Re-installed a thousand times - constant lockups and other problems (1 Viewer)

[Es Watson]

If you keep having problems, that's worth a try, although it sounds it's more related to a bit unstable system, since all the other apps failed also.

Hey guys,

Downgraded to 1.7 and I'm having the same problems;

Whilst something is recording I try to stop it, delete it, but every time it locks MP up! EPG has randomly gone to shite too.. Can you please advise as I'm at the end of my understanding/patience with MP.

Thanks again, please see log.[DOUBLEPOST=1407066285][/DOUBLEPOST]Sorry, Homey, I was going to ask of the other apps you mentioned that are failing ... ?? which ones??

Thanks

 

[mm1352000]

Hello Es

My suspicion is that you're experiencing the issue reported in the last handful of pages of this thread:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/recording-tv-just-stopped-help.122676/

Have you been using MP long enough to have been using it on W7?
If so, how recently did you upgrade to W8/8.1 and did the issues occur before that upgrade?
Does this problem seem to occur every time you attempt to stop a recording, or only sometimes?

Even if my suspicion about the exact cause of the issue is wrong, I can tell you with absolute confidence that this is not caused by your tuner... though it looks very likely to be a TV Server problem. Your tuner may indeed be suffering from weak signal on occasion, but that will not cause TV Server (or MediaPortal) to lock up like this.

The only way to get out of the situation once it has started is to kill the TV service with task manager. If it can't be killed (which is possible if it is indeed in deadlock as I suspect) then you would have to restart the PC.

Regards,
mm

 

[HomeY]

Whilst something is recording I try to stop it, delete it, but every time it locks MP up!

You don't happen to use the ComSkip Launcher plugin on your TV Server, do you? If that's set to 'end of recording', it locks the recording also while processing the file.

EPG has randomly gone to shite too..

[2014-08-03 21:34:05,055] [Log ] [MPMain ] [DEBUG] - UpdateNextEpgProperties: no EPG data, returning

That's the last logline in your MediaPortal.log, which indeeds indicates broken EPG. Maybe it's the whole EPG grabbing that causes issues. Might be worth to disable the EPG grabbing and see if that improves things.

Can you please advise as I'm at the end of my understanding/patience with MP.

Do you happen to have any 'Broadcom' device installed? Could you double check Device Manager to see if you have any yellow explanation marks infront of your devices?

The BCM42RLY service failed to start due to the following error:  %%2

The above errors keeps popping up over and over again.

Sorry, Homey, I was going to ask of the other apps you mentioned that are failing ... ?? which ones??

I noticed both XBMC, NextPVR, MP2 and the MP1 DeployTool (installer) failing in your logs also.

 

[mm1352000]

You don't happen to use the ComSkip Launcher plugin on your TV Server, do you? If that's set to 'end of recording', it locks the recording also while processing the file.

[2014-08-03 19:32:00,413] [Log ] [TVService] [INFO ] - TV Service: Plugin: ComSkipLauncher disabled

That's the last logline in your MediaPortal.log, which indeeds indicates broken EPG. Maybe it's the whole EPG grabbing that causes issues. Might be worth to disable the EPG grabbing and see if that improves things.

I think it would be helpful if Ed could explain exactly what mechanism he's using to get EPG. The XMLTV plugin seems to be disabled; the WebEPG plugin seems to be disabled; I can see the DVB EPG grabber running in older sets of log files, but not more recently. This could be connected to the recording issue. In general, W8/8.1 seems to have random problems with background threads...

 

[Es Watson]

Hello Es

Have you been using MP long enough to have been using it on W7?
If so, how recently did you upgrade to W8/8.1 and did the issues occur before that upgrade?
Does this problem seem to occur every time you attempt to stop a recording, or only sometimes?

Yeah, I was using it on win7 for a couple of weeks before I upgraded to win8.1 to hopefully fix the issues with MP. Fresh install on win8.1, fresh install of MP 1.8 (initially) then downgraded to 1.7 as bigmax suggested and the result are very similar problems.

Hello Es

The only way to get out of the situation once it has started is to kill the TV service with task manager. If it can't be killed (which is possible if it is indeed in deadlock as I suspect) then you would have to restart the PC.

