MP2 - V2.1 MP2.1 Pre: Live TV playback has blockyness and out-of-sync audio (3 Viewers)

[Cordraconis]

*sigh*
So I uninstalled server-only and directly re-installed server+client. Settings were indeed preserved and live TV worked flawlessly on the HTPC. By now I am completely paranoid, so I rebooted and... It's gone! Even worse: I get the error message "tvsystem.net.sockets ... blablabla ... target machine actively refused connection 192.168.37.1:31456" (which is one of the virtual VMware adapters.)
So now I am stuck again and the Laptop-client obviously cannot connect to the server.

Malware scan was negative. No problem for the misunderstandings: No harm done in scanning.

Windows defender has been modified to exclude the TeamMediaportal and RAMdisk folders.

I am still useing Version 1 of the Pre-release, so LAV 0.63, but I already downloaded 0.68.1 so it is standby once I get MP2 again up and running. (re-install again???)

The hosts-file is full of websites referring to 127.0.0.1, as per the Immunisation feature of SpyBot S&D, so actually 007guard.com referred to the HTPC itself. Even dough I removed it from the hosts file, the client still refers to the website. I think I can ignore that.


I have come up with a different thing to try once MP2 Server (and laptop-client) is running: I can use the wifi-interface on the HTPC to connect to the wifi-network at home, just like the laptop is doing. If I then detach the HTPC from the server and have it re-scan, it *should* find a server *on the wifi network* and connect to it, just like the laptop.
It would be rediculous to do the client-wifi-router-lancable-server detour to basically connect to itself but it is the only way I can think of to force the HTPC-client to a network interface of my choosing.

(working in the weekends, family obligations and then testing all this is a bit much to do in <24h. )

 

[breese]

Logs.....
and do you have the ability to do remote access like Team Viewer?

 

[Cordraconis]

Yes, (ultra)VNC is working again after some firewall-massaging. I just accessed it now and hit the log collector. See attachment for the logs.
(Haven't checked if it is at ALL or DEBUG level, but easily adapted if needed.)

I'll keep an eye on the forum during the day and do some more thinking on how to force MP2 into the right network adapter...
thx a million!

Edit: whoops! attached the file.
Edit: I put the logging on "ALL" on the server, and on "debug" on the client. Then re-generated the error, rebooted and re-generated the error again. Then collected the log and updated this post.

 

[breese]

Everything about your system in the logs indicate a Spyware application has added entries into your hosts file.
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\ The file hosts should only have 127.0.0.1 localhost in it without a leading #

I have also read that avp.exe has been know to add this (that the source of the connection to 007guard.com is "avp.exe", Kaspersky's executable. )

Have a look at this
Kaspersky Lab Forum > avp.exe, 007Guard.com and Netstat

Until you can get this fixed, I do not think anyone here can help with the MP issues because 007 connection is the issue.

 

[HTPCSourcer]

Everything about your system in the logs indicate a Spyware application has added entries into your hosts file.
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\

That's what I have been saying already twice to him

 

[Cordraconis]

I did removed the 007 entries from the hosts.txt file ... not the hosts file (without the .txt )!!!!
It is corrected now and to not have this confusion I deleted the .txt file.

Spybot search and destroy added a lot of entries as part of its "immunisation" procedure, so I reversed it. The last lines in the hosts file are now these:

# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
127.0.0.1 localhost (removed the leading # myself)
# ::1 localhost
# Start of entries inserted by Spybot - Search & Destroy
# End of entries inserted by Spybot - Search & Destroy

I'll do a reboot later and edit this post.

Edit: no change! It still complains about active refusal at the given IP adress above.

This IP adress is of the VMware NAT adapter gateway (which I do not use at the moment). I was tempted for a split second to do a redirect in the NAT to the IP adress of the HTPC (i.e. the LAN IP adress the laptop-client connects to and is confirmed to be working), but redirecting gateways would probably be like trying to 'cross the streams' in the Ghostbusters movie: "it would be bad". So I changed it to "bridging" and tried the TV Configuration again.
Still the same error message BUT the IP adress changed to VMwares "host-only" adapter. I changed this also to "bridge" and even rebooted: still the same error message BUT the IP adress finally was the correct LAN IP that was supposed to work.

So the progress is this: I discovered (each time it is opened?) MP2 detects the IP it should be useing, and the (VMware?) multitude of network adapters makes this discovery process unstable.
Can one of your network guys chime in on this?

 

[HTPCSourcer]

127.0.0.1 localhost (removed the leading # myself)

THis line is not required within a fully functional network environment. It doesn't harm though [/QUOTE]

 

[Cordraconis]

(sorry for the late edit of my previous post.)

When I put the server logging level to "all" I found a reference to the port it uses (31456), but not which IP adress.
<channel ref="tcp server" port="31456" name="TvControl">

I looked around in various config and .xml files for this "tcp server" and further config details, but didn't get wiser.

Based on the hosts file tips from you guys and the 007-site stuff, am I correct to assume that MP2 just looks in the hosts file for localhost and if it doesn't find it it just picks the first one on the list? (i.e. the 007-site)
I might be tempted to change the IP adress of localhost to the LAN IP instead of 127.0.0.1, but since the last error message I got, it still won't connect to that IP. (Also if I make TOO drastic changes in the network stack, I risk locking myself out of the machine, and since I have to go abroad till this weekend, we will all be stuck untill then.)

Actually I'm thinking more to uninstall and then re-install (with all VM adapters in "bridge") and hope the installer gets it right/stable this time.

 

[HTPCSourcer]

am I correct to assume that MP2 just looks in the hosts file for localhost and if it doesn't find it it just picks the first one on the list? (i.e. the 007-site)

No. The MP 2.1 server is broadcasting its presence and the MP 2.1 client recognizes it and connects. The local Hosts file simply overrides the DNS action on the respective machine so that any name listed there is assigned the inidicated IP rather than using the DNS server.

 

[Cordraconis]

At home today I wanted to re-install MP2 during lunch, however I choose the "repair" option first.
Tried to open TVconfiguration and it worked. Quick glance over the ramdrive and streaming server settings (they were unchanged) and then opened the client...
The Home server is now correctly named, so the hosts-file is ok.
I tried live TV but the EPG was empty (probably not imported yet), so I took one of the DVB-C test-recordings.
No blockyness and the audio was about 3 seconds off, but there was screen flickering. F10 showed a remarkably flat red curve - more like some slight wobbling but definately no sawblade anymore definately the flattest one I saw so far.
I decided to call it a day then and check later. At least the server now seems up.

Maybe the flickering is because the frame rate adjustment option in MP2 is ticked off, or because I turned off the Plasma's Intelligent Frame Creation to get the most pure image from the AVR-HTPC combination. Or I'll dig around in the LAV codec settings. Anyway, I'll see for that later.


Oh, and all of this is still with all the VMware adapters set to "bridge". Since the MP2 server broadcasts its presence, it will probably do this on all adapters. Does the client then also listens on all of them? The "bridge" option effectively neutralizes this, but for all means and purposes, the client could still be talking to one of the virtual adapters. I was playing around with the idea of boxing in the client with the firewall, if possible.



I haven't rebooted the machine yet, so I don't know if it will "stick". (Don't get your hopes up. )
Do you think that comparing "now" and "after reboot" logs could be usefull?

Also tomorrow afternoon I'm away till the weekend, so VNC-only till then and no viewing tests.