[solved] [solved by driver update of PCTV 461e] "Continuity error..." after updating from Windows 10 1909 to 20H2 (2 Viewers)

Andy_2639

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Hello

Yesterday, I updated my computer running MediaPortal Client and TVServer (and also occasionally providing another laptop with TV) from Windows 10 1909 to 20H2.

MediaPortal version: 1.26

On 1909, Mediaportal TVServer run without problems, just a few (5 or so) "Continuity error..." messages when EPG grapping stops and the data is written into the database on disk.

With 20H2, I have problems with recording TV when the graphics adaptor is slightly busy (20% to 40% according to taskmanager 3D GPU usage). Then, I get massive amounts of "Continuity error...". The recorded .ts file is still playable but with many artifacts in each picture and sound. It doesn't matter whether the GPU load is caused by MediaPortal playing the TV stream on the server or by another application. It also doesn't matter whether I'm sitting directly in front of the server or I'm using RDP (in LAN).
I attached the LatencyMon results captured during watching live TV with many "Continuity error..."s.

I tried to check my system profile but the link https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/account/systemspecs just says:
Oops! We ran into some problems.
The requested page could not be found.

Watching live TV on my laptop (so the server is just running the TVService and the MediaPortal client is running on my laptop), everything is fine. No errors on recording, no artifacts in the picture or audio.

Is something known with 20H2? I'm happy to debug this further/provide more information if you can tell me what's needed.

Kind regards, Andy

Edit: Solved by updating the driver of the PCTV 461e: "Continuity error..." after updating from Windows 10 1909 to 20H2
 

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CyberSimian

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    On 1909, Mediaportal TVServer run without problems, just a few (5 or so) "Continuity error..." messages when EPG grapping stops and the data is written into the database on disk.
    Hmm, I don't think that I would regard that as acceptable :(.

    I don't know what the cause is, but you might be able to avoid it by ensuring that your recording folder and MP installation are not on the same physical disk. For example, I have the Windows OS and MP installation on the "C:" drive (a slow Western Digital 5400 rpm Green disk), but my recording folder is on the "E:" drive (a fast Seagate 7200 rpm disk).

    Updating the EPG on disk is a disk-intensive activity, and (on my system) typically takes 10-15 minutes. If "TV Server" is also trying to write one or more files to the recording folder, and the disk is not fast, maybe you end up with the behaviour that you have encountered. :confused:

    If you cannot use a physically separate disk, you could perform EPG grabbing/updating at a time when you are not using the system for viewing or recording (e.g. at 04:00 hrs, perhaps).

    With 20H2, I have problems with recording TV when the graphics adaptor is slightly busy (20% to 40% according to taskmanager 3D GPU usage).
    Is this watching TV/video, or are you playing a computer game? I was under the impression that playing SD and HD content is a relatively trivial task for most graphics adapters, and it is only playing UHD that is problematic for the lower-spec adapters.

    I don't have an explanation for why 20H2 is worse than 1909. Possibly something related to networking, but that is above my pay grade. :(

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    joecrow

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    Have you updated your video card driver? I understand there were significant changes required for 20H2 compatibility.
     

    vuego

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    With 20H2, I have problems with recording TV when the graphics adaptor is slightly busy (20% to 40% according to taskmanager 3D GPU usage). Then, I get massive amounts of "Continuity error...". The recorded .ts file is still playable but with many artifacts in each picture and sound.
    Hey, thanks for reporting. I have the same issue however I'm not sure it's related to GPU usage in my case since I'm not running any graphics loading software when I get the continuity errors. I've had this problem for a couple of weeks but I'm not sure if it's related to updating Windows or not. My timeshift folder is located on RAID0 SSD and the recording folder is on a HDD but both drives have the same issue.

    My Windows version is 10.0.19041 Build 19041 and MediaPortal 1.25. However I'm running an old graphics driver Nvidia version 432 since the newer versions doesn't seem to support 3D Blu-ray :confused: I will try upgrading it anyway.
     

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    joecrow

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    My Windows version is 10.0.19041 Build 19041 and MediaPortal 1.25. However I'm running an old graphics driver Nvidia version 432 since the newer versions doesn't seem to support 3D Blu-ray :confused: I will try upgrading it anyway.

