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[mwillems]

So I've been having problems with TV recording in JRiver since I started using JRiver for TV recording a few years back, and they've sometimes gotten somewhat better but they've recently gotten much worse.  Prior threads on this I ran a year or two back didn't really get to an answer, but I'm going to give it another go.

The environment:

My tuner is an HDHomerun Prime (three channels)

I'm running the latest public JRiver build on my HTPC which is currently my JRiver server.  It's running windows 10, with no AV but windows defender, and I've followed the instructions on the wiki for taming Windows Defender.  The PC is on 24/7, and spends most of its time in theater view.  The computer is set never to sleep or hibernate and so are the drives.  Several different JRiver clients connect to the computer as a library server, some windows, some linux.

The problems:

1) For years, MC has periodically locked up a tuner during recording which will result in a recording that lasted until I manually stop it and reset the tuner.  This locks the UI in MC and prevents any new recordings from starting.  the main "case" that seems to cause it is when I have a second program that starts recording before a 1st recording has finished.  It's happens once or twice a week.  The logs show recording starting, but no finish.

2) Recently (within the last month or so), MC began skipping recordings even when no tuners were locked.  The programs showed up in the "to be recorded" dialog, but recording never starts for those programs.  I made sure to disable all "don't record reruns" type options, and the recordings were still skipped.  No info in the logs at all.  Sometimes restarting JRiver seemed to help.

I sat in front of the computer watching it happen two nights ago:  the program was set to start at 7:59 and I watched and waited until 8:10 and the program did not start (my tuner has a light indicating when a channel is being tuned).  I then exited theater view to check the listings and suddenly it started recording from 8:10 forward!  With additional testing I discovered that MC would skip all recordings while in theater view, and would only record while in standard view, although my locked tuner problem in 1) still happens.

Other things I've tested:

1) I've tried recording to both local and networked disks and it doesn't seem to make a difference to either problem.
2) For about 6 months I ran my MC server in a windows virtual machine; TV recording was significantly more stable but I still got the occasional lockup.  The JRiver instance was, being in a VM, never in theater view so that may be aprt of the story.
3) For about three or four months I gave up and used a competing TV recording software product.  It worked perfectly and literally never missed a recording.  That tells me the tuner is not defective (or at least not totally so).  I decided to switch back to JRiver as I love JRiver and use JRiver for all my other media, so would prefer to have a single solution. 

Any advice would be welcome; the wife is not thrilled and I need to figure something out as we've missed about half our recordings this week!

[CountryBumkin]

With additional testing I discovered that MC would skip all recordings while in theater view, and would only record while in standard view, although my locked tuner problem in 1) still happens.

Interesting find. I'll leave my test computer in "Theater View" now and see if it records or not.

[JimH]

Is the firmware on the tuner up to date?

[mwillems]

Is the firmware on the tuner up to date?

I checked it last week and it was the most current firmware.

[JimH]

If you assume that it's good, then here are the remaining possibilities that I can think of...

1.  MC is broken.  You would expect some logging though.  We should also be seeing more problems if it is.

2.  Windows Defender is still stepping in when it shouldn't.

3.  Something at the network level is failing.

[mwillems]

If you assume that it's good, then here are the remaining possibilities that I can think of...

1.  MC is broken.  You would expect some logging though.  We should also be seeing more problems if it is.

2.  Windows Defender is still stepping in when it shouldn't.

3.  Something at the network level is failing.

Both the PC and the HDHomerun are wired to the same switch, and active TV watching seems to work fine.  I'll try and scrub the network and see if I can find anything.  I'm not sure what else to do with defender.

I just saw the issue about the Windows 10 anniversary edition on the boards.  https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,108649.msg752765.html#msg752765

I am running the latest windows 10, and the issue folks were seeing sounded very much like my second issue (instability related to theater view/madvr and TV).  I do also have some trouble changing channels once in a while.  I hope that's not it because windows 10 home edition doesn't let you refuse updates (I tried rolling back a while ago and it just updated again without asking a few days later), so if things aren't working well with the anniversary update I may be out of luck.

[tzr916]

My Server and Clients are in Theater View 24/7. Never ever missed a single recording, but used to have tuner lock ups when MC tried to record the same program on two different tuners at the same time. This was due to "overlapping" recording rules. Solution was to change all recording rules from "contains" to "IS" (and this issue was just addressed by recent MC version).

Also might want to check these:
- make sure all the clients have the tuners DISABLED. Let the clients grab the tuners from the Server.
- in the HDHR setup Configuration Tab, set BDA Compatibility to JRiver Media Center.

