Installed new TBS6985 DVB-S2 tuner card and DiSEqC switch won't work, + other issues (2 Viewers)

[clarkebelt]

You're right, mm1352000. There is no permanent transponder on that frequency but I ran a scan of Port A, C band, tone switch off and exported it to an .ini file so I could see all the results, and it looks like this:

;File generated by TBS Card - http://www.tbsdtv.com
[SATTYPE]
1=
2=
[DVB]
0=15
1=4101,V,30000
2=4077,V,29860
3=4053,V,9185
4=4040,V,9185
5=4035,V,2499
6=4026,V,7200
7=4017,V,6399
8=4014,V,1659
9=4005,V,6399
10=3920,V,3704
11=3861,V,30000
12=3853,V,7769
13=3844,V,7769
14=3819,V,11800
15=3740,V,30000

The "0" value is the number of transponders found and under that are the frequencies, polarities, and symbol rates. I then changed it to Port A, Ku band, tone switch on (same as my original error) and got this:

;File generated by TBS Card - http://www.tbsdtv.com
[SATTYPE]
1=
2=
[DVB]
0=15
1=11798,V,30000
2=11822,V,29860
3=11847,V,2499
4=11864,V,2499
5=11873,V,7200
6=11882,V,6399
7=11885,V,1659
8=11894,V,6399
9=11979,V,3704
10=12038,V,29999
11=12046,V,7769
12=12056,V,7769
13=12081,V,11800
14=12159,V,30000
15=11786,H,29860

Ignoring the frequency differences, there are differences, particularly in symbol rates, but also many similarities. 11727 is not active at this time and neither is 4173. But, one of the frequencies on port A, 3920, has a symbol rate of 3704, and on the "Ku" scan of port A there is a transponder with that same symbol rate shown at 11979. 11979-10750=1229, and 5150-1229=3921 which is only one off from 3920. So it appears that the scan program is actually seeing the C-band signals even though it's reporting them as Ku.

I then did the same comparison on DiSEqC port C. This is Port C, C band, tone switch off:

;File generated by TBS Card - http://www.tbsdtv.com
[SATTYPE]
1=
2=
[DVB]
0=25
1=4138,V,30000
2=4044,V,27780
3=3940,V,3679
4=3919,V,3680
5=3917,V,3680
6=3899,V,28000
7=3888,V,28000
8=3802,V,26000
9=3753,V,30000
10=4103,H,30000
11=4079,H,27780
12=4054,H,26660
13=3983,H,26400
14=3938,H,1665
15=3922,H,10834
16=3914,H,10834
17=3863,H,30000
18=3864,H,15034
19=3795,H,4939
20=3798,H,1663
21=3794,H,4849
22=3786,H,3255
23=3768,H,3255
24=3749,H,11250
25=3719,H,8703

And now Port C, Ku band, tone switch on:

;File generated by TBS Card - http://www.tbsdtv.com
[SATTYPE]
1=
2=
[DVB]
0=15
1=11817,V,2170
2=11931,V,19999
3=12177,V,25000
4=12582,V,19999
5=11758,H,30000
6=11854,H,30000
7=11878,H,30000
8=12066,H,4232
9=12072,H,4232
10=12078,H,4600
11=12084,H,4600
12=12090,H,4600
13=12102,H,4600
14=12102,H,11730
15=12584,H,20005

It seems obvious that the first two scans (on DiSEqC port A) are very similar, while the two Port C scans are not similar at all.

So, that means that the information you wanted to see (in the fourth, fifth, and sixth screenshots in my previous post) may be valid after all. At least now I understand why it was showing Ku band signals on all three of the DiSEqC inputs. Thanks!

(By the way, I tried to post this earlier but my broadband went down hard - I could only load pages VERY slowly, and repeated attempts at posting this reply failed completely.)

 

[mm1352000]

Okay, so now we know we can trust the TBS Blindscan software... at least sort of... but we're no further ahead with the MP TBS patch.

@FreakyJ
Could you please post the latest TBS patch code diff here. Might need your help to build a new version...

 

[FreakyJ]

@mm1352000
This should be the right branch:
https://github.com/MediaPortal/MediaPortal-1/commits/TVEngine3-TBS_support_1.6.0

Hope it helps

 

[clarkebelt]

We do have a couple more DiSEqC switches (they just came today) and with 4 tuner inputs we now have some additional options for moving things around so we could run a couple of additional cables from that pole and eliminate the tone switch completely. So maybe we'll just do that for now.