    Have you done a feature update recently, because build 19041 (ver. 2004) has been around since May/June time and a newer version has been released build 19042 (ver. 20H2)? So if it is something that has happened in the last couple of weeks if it is an update issue then I would assume it to be a regular rather than the latest feature update can you confirm and maybe try rolling back any recent updates.
    Bad luck on the Nvidia end of 3D support, not sure with their drivers but I know AMD had to do a couple of updates for both Win 10 2004 and 20H2 but thankfully they still support 3D.
     

    vuego

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    I've just updated to Windows 10 20H2, MediaPortal 1.26 and Nvidia driver 457.30 plus installed Intel Rapid Technology and activated write back cache on the RAID0 drive however it didn't help.

    In the last weeks Windows Update have installed updates for .NET, Edge, Windows 10 and Intel network drivers.
    I will try my older installation on the other partition to see if the problem exists there too.

    Thanks for your assistance :)
     

    Andy_2639

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    Thanks for your fast response, CyberSimian

    Hmm, I don't think that I would regard that as acceptable :(.

    I don't know what the cause is, but you might be able to avoid it by ensuring that your recording folder and MP installation are not on the same physical disk. For example, I have the Windows OS and MP installation on the "C:" drive (a slow Western Digital 5400 rpm Green disk), but my recording folder is on the "E:" drive (a fast Seagate 7200 rpm disk).

    Everything on my system is on the same RAID 1 consisting of 2 2.5" 5400 RPM disks.

    I have a history with Continuity errors ... 1.15.0 - Recording and timeshift ts files saved by System account with backgound priority | MediaPortal - An Open Source Windows Media Center for FREE! (team-mediaportal.com)
    So I was pretty happy with the behavior a week ago. I configured the TVServer so that the EPG is captured every time I watch/record a channel. I record almost everything, live TV is neglegible for me, so these erros typically are within the 5 minutes pre-recording of the actual stuff. (These continuity errors occur a much shorter time frame than the writing of the EPG to disk takes.)
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,820] [4c3d190] [269c] - epg: set callback
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,820] [4c3d190] [269c] - EpgScanner::GrabEPG
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,820] [4c3d190] [269c] - epg:GrabEPG
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,820] [4c3d190] [269c] - epg:ResetEPG()
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,820] [4c3d190] [269c] - epg:GrabEPG()
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,820] [4c3d190] [269c] - EpgScanner::GrabMHW
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,820] [4c3d190] [269c] - mhw grab
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,820] [4c3d190] [269c] - mhw reset
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,820] [4c3d190] [269c] - mhw grabber started decoders:2
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,825] [4c3d190] [2b98] - Recorder: RECORD clear TS packet queue
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,825] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::ResetThrottle() - Throttle to 3008 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,825] [4c3d190] [2b98] - Recorder: RECORD Info : Next broadcaster program clock reference rollover : 0 days 19:23:22 0
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,825] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 4512 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,825] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 7520 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,825] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 7520 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,830] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 7520 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,830] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 7520 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,830] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 7520 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,845] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 15040 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,845] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 15040 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,855] [4c3d190] [2b98] - Recorder: RECORD start of audio detected
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,855] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 15040 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,855] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 15040 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,870] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 15040 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,880] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 30080 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,895] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 30080 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,905] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 30080 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,910] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 48128 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,935] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 60160 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,950] [4c3d190] [2b98] - Recorder: RECORD start of audio detected
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,960] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 75200 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:02,990] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 123328 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:55:03,030] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CDiskRecorder::AdjustThrottle() - Throttle to 261696 bytes
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,005] [4c3d190] [2b98] - mhw grabber ended
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,005] [4c3d190] [2b98] - epg: epg received
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,005] [4c3d190] [2b98] - epg: do callback
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,005] [4c3d190] [2b98] - mhw grabber ended
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,005] [4c3d190] [2b98] - CMhwParser:GetTitleCount:0
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,005] [4c3d190] [2b98] - EpgScanner::GetMHWTitleCount:0
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,275] [4c3d190] [2b98] - epg: reset
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,275] [4c3d190] [2b98] - epg:ResetEPG()
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,275] [4c3d190] [2b98] - mhw reset
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,290] [4c3d190] [2b98] - Recorder:pid 17de Continuity error... 7 ( prev a ) - bad signal?
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,290] [4c3d190] [2b98] - Recorder:pid 17e8 Continuity error... 4 ( prev 2 ) - bad signal?
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,290] [4c3d190] [2b98] - Recorder:pid 17ea Continuity error... f ( prev f ) - bad signal?
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,290] [4c3d190] [2b98] - Recorder:pid 17eb Continuity error... c ( prev e ) - bad signal?
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,290] [4c3d190] [2b98] - Recorder:pid 17e9 Continuity error... e ( prev f ) - bad signal?
    [2020-11-23 18:56:35,345] [4c3d190] [2b98] - Recorder:pid 17f2 Continuity error... c ( prev 6 ) - bad signal?
    [2020-11-23 18:57:09,420] [4c3d190] [1074] - epg: reset
    [2020-11-23 18:57:09,420] [4c3d190] [1074] - epg:ResetEPG()
    [2020-11-23 18:57:09,420] [4c3d190] [1074] - mhw reset

