Recording failed because no audio was found (1 Viewer)

[fellow8]

MediaPortal Version: 1.4.0

Description
The problem I am desribing has happened often since I have started using MP early this year.

However, in order to have clear symptoms I have installed MP 1.4.0 today (9:37) and tried to provoke the problem by scheduling a number of recordings over the day.
I have 2 DVB-T tuners on one USB card and 1 DVB-C tuner on one PCIe card.
The effect of the bug is that some DVB-T recordings are recorded later than scheduled and some scheduled DVB-T recordings are not recorded at all.
DVB-C recordings do not seem to be impacted. But the only way to make DVB-T recordings work again is to restart TV Server.
The key error message is "card: WaitForFile - no audio was found after 15,0006541 seconds"
See "Steps to Reproduce" for the steps I did.
Details (see also attached symptoms):
I scheduled the following recordings ("A-" channels are DVB-T, "K-" channels are DVB-C; all times including 7 min pre-recording and 10 min post-recording):
a) 10:42-11:10 A-Das Erste (DVB-T) - "Brisant"
b) 10:53-11:25 K-EinsPlus (DVB-C) - "Meilensteine der Naturwissenschaft und Technik"
c) 10:55-11:39 A-ProSieben (DVB-T) - "How I Met Your Mother"
d) 11:38-12:25 A-rbb Berlin (DVB-T) - "Polettos Kochschule"
e) 12:08-13:30 A-neo/KiKA (DVB-T) - "Der kleine Prinz"
f) 14:08-15:25 K-rbb Berlin (DVB-C) - "Des Kaisers neue Kleider"
g) 15:23-16:10 A-Südwest BW/RP (DVB-T) - "Eisenbahn-Romantik"
h) 15:35-16:50 A-kabel eins (DVB-T) - "Cold Case - Kein Opfer ist je vergessen"
i) 16:43-17:55 A-kabel eins (DVB-T) - "Castle"
j) 17:50-18:14 A-ProSieben (DVB-T) - "NEWSTIME"
k) 18:08-18:50 K-KiKA (DVB-C) - "Der Kater mit Hut"

Results:
All DVB-C recordings are OK.
DVB-T recording a) is OK; c) started late (11:10); d) started late (11:40); e) started late (12:25); g) h) i) j) were not recorded at all.
In the log files (tvserver_TVService.1.log) you can see that

• at 10:43:05,804 for recording a) card 2 could not be used because no audio was found (though the messages at 10:42:50,8 suggest that audio was found but no video)
  But at least recording a) could be performed on card 3 (10:43:13,743).

• at 10:55:26,742 for recording c) card 2 could not be used because no audio was found. Card 3 was still occupied by recording a) until 11:10. Then, card 3 could be used for the rest of recording c) (11:10:49,509).

• For recordings d) and e) a similar effect as for c) occurred. Card 2 cound not be used (no audio was found), so they had to wait until card 3 became free.

• at 15:23:24,624 for recording g) card 2 could not be used because not even the PMT could be found. And this time (15:23:54,531) also card 3 could not be used because no audio was found.
  From this moment on no further DVB-T recordings could be performed. They all tried both card 2 and card 3 but always failed (card 2 - no PMT; card 3 - no audio).

I would very much appreciate to get help because, obviously, a PVR that sometimes records late and sometimes does not record at all is really annoying. But otherwise I love MediaPortal.
I am restarting the TV Service as often as I can to avoid the bug as far as possible but it hits me again and again.
P.S. The MP Watchdog first crashed because the "tvserver_Gentle.config" was already present in the temp directory. I renamed that file manually to "tvserver_Gentle.config.1" and called the MP Watchdog again (successfully). Therefore, the interesting log files are the ones of 18:12, not the ones of 18:26.

Steps to Reproduce:
The bug is apparently not deterministic. But I was able to generate the bug today.
I have done the following:
- installed MP 1.4.0
- checked the MP configuration and TV Server configuration
- started MP in debug mode
- scheduled a number of recordings as described in the details
- left the system alone for some hours
- came back and saw that the bug has occurred.
- restarted TV Server using the "manual control" of the TV Server configuration, which fixed the problem for the time being.

 

[mm1352000]

Hello and welcome fellow8

That is an amazing first post - well done!
My opinion is that the problem is a compatibility issue with your TerraTec H5 tuner. When you're seeing the "no audio found" message it indicates TV Server is not receiving the stream from the tuner. I've seen similar problems with the H7 and S7 models, and I can only guess that the same applies with the H5...

I'm sorry, I'm not able to offer you a direct solution.

mm

 

[Sebastiii]

A global solution for TVE35 maybe ?
Great first post

So TerraTec H5/H7/S7 need some drivers change you mean mm ?

 

[mm1352000]

A global solution for TVE35 maybe ?

Yeah.
These tuners are a pain in the backside. They don't like the graph being stopped or paused. Either it must be built and running or not built... except if tuning fails you must restart the graph.

 

[Sebastiii]

Seems to ring a bell
I have a DVB-T liteon tuner on my laptop and most ofter first tunning is not working and to make it work i need to tune a channel from a different TP then all seems to work (if i set the card in Pause mode if in stop mode i run in the same behaviour)

Surely not related but want to share lol

 

[fellow8]

Hi mm,

thanks for your reply.
In fact, I have a T5, not an H5 but maybe, the T5 is also from the same "family"?

From your answer I see 2 alternatives: a) try a workaround with the T5 card, b) buy a new card.
The "drivers change" option suggested by Sebastiii does not seem to be realistic as Terratec does not produce the T5 anymore, and the latest driver version is originally dated October 2009 (with minor modifications for Win8 and 64bit support later).

a) You said "you must restart the graph". I understand that "you" in this case means the MP software and not myself
Wouldn't that be an option?
I presume that restarting the graph probably takes some time that one would not like to spend without need. But maybe, such behaviour could be made switchable by a configuration parameter in MP? And maybe, it could generally be restricted to recordings and not to "zapping"?

b) I have recently seen a twin tuner USB card by Hauppauge (WinTV-Duet).
Do you, by chance, know whether or not that card has similar problems?

Thanks in advance