MP2 - V2.1 Recorded TV - recording corrupted if MP client used while recoding in progress (1 Viewer)

[BlueMax1916]

Hi,

not everyone is using MediaPortal on a dedicated HTPC or HTPC / Server infrastructure. It could be used on a work PC or video transcoding PC and sending it to sleep via PowerScheduler plugin could be uncomfortable for other tasks such a PC would do.

Cheers

Blue Max

 

[CyberSimian]

Kind of think that should be default behaviour

It is, if you enable "Away Mode" in the Windows power plan. "Away Mode" allows Windows to switch off output to the screen, but the PC continues running until the activity has completed, and then the system sleeps.

It may be that "PowerScheduler" enables "Away Mode" for you, or it may be that "PowerScheduler" suppresses sleep until the recording is complete. (I don't know, as I am not a "PowerScheduler" expert.)

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[HTPCSourcer]

The MP2 sleep control does what it is supposed to do. Power Scheduler is a leftover from MP1 and normally not required under MP2. Power is fully controlled by Windows and a running recording will put the system in a 'non-idle' state.

I doubt that you can prevent the PC from going to sleep when manually initiated by the user himself from the start menu, be it accidentally or intended, without deactivating the power button in the Windows energy settings.

 

[Digsy]

The MP2 sleep control does what it is supposed to do. Power Scheduler is a leftover from MP1 and normally not required under MP2. Power is fully controlled by Windows and a running recording will put the system in a 'non-idle' state.

I doubt that you can prevent the PC from going to sleep when manually initiated by the user himself from the start menu, be it accidentally or intended, without deactivating the power button in the Windows energy settings.

I have the power settings as in the attached pic.


Before I enabled Power Scheduler I could put the PC to sleep using the start menu even if a recording was running. After enabling Power Scheduler I cannot.

I guess selecting the second option in the MP2 client would do the same thing, but would it ever let the PC sleep? I would still want it to sleep after a recording was finished. Where it says "while Media Portal is running" is it referring to the client or the server?

 

[HTPCSourcer]

I don't recommend to use Power Scheduler. As already mentioned this is something that is required in MP1 but not with MP2. MP2 purely relies on Windows energy management. So if a PC is correctly entering standby without MP2 being active (i.e. no active service) it will also do so with an active MP2. An ongoing recording will signal the PC to not be idle and all is good.

A different situation occurs if you press the power button - or select the respective option in the start menu. Without further energy settings the system doesn't know whether this is intentional or accidental. If you want to protect against accidentally doing this you will need to define what happens if the user presses the power button (see Windows energy settings for further details). For a mixed usage like yours I recommend to disable the power button ("Do nothing") and have Windows manage the standy. You could for example set the power off time to 5 minutes, which will send your PC to sleep, provided it is idle. Note that it never is when recording.

Last thing to keep an eye on is EPG. Many users are wrongly configuring their EPG options, which leads to the system never being idle. So if your PC enters sleep with a stopped MP" service, but never does if the service is running, chances are that your EPG runs in an endless loop.

 

[CyberSimian]

You could for example set the power off time to 5 minutes, which will send your PC to sleep, provided it is idle. Note that it never is when recording.

One of the things that I disliked about Windows Media Center was that if I paused live TV (not recording), Windows regarded the system as being idle, and so would sleep or hibernate the system after the specified timeout (5 minutes in your example). This of course resulted in the live-TV buffer being lost. Does MP2 behave this way?

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.

Power Scheduler is a leftover from MP1

I have to disagree here completely. PowerScheduler is one of the most important TVServer (TV Engine) plugins available. This is valid for MP2 and MP1. Too many things that can not be configured in Windows power management itself can be achieved by the PowerScheduler plugin. As example, it wakes the server to grab EPG from DVB source. It schedules a restart every day, week, month without disturbing a running recording or the EPG grabbing. And most important, it wakes the server up when a recording is scheduled. Without PowerScheduler plugin you need to add a wakeup event to Windows power management for every scheduled recording by hand. MP2 did not do this by itself. A completely nogo...Without PowerScheduler, the whole MP2 System is not really usable...

Aside this you can add processes to the "blocklist" so Windows did not go to sleep as long as e.g. Firefox is running... Very handy if you use external EPG sources like EPG-Buddy. While the EPG is grabbed the system is prevented from going into standby. Also extremely necessary if you use the system not solely as a dedicated MP2 server. So the standby is prevented as long as you are doing all the things you do on the system that runs the MP2 server...

