Topic: TV Card Driver Being Corrupted? (Read 4500 times)

NickF · « **on:** November 24, 2012, 06:59:48 pm »

For some time now I have been getting a MC error "A device attached to the system is not functioning", when tuning a DVB-T channel, the device being the DVB-T tuner. This has required re-installing the tuner and driver, then it works OK for a few days. Today, the problem has manifested itself differently. MC has been behaving as if there was only one DVB-T tuner when there are two. When I checked the settings for the tuners, one presented a different settings window which gave options for "Cable" or "Antenna". On closing this window, an error report said something like a valid tuner was not available. I assumed the tuner appeared to MC as a different type. On restarting, the correct settings window was presented for each tuner but when I tried to play a channel, I got the not functioning error.

I am having exactly the same behaviour on two separate systems, each with the same BlackGold BGT3600 tuner card. Is it possible that MC is somehow corrupting the driver? I dont have any other TV app running on either system. I only run MC18 and Girder on these systems. I can't believe this is a tuner card fault with two behaving identically. I can't find anything with an Internet search so I don't think it's a driver issue. This card is very popular. Any thoughts or suggestions welcome.

Nick.

NickF · « **Reply #1 on:** November 25, 2012, 03:10:16 am »

I have just found the following info on the BlackGold support page. It looks like the same problem, attributed to Windows Media Center. I wonder if JR MC is doing something similar. Note that I have ehrecvr service disabled so it isn't this causing my problem.

http://shop.blackgold.tv/epages/BT3159.sf/en_AU/?ObjectPath=/Shops/BT3159/Categories/Support/Product_Hot_Topics/Media_Center/Media_Center_7_Issue_PC_locking_high_memory_usage_loss_of_tuners

Nick.

JimH · « **Reply #2 on:** November 25, 2012, 07:03:33 am »

This is very likely a driver problem. Sorry.

NickF · « **Reply #3 on:** November 25, 2012, 09:43:50 am »

Quote from: JimH on November 25, 2012, 07:03:33 am

This is very likely a driver problem. Sorry.

Jim, I accept that a driver problem is a possibility but if I raise this with BlackGold, which I will, they will just point me at the link I posted above and tell me that Microsoft accept there is a problem with WMC and suggest that the same is true for JRiver. That's going to leave me stuck between the two of you. Perhaps Yaobing could spend a few minutes thinking about this. If a log would help, let me know. I will, of course, need to wait for the problem to emerge again.

Nick.

JimH · « **Reply #4 on:** November 25, 2012, 09:56:47 am »

I didn't see that MS recognized it as their problem.

NickF · « **Reply #5 on:** November 25, 2012, 10:47:43 am »

Am I interpreting this wrongly? This is the BlackGold advice:

Quote

BlackGold has received a number of reports of occurrences of tuner loss in Windows Media Center 7. Microsoft (MS) recognised this as being a known issue within Media Center (MC).

This manifests itself by MC reporting that no tuners are available for a requested operation (i.e. loss of one or more tuners as far as Media Center is concerned). However, Windows Device Manager always reports the expected number of tuners and the tuners are available for use, but MC alone reports not available.

We were advised by MS to use a registry switch to turn off background scan, as a known background scan problem did manifest itself in several ways. Which included among other issues very high memory usage by ehrecvr and also tuner loss.
Microsoft will hopefully address the issue in a later rollout.

Nick.

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** November 25, 2012, 11:51:23 am »

Until the cause is found, I don't think you can assume anything. We don't really know what Microsoft said. We only know what Black Gold says about what Microsoft said.

It is hard to imagine how an application could corrupt a driver. Even if it did, the driver would work again after a reboot.

And if two applications behave the same way, the likelihood goes up that it is a driver problem.

Anything is possible. I'm only saying that it seems like a driver problem.

InflatableMouse · « **Reply #7 on:** November 25, 2012, 12:05:49 pm »

Nick,

How old is that message from Black Gold and to which version of WMC does it apply?

Have you searched the Microsoft knowledgebase articles and support site to see if you can find an article that confirms BG's claim that Microsoft confirmed the issue?

I did a quick search and couldn't find the exact issue on the MS KB but I did find several similar issues. There's nothing on disabling background scan in relation to that issue , at least not what I found in my quick scan of issues.

NickF · « **Reply #8 on:** November 25, 2012, 02:06:57 pm »

Quote from: JimH on November 25, 2012, 11:51:23 am

Until the cause is found, I don't think you can assume anything. We don't really know what Microsoft said. We only know what Black Gold says about what Microsoft said.