Regards,
mm

Yeah, tell me about it, I've had to do this a thousand times! I've also had problems killing MP with task manager, get this, if MP is in the large window and locks up. I then load the task manager which so conveniently loads behind the locked MP and I can't access it! So, I have to restart windows. :-(

Furthermore, I accidentally hit the record button and its now recording Channel TEN all the time! As the EPG is not working, the recording will not stop and it will continuously record with no EPG, resulting in me uninstalling MP.

Now, I think I'll reinstall 1.8 as I was having the exact same recording issues on both.

Fun times ... but thanks heaps for your input guys...[DOUBLEPOST=1407115214][/DOUBLEPOST]edit .... just attempting to reinstall MP and I've getting this message;

MediaPortal.DeployTool is not responding

Now the MP installer is just greyed out and not responding....

I decided to reinstall MySQL 5.6 as this was one of the apps that I was not reinstalling very time I reinstalled MP, so I thought I'd give it a go, but when it installing SQL that's when get the above message.

*Think I'm going to get a hammer out of the garage, get active and then throw this PC in the bin and get a new one....

 

[mm1352000]

Okay, let's be short and straight so you can stop wasting time bashing your head against this problem as quickly as possible.

I need to know anything you can tell me about how the problem occurs. The smallest details can be critical, so please don't hold back on them.

Every question I ask is important, so please don't miss answering any of them.

I previously asked:

Have you been using MP long enough to have been using it on W7?
If so, how recently did you upgrade to W8/8.1 and did the issues occur before that upgrade?
Does this problem seem to occur every time you attempt to stop a recording, or only sometimes?

From your latest response the answer to question 1 is yes, but I have no clear answer to questions 2, and apparently no answer at all for question 3.

When you say "I was using it on win7 for a couple of weeks before I upgraded to win8.1 to hopefully fix the issues with MP...", do you mean that the answer to question 2 is "a few weeks, and yes"?

Now, I think I reinstall 1.8 as I was having the exact same recording issues on both.

That's fine, but to be really honest...
I could be wrong but for now my opinion is that no amount of reinstalling MP will make it usable for you for as long as you're using Windows 8/8.1. My experience from the other thread that I linked is that some people have no problem with W8/8.1... however the people that do have problems with W8/8.1 don't seem to be able to do anything to resolve them except downgrade to W7.

Now, I don't yet know if you were experiencing exactly the same problems with W7. Maybe you were; maybe you weren't. Either way, if I were you and I was serious about getting rid of this problem I would be downgrading to W7. From there if you were to find you were still experiencing the same problems I would be looking at hardware, drivers and other things of that nature.

In summary: what you're experiencing right now is one of the nastiest problems I've ever come across. It seemed to start with W8/8.1. I have never been able to get to the bottom of it so I don't have a "silver bullet" quick fix.

Regards,
mm

 

[Es Watson]

Okay, let's be short and straight so you can stop wasting time bashing your head against this problem as quickly as possible.

I need to know anything you can tell me about how the problem occurs. The smallest details can be critical, so please don't hold back on them.

Every question I ask is important, so please don't miss answering any of them.

I previously asked:

Hey mate,

Yes I'm well aware that you asked multiple questions and I was getting to them but as Homey's timezone didn't seem to match mine I figured I had a couple of hours to answer all your questions. As you seem to be still awake or in my timezone region I'll try and be more succinct. In saying that, I do have a newborn that takes a fair bit of our time.

Please be patient.

Thanks,

 

[mm1352000]

Thanks and understood. Real life always comes first.
I'm in New Zealand; HomeY is in Germany.

 

[Es Watson]

Have you been using MP long enough to have been using it on W7?
If so, how recently did you upgrade to W8/8.1 and did the issues occur before that upgrade?
Does this problem seem to occur every time you attempt to stop a recording, or only sometimes?

From your latest response the answer to question 1 is yes, but I have no clear answer to questions 2, and apparently no answer at all for question 3.

When you say "I was using it on win7 for a couple of weeks before I upgraded to win8.1 to hopefully fix the issues with MP...", do you mean that the answer to question 2 is "a few weeks, and yes"?

