Recording fails,.. that started successfully

[diyhouse]

Ok,.. as best I can explain the situation,...

7pm startgate started to record
at approx. 7:10 I started to watch the intro and a few minutes via web asx file,.. I then paused,.. and went to prep. diner

Somewhere after 7pm wife started to watch pre-recorded Jeremy Kyle,.. paused and played along the way...

Observed at 8pm that recording of stargate atlantis and stargate SG1 had both failed,..

Now I have looked at the log files,.. and I just simply do not know enough about what the errors are trying to tell me,.. "not found in PAT" and other errors.

I see Rescan your transport,.. but I did this about 2 weeks ago,.. and this error was present even then, ( and after ),.. I don't mind rescanning,.. but it can take the best part of 1/2 a day by the time one has corrected the ICONS and stuff,....

I wonder if this is a card crash and nothing to do ( as such ) with Myth,. but I struggle to no where to turn to...

My system has two tuning card a dual SAT,.. and Quad FreeView tuner... running on 14.04...

Can anyone spread any light as to why a perfectly good recording is trashed,.. and others then fail?? I need some help as this has been happening for some time and I was hoping upgrades and web searches would provide some answers but alas not as yet..

Rgrds

[diyhouse]

small addendum to this problem,... Just before finishing up for the night,.. my wife tried to watch live TV,.. this action failed to get a lock,.. I rebooted as the single recording taking place was zero bytes,.. and normal operation was resumed.

So thinking out loud,.. it would seem that one of my TBS tuner cards had crashed,... does anyone know how I can process and progress this on a myth side,.. or is it a case of taking it to the TBS site....

Many thanks...

[jksj]

I am a UK user seeing similar problems.
I also use both Freeview & Freesat but the issue only occurs on Freeview. I am using myth 0.28 master.
I currently suspect Freeview reception issues (Winter Hill). Femon is showing a poor signal level at the time these recordings fail.

[diyhouse]

Hi jksj,.. I to am also a UK viewer using the Oxford transmitter.. and I also use both FreeView and FreeSAT

I also suspect the FreeView Tuner.. but it it difficult to pin down,.. I did a test recently and managed to record 11 simultaneous programs,... however tonight whilst recording just 4 ( I think ),.. some recording failed as follows,.. this is typical,....

--------------------------------