Topic: Scan for Channels Always Freezes at 26 of 68 (Read 6036 times)

DocLotus · « **on:** October 05, 2019, 04:43:08 pm »

Every time I try to scan for TV channels all goes along well until it gets to 26 of 68 then it hard freezes. The only way I can stop the freeze is to do a Ctrl Alt Del & use Task Manager to stop all MC. This has been going on for all new versions of MC going back several months. I have no idea what could be causing it.

jachin99 · « **Reply #1 on:** October 05, 2019, 05:00:15 pm »

I don't get the same behavior on my hdhr primes. FYI, MS will discontinue their guide data in January. I wanted to bring that up because I saw it in your sig.

JimH · « **Reply #2 on:** October 05, 2019, 05:25:35 pm »

Have you tried waiting a while?

DocLotus · « **Reply #3 on:** October 05, 2019, 09:51:56 pm »

Quote from: JimH on October 05, 2019, 05:25:35 pm

Have you tried waiting a while?

Yes, several hours in fact. Still hung up & had to do Ctrl Alt Del & use Task Manager to stop all MC as the Cancel button would not exit. I've tried waiting for at least 15 minutes several times but no luck. It always freezes on 26 of 68. I've done a reset of TV... no luck. I've uninstalled MC leaving the base files intact (the one for updating)... no luck. I've done a complete uninstall of ALL of MC files & reinstall... no luck. I've tried reinstalling older versions of MC... no luck.

It did work ONE time a few days ago; it got to 26 of 68 & continued on normally. Has failed every time since.

DocLotus · « **Reply #4 on:** October 05, 2019, 10:04:08 pm »

I don't know if this is helpful or not but my other two TV software scans without problems... Silicon Dust HDHomeRun (for the HDHomeRun Connect Quatro Tuner) & Hauppauge WinTV 8.5 (for the WinTV-dualHD Tuner).

DocLotus · « **Reply #5 on:** October 05, 2019, 10:06:34 pm »

Quote from: jachin99 on October 05, 2019, 05:00:15 pm

I don't get the same behavior on my hdhr primes. FYI, MS will discontinue their guide data in January. I wanted to bring that up because I saw it in your sig.

Thanks for the info, jachin99.

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** October 06, 2019, 07:14:42 am »

25.0.113 is on the Download Page.

DocLotus · « **Reply #7 on:** October 06, 2019, 01:34:35 pm »

Installed 25.0.113, rebooted... same problem; stalls on 26 of 68 & the cancel button causes a MC is Not Responding message.

JimH · « **Reply #8 on:** October 06, 2019, 01:44:40 pm »

Try reinstalling the software that came with your TV tuner.

DocLotus · « **Reply #9 on:** October 06, 2019, 02:28:45 pm »

Completely uninstalled HDHomeRun software. Reinstalled software. Am now getting error "Scanning failed: Details: Failed to build digital preview graph" whatever that is.

JimH · « **Reply #10 on:** October 06, 2019, 02:32:58 pm »

Bad tuner? Power supply? Try Google and SD.

DocLotus · « **Reply #11 on:** October 06, 2019, 02:43:34 pm »

My error

Went back to the HDHomeRun Setup software & found there was both an OK button & Apply buttons. Last time I did OK, this time I did Apply & the "Scanning failed: Details: Failed to build digital preview graph" is no more; scanning returns.

However; it still stops on 26 of 68.

Maybe on Monday Yoabing can read the attache Log.zip. I'm fairly certain the answer is in there (hopefully) ?

tzr916 · « **Reply #12 on:** October 06, 2019, 03:09:49 pm »

Just throwing out something to try that helps when similar things happen on Tv's with built in OTA tuners:
-disconnect the antenna(s) from the tuner(s)
-run a channel scan

Does it hang? I know it won't find channels, but does it finish?

-reconnect the antenna(s) and try again... Does it hang?

Maybe your amplifiers are "too much"? try without?
Unclear how many tuners you have, and which one(s) hang?
All tuners on same PC?
Same install of MC?
If it's HDRHP, does the Windows 10 App or HDHRP setup app hang when scanning?

DocLotus · « **Reply #13 on:** October 06, 2019, 06:51:11 pm »

Hi tzr916.

Quote

Just throwing out something to try that helps when similar things happen on Tv's with built in OTA tuners:
-disconnect the antenna(s) from the tuner(s)
-run a channel scan

Does it hang? I know it won't find channels, but does it finish?

It does finish very quickly.

Quote

-reconnect the antenna(s) and try again... Does it hang?

Yes. Still on 26 of 68.

Quote

Maybe your amplifiers are "too much"? try without?

Tried with & without the amp, same hang at 26 of 68.

Quote

Unclear how many tuners you have, and which one(s) hang?

All do the same (2 Hauppauge WinTV 8.5 & 4 Silicon Dust HDHomeRun Connect Quatro.