Now, I think I reinstall 1.8 as I was having the exact same recording issues on both.

That's fine, but to be really honest...
I could be wrong but for now my opinion is that no amount of reinstalling MP will make it usable for you for as long as you're using Windows 8/8.1. My experience from the other thread that I linked is that some people have no problem with W8/8.1... however the people that do have problems with W8/8.1 don't seem to be able to do anything to resolve them except downgrade to W7.

Now, I don't yet know if you were experiencing exactly the same problems with W7. Maybe you were; maybe you weren't. Either way, if I were you and I was serious about getting rid of this problem I would be downgrading to W7. From there if you were to find you were still experiencing the same problems I would be looking at hardware, drivers and other things of that nature.

In summary: what you're experiencing right now is one of the nastiest problems I've ever come across. It seemed to start with W8/8.1. I have never been able to get to the bottom of it so I don't have a "silver bullet" quick fix.

Regards,
mm[/QUOTE]

Ok, yes, I've had similar issues with both win 7 and win 8.1, as mentioned, I was hoping the issues would 'be gone' with a fresh install of win 8.1, I was wrong. I can replicate the issues every time, that is, trying to stop the recording. To elaborate, either in the TV guide, or Recorded TV when I try and stop/deleted the recording MP locks every time.

I'm not sure if installing windows 7 again is going to get me anywhere, we'll see.

Did you need another log or something else?

Cheers,

Es

Sorry more baby duties, I'll be back on later.

 

[mm1352000]

Thanks again for the answers Es

To elaborate, either in the TV guide, or Recorded TV when I try and stop/deleted the recording MP locks every time.

Of all the things you've said so far, I think this is the most interesting/promising. Half the battle with a problem like this is being able to reproduce it consistently. It sounds like what you're telling me is that you can reproduce the problem consistently, and therefore we're half way to solving it.

Did you need another log or something else?

In short, yes.
For the last hour or so I've been scouring google for the easiest way to try and get really precise information about the cause of the problem. The best thing I've found so far is this:
http://blog.scriptico.com/04/debugging-with-windbg-deadlocks-in-applications/

Most of that is techno-babble which probably won't make a whole lot of sense to you, and that's fine.
The key message is this: if I can get a crash dump then I might have a hope of finding exactly where the problem is and solving it.

To get a crash dump, the first thing you need to do is trigger the problem. So, open up MediaPortal. Switch to windowed mode (press alt + enter) so you can still access other stuff like task manager after the problem is triggered. Then do whatever you have to do to trigger the problem.

Now comes the bit where we have to get the crash dump.

The easiest and fastest way to get a crash dump would probably be for me to connect to your computer using TeamViewer. TeamViewer is free and can be run without installing:
1. Download TeamViewer from here.
2. Run it.
3. Select "run only", "personal / non-commercial use" and "accept - run".
4. Send me a private message (in your forum account - "conversation") with the two numbers - "your ID" and "password" - on the left hand side under "allow remote control".

I'd understand if you prefer not to let me connect to your computer. You can follow the process that I would follow... though be warned, it is a bit technical.

1. Install the Windows debugging tools.

• download the installer from here
• run the installer
  
• follow the installer through
  • when it asks you what components to install, select "Debugging Tools for Windows" and clear all other components
  • if it asks you where to install, please choose the default location (my understanding is that is C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.x\Debuggers\x86)

2. Open an elevated command prompt (instructions for W8/8.1).

3. Type cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.x\Debuggers\x86" and press enter.

4. Type tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq TVService.exe" and press enter. You should see something like this:

Image Name PID Session Name Session# Mem Usage
========================= ====== ================ ======== ============
TVService.exe 468 Console 0 102,528 K

Take note of the number in the PID column. In the above example that is 468.

5. Type adplus -crash -p <PID number> -o "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.x\Debuggers\x86" and press enter. Note that you should replace <PID number> with the number obtained from step 4.

6. Zip up the contents of the folder named like 201408... in C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.x\Debuggers\x86\.

7. Post/attach the zip file here.


Feel free to ask for help if you get stuck at any point.

Regards,
mm