It is hard to imagine how an application could corrupt a driver. Even if it did, the driver would work again after a reboot.

And if two applications behave the same way, the likelihood goes up that it is a driver problem.

Anything is possible. I'm only saying that it seems like a driver problem.

Jim, I accept your argument and I have to admit that I felt the same. If a driver was damaged, I assume it would show as faulty in Device Manager, which it doesn't. I don't understand the dynamics of drivers. It clearly works when loaded. There has to be some setting somewhere which gets changed, something in the Registry, maybe. As you say, the change can't be in the driver because it is reloaded on reboot and the problem is not resolved by a reboot.

It is a fact that the background scan change resolves the problem for WMC. It is interesting that this happens after a few days. One thing that happens every few days is the EPG update. Could this be changing something?

Nick.

JimH · « **Reply #9 on:** November 25, 2012, 02:15:34 pm »

A driver is just a piece of software that talks directly to a specific piece of hardware. It is specific for each OS. Windows manages the drivers, loading them as needed.

An application that wants to use the hardware must talk to the driver, usually through an OS interface.

[If someone who really understands drivers and hardware wants to add or correct what I've said, please feel free.]

All that being said, drivers are strange animals. Software applications developers often have to adjust to their "idiosyncrasies".

If a driver uses the registry, that use is for the driver itself. No application should be changing the driver's registry entries. That's a job for the driver itself. It would be bad practice for another piece of software to fiddle with the registry settings. Registry "cleaners", for example, may do that, and often make a mess of things.

NickF · « **Reply #10 on:** November 25, 2012, 04:09:21 pm »

Thanks Jim.

I have done a bit of research which suggests that the WMC issue isn't the same as mine. I found this reference:

Quote

I tracked down some more -- possibly related -- information on the
SiliconDust forums:
We have had reports of "Please wait. Searching for tuners" or "All tuners are currently in use" errors when Win7 WMC has been running for a while.

This is due to the WMC receiver service locking up while running a background channel scan.

The current recommended workaround is to disable the background scanner:

So this suggests the WMC issue is because the background scan takes over the tuner. When complete, I assume the tuner is then available. I am pretty sure that when my issue arises, it never recovers.

Edit: having read the quote more carefully, it actually says the receiver service locks up so the problem may be persistent. But it is the receiver service which locks up, not the tuner or driver.

Nick.

NickF · « **Reply #11 on:** November 25, 2012, 04:48:48 pm »

How do I find out when the EPG updates? I would like to know if there is any correlation in timing between this and the tuner issue.

Nick.

Yaobing · « **Reply #12 on:** November 25, 2012, 06:06:08 pm »

EPG update does not involve tuner (not with DVB tuners anyways because we do not offer over-the-air EPG for DVB). In MC we do not do background work involving a tuner other than recording.

NickF · « **Reply #13 on:** November 26, 2012, 11:51:04 am »

Quote from: Yaobing on November 25, 2012, 06:06:08 pm

EPG update does not involve tuner (not with DVB tuners anyways because we do not offer over-the-air EPG for DVB). In MC we do not do background work involving a tuner other than recording.

Thanks Yaobing. I have now reported it to BlackGold so we will see what they have to say.

Nick.

Yaobing · « **Reply #14 on:** November 26, 2012, 12:00:16 pm »

I just thought of something. Are you using DVB-T and DVB-C tuners simultaneously?

Your tuners appear in MC as "7231 BDA DVBT Tuner" and "7231 BDA DVBC tuner", right? How many independent tuners does this device have?

NickF · « **Reply #15 on:** November 26, 2012, 12:29:55 pm »

These cards have 6 tuners, I think. I am using 2 x DVB-T/T2 and 2 x DVB-S/S2. It does have two analogue tuners which show as 7231 BDA DVBC but I don't use them. When this error arises, MC sees one of the DVB-T tuners as analogue, I think (in tuner settings it gives a choice of cable or antenna) but whatever option you choose, it then gives an error.

Nick.

Yaobing · « **Reply #16 on:** November 26, 2012, 12:48:26 pm »

Thanks. Then it does not seem to be anything inside MC. I asked about tuners because I was under the impression that DVBT and DVBC tuners are either-or, not both, on this device. So we check if DVBC tuner is in use and would not allow DVBT play if DVBC is in use.

If the digital tuner appears as analog when there is no analog at all, it does look like a driver issue or DirectShow issue. Analog devices and digital devices are in completely different categories of devices in DirectShow. MC enumerates them by asking DirectShow to list respective category of devices.

