[confirm] Unknown error with RC3 again (1 Viewer)

[alexirion]

This time, the computer was just started new and switching to TV in MediaPortal lead to the famous "Unkown error" again.
I opened the TV Server settings dialog and tried to start timeshifting their, by pressing the push button. I received the "Unknown error", too.
This time the logs are from the beginning of the Media Portal session. Can anyone read something out of it?

In the logs I always see many of this Thumbnail Creator messages:

Skipped creating thumbnail for C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\recordings\Ab durch die Hecke - Das Erste HD - 2010-05-24.ts, it has been blacklisted because last attempt failed

Is that normal behaviour, that thumbnail creation fails? Can it be related to the TV Server problem?

In the TV server error.log file, I see such lines:

2010-05-24 19:28:59.628906 [(12)]: Exception :TvLibrary.TvException: Unable to start graph

Why does the TV server have to start the DirectShow Graph?? Isn't the graph not only necessary for playback?

--Alex

 

[jameson_uk]

Is that normal behaviour, that thumbnail creation fails? Can it be related to the TV Server problem?

Yes. Judging by channel name this is H264 encoded? I find mtn does not work with HD channels. This is unlikely to be related to your issue

Why does the TV server have to start the DirectShow Graph?? Isn't the graph not only necessary for playback?

There are two graphs, one which is capturing live TV (using TSWriter) and another which is reading the file and playing it back (using TSReader)

Normally these unknown errors are hardware / driver related. When it happens if you go into device manager are the capture cards listed there? Is this starting from new (cold boot) or does this happen when resuming from standby?

 

[alexirion]

Yes, they are all H264 recordings, but for some recordings I have thumbs. But, I don't care, if it's not related to my stability problems.

The case above happenend after rebooting the computer.

So, if tv server also uses the graph - maybe the problem could be caused by "codec hell"?

Or it can be the tv card driver or anything in the system. In the last days I also got two times a bluescreen or the system was hanging up when going to hibernate, or didn't come up from hibernate.

So, I will now go for a clean system installation and will start with a minimal system: only Windows 7, graphic driver, tv card driver and Media Portal and no external decoder.

I will then extensively test tv watching, recording and standby & resume and if it works add the additional parts to my system, only step by step.

If I still have trouble, I will test different tv card drivers and finally the RC1 version of Media Portal - since I didn't had that problems with tv as I begun with RC1 to setup my system.

--Alex

 

[jameson_uk]

So, if tv server also uses the graph - maybe the problem could be caused by "codec hell"?

No, the filters for capture are not the same ones that would be installed be codec packs etc.

Or it can be the tv card driver or anything in the system. In the last days I also got two times a bluescreen or the system was hanging up when going to hibernate, or didn't come up from hibernate.

It can be the tv card itself (hardware) or the drivers (software) or it could be MP or Windows... My experience of these issues is generally that it is hardware related with hardware and drivers not supporting standby / hibernation very well

 

[alexirion]

I will see ... Beside this, if standby / resume will not be stable - why isn't it possible to configure the PowerScheduler to completely shutdown, instead of only hibernating? Windows 7 restart is not so much longer than resuming from hibernate.

--Alex

 

[arion_p]

In fact you can set PowerScheduler to shutdown. But it is not possible for the system to automatically wake up for recordings. This is a hardware limitation. When system shuts down, power is completely off. Only power button can start the system (in some cases not ever Wake on LAN works).

 

[alexirion]

As far as I read, this is only true for some mainboards, that they can not wake up from S5 (Soft off). In the Power Scheduler settings, I can only select between Hibernate (S4) and Suspend-To-Ram (S3) - or did I miss something?
Why not add S5 as an option for the people, who want to try?
--Alex

 

[jameson_uk]

As far as I read, this is only true for some mainboards, that they can not wake up from S5 (Soft off). In the Power Scheduler settings, I can only select between Hibernate (S4) and Suspend-To-Ram (S3) - or did I miss something?
Why not add S5 as an option for the people, who want to try?
--Alex

AIUI certainly upto Vista this did not support wake from S5 via the OS (Network Connectivity — Remote wake-up basics) and whilst I think some hardware does support this it so I am not sure how you can set a wake time from the OS. Wake from S5 is normally possible from things like hardware but in response to a external event such as user pressing a button or a remote or WOL packet being received.

Not seen anything that would suggest you can schedule a wake event from S5

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Pretty sure this was a feature of PVR-Scheduler, enabling wakeup event to be stored in the cmos, never tried it so do not know how successfully it worked.