Quote

All tuners on same PC?

Yes.

Quote

Same install of MC?

Yes, but I have tried several older versions of MC all with the same results.

Quote

If it's HDRHP, does the Windows 10 App or HDHRP setup app hang when scanning?

Not sure what HDRHP means.

tzr916 · « **Reply #14 on:** October 06, 2019, 07:07:27 pm »

HDHRP = HDHomeRunPrime. I don't have experience with Connect Quatro, but Prime tuners have setup software/drivers from Silicondust that must be installed in order to get them working in software like JriverMC, and there's a setting specifically for JriverMC in the drivers, and there's channel scanning in the software/drivers as well... Also you can access the Prime tuners via IP in a web browser for checking signal strength and scanning, and you can install the Windows 10 Silicondust App that lets you watch tv directly on a PC without any Media Center software.

DocLotus · « **Reply #15 on:** October 06, 2019, 07:29:28 pm »

I know all that. Did all that. Just did not understand what HDHRP meant; my miss.

Have installed all the software & the Windows app. HDHomeRun works correctly by itself but just hangs in MC at 26 of 68. It used to scan correctly in MC but
the hanging problem starting several versions ago. The WinTV-dualHD USB tuner does the same thing... works correctly with it's own software but hangs at 26 or 68 in a MC scan.

Yaobing · « **Reply #16 on:** October 07, 2019, 12:11:36 pm »

I have been reading the log files. There is something that I can not explain. Some operation took too long and the TV engine timed out, and clean up effort hang.

I will have to think about this one.

By the way, HDHomeRun Prime is a different type of tuner and its channel scanning is fast because we use online EPG guide data to set up channels.

DocLotus · « **Reply #17 on:** October 07, 2019, 12:24:44 pm »

Hi Yaobing;

I'm not using HDHomeRun Prime but HDHomeRun Connect Quatro, if that makes any difference or not. No hangups with their software.
I'm also using WinTV-dualHD USB tuner. No hangups with their software either.
This seems to be an MC problem.

Thanks for you help; this one has been driving me a little crazy

Yaobing · « **Reply #18 on:** October 08, 2019, 10:16:42 am »

Please try this dll:

JRTelevision.zip

Download, unzip, and copy to MC installation folder.

Please capture a log file regardless whether it hangs or not.

DocLotus · « **Reply #19 on:** October 08, 2019, 10:34:32 am »

Yaobing; IT WORKS

Log attached.

What changed?

Yaobing · « **Reply #20 on:** October 08, 2019, 12:29:43 pm »

Quote from: DocLotus on October 08, 2019, 10:34:32 am

What changed?

Some Microsoft calls were failing randomly. I made sure MC ignores such failure.

Well, I can not pin point what change made it to work. I am afraid this could have just masked the issue and some time, under a slightly different condition it may surface again.

For now I will just call it "fixed".

DocLotus · « **Reply #21 on:** October 08, 2019, 12:46:21 pm »

Thanks; Yaobing.

Great response to a "sticky" problem.

One thing that I have always noticed about MC's TV scanning is that it is much slower then TV channel scanning in most other software. Any idea why?

In the last successful scan (the one I just ran for you) it scanned fairly quickly up to 26 of 68 (the location that it was previously hanging). It then slowly moved on to 27 of 68 & was very slow from then on to the end. BUT... it did work (for now ?).

Yaobing · « **Reply #22 on:** October 08, 2019, 04:16:08 pm »

When a frequency band carries no signal, it tends to take longer because we just wait and see if signals will come. The amount of wait is quite arbitrarily decided. Since channel scanning is a task that is done once in a long time, I don't think it is necessary to tweak this wait time. If we make it too short, we risk missing some hard-to-tune channels.

DocLotus · « **Reply #23 on:** October 08, 2019, 04:55:52 pm »

Ah... but there is the "Perform a more through scan" option at the bottom left of the screen. Would that not do the same thing? What I'm thinking is a faster "Normal" scan or a "Perform a more through scan" for those hard to load channels.

Best of both worlds ?

Just thought. I would like to see faster scanning if possible.

DocLotus · « **Reply #24 on:** February 12, 2020, 08:30:25 am »

Quote from: Yaobing on October 08, 2019, 10:16:42 am

Please try this dll:

JRTelevision.zip

Download, unzip, and copy to MC installation folder.

Please capture a log file regardless whether it hangs or not.

Have been using WinTV software (8.5 & now 10) for all my TV Viewing for the last four months or so as JR TV has been rather unreliable for me over a long period of time.

But... there are things I like about JR TV more then all the other TV programs so as I'm using the latest version of JR 26 I thought I would give it another go.

The very same problem of the TV scanning always stopping on 26 of 68 is back.

