Failed Recordings after Overnight Idle
#1
Hi, everyone. I'm running XBMC 13.2 with NextPVR as a backend on a laptop to record over the air ATSC signals in North America.

I'm having trouble with failed recordings after the laptop is idle for some time. For example, if I set a timer to record in the morning, I get a recording in XBMC that doesn't play, although I don't see an error message. In NextPVR, I see an error message next to the name of the recording that says "Failed." In the information about the episode panel, in red there is a further message: "No Errors, but no data delivered. This is usually because the device failed to lock a signal."

If I manually tune the the station (XBMC or NextPVR) it comes in fine, and later recordings seem fine - unless the PC (or XBMC or NextPVR) is idle too long. Too long is an unknown, however; sometimes a couple of hours seems fine, but sometimes not. It is a consistent problem for the first recording in the morning, and if I don't manually "do something" with XBMC or NextPVR, all subsequent recordings fail with the same message. This failure happens for all recordings up to several days when I have been out of town. The "do something" in the prior sentence could be tuning in to live TV, or just checking to see if the recording failed.

I appreciate any ideas for solutions or workarounds. Other information that may help: Windows 7 laptop is running both xbmc and NextPVR, with an HDMI connection to the TV. I'm using two external USB tuners, a Hauppage WinTV-HVR-950Q and an AVer TV Hybrid Volar Max with updated drivers. The problem remains if either one is plugged in, or both together. I've disabled all the power saving and sleep modes, and unticked the setting allowing the USB to be turned off to save power. Tried daily rebooting as well, with no success, although a manual reboot right before the recording starts seems to work.

Let me know what other info I can provide. I can replicate the problem, although it may take an overnight to do so.

Thanks.
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#2
Your best bet is to restart the recording service (to restart the logs), then reproduce the problem and supply the nrecord.log and ndigitalhost.log so I can take a look.
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#3
Yes, I waited too long today to get logs right after the failure, so recording successes followed. Will post the logs in about ten hours.

Thanks.

db
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#4
OK, let's see if I can attach those files...

Well, no. Is this OK?
NRecord log is here: http://pastebin.com/iYG5pNDn
ndigitalhost log is here: http://pastebin.com/94GLvHBP

The recording was scheduled for 2015-01-01 07:00
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#5
It looks like it's gone through the motions, and no sign of any errors, but your AverMedia device has shown the signal as "strength=0, quality=0" so in this case, it's never delivered any data to NextPVR for it to record.

I know you commented earlier that it happens with both device, but I'm willing to bet if you unplug the AverMedia device, go to the NextPVR Settings->Devices screen (to force it to detect the device is missing), then go to the Settings->Channels screen and do an 'Update EPG' (to force it to reallocate the recordings to the HVR950Q), then leave it overnight, the recording will work fine. ie, I'm thinking this is some quirky driver problem with the AverMedia device, since we've seen these types of problems with AverMedia devices before. The Hauppauge device should be fine though.

I'd be happy to look at logs showing the problem happening with the Hauppauge device if you think the problem still exists when it's recording.
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#6
Thanks, I'll try that. When I was trying the devices one at a time, I was just unplugging one of the devices - I didn't know it was important to remap the recordings. I just thought they were allocated as needed, rather than one at a time.

My first attempt to remove the AVer and remap the EPG did not work. Live TV in NextPVR stopped working, with an "Unable to find capture device" error. I'll get that back up and running using the Hauppage, schedule some recordings and follow up.

Thanks for your help so far!
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#7
I just needed to restart for NextPVR to start working after editing the devices and channels. I've scheduled recordings for later today, which have failed in the past, as well as tomorrow morning, which I know have failed consistently.
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#8
OK, had another failure after an overnight. Same failure message in NextPVR: "No errors, but no data delivered. This is usually because the device failed to lock a signal."

NRecord log: http://pastebin.com/puF1bCaY
Ndigitalhost log: http://pastebin.com/ZCNg1hPZ
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#9
Odd. I'm not really sure how to explain that one. I'm wondering if it's some USB issue, maybe related to power management?

Do you have to reboot for it start working again?
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#10
No, I don't have to reboot. For example, today, after I checked NextPVR to see if the recording failed (XBMC does not show an error), the next recordings a few hours later recorded fine. So, I think just opening NextPVR was enough. Leaving NextPVR open overnight does not work, however.

It may be that if I opened up NextPVR through the task scheduler before the early recording, it would work - maybe I'll try that tomorrow. I don't know if there is a way to automate that before every scheduled recording, rather than using a fixed time.
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#11
I'm not really what to suggest on this problem. There is no reason you should have to do this, and it's not a problem any other users have reported.
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#12
If no other users have the problem, that makes it sound like not an XBMC/NextPVR problem. I wish I knew why I was so special! Thanks for your help, though. I certainly would not have none about reallocating the recordings when removing a tuner.

Maybe someone else has some ideas for workarounds. In the meantime, I will try a few other things. The laptop has an eSATA port, maybe that will behave differently than a USB port? I could also try to figure out how to run a batch file that opens NextPVR a minute or two before a recording is scheduled; the hard part would be figuring out the trigger for irregular recordings. But I will try that for tomorrow AM, to see what happens.
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#13
Sorry to keep replying to my own posts, but I see this in the Ndigitalhost log:

2015-01-02 06:59:10.620 [DEBUG][5] locked=1, present=1, strength=-17, quality=10 (took 109ms to check)

Does that tell me that the tuner is working and tuned into the channel? So maybe this is not a USB issue, but a NextPVR issue?
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#14
It looks like it does detect the channel, but that quality level is very low. I would expect it to deliver some data, so you should end up with a file with some data in it, but maybe no playable.

We can see if the device is delivering any data. To do this, create a c:\temp directory and set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\NPVR\LogTSFlow=2 (DWORD) in the registry. Now when the recording has failed, we'd need to look at the files that have been created in c:\temp to check if they list packets being delivered.

On a 32 bit install of Windows, that registry key is: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NPVR\LogTSFlow=2

Warning - this registry entry generates big log files in c:\temp, so you want to make sure you remove the registry setting afterwards.
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#15
OK, I will set up that registry entry at the end of the day, so hopefully it will not fill up with uninteresting information before the morning's failure tomorrow.

I've set up the C:\temp directory. Will the registry entry automatically point to that? I didn't see a NextPVR entry in the settings that seemed relevant.

Thanks.
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