[CountryBumkin]

- make sure all the clients have the tuners DISABLED. Let the clients grab the tuners from the Server.

Don't even install "TV" on the Clients.

Also, I left my HTPC in Theater View yesterday and last night it recorded a TV Show properly - so problem is not universal.

[RoderickGI]

It seems like the HDHomerun Prime has these sorts of problems, while internal tuners don't. I'm thinking it is a network issue, maybe network contention problems. However, if it works with other software fine, maybe MC isn't doing enough to resolve those problems.

As a test though, can you connect the HDHomerun Prime directly to an Ethernet port on the PC, and bypass the switch for a while? I guess you would need to have two Ethernet ports in the PC, or connect the server to the network via wireless, and the HDHomerun Prime to the server via Ethernet cable.

If the problem goes away, there may be an issue between MC and the switch, which isn't unheard of.

[mwillems]

It seems like the HDHomerun Prime has these sorts of problems, while internal tuners don't. I'm thinking it is a network issue, maybe network contention problems. However, if it works with other software fine, maybe MC isn't doing enough to resolve those problems.

As a test though, can you connect the HDHomerun Prime directly to an Ethernet port on the PC, and bypass the switch for a while? I guess you would need to have two Ethernet ports in the PC, or connect the server to the network via wireless, and the HDHomerun Prime to the server via Ethernet cable.

If the problem goes away, there may be an issue between MC and the switch, which isn't unheard of.

I setup a script on the server to ping the tuner periodically and log the results, and I can't identify any issues with the connection.  I can't directly connect them due to a lack of ethernet ports, and because I don't think the HD Homerun works that way (it needs a router to assign it an IP address).

I'm not sure what to think exactly.  I had another hang and 8 hour recording last night.  It's hard to think that those are connectivity related because JRiver just keeps on recording from the device pulling down gigabytes of data from the tuner.  So they're clearly communicating.  The issue is that something in the recording process is hanging JRiver: the tuner hangs and keeps recording, the UI hangs, and both will just keep hanging and recording for as long as I let them (one ran for 20 hours at one point).  Once I force kill MC the logs show the recording starting but never finishing.  So that one is a stablity issue (either in MC or in the tuner) not a network issue.  Other folks were seeing the same behavior with Prime tuners previously, but that issue was supposedly fixed (though never was for me).

I'll warrant the other one (where recordings never start) could be a network issue, but it's hard to see why it would be linked to theater view; I've got that pretty well dialed in.  I've spent a fair few hours on this and I'm not really much closer sadly.

My Server and Clients are in Theater View 24/7. Never ever missed a single recording, but used to have tuner lock ups when MC tried to record the same program on two different tuners at the same time. This was due to "overlapping" recording rules. Solution was to change all recording rules from "contains" to "IS" (and this issue was just addressed by recent MC version).

I don't undertand what "overlapping" means to you; do you mean not recording more than one program at a time?  If so that seems very limiting.  None of my rules target the same channel at the same time if that's what you mean.

Also might want to check these:
- make sure all the clients have the tuners DISABLED. Let the clients grab the tuners from the Server.
- in the HDHR setup Configuration Tab, set BDA Compatibility to JRiver Media Center.

Check and check.

[tzr916]

.....
I don't undertand what "overlapping" means to you; do you mean not recording more than one program at a time?  If so that seems very limiting.  None of my rules target the same channel at the same time if that's what you mean.

If it's locking the tuner and recording for hours, this is the same issue I was having and discovered a MC bug that was supposed to be corrected in one of the most recent versions..... I've just been making darn sure all my rules do not use CONTAINS, rather using IS.... Check out topic:

Guess it's up to me to go into EVERY recording rule and change them all from "NAME CONTAINS" to "NAME IS", and from "SERIES CONTAINS" to "SERIES IS".

Happened again because I have these two recording rules:
-20/20
-How to Get Away With Murder

Last night ABC decided to air an episode of 20/20 named "20/20: How to Get Away With Murder". That means MC grabbed two tuners and recorded all night long, failed to record anything after, crashed when I touched the remote this morning, locked the tuners, filled up my hard drive.

[Yaobing]

Please do provide a log of recording hanging.  Recent builds contain some additional logging entries that might reveal some info.

[tzr916]

Just had my first instance of non stop recording in a very long time!

This is NOT an instance of two recording rules causing MC to grab two tuners for the same channel same time.

MC did not crash. Other recordings are starting and stopping. It's just this one program that has not stopped recording. If I highlight it and click Cancel Recording, it just says this program has already finished, but it continues to record. So don't have any way to stop it. A 25GB recording file is on the drive and growing....