    I changed the engine of the program table (only of that table) from InnoDB to MyISAM due to performance reasons (not only inserting EPG entries but also scrolling through the TV program, so reading from that table). That is a huge difference.

    My harddisk changed, now I'm using 2 Western Digital Red 2.5" 5400 RPM PMR (so no shingled, no heat assisted). I'd like to update my system spec but I really cannot find that site ...
    Capture.PNG

    Is this watching TV/video, or are you playing a computer game?

    That was watching TV with MediaPortal, the 3D graph in the GPU tab of the taskmanager.
    IIRC the 40% were 720p H264 public broadcasting of Germany which means 10-13 MBit/s while sitting in front of the computer.
    The 20% were SD content, MPEG2 with I guess Tele5 3 MBit/s ... but via RDP so re-encoding has to be happened.

    I did another run of LatencyMon. The results were green until I started MediaPortal, then I got a short red spike. I was connected via RDP to the system. I attach the screenshot and log.

    Changes in the last time:
    2020-11-16: I updated the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver but didn't see any change (but didn't watch TV on the computer since then, just recording).
    2020-11-21: Update Windows 10 1909 to 20H2, noticed havy Continuity errors.
    After that, I updated the Intel HD Graphics driver but then MediaPortal crashed ( Latest Intel HD4600 Drivers Issue ).
    Downgraded driver to 15.40.42.5063, errors persist.
    Downgraded the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver to the version I had before 2020-11-16, errors persist. (At least I hope that there are no remainings of the newer RST software actively running.)

    More details about the workload of the system:
    The CPU is throttled to 800 MHz permanently. I have BOINC running with 4 Tasks (= 4 processes with one Thread each) at idle priority. Another process is consuming one logical core at normal priority. Apache Webserver, Ejabberd, hMailServer but with very low load. TVService is running with High priority. MediaPortal client (if running) with higher then normal.

    Windows 10 1909 had no problems at all with that. Even adding 2 7-Zip threads and parallel recording + watching was no problem.

    History of Continuity error:
    At the beginning of my HTPC (end 2015), I had these often - but nor correlated with simultaneously recording + watching. I correlated them more with network or disk IO activity. At that time, I also had a RamDisk for timeshift files.
    Later, I removed the RamDisk and the situation was much better but not yet resolved.
    Updating Windows 10 to 1809 (I skip spring feature updates and only take the fall ones every year) was the holy grail: just the few errors after EPG capture - as I just watch once and then throw away the recording, the 0.2 seconds glitch in video/audio don't matter to me. (I think it was with 1809, could also be with 1909 ...)
    Windows 10 1909 still no problems.
    Windows 10 20H2: no problems connected with network/disk IO but with watching. Today and yesterday evening I also notices problems when I was logged in to the TVServer computer via RDP but not watching.

