No Free Card Available - Tried almost everything (1 Viewer)

[geoffw]

Hi

After a damn good run with TV server and MP in general I'm having pain in the butt intermittent TV Card issues.

The most immediate symptom is that when i select 'TV On' up pops 'No Free Card Available' - this is intermittent and infrequent, and its occurrence does seem related to Resume. I can't seem to replicate, i can complete 10 sleep / resume cycles without a problem, then without apparent reason it faults.

Here are some things I’ve tried to fix it;

- Updated TV card driver
- Installed new version of my 1.2.3
- Bought a new TC card (1200) to replace old faithful Hau 2200
- Tweaked settings to delay detection of card
- Reverted to old MP (acronis ghost) - seemed to work, but didn't like old interface do didn't really hang around in old-app land too long - of course W7 drivers all taken back to a earlier state that worked well for me
- Removing TV card, complete driver suite uninstall, reinstall various drivers versions
- Updated windows drivers


- Changed PCI slots
- Checked card is well seated in slot, and isn't all dusty etc.

Nothing really seemed to help.

Here are my observations;

- If i look at TV Service, it appears to be stopping, but never does - can't interact with it
- I did get the odd message from W7 action centre saying to fix TV card issue i needed to install driver - not very often though
- sometimes i get the following error pop up;

Current Config
Hauppauge 2200, 7.6.1.27086
1.2.3
Good hardware, reception etc.

 

[mm1352000]

Hi geoffw

In the "no free card.txt" I can see two things to point out:
1. The channel that you're tuning (TV One ) is only linked to your first tuner (so the second tuner would not be considered). Check TV mapping in the wiki to fix this.
2. Powerscheduler is causing the TV Service to crash:
[collapse]2012-06-30 10:07:08.887695 [PS StandbyWakeup(13)]: Tvservice stopped due to an unhandled app domain exception System.InvalidOperationException: Instance 'isatap.{FC0D3E6E-9CB2-4A09-A6E8-66241A8A2429}' does not exist in the specified Category.
at System.Diagnostics.CounterDefinitionSample.GetInstanceValue(String instanceName)
at System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounter.NextSample()
at TvEngine.PowerScheduler.Handlers.NetworkAdapter.Update()
at TvEngine.PowerScheduler.Handlers.ActiveNetworkStandbyHandler.get_StandbyMode()
at TvEngine.PowerScheduler.PowerScheduler.get_StandbyMode()
at TvEngine.PowerScheduler.PowerScheduler.CheckForStandby()
at TvEngine.PowerScheduler.PowerScheduler.StandbyWakeupThread()
at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(Object state)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()[/collapse]

Not quite sure what is going on there. I suspect the GUID (that is the thing in squigly braces) refers to [one of] your network adapter(s) - ie. powerscheduler is trying to check if there is any network activity to determine whether it can put the PC into standby, and that is where the failure is.
Did you update or change anything network related recently?

mm

 

[geoffw]

hi

Thanks, there could be a correlation between powerschduler++ and the emergence of these issues.......in fact the more i think about it the more i think that faults did arise around the same time i installed PS++.

I'll try uninstalling and reverting back to factory power management, and i've implemented your suggestion on mapping.

Thanks, i'll report back on the success or otherwise.

Cheers

Geoff

 

[bopfrog]

Hi,

I have just had the same thing start happening. No TV or recording going on, but 'no free card' error. I'm not using any power scheduling - just started happening a couple of days ago.
I'm running Vista, MP 1.2.2 (will be going 1.2.3 soon), TV card is Techno Trend DVB-S2 3200 and has been working fine so far.

Thanks

 

[mm1352000]

Hi bopfrog

I'm happy to help if you want it, but I'll need logs...

mm

 

[bopfrog]

Thank you mm - haven't uploaded logs before so will sort that out.
Is this the right one?

 

[msj33]

Just experienced same issue, with not active tuners(I have 2 tuners)

Had to restart TV-server - I couldn't even restart service:-(

 

[mm1352000]

Thank you mm - haven't uploaded logs before so will sort that out.
Is this the right one?

That will do nicely in this case. Usually it is better to follow the instructions here:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/Forum/How_to_post_logs

The problem you're seeing is not actually a "no free card" problem. Rather, I think you have network problems:

2012-06-30 18:00:51.026261 [scheduler thread(10)]: scheduler: recording failed, lets try next available card.

2012-06-30 18:00:51.025261 [scheduler thread(10)]: card: unable to connect to slave controller at:MediaMachine-PC

tv.log and error.log respectively.
I gave an explanation of this situation recently -->here<--. In short, I firmly believe the problem is network related. The more reliable your network connection, the more reliable TV Server is. You must have a connected network connection for TV Server to be able to record. It is also better to use a static IP address for the TV Server.

@mj33: I just said to bopfrog that I need logs to be able to help. I don't mean to be rude, but why did you not post logs? It is quite frustrating to always have to ask. Please follow the instructions linked above (or again, here):
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/Forum/How_to_post_logs

Use the instructions for non-reproducible problems.

 

[msj33]

Thank you mm - haven't uploaded logs before so will sort that out.
Is this the right one?

That will do nicely in this case. Usually it is better to follow the instructions here:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/Forum/How_to_post_logs

The problem you're seeing is not actually a "no free card" problem. Rather, I think you have network problems:

2012-06-30 18:00:51.026261 [scheduler thread(10)]: scheduler: recording failed, lets try next available card.

2012-06-30 18:00:51.025261 [scheduler thread(10)]: card: unable to connect to slave controller at:MediaMachine-PC

tv.log and error.log respectively.
I gave an explanation of this situation recently -->here<--. In short, I firmly believe the problem is network related. The more reliable your network connection, the more reliable TV Server is. You must have a connected network connection for TV Server to be able to record. It is also better to use a static IP address for the TV Server.

@mj33: I just said to bopfrog that I need logs to be able to help. I don't mean to be rude, but why did you not post logs? It is quite frustrating to always have to ask. Please follow the instructions linked above (or again, here):
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/Forum/How_to_post_logs

Use the instructions for non-reproducible problems.

Sorry - I usually do

My problem is getting back every time I have tuned a channel.

Then playback stops after a ~1min, and just freezes.

Can restart TV-service on server, hence it crashes in "stopping" - then I need to restart.

Tried repairing database, but this does not solve anything.

Update: I have now deactivated Powerscheduler++ as well...........now I can actually restart my Tv-service without any crashes

 

[bopfrog]

Hi mm,

thanks for this. Have done the following which seems to have let me preview a channel which I couldn't do yesterday.
Checked firewall - all permissions ok
Checked network - I had internet access fine but the static IP my MP machine was using wasn't the one allocated. I had however, changed from a wireless to wired connection a wee while ago. We also had a power failure the other day which had upset connections to other PCs in the house.
So I have reset the static IP then installed MP 1.2.3
Will update once I have chance to check more channels. BTW apologies for the frustration re error logs.