TV Logs says:
11:34pm CH 804 Critical error encountered (this show actually finished recording at 8PM)
11:35pm CH710 Critical error encountered , Failed to insert MJTSWriterFilter into graph - graph not valid invalid graph.
11:35pm CH710 Recording started (this is the recording that is NON STOP as I type this).
other recordings starting/stopping as normal....


I had to close MC and MC Server to make the recording stop. It did release the tuner just fine and the file it created is valid and playable (just very very long).

Log file BEFORE closing MC:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B82GqdDf8HSyZUJVSVFrWDVZTGs/view?usp=sharing


Additional notes: The tuner that was recording non stop is Ceton, not HDHR. After restarting MC Server, the tuner that was recording non stop is available and tested working in MC (not locked up, did not have to reboot it).

[mwillems]

I went through and deconflicted my recording rules and made sure they were "is" rather than "contains."  I also tried plugging the PC and the HDHomerun into a switch that nothing else was connected to.  Unfortunately I still had hangs/lockups every night this week.  The "trigger" seems to be starting a second recording while a first recording is finishing (I have three tuners, so it shouldn't be a problem, but it seems to the be the triggering condition).

I tried to get a few logs.   Unfortunately, the issue is that somewhere along the recording process MC seems to hang such that I have to forcibly terminate MC in order to interact with it again and the logs seem to terminate shortly after the recording that hung begins with nothing useful in them.  I'll try and get another log tonight, but I'm not hopeful.  I may just have to give up on using MC for TV, at least with this tuner.  I guess TV for Linux has hit some roadblocks based on recent threads, so I may wind up needing the alternatives I already have in place for a bit longer anyway.

Planning for the longer term, does anyone have any recommendations for internal PC cards that work robustly with MC in a client-server context?

[JimH]

This just doesn't make sense.  I would have said that MC's television is very reliable, especially in the last year.

Can you think what might be different about your setup?

A bad driver or bad hardware could explain it, even if it works with other software.  Do you have another tuner you can test?

A simpler network might make a difference.

I know you're aware of these and may have tried them.  I just don't have any good answers.

It's always possible that we have a bug but it just doesn't seem likely.

[Yaobing]

I tried to get a few logs.   Unfortunately, the issue is that somewhere along the recording process MC seems to hang such that I have to forcibly terminate MC in order to interact with it again and the logs seem to terminate shortly after the recording that hung begins with nothing useful in them.  I'll try and get another log tonight, but I'm not hopeful.  I may just have to give up on using MC for TV, at least with this tuner.

You did look into the log file named "Previous Log.txt", right?

[mwillems]

This just doesn't make sense.  I would have said that MC's television is very reliable, especially in the last year.

Can you think what might be different about your setup?

A bad driver or bad hardware could explain it, even if it works with other software.  Do you have another tuner you can test?

I know what you mean.  At this point I'm suspecting either my HTPC or the tuner hardware may be slightly defective as it's always had this particular problem with MC, and other folks seem to have things working well with this brand of tuner.  The issue was less common (but not entirely resolved) when I ran my MC server in a windows Virtual Machine, but that doesn't necessarily demonstrate where the problem sits other than somewhere between my HTPC and the Tuner.

I don't have another tuner to test as my cable company charges a significant fee for CableCARDs which I need to use a tuner.  So I have no extra CableCARDs and no extra tuners at the moment, but if someone can recommend a solid internal card I may hazard the purchase and see if that improves things.

A simpler network might make a difference.

I know you're aware of these and may have tried them.  I just don't have any good answers.

That's why I tried just my HTPC and the tuner on an isolated switch; even there it still did it, so I'm pretty sure its some interaction between the two.

It's always possible that we have a bug but it just doesn't seem likely.

I appreciate your attention on this, I know it seems quirky.  At this point I think I agree that it's not likely an MC bug.  The fact that other users of the HDHomerun hardware aren't seeing these issues makes me suspect its hardware related, and my tuner was one of the first HDHomeruns produced (I think it had been out for a month or two when I bought mine).  On the one hand its frustrating that it flakes out with MC but not other software, but on the other hand it's nice to have backup options until I can find a working tuner. 

The only suggestion I would make that likely is MC-related is the fact that the entire program locks up and has to be force-quit when the TV recording process gets stuck.  But since you all can't reproduce this, I'm not even sure how to suggest going about doing something about that (other than splitting TV recording out into a different process, which has a whole ball of issues on its own)

Later this year I'm also going to rebuild my HTPC, so I'll report back if that makes any difference, and if I do wind up with another tuner card, I'll report in on that too.

You did look into the log file named "Previous Log.txt", right?

Yes that's where the logs just sort of stopped abruptly during the recording.