 

[clarkebelt]

I just wanted to leave a quick note to add one thing: Apparently the tone switches were NOT the issue, or at least not the entire issue. I ran new wire yesterday and now have individual wires from each LNB to the DiSEqC switches, and all the C-band LNB's are working fine but it seems that nothing on Ku will come in. I know the LNB and wire are good because I can connect them to a standalone receiver and those channels come in just fine. I took a quick look at the TV Server log for one failed attempt and it seems as if the tuner may be trying to tune something on C-band, not Ku. I will do more testing later but just wanted to post this now.

Oh and I did disable the tone switch selection in the advanced settings although from what I understand that shouldn't make any difference; if it tries to enable a tone switch and there's none there it should still work, and it didn't. The DiSEqC settings are correct for the channels we are trying to tune, I know that much.

By the way MediaPortal only displays "Unknown Error" when the attempt to tune a Ku channel fails.

 

[clarkebelt]

mm1352000, I sent you a small archive containing a text file and a couple of image files. The image files are just to show my configuration for a particular 24 hour Ku band channel. At 17:05 I started up MediaPortal, tried to tune just that one channel, got the "Unknown Error" and exited. The text file is excerpts of the backend log files for that time period. I didn't want to burden you with excessively large logs but can send more if you wish. However there is one thing I note, when it tries to access the channel there are several lines in the log where the phrase "band:CBand" appears. This concerns me because obviously that is the wrong band; I am trying to get a Ku band signal. The actual tuning frequency of 11840000 looks correct, but that band setting is not correct.

I can't understand why attempting to receive Ku doesn't work when receiving C-band works fine, particularly since in many parts of the world Ku is what is used for FTA satellite. Does anything in those log snips or images give you any clue as to what is going wrong? I will again mention that I attempted connecting both DiSEqC switches to a standalone receiver and they come in just fine on that. The LNB is a dual LNB and each leg is connected to port 3 (BA) of a separate DiSEqC switch, and those two DiSEqC switches are connected to tuners A and B on the TBS card. We temporarily tried both DiSEqC's one at a time with the receiver to make sure that both DiSEqC's and both sides of the LNB are working, and they are.

We're having no problem with C-band on any of the tuners or DiSEqC's but for some reason it simply isn't receiving anything on Ku. And the particular two DiSEqCs that the LNB is connecting to are the ones it has always been connected to, not the new ones. To me, this makes no sense at all - do you have any thoughts as to what might be causing this? Thanks!

 

[mm1352000]

Oh and I did disable the tone switch selection in the advanced settings although from what I understand that shouldn't make any difference; if it tries to enable a tone switch and there's none there it should still work, and it didn't.

However there is one thing I note, when it tries to access the channel there are several lines in the log where the phrase "band:CBand" appears. This concerns me because obviously that is the wrong band; I am trying to get a Ku band signal. The actual tuning frequency of 11840000 looks correct, but that band setting is not correct.

Yes, you should be concerned by that, and disabling the LNB LOF overrides makes a huge difference.

Your log file excerpt it shows your attempt to tune the Ku band channel. The channel setting is a C band LOF, so that is what will be used when the LNB LOF overrides are disabled.

11840 - 5150 = 6690 MHz

No tuner can handle that. They're limited to ~950 - 2150 MHz.

The way forward from here is to rescan that satellite with an appropriate band setting (or update the database directly). Band type Ku Circular has the appropriate LOF setting.
This info might help you:
https://github.com/MediaPortal/Medi...s/Implementations/Channels/DVBSChannel.cs#L30

For example, your exported channel hand 'band="2"' which translates to Cband; 'band="1"' would translate to the correct Circular setting.

 

[clarkebelt]

Thank you mm1352000. What I did was to export all the channels to an XML file, then removed all of them except the one channel I have been trying to make work (at least initially). I changed to 'band="1"' as you suggested, deleted the original channel and then imported my modified channels file (strangely the TV server still popped up a warning that I was importing a duplicate channel, and I even stopped and restarted the server but that warning came up, so finally I went ahead anyway). It did import that channel back and re-exporting the channels showed that it is only in there once and has the new band setting. I then checked to make sure that it was properly mapped (even unmapped and remapped it, in case there was some old data lingering), restarted the server, etc. but still no luck. The log does correctly show "Polarisation:CircularL" now, but still I get that "Unknown Error". It does seem to be sending less data to the TVService-Error.log now but what is there and in the other log files doesn't really help me at all. I just wish I had some clue as to what is happening and how to fix it.

 

[mm1352000]

(strangely the TV server still popped up a warning that I was importing a duplicate channel

Is the name of the channel unique?

The log does correctly show "Polarisation:CircularL" now...

Polarisation is not the problem. The problem is band.

 

[mm1352000]

Replied in our private conversation. Looks like driver errors, possibly after resume from standby (???). Please restart the PC and try the channel again.