Scheduled recordings fail to start with HDHomerun (2 Viewers)

[Fred Fred]

Hello,

I thought I'd post an update on the original issue (HD Homerun fails to record a program and becomes unresponsive).
I finally heard back from SiliconDust: "Customers have experienced similar issues using MythTV. The solution was to add a 10-20 second delay when MythTV starts up. I'm not sure if MediaPortal offers such an option."
So I made the following change: TV Server Configuration -> General -> Delay for TV card Detection: 15 seconds.
I also changed:
TV Service priority: Above Normal
Log level: Debug

Unfortunately, this does not resolve the issue...

So I thought it might be a hardware issue. I returned the HDHR device and replaced it with a new one. The new HDHR still randomly fails to record a program and becomes unresponsive...

In the attached log, the HDHR device uses tuner cards 11 & 12. A recording completes on Oct 23 at 18:10 and timeshifting stops at 18:40.
At 19:57, a scheduled recording fails with error "dvb: RunGraph returns: 0x8000FFFF".
I noticed later that the HDHR was unresponsive, with both tuner activity leds on, the network led solid green and remaining solid green after I unplugged / re-plugged the network cable...

What does the error "dvb: RunGraph returns: 0x8000FFFF" mean?

Thanks,
Fred

 

[mm1352000]

Hello again Fred

Thanks for the update.

What does the error "dvb: RunGraph returns: 0x8000FFFF" mean?

The explanation is complex and technical. I'll try to explain as simply as possible, but if you really want to understand then you will need to do some reading of Microsoft technical documentation.

TV Server controls and interacts with tuners by building and controlling a BDA/DirectShow filter graph.

BDA is Microsoft's framework for digital tuner drivers. You can read more about it here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff556573(v=vs.85).aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd693015(v=vs.85).aspx

DirectShow is one of Microsoft's frameworks for processing media content. You can read more about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectShow
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd375454(v=vs.85).aspx

A BDA/DirectShow filter graph is just a conceptual way of describing/imagining how a stream is received and processed. Here is an example graph for a BDA tuner:

The stream processing starts at the left and finishes on the right.

I said that TV Server controls the tuner by controlling a graph. TV Server:

1. Creates the graph.
2. Creates a tune request and passes it to the "network provider" in the graph, which passes the tune request to the tuner driver.
3. Starts ("runs") the graph. When the graph is started, TV Server starts to receive the stream from the tuner and can perform scanning, timeshifting, recording, EPG grabbing etc.
4. Stops (or pauses) the graph. When the graph is stopped (or paused), TV Server stops receiving the stream from the tuner.
5. Destroys the graph.

About your question...
The message is telling you that TV Server was not able to start the graph. In other words, the stream could not be received from the tuner.
The error code (0x8000FFFF) is an HRESULT. You can find the meaning of some HRESULT codes here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa378137(v=vs.85).aspx

As you can see, that code is E_UNEXPECTED and means "Unexpected failure".

This error code can come from any component in the BDA/DirectShow filter graph. In other words, it can come from:

• BDA
• DirectShow
• the tuner driver

I cannot tell you which component it came from.
I cannot tell you any more about what it means.


Actually, after saying all of this...
I think you are looking in the wrong place for the error. I think the problem occurs when the recording and timeshifting is stopped earlier. You can see that stopping the graph takes a very long time:
[2015-10-23 18:10:00,118] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: stop record BFM Business Paris 10/23/2015 5:00:07 PM-10/23/2015 6:00:00 PM Manual (BFM Business Paris)
...
[2015-10-23 18:10:00,152] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - dvbtopGraph
...
[2015-10-23 18:10:23,058] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - debug: IMediaControl stopped! hr = 0x0


[2015-10-23 18:40:41,948] [Log ] [22 ] [INFO ] - Controller: StopTimeShifting 11
...
[2015-10-23 18:40:42,120] [Log ] [22 ] [INFO ] - dvbtopGraph
...
[2015-10-23 18:40:57,150] [Log ] [22 ] [INFO ] - debug: IMediaControl stopped! hr = 0x0

Normally the graph should take less than one second to stop. In these cases it is taking more than 15 seconds. Probably the tuner is failing to stop properly, and that is why the tuner fails to start later, and why you see the green LEDs.

Again it looks like tuner or network problems... or maybe the tuner or router/switch is overheating???

Hope that helps,
mm