    I also tried PCIe DVB-S2 cards at the time before 1809. The continuity errors were vanished but MediaPortal TVServer did not manage to turn off the LNB supply voltage, resulting in higher power consumption and constantly working multiswitch and LNB. So I gave up that and continued with the PCTV USB card.
    LNB supply voltage does not switch off (team-mediaportal.com)

    Kind regards,
    Andy

    Edit: added link
     

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    CyberSimian

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    Thank you for providing a detailed description of your system and investigations (y). Someone may spot something that looks problematic. The only standout for me was this:

    I also tried PCIe DVB-S2 cards at the time before 1809. The continuity errors were vanished but MediaPortal ... LNB voltage ... So I gave up that and continued with the PCTV USB card.
    To me that suggests that the PCTV USB tuner has poor sensitivity compared to the PCIe card. Another way to look at that would be to say that your signal strength is marginal, i.e. you need a bigger satellite dish if you want to use the USB tuner.

    My system uses DVB-T/T2, but I have two different tuner cards that have noticeably different sensitivities:
    • My TBS 6284 card can receive the 200 KWatt and 50 KWatt MUXes without problem, but is marginal receiving the 20 KWatt MUXes.
    • My Pinnacle 2000i card can receive the 200 KWatt MUXes, but cannot receive the 50 KWatt or 20 KWatt MUXes at all.
    • My Sony TV can receive all MUXes, although the 20 KWatt MUXes are subject to momentary pixelation from time to time (but generally still watchable).
    I understand your point about the LNB voltage, but this may be a situation where you cannot have everything that you want whilst continuing to use your current equipment :(. Let us see if anyone else can identify a possible source of the problems that you are encountering.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    joecrow

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    I'd like to update my system spec but I really cannot find that site ...
    Sadly that feature disappeared following a recent update to the MP website software. I do not believe there are any plans to restore it.:(
     

    Andy_2639

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    Thank you for providing a detailed description of your system and investigations (y).

    :)

    To me that suggests that the PCTV USB tuner has poor sensitivity compared to the PCIe card. Another way to look at that would be to say that your signal strength is marginal, i.e. you need a bigger satellite dish if you want to use the USB tuner.

    I know about different sensitivities. I experienced it myself with DVB-T(1) with an TV showing only artifacts and my PCTV Quatro Stick (510e) USB (DVB-T, DVB-C, PAL analog TV, FM radio) with almost perfect sound and picture (that's not the TV Card I'm currently using).
    Currently, I'm using PCTV DVB-S2 Stick (461e) (USB).

    I don't think that the problem with the continuity errors is related to the signal strength/quality because it isn't randomly but perfectly correlated with using the computer. (And it started with the 20H2 update - which could be coincidentally with a hardware break but with the perfect correlation of using the computer ... that seems a better explanation.)
    This screenshot was done while having many artifacts and continuity errors:
    Capture2.PNG
    When I looked at the receiving details where I didn't have the errors (before updating to 20H2), strength and quality didn't look different.

    (I already had a TV stick which was perfectly find and then broke. Analog TV, at the beginning it was a good picture but it got noisier (nearly unwatchable) with the time (as the stick got warmer). The distributor told me that the manufacturer PCTV acknowledged a hardware defect ...)

    I understand your point about the LNB voltage, but this may be a situation where you cannot have everything that you want whilst continuing to use your current equipment :(.

    I'm thinking about buying a new PCIe DVB-S2 card. I'm planning to ask for experiences here in the forum before. But this will be at the beginning of the next year - too much time already planned for the rest of this year .

    The theory about the vanished continuity errors with the PCIe card was that the communication is differently. For USB, as far as I understand it, it needs USB interrupt mode which means that the system has to poll the TV card. If this polling is not fast enough, data is dropped because an overrunning buffer inside the TV card.
    A PCIe card can use DMA to directly write into the RAM. (Maybe this also allows for bigger buffers?)

    (My system has 16 GB RAM, of wich normally 8-10 GB are used for disk cache. So in theory, Windows could write an entire SD movie into disk cache when the slow disks are busy ... I don't know whether Windows would do that in such an extreme case.)

    Thanks again for your quick reply!

    Sadly that feature disappeared following a recent update to the MP website software. I do not believe there are any plans to restore it.:(

    Tanks for this information. I think that's really a loss - for you as supporters and for ones like me searching for help. Especially with this kind of problem ...
    In the forum and wiki, they are still referenced:
    Don't forget to include Logs and fill in System Specs for Support! | MediaPortal - An Open Source Windows Media Center for FREE! (team-mediaportal.com)
    System Specs (team-mediaportal.com)
     

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