 FOX WNAC", "10 NBC WJAR", "9 CW WLWC", "8 RIPBS WSBE" etc. etc. etc. and get the same error every time for the reasons explained above.


Where do you go from here?
Well, like I said above: it is not enough to simply disable the firewall. You must also power cycle the HDHR to clear the tuner connections. If you don't do that, TV Server will continue to be locked out of the tuners that were previously not unlocked.

Regards,
mm

 

[Jamie Murdock]

Power cycling the HDHR unlocked everything and I can now use all three tuners. I am sorry I did not think of that before asking for your analysis.

Could a firewall issue cause the TV Service to quit every once in a while? About every other week the service quits and nothing records until I restart it manually.

Is there a built in way to detect the service has halted and automatically restart it? Maybe I could create a windows task and 5 minute schedule that watches the service and restart it if it terminates?

Thank you for your support!
Jamie

 

[mm1352000]

Power cycling the HDHR unlocked everything and I can now use all three tuners. I am sorry I did not think of that before asking for your analysis.

Great, and don't worry about it.

Could a firewall issue cause the TV Service to quit every once in a while? About every other week the service quits and nothing records until I restart it manually.

No, a firewall definitely can't do that.

Without log files I'm out on a limb speculating a bit here...
For awhile I've been aware of an issue with the component used for receiving the stream from CableCARD tuners (the IPTV filter) that may be causing the crash. If you're willing to be a bit of a "guinea pig" I can provide a patch that may give you more stability. The patch has had a little bit of testing internally, so we know it is basically functional. Are you up for it?

Is there a built in way to detect the service has halted and automatically restart it? Maybe I could create a windows task and 5 minute schedule that watches the service and restart it if it terminates?

If you don't want to try the patch (or the patch doesn't solve the problem), it might be easier to simply reconfigure the service to restart automatically.
I run Windows XP still, but I'm pretty sure the following options should be available on newer versions of Windows too.
If you open the list of services (services.msc), find the "TVService", right click, select "properties", go to the "recovery" tab...


...there you should be able to change the "take no action" options to "restart the service".

Hope that helps.

mm

 

[Jamie Murdock]

I would like to try your patch. I have also enabled the TV Service recovery, thank you.

Will automatic service recovery mask any crashes from being observed? How do you want me to collect data so that we can see if the patch has worked?

 

[mm1352000]

I would like to try your patch.

Great.

Here are the installation instructions:

1. Open TV Server Configuration.
2. Go to the "manual control" section.
3. Click "stop service".
4. Close TV Server Configuration.
5. Open Windows Explorer.
6. Navigate to your TV Server installation folder (typically c:\Program Files (x86)\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server).
7. Take a backup of MPIPTV_RTSP.dll.
8. Download and extract the attached patched DLL into your TV Server installation folder.
9. Open TV Server Configuration (click "yes" to start the service).

You're now good to go.

To be clear, this patch does not have any effect on the firewall/unlocking thing that we discussed earlier. It's only for the crashes. Resolving the firewall issue is a matter of configuring the firewall. If I recall correctly, in addition to giving TVService.exe access to your network, you may also have to tweak an obscure ICMP setting. If you're only using the Windows firewall then this thread may help you:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/hdhomerun-prime-tuner-locked.124328/#post-1061172

Note: the "RtspTeardownRequestTimeout" tweak mentioned in the posts following the one linked above should not be necessary (and won't work) with the patch.

Will automatic service recovery mask any crashes from being observed?

Yes, it will be more difficult for both of us to notice/identify them.

How do you want me to collect data so that we can see if the patch has worked?

I'd like to check that you've actually been experiencing the problem that the patch is intended to solve. To that end, I'd be grateful if you could use the Watchdog tool with option 3 to export your existing log files and attach the resulting zip file here. If you can remember the date and/or time when the last crash occurred then it would be really helpful to have that information too.

Going forward with the patch...
If you have automatic recovery enabled then it is unlikely that you will observe the effects of crashes. I may be able to dig them up from the Windows application event log if you post a further log file export after a week. I don't mind doing that... though I'm not sure how often you were experiencing crashes, so maybe a week is not long enough?

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again Jamie

I'm just a bit curious about whether you've managed to test the patch...

 

[Jamie Murdock]

I am sorry for not responding sooner. I installed your patch in October and I have not experienced the issue since. Last month I then updated to the latest release of MP1 and everything is still good. Did that overwrite the patch?

This issue still seems resolved, thanks!