Show keeps on recording (1 Viewer)

[GregS70]

Tonight, MediaPortal was set to record Terra Nova at 8pm, House and Being Erica at 9, and Castle at 10. All are on different stations. It recorded Terra Nova, and over 2 more hours from that same channel (until I noticed and stopped it), and nothing else. I had one show a couple weeks ago that kept recording for 8 hours, but dismissed it as an aberration. Twice is a pattern. Other weeks, it has successfully recorded all of these shows, so it's not likely to be easy to reproduce.

Attached are the TV server logs. I've trimmed a crapload of "Continuity error" messages from the TsWriter log, but I've noted where they were removed from. The channel that it kept recording is the one I get the worst reception on, to the point that some shows are unwatchable, but it looks like it went quite smoothly for more than the hour it was supposed to record, so I don't believe this would be related.

I'm assuming that the client logs are unnecessary?

MediaPortal Version: 1.2.0.0
MediaPortal Skin: DefaultWide
Windows Version: Windows 7 Professional
CPU Type: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.7GHz
HDD: Western Digital WD10EADS-22M240 SATA
Memory: 2GB DDR2
Motherboard: MSI 785GTM-E45
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 5570, 1Gb RAM
Video Card Driver: 8.850.0.0
Sound Card: ATI HDMI Audio (Realtek ALC888S chip)
Sound Card Driver: 6.0.1.6121
TV Card: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250
TV Card Driver: 7.9.1.28162
MPEG2 Video Codec: ffdshow
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow
h.264 Video Codec: ffdshow DXVA
TV: Sony SXRD
TV - HTPC Connection: HDMI

 

[mm1352000]

Hi GregS70

Something happened at 8:44 pm. You can see it in the error.log:

2011-10-31 20:44:05.864346 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: card: unable to connect to slave controller at:mmmmedia

2011-10-31 20:44:08.188750 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: card: unable to connect to slave controller at:mmmmedia

2011-10-31 20:44:57.438036 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: card: unable to connect to slave controller at:mmmmedia

2011-10-31 20:45:03.865247 [scheduler thread(10)]: card: unable to connect to slave controller at:mmmmedia

2011-10-31 20:45:45.595320 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: card: unable to connect to slave controller at:mmmmedia

In the tv.log I see entries like this *starting at the same time as the error log entries start*:

2011-10-31 20:44:08.251150 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: NetworkMonitorHandler: standby prevented: Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface

2011-10-31 20:44:08.313550 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: NetworkMonitorHandler: ulSpeed: 14

2011-10-31 20:44:08.313550 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: NetworkMonitorHandler: dlSpeed: 1

2011-10-31 20:44:08.313550 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: NetworkMonitorHandler: standby prevented: Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller

2011-10-31 20:44:08.313550 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: NetworkMonitorHandler: ulSpeed: 18

2011-10-31 20:44:08.313550 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: NetworkMonitorHandler: dlSpeed: 5

2011-10-31 20:45:45.642120 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: NetworkMonitorHandler: standby prevented: Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface

2011-10-31 20:45:45.657720 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: NetworkMonitorHandler: ulSpeed: 13

2011-10-31 20:45:45.657720 [PowerScheduler poll thread(15)]: NetworkMonitorHandler: dlSpeed: 1

This looks like a networking issue. Either an IP address re-assignment or something - troubleshooting network issues is not really my strongest skill. I can say that TV Server is *very* dependent on the network connection. Even on a single-seat installation you must have a connected network for MP to work. This is because TV Server talks to the client via a networking dependent interface. If the network connection goes down it will throw TV Server into a tizz, and that looks like what has happened here.

Hope that gives you some clues...

mm

 

[GregS70]

Interesting. I do have occasional blips in my home network, which I haven't been able to track down. Generally pretty harmless, but if it's getting in the way of TV, I'm going to have to investigate more closely!

 

[GregS70]

My server registered one of these blips at, you guessed it, just after 8:44, so it seems VERY likely that this is the cause. Would there be any way for TV server to recover more gracefully from this situation (by recognizing what I assume is a broken socket and re-establishing the connection)? Also, I noticed that the log entries you mentioned all seem to be related to the power scheduler, which I'm not really using at the moment; would it lessen the likelihood of the problem if I disabled that?

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again

My server registered one of these blips at, you guessed it, just after 8:44, so it seems VERY likely that this is the cause.

Finding the reason is a good first step - I guess the next step would be finding the reason for the blips and fixing it.

Would there be any way for TV server to recover more gracefully from this situation (by recognizing what I assume is a broken socket and re-establishing the connection)?

Not easily. As I said, TV Server and MP really are reliant on stable network connections. MP can recover from a disconnection to TV Server, but TV Server is more "fragile". That is because the streaming server, database connection, and client connection listener (which are really core dependencies of TV Server) all rely on network services.

The standard recommendations in situations like this is to use a static IP address for the TV Server, and if the system is a standalone install (ie. no client-only PCs) then use the loopback adapter from Microsoft if it is really necessary (tutorial -->here<--). You can also hack the registry to force the network connection to appear as always connected - I'm sorry I don't have details for that.

Also, I noticed that the log entries you mentioned all seem to be related to the power scheduler, which I'm not really using at the moment; would it lessen the likelihood of the problem if I disabled that?

I don't know the answer to that question so I guess it would be a case of trial and error. You might like to try some of the suggestions I mentioned first though.

mm

 

[GregS70]

My server registered one of these blips at, you guessed it, just after 8:44, so it seems VERY likely that this is the cause.

Finding the reason is a good first step - I guess the next step would be finding the reason for the blips and fixing it.

I have a FreeBSD server on a static IP address, that's the one I said registered the blip; it logs an "interface changed to down/interface changed to up" pair of messages at completely random intervals, such as at 8:44 on the night in question. I don't really know what that means and don't expect you to, but include it in the vague hope that maybe someone reading this might have some insight. However, the fact that this happens at the same time as the problem starts on the MediaPortal PC leads me to think it's outside of any one system, and instead I fear that it may be my wireless router or my main router or my modem, all of which are expensive to try to debug...

The standard recommendations in situations like this is to use a static IP address for the TV Server, and if the system is a standalone install (ie. no client-only PCs) then use the loopback adapter from Microsoft if it is really necessary (tutorial -->here<--). You can also hack the registry to force the network connection to appear as always connected - I'm sorry I don't have details for that.

I've switched it to a static IP address now, seems I'd need that anyway if/when I get to the point of trying to stream stuff to my iPhone, or do any remote management. Now to give it a couple weeks and see if the problem recurs...

Thanks for the help so far!