I tried adding the file noted above but when I click on it I get a message saying the file is no longer available.

Can I have it back for JRTV 26?

I'm also attaching the latest log file that shows the hang up on 26 of 68 problem.

Yaobing, I recall you mentioned last time that the problem was some weird timeout problem.

Quote from: Yaobing on October 08, 2019, 12:29:43 pm

Some Microsoft calls were failing randomly. I made sure MC ignores such failure.

Well, I can not pin point what change made it to work. I am afraid this could have just masked the issue and some time, under a slightly different condition it may surface again.

For now I will just call it "fixed".

I now believe it is a Houston channel 26.1 problem... something weird about channel 26.1 as it hangs no matter what EPG source I use (have tried three so
far & they all hang. Have tried Schedules Direct, OTA, & mc2xml.

Yaobing · « **Reply #25 on:** February 12, 2020, 11:54:16 am »

Quote from: DocLotus on February 12, 2020, 08:30:25 am

Can I have it back for JRTV 26?

The changes tested in that DLL were merged into the latest code. That particular DLL is therefore no longer needed. If the problem still exists in MC26, then whatever I tried did not actually work. I will take a look at your new log file.

DocLotus · « **Reply #26 on:** February 12, 2020, 12:37:53 pm »

Hello, Yaobing;
Great to hear from you again.

Sorry to burst your bubble but... I finally remembered that I had made a copy of your DLL, sooo.... I installed it into MC26 & as you can guess it works

I made FOUR channel scans & they all worked

So, there is something slightly different between the DLL you made for MC25 & the merged DLL that is used in MC26.

Happy Hunting

Yaobing · « **Reply #27 on:** February 12, 2020, 01:35:02 pm »

uh oh

DocLotus · « **Reply #28 on:** February 12, 2020, 03:23:31 pm »

Oh Boy.. sorry about that. Life can be cruel sometimes.

DocLotus · « **Reply #29 on:** February 12, 2020, 08:50:16 pm »

I was loading OTA data & did not like the sparse amount of EPG information available so I decided to go back to Schedules Direct. The scan was great until it got to 26 of 68. It froze again so there is still something weird about this whole thing.

Talk to you tomorrow.

DocLotus · « **Reply #30 on:** February 12, 2020, 11:59:56 pm »

I just can't give up... I ran a few more scans as the previous ones were rather erratic (sometimes it would complete the scan & most of the time not).

All the previous scans I was not able to get any program EPG data for Schedules direct it would come up blank.

I tried a sightly different configuration & FINALLY got a complete scan with Schedules Direct.

Seems that the scanning problem is very erratic.

Hope you find a solution to this rather perplexing problem.

Yaobing · « **Reply #31 on:** February 13, 2020, 11:06:43 am »

Hope I will figure out what causes the hang.

Just FYI, you do not always need to rescan TV channels in order to set up EPG. Assuming your channels are already complete, you can run "Load Program Guide..." directly. If you already have Schedules Direct set up previously, you can just make sure you select it. If you do not already have it, you can click Add button to set up EPG. Once the correct EPG mode is selected, click OK to run it. You need to make sure all your channels are mapped to the correct EPG channels.

DocLotus · « **Reply #32 on:** February 13, 2020, 11:53:02 am »

Thanks for the reminder

I've used that procedure before & it is pretty nice.

DocLotus · « **Reply #33 on:** February 13, 2020, 12:14:58 pm »

Speaking of Schedules Direct, do you have any idea why I'm seeing the "ERROR: Access Denied" on the bottom left of the EPG123 Schedules Direct screen ?

It has always been there & I've often wondered if that may be part of the scanning problem as often (when the scanning would complete) Schedules Direct would return nothing but blank EPG data (sometimes JRTV would put up an information box saying something like "Scanning has completed but there is no information to load").

Yaobing · « **Reply #34 on:** February 13, 2020, 12:27:14 pm »

No I don't.

Taking some guesses:

Are user name and password entered correctly?
Do you have to run EPG123 as Administrator?

In any case, this is totally unrelated to channel scanning issue. Channel scanning gets channels from OTA signals. EPG123 downloads EPG data from online server.

DocLotus · « **Reply #35 on:** February 13, 2020, 02:34:14 pm »

Oh, OK... Thanks.

Yaobing · « **Reply #36 on:** February 21, 2020, 03:38:17 pm »

Please try this TV DLL and see if OTA channel scanning still stalls.

DocLotus · « **Reply #37 on:** February 21, 2020, 09:30:59 pm »

Oh, Boy...
I did a channel scan BEFORE installing the new TV DLL and all channels scanned just fine.

I then installed the new TV DLL & did a scan... guess what ? It went along at a fairly fast rate right up to 26 of 68 and it stopped. I waited several minutes but it never started back up.

