LiveTV freezing (1 Viewer)

[doveman]

TV-Server Version: v1.0.0.21813
MediaPortal Version: v1.0.0.21813
MediaPortal Skin: PureVision HDX
Windows Version: XP Pro SP3
CPU Type: Intel P4 2.8Ghz Northwood (non-HT)
HDD: 1*500GB and 1*640GB Western Digital SATA
Memory: 1.5GB DDR
Motherboard: Gigabyte 8i848-PM
Video Card: Leadtek FX5600 256MB VIVO
Video Card Driver: 93.71
Sound Card: onboard Realtek AC97 (ALC655)
Sound Card AC3: no AC3
Sound Card Driver: 5.10.0.6300
1. TV Card: Hauppauge Nova-T 500
1. TV Card Type: DVB-T
1. TV Card Driver: 4.3.25080.0
2. TV Card:
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec: MPC (Gabest)
MPEG2 Audio Codec: MPC
h.264 Video Codec: ffdshow
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case: Custom
Cooling: Nexus 120mm Intake Fan, Accelero S2, Mini Ninja
Power Supply: DELL DA-2 AC->12v DC, mCubed EF28 DC-DC board
Remote: Nova-T 500
TV: Sony XBR800 36"
TV - HTPC Connection: DVI

I'm having a problem with svn 21813 with the channel freezing. This first happened when trying to change channel, when the audio stopped and the picture froze on the current channel. No error message came up but the logs indicated a problem creating the timeshifting file. I had to press stop and select a channel to resume LiveTV.

I'm using a 256MB ramdrive for timeshifting, with MP set to min/max 3 files of 80MB. When the problem occurs, there's about 130MB free on the ramdrive. Never experienced any problem with this setup on previous builds.

The picture just froze without me trying to change channel, although the audio continued and I don't see the timeshifting errors in the current log (attached). I couldn't get MP to do anything after that and had to close it using Task Manager. I'll upload another log showing the "error creating timeshift file" when I can.

 

[disaster123]

doveman
try my tsreader - it will fix the problem:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...ements-test-plz-55181/index18.html#post385557

 

[doveman]

Thanks, I'll certainly give it a try and hopefully it will fix the non-timeshifting related freezes, but I'm doubtful that it will solve the problems where it appears tswriter is unable to open/write the timeshifting files.

 

[disaster123]

mhm no it cannot solve this problem but it solves:
"This first happened when trying to change channel, when the audio stopped and the picture froze on the current channel."

When a channel change happens normally no new timeshift file is started so this should be another issue.

 

[doveman]

Unfortunately it seems that sometimes MP is trying to create a new timeshift file on channel change. Although I have enough free space for the timeshift file, it seems that it can't cope with the fact that I've set a max of 3 files and that many already exist. Probably related to this: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...iplying-channel-change-while-recording-55357/

 

[doveman]

Thanks to Owlsroost I learnt that the max ts files setting in TV Server config is per tuner and as I've got a twin-tuner setup with a max of 3 files I need to set the filesize to 40MB, which will allow 6 files to fit on my 256MB ramdisk. Not sure if MP was trying to use the 2nd tuner but I wouldn't have thought it needed to when just changing channel. There was enough free space for MP to create a new ts file when I had the filesize set to 80MB though, so I'm not sure why it couldn't.

As a test, I decided to try reducing the max files back to 3 and setting the filesize back to 80MB (from 5 at 50MB).

I just closed MP after it had created two live4-1 files of 40MB each and changed the ts settings and when I restarted MP, it left the live4-1 files on the Ramdisk and created a new live4-2 file of 80MB. Other times when I've restarted MP, it has deleted the existing ts files, which I what I would have thought it should do. Anyway, it froze after a while and the TSWriter log (attached) shows that it couldn't create a TS file although it's rather confusing as the file it refers to (live4-2.ts.tsbuffer1.ts) is the one that was successfully created on starting LiveTV! Again, there was sufficient free space to create another 80MB file if it needed to.

 

[doveman]

OK, I've done some tests with different timeshifting file settings and found the following:

No matter what settings I used (3x60MB, 4x60MB, 3x80MB, 4x80MB) it only tried to use 2 files (live4-0.ts.tsbuffer1.ts and live4-0.ts.tsbuffer2.ts).

3x60MB and 4x60MB worked fine. 3x80MB or 4x80MB didn't.

I did most of the testing using Disaster's tsreader, which usefully provides more debug info in the tsreader.log than the default svn 21813 tsreader. As you can see in the 3x60MB and 4x60MB TsReader logs, it happily opens, adds and removes the two .ts files as it sees fit. In comparison, in the 3x80MB log there are only a few entries, all referring to a single .ts file and if you look at the 3x80MB TSWriter log, you'll see a lot of "MultiFileWriter: failed to create file R:\\live4-0.ts.tsbuffer1.ts" entries, which coincide with when LiveTV froze (after about 3mins), although live4-0.ts.tsbuffer1.ts is actually created fine when LiveTV starts, so I would have thought, if anything, it should show a problem creating live4-0.ts.tsbuffer2.ts (although there's 111MB free on the RAMdisk when this occurs, so there's no reason why it shouldn't be able to create that either).

Note, I've heavily edited these log files as the relevant entries were buried in a swamp of late frame entries.

During these tests, two live4-1 files created in previous testing remained on the RAMdisk, which MP is no longer using but didn't see fit to delete. I'll delete these myself now and see if the extra space makes any difference.

 

[doveman]

OK, I've tested with both the default svn 21813 and Disaster's tsreader after deleting the live4-1 files and with the settings at max 3x80MB and 4x80MB, MP only creates and uses two 80MB files when just watching LiveTV, live4-0.ts.tsbuffer1.ts and live4-0.ts.tsbuffer2.ts (plus the 1KB live4-0.ts.tsbuffer) and I've not experienced any problems so far.

EDIT: with the settings on 3x40MB, MP creates an additional live4-0.ts.tsbuffer3.ts , so perhaps when I had the higher file size set, it was reserving space in case it needed to create a file for the second tuner.

 

[doveman]

disaster, I'm sorry to report that your tsreader.ax doesn't work for me with svn 21813. I found that the LiveTV picture would freeze after some time (not sure how long as I tend to have the TV on in the background, probably between 30-60mins) although the audio would continue as normal (which is why I didn't notice the problem straight away).

Haven't experienced this problem since I switched back to the default tsreader.ax.

 

[disaster123]

use the latest SVN the posted tsreaders here in this thread are outdated