NickF · « **Reply #17 on:** November 26, 2012, 01:07:54 pm »

Yaobing, I may be wrong here. On the BlackGold page for this tuner, it says:

Quote

Hardware receiver support – world standard analogue terrestrial (PAL, NTSC, CECAM), dual digital terrestrial including both DVB-T and DVB-T2, dual digital satellite DVB-S and DVB-S2, digital cable DVB-C.

The product has been architected to allow simultaneous management of four broadcast program streams.

So there is an either or, not all six.

Nick.

Yaobing · « **Reply #18 on:** November 26, 2012, 01:18:39 pm »

Yes, I also just read that page. It says there are four tuners. My guess is that it is either T or C, and either S or PAL.

NickF · « **Reply #19 on:** November 26, 2012, 05:19:47 pm »

Just a minor update on this issue. These cards have one or more analogue video capture inputs. When i select TV settings, tuner configure, the config window shows a choice of Cable or Antenna, neither of which are relevant for this type of input. When the missing DVB-T tuner problem arises, selecting configure for this tuner shows the same cable or antenna choice.

A quote from the installation guide:

Quote

* Each IEC input can be used for either DVB‐T or DVB‐C, but not both at the same time.

Nick.

Yaobing · « **Reply #20 on:** November 26, 2012, 05:41:57 pm »

Yes, that is a known issue. All analog devices get "Antenna" and "Cable" choices, even if they have no tuner. It does not matter which one you choose if the device has no tuner.

NickF · « **Reply #21 on:** November 28, 2012, 02:45:13 pm »

The problem has appeared again. I have a log so I wonder if Yaobing could have a quick look to see if it reveals any clues. Thanks.

Nick.

Yaobing · « **Reply #22 on:** November 28, 2012, 05:25:22 pm »

I see the following:

You tried to play a DVB-T channel. MC found the first DVB-T tuner in the list of devices. It built a buffering graph and ran it. The graph would not run. DirectShow returned an error code 0x8007001f. This error code is quite generic, and usually means "A device attached to the system is not functioning."

NickF · « **Reply #23 on:** November 30, 2012, 04:38:02 pm »

Well, I think I may be on to the cause of this. A couple of days ago we had a brief power cut. Afterwards I discovered that my two PCs with these tuner cards both had this problem. What I'm not sure about is whether the tuners were in use at the time. Tomorrow I will simulate power loss with and without the tuners in use.

I have had no response from BlackGold yet.

Any thoughts from you guys would be appreciated.

Nick.

Yaobing · « **Reply #24 on:** November 30, 2012, 06:29:34 pm »

I thought about hardware damage. But the chance of two sets of hardware on different PCs both being damaged is low.

JimH · « **Reply #25 on:** November 30, 2012, 06:43:06 pm »

Maybe not, if they were both connected to the same antenna or cable and it was hit.

NickF · « **Reply #26 on:** December 01, 2012, 02:34:30 am »

I meant an outage of the electrical supply to the house, not a high voltage lightning strike. We have had a number of these over recent months. They are often very short in duration but long enough to cause the PCs to stop without proper shutdown then restart (as set in the BIOS).

Is it possible that the card driver sets a status of "in use" in the Registry which persists after the restart and confuses MC?

I'll do some tests today and let you know.

Nick.

InflatableMouse · « **Reply #27 on:** December 01, 2012, 03:58:21 am »

In theory a drive can be corrupted during a power outage. However NTFS journaling should keep a volume healthy. Windows should have run checkdisk on the next boot to fix any issues due to the improper shutdown, unless you cancelled that. I wouldnt' try this at home but I know people at work that turn off their laptops by keeping the power button pressed (force it to shut off) instead of a clean shutdown because that takes too long. They do this almost every day, I'm really surprised but I've never seen them having an issue.

I think its very unlikely a driver file or related registry would corrupt. But to make sure, you could uninstall it, remove any related leftovers on disk and registry and reinstall the drivers.

Sandy B Ridge · « **Reply #28 on:** December 01, 2012, 08:29:31 am »

Quote from: NickF on November 30, 2012, 04:38:02 pm

I have had no response from BlackGold yet.

doesn't surprise me. Their support is apalling. I never got a response from them. Similar experiences reported on avforums.

SBR

Yaobing · « **Reply #29 on:** December 01, 2012, 10:32:23 am »

Quote from: NickF on December 01, 2012, 02:34:30 am

I meant an outage of the electrical supply to the house, not a high voltage lightning strike.

Power outages sometimes are associated with power surges. Once my PC power unit was destroyed by a "brown out".

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Author Topic: TV Card Driver Being Corrupted? (Read 4500 times)