Trouble with Terratec H7 and CAM (1 Viewer)

[ogir_xx]

Hi again

Quote MM: "The only problem outstanding that I am aware of is the scanning problem with the H7. I'm still thinking about how we can resolve that one - could be tricky."

This is a mayour problem for people only using the H7.
I dont know if im the only one experiencing channel scanning problems with the H7 or not though...

I will test a new scan with both my H7s - one at a time, and use different signal cables also, to rule out problems with hardware.
Btw: should I try scanning with Cam both inserted and not, or does it not matter if its inserted or not when scanning?

Really busy at work atm, so dont wait up for my logs
I will Post results tomorrow hopefully.

 

[ogir_xx]

Hi again
Bad news from my part - now I got really confused of whats going on and what may bee the cause of the trouble i'm experiencing atm

Yesterday everything seemed pretty ok and stable, but now when turning on my computer nothing worked as yesterday.

Tuning to scrambeled channels did not work consistensly, mostly not. Only FTA channels was viewable.
Got error messages like "problems with communication with card", "card not inserted" etc.

Changed Cam to H7 tuner # 2 and restarted tv server, mapped FTA channels to correct cards, experienced the same problems.
Changed Cam to Cinergy tuner and restarted tv server, mapped FTA channels to correct cards, problems seemed to be solved at least I can watch and tune all channels with the cinergy.

Ill guess i have to postpone the planned channel scan test with the H7 until later...

This is driving me nuts - hope you preserve your sanity
Logs attached

 

[mm1352000]

Hi ogir_xx

I *really* don't like the look of those logs. Can you tell me what happened in the morning? It looks like TV Server suddenly starts up again at just before 21:30, which means it was not stopped correctly at ~9am. That can be a bad thing for hardware. I don't think the CAM is necessarily okay even in the Cinergy. There is one case where you were tuning to "Canal Digital KTV TV 2 (N)" when the CI state suddenly changed to empty... like the CI slot had lost contact with the CAM. Then about 3.5 seconds later the CAM is redetected (tuner driver realises that the CAM is present) but descrambling fails because the CAM is not initialised fast enough. This was probably quite obvious to you since it took about 20 second for tuning to fail...

mm

 

[ogir_xx]

Hi again
I really dont understand this either.

"What happened?". Well I started the computer, which autostarted MP. I then tuned to a channel and everytihing seemed to "lock up" with messages stated problems with cam.
What i did then i dont exactly remember, but I'm pretty sure I shut down MP, started Tv server setup, and reasigned the cam to another card. Moved the cam and card to another tuner and restarted the tv server by saving the changed state in the server setup. - to be more presise: I believe the server restarts when changes are made in in the server setup/card setup etc.

Can't be more spesific - sorry

Regards

 

[mm1352000]

I was more wondering what happened in the morning just before 9am because it seems like TV Server just dies. There is no log output after 9am until approximately 9:30 pm. At 9:30 pm TV Server is starting up... but why was it never stopped properly? You said that you started the computer in the evening; did you turn it off in the morning, or did it go to sleep, or... ?

 

[ogir_xx]

Ok - sorry i misunderstood your question
The computer was probably shut down in the morning, and definetivly restarted in the evening. No sleep.
The reason I say "probably" is that the computer wasnt shut down by me.

Well anyway - I have since my initial post this evening been trying out the initializing, stability, tuning and cam menu for all the cards.
Inbetween every change of cam from one card to another I restarted the machine properly.

Every instance of the testing resultet in cards been initialized and working properly.

So - sorry for the false alarm MM!!

Btw: regarding further work on the H7 scanning functionality.
What i meant in my earlier reply to your question is that channelscanning is the most basic functionality to get working when using a tuner with MP.
If I had only one tuner I would prefer scanning fuctionality before CI menu functionality.
So if its undoable, i would stick to the "standard" tvserver.dll

Thank U again for the great support, MM

 

[mm1352000]

Ok - sorry i misunderstood your question
The computer was probably shut down in the morning, and definetivly restarted in the evening. No sleep.
The reason I say "probably" is that the computer wasnt shut down by me.

Okay (and no need to apologise ).

Well anyway - I have since my initial post this evening been trying out the initializing, stability, tuning and cam menu for all the cards.
Inbetween every change of cam from one card to another I restarted the machine properly.

Every instance of the testing resultet in cards been initialized and working properly.

So - sorry for the false alarm MM!!

Well that is good. I wish that things like that didn't happen in the first place because it gets both of us concerned.

Btw: regarding further work on the H7 scanning functionality.
What i meant in my earlier reply to your question is that channelscanning is the most basic functionality to get working when using a tuner with MP.
If I had only one tuner I would prefer scanning fuctionality before CI menu functionality.
So if its undoable, i would stick to the "standard" tvserver.dll

Understood. I can easily fix the scanning (I think) with no effect on the CI menu stuff. The conflict is with stability - something happens when you leave the tuner idle for some time. This is the problem that paalkr reported at the start of the thread. I will provide a test DLL this evening (a few hours from now) with the fix removed and we shall see whether the original problem comes back and the scanning issue is resolved...

mm

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again folks

Here is v1.7 with a small fix for a CI menu issue that I notice in ogir_xx's logs. I'm providing 3 versions of the TVLibrary.dll this time around:
1. *.current - this is the most similar to the current patch; it forces the graph never to be stopped as suggested by the DVB Link found by paalkr
2. *.1.2.2 - this patch restores the "standard" MP 1.2.x behaviour, allowing the graph to be stopped
3. *.fix - this is an attempt to fix the problem while maintain the fix in the patch; it allows the graph to be stopped, but *only* when scanning

ogir_xx: looking back at your logs, I actually see potential problems even with the tests you did with the "standard" 1.2.1 DLL. The tuner would report lock but then channels would not be found:

