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Windows => Television => Topic started by: tzr916 on October 13, 2020, 08:57:30 am

Title: Client Live Tv problem [Solved]
Post by: tzr916 on October 13, 2020, 08:57:30 am
Since updating from 27.0.16 to 27.0.20 (and 27.0.21) I have this issue when playing live tv on a client. It's happened two nights in a row... After I'm done using the downstairs Tv (Server PC) for the night, I go to an upstairs tv (client PC), open the Guide and play a live tv channel, the screen displays the first frame of video and freezes but the sound continues to play. No buttons on remote work so I have to do CTRL-ALT-DEL on a keyboard, which reveals MC is "not responding". After killing and restarting MC, playing live tv works fine.

EDIT: I can verify the Tuner does release after killing/restarting the MC Client. And oddly, after this happens, a "time shifting" item for the frozen tv channel is left-over on the client only. In theater view it says "no actions available" for the show, so I have to go to standard view and delete the left-over time shift show.

Attached log file from the Client.
Title: Re: Client Live Tv problem
Post by: tzr916 on October 15, 2020, 08:44:56 am
Another problem, this time on the Server. So far since updating from 27.0.16 to 27.0.20-21, in only 4 days, I have had two fails on the Server, and two fails on the Client. Looks like I need to roll back to 27.0.16 until this is addressed by someone.

Last night, recording Jimmy Kimmel froze the Server at 12:12AM. This morning, the Tuner was locked up and the Server was a gray blank screen, no response from CTRL-ALT-DEL, had to hard reboot the PC. The file size of the recording appears correct but playing the file it shows a time code of ZERO, and it won't FF or jump forward.

Server Log:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fa7V5O7Ns4zRVsLhiGt1wCDVS1V80fPf/view?usp=sharing

Title: Re: Client Live Tv problem
Post by: Yaobing on October 16, 2020, 11:00:46 am
I have read your logs.  The first one shows that the client machine hangs right after playback started.  The second one is weirder.  MC stopped outputting to the log file at around 12:12 am.  Unfortunately in either case I don't have a clue as to what caused the problems.  I have not done any work in either client TV playback or TV recording in recent builds of MC.  :(
Title: Re: Client Live Tv problem
Post by: Yaobing on October 16, 2020, 11:30:50 am
Do you use System volume or internal volume on the client machine?  Matt says he has seen cases of system volume mixer hanging.  Try switching to internal volume.

Next time when MC hangs, before you try to kill the process, go to Windows Task Manager, right-click Media Center 27 in the Processes list, and choose "Create dump file".  Hopefully we can get a dump file that may provide additional info.
Title: Re: Client Live Tv problem
Post by: tzr916 on October 16, 2020, 12:11:49 pm
Hmm, client is using HDMI WASAPI, Bitstream, Volume disabled. I'll try to remember to "create dump file" for future issues.

FYI, my Server PC suddenly shut down yesterday and would not turn back on! This only hours after having recovered from that "gray blank screen" 12:12AM fail. Troubleshooting, I found the PSU had no voltages unless I pulled the graphics card completely out of the machine. So, currently running with on-board Intel until I get the defective EVGA nvidia GTX 1060 back from RMA warranty. Maybe some of these issues are related to the graphics card pulling down PSU voltages.

Thank you all for looking. I'll try updating MC to the latest if nothing crazy happens in the next week.

Title: SOLVED
Post by: tzr916 on November 05, 2020, 08:59:37 am
I found an issue on this client that I think was the cause of my live tv problems on this Client. Back in MC26, I had setup a scheduled task on this machine to "watch live tv" at 8pm each night. The task was disabled weeks before installing MC27, but apparently tasks are not only saved but automatically get (re)enabled during installation of a new MC version! And of course it was still a MC26 core command, so while MC27 was running, it was calling up MC26 to watch live tv. I didn't realize this until was I uninstalling MC26 on all my machines, and come 8pm a dialog popped up on the this client saying "windows could not locate MC26". It took me a few days to figure out what was going on with this pop up, but I finally found it.
Title: Re: Client Live Tv problem [Solved]
Post by: RoderickGI on November 05, 2020, 02:02:35 pm
You should use Glynor's MCcl.exe to avoid that happening in future. https://blog.glynor.com/mccl