And it monitors Network traffic to prevent sleep while other systems are accessing the server. Even an option to keep the server alive as long as a specific system (e.g a TV-Box with Kodi using MP2 as PVR Backend) is running in the network neighborhood.
All this is not possible, if you deactivate the PowerScheduler plugin...

Aside this the PowerScheduler plugin is definitely not the cause for Windows not going to sleep. This is most often an issue with some drivers or other processes preventing the standby. Sometimes this issues only can be solved by using the "forced" mode of PowerScheduler (that of course respects all setting you've configured).

PowerScheduler is completely independent of MP2 clients or even the server (aside running as a TV Engine plugin). The settings in MP2 client did not affect the PowerScheduler settings in any way.

I doubt that you can prevent the PC from going to sleep when manually initiated by the user himself

Indeed this is possible. For this the "away" mode is existing. If a task has activated the away mode the system could not go to sleep or restart or shutdown by pressing a button or similar. Instead of Standby or shutdown the system is send into the away mode. The screen is blanked and the system did not react on any more key presses. But the task (e.g. a running recording) is still be processed in background. The only thing that still is able to "break" the away mode, ist the reset button on the PC case or a "long press" on the power button...

Before I enabled Power Scheduler I could put the PC to sleep using the start menu even if a recording was running. After enabling Power Scheduler I cannot.

Exactly as planed. Normally it's not wanted to send the server to sleep while a recording is running, as this destroys the recording. If all is working normal it goes to sleep after the recording is finished by itself. If you want to cancel the running recording you can do this from inside the client before sending the system to sleep... But best is to always let the system go to sleep by itself...

Does MP2 behave this way?

Depends on your settings. Here the MP2 client power settings are used. If you don't allow standby while the MP2 client is running the system definitely don't go to sleep, if you pause the Live TV. And normally the MP2 server also did not sleep as long as a client is connected... But if yo relay solely on the Windows settings then you will experience the same behavior as in WMC...

 

[HTPCSourcer]

As I have said before: one doesn't need Power Scheduler in connection with MP2 on a single-seat system, which is the situation for @Digsy. You own particular server situation is not relevant in this situation, and for such cases I recommend to spend a few euros and buy a LightsOut licence.

But if yo relay solely on the Windows settings then you will experience the same behavior as in WMC

This is simply not true. My own system works without Power Scheduler and I don't experience any of the issues that are described.

In the end this looks like it's going to turn into one of the frequent debate of principles. I trust that @Digsy now has sufficient references that he can follow up and find his own satisfactory solution.

 

[Lehmden]

As I have said before: one doesn't need Power Scheduler in connection with MP2 on a single-seat system,

You're completely wrong here. Without PowerScheduler plugin even a SingleSeat System did not wake up for a scheduled recording as PowerScheduler plugin adds the scheduled recordings to the WIndows wakeup events. MP2 don't do this without, and never did. Also EPG- grabbing from DVB sources only is working when the system is awake. If you don't use the HTPC for some days you ran out of EPG and first need to wait some hours until it is refreshed, if you don't grab it on a regular basis..

You only don't need PowerScheduler Plugin if your System should be running 24/7 or you absolutely never record anything and don't need to grab EPG at all. You need PowerScheduler always if you use TV in MP2. No matter if you have a SingleSeat system or 20 clients all over the place

 

[Digsy]

In the end this looks like it's going to turn into one of the frequent debate of principles. I trust that @Digsy now has sufficient references that he can follow up and find his own satisfactory solution.

Yes, we have gone a bit off topic I'm happy that my recording problem is understood.

Regarding the power thing, for what its worth, I had all numerous problems with WMC. My PC seemed to refuse to sleep, especially after a scheduled recording. I ended up using a third-party system tray app to help manage power settings, and I also wrote a custom task to sleep the PC after a recording, and also after EPG grabs. his worked pretty well, but I would say that 50% of the time I would come home from work and my PC was wide awake, and checking the event logs didn't give me any clues as to why.

Since switching to MP2 I have uninstalled all the WMC helpers and custom stuff. I will try going back to one of the default Windows power management profiles and seeing how things go from there.