2012-01-04 20:59:33.663544 [(3)]: dvbc: ScanVBC:tv: Freq:490000 ONID:-1 TSID:-1 SID:-1 PMT:0xFFFFFFFF FTA:False LCN:10000 SymbolRate:6950 Modulation:Mod256Qam
2012-01-04 20:59:33.663544 [(3)]: dvbubmiting tunerequest Channel: subChannel:0
2012-01-04 20:59:33.663544 [(3)]: dvb:Getting new subchannel
2012-01-04 20:59:33.663544 [(3)]: dvb:GetNewSubChannel:0 #0
2012-01-04 20:59:33.679144 [(3)]: TvDvbChannel ctor new subchIndex:0
2012-01-04 20:59:33.679144 [(3)]: dvbubmit tunerequest size:1 new:0
2012-01-04 20:59:33.679144 [(3)]: subch:0 OnBeforeTune
2012-01-04 20:59:33.679144 [(3)]: dvbubmit tunerequest calling put_TuneRequest
2012-01-04 20:59:33.679144 [(3)]: dvbubmit tunerequest done calling put_TuneRequest
2012-01-04 20:59:33.679144 [(3)]: subch:0 OnAfterTune
2012-01-04 20:59:33.679144 [(3)]: RunGraph
2012-01-04 20:59:33.694744 [(3)]: subch:0 OnGraphStart
2012-01-04 20:59:33.694744 [(3)]: dvb: RunGraph
2012-01-04 20:59:33.881945 [TwinHan CiMenuHandler(27)]: MMI State CI_STATUS_EMPTY_OLD
2012-01-04 20:59:34.396746 [TwinHan CiMenuHandler(27)]: MMI State CI_STATUS_EMPTY_OLD
2012-01-04 20:59:34.911547 [TwinHan CiMenuHandler(27)]: MMI State CI_STATUS_EMPTY_OLD
2012-01-04 20:59:35.005147 [(3)]: dvb: LockedInOnSignal ok
2012-01-04 20:59:35.005147 [(3)]: subch:0 OnGraphStarted
2012-01-04 20:59:35.020747 [(3)]: subch:0 SetupPmtGrabberid FFFFFFFF sid:FFFFFFFF
2012-01-04 20:59:35.020747 [(3)]: subch:0 SetupPmtGrabberid FFFFFFFF sid:FFFFFFFF
2012-01-04 20:59:35.051947 [(3)]: Scan: tuner locked:True signal:0 quality:75
2012-01-04 20:59:35.426347 [TwinHan CiMenuHandler(27)]: MMI State CI_STATUS_EMPTY_OLD
2012-01-04 20:59:35.941148 [TwinHan CiMenuHandler(27)]: MMI State CI_STATUS_EMPTY_OLD
2012-01-04 20:59:36.455949 [TwinHan CiMenuHandler(27)]: MMI State CI_STATUS_EMPTY_OLD
2012-01-04 20:59:36.970750 [TwinHan CiMenuHandler(27)]: MMI State CI_STATUS_EMPTY_OLD
2012-01-04 20:59:37.485551 [TwinHan CiMenuHandler(27)]: MMI State CI_STATUS_EMPTY_OLD
2012-01-04 20:59:40.075156 [(3)]: Scan Got 0 from 0 channels

That happened 7 times. Once it happened for the first time it started happening for all of the following frequencies that were scanned.

Do you have any details from your provider about what frequency each channel is meant to be found at? I fear you may be missing quite a few channels.

Your idea to remove the CAM when scanning is also a good idea. In theory it shouldn't make a difference, but in practise I have seen reports that it does make a difference for Digital Devices cards so it could make a difference for the H7.

mm

 

[ogir_xx]

Results from 1.7 tests

When testing I experienced really bad stuttering and discontinousness due to a major drop in signal quality.
At the start of the test i thought it may have something to do with the new patch, but when reverting to v 1.6 of the patch which worked perfectly regarding signal quality etc yesterday, I reconed the problem was on the HW side.
And rightly so; the new problem was a bad signal contact on the H7 (Has so solder it in place in final setup )
Hope the first part of the logs arent messed up with to many red herrings because of this.

In short - the test steps and what I found:

7:30 - Initial test with .fix version
- Scanning with Cam inserted - OK? - 139 channels found
- CI module is working and seems to be faster acessible

8:10 - test with 1.2.2 version
- CI module ok from Tv setup, not from MP
- Scanning with Cam inserted - OK? - 139 channels found.

8:35 - test with .current version
- CI module ok in both Tv setup and MP
- Scanning with Cam inserted - not ok - only 9 channels found
- Scanning with Cam inserted but deactivated - not ok - only 9 channels found

9:00 - reverted to v 1.6 of the patch due to signal troubles i hadnt figured the cause for.

9.30 - latest test with .fix version
- everything seems stable

My conclusion:
The .fix version seems to be working best so im using it for the moment.
Although I scan 154 channels with my cinergy tuner, the H7 only recognizes 139.

regards

 

[paalkr]

Thanks MM for the new libraries. I have actually never tried to scan for channels with the H7. I can try to do a channel scan if you need logs from a dvb -t setup.

The only issue I have from time to time is that it takes about 20 seconds to tune a channel. This happens rarely though. I will try to fetch a log the next time it happens.

Regards,
PK