One thing that I did notice was with the previous TV DLL's after it stopped on 26 of 68 MC would often (most of the time) lock up & only a Ctrl Alt Del into task manager would get me out of lock. This time I could actually exit after the 26 of 68 stoppage. So, something is different.

What is different in the new TV DLL ?

DocLotus · « **Reply #38 on:** February 21, 2020, 10:39:52 pm »

We have another problem... With the new TV DLL installed the TV will start up, run for about 2 - 3 seconds, it will start to play (with sound) for about 1 second then MC closes. It happens every time the TV is started.

I reinstalled the previous TV DLL & the problem goes away.

Any thoughts ?

Yaobing · « **Reply #39 on:** February 22, 2020, 06:56:52 am »

Quote from: DocLotus on February 21, 2020, 10:39:52 pm

We have another problem... With the new TV DLL installed the TV will start up, run for about 2 - 3 seconds, it will start to play (with sound) for about 1 second then MC closes. It happens every time the TV is started.

I reinstalled the previous TV DLL & the problem goes away.

Any thoughts ?

Sorry. I forgot. I made changes to tackle a DVB Subtitle issue that required another component to be updated. Without it, the crash is a sure thing.

Quote from: DocLotus on February 21, 2020, 09:30:59 pm

Oh, Boy...
I did a channel scan BEFORE installing the new TV DLL and all channels scanned just fine.

I then installed the new TV DLL & did a scan... guess what ? It went along at a fairly fast rate right up to 26 of 68 and it stopped. I waited several minutes but it never started back up.

One thing that I did notice was with the previous TV DLL's after it stopped on 26 of 68 MC would often (most of the time) lock up & only a Ctrl Alt Del into task manager would get me out of lock. This time I could actually exit after the 26 of 68 stoppage. So, something is different.

What is different in the new TV DLL ?

Please capture a log file while you try channel scanning with this DLL, of MC freezing after 26. After that you can throw it away.

DocLotus · « **Reply #40 on:** February 22, 2020, 09:44:09 pm »

Attached new log file with the latest TV DLL. It acted just like before... hung at 26 of 68 & allowed me to cancel the operation without hanging up MC.

Will throw it away & put the previous one back in.

Yaobing · « **Reply #41 on:** February 26, 2020, 02:30:57 pm »

Let's try again. Please download and install the latest, MC26.0.29, first. Then download this DLL, unzip and copy to MC installation folder.

DocLotus · « **Reply #42 on:** February 26, 2020, 03:43:09 pm »

1: Updated MC to 26.0.29.
2: Ran TV scan without the new dll... hung at 26 of 68.
3: Installed new TV dll with today's date... Completed scan without any problems

4: Rebooted computer, started new log file (attached)... hung at 26 of 68

Oh well, whats next ?

JimH · « **Reply #43 on:** February 26, 2020, 03:44:26 pm »

This could be a hardware problem.

DocLotus · « **Reply #44 on:** February 26, 2020, 03:57:09 pm »

On both a laptop & a desktop ?
Seems very unlikely.

One has Win 10 Pro the other Win 10 Home.

JimH · « **Reply #45 on:** February 26, 2020, 03:58:53 pm »

Using the same tuner?

DocLotus · « **Reply #46 on:** February 26, 2020, 04:10:03 pm »

No. Have tried 3 different tuners from Hauppauge & Silicon Dust (all different models).

Strange thing is channel scanning has never hung up any other TV software (boy have I tried a lot of them such as Win TV 8, Win TV 10, Next PVR, MediaPortal 1 & 2, HDHomeRun and a bunch of others).

It's only on MC TV I have this problem.

Would really, really like to find a resolve for this problem as MC TV has some very nice features that are completely missing on all other TV software.

JimH · « **Reply #47 on:** February 26, 2020, 04:37:09 pm »

You may have said, but are they network tuners? Or local?

Is other TV software installed on the machines where you're testing? Can you eliminate that as a possible conflict?

DocLotus · « **Reply #48 on:** February 26, 2020, 06:38:23 pm »

I'm currently using two tuners...
1: Silicon Dust HD HomeRun Connect Quatro (4 channel, Ethernet connected).
2: Hauppauge WinTV-DualHD Tuner USB (2 channel, USB connected).

MC recognizes them both as 6 tuners. I can use either to scan for channels in MC's setup.

The channel scanning lockups all started before I installed the other software. I actually installed the other software because I was getting tired of all the TV problems with MC TV (no mater how much I really wanted to use it).

As you suggest, I will do a complete uninstall of all other TV software to eliminate that as a possible source of the problem.

Will let you know how it goes tomorrow.

JimH · « **Reply #49 on:** February 26, 2020, 07:33:13 pm »

I'd test with one of the tuners at a time. Disconnect the others. You might have a bad tuner.

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Author Topic: Scan for Channels Always Freezes at 26 of 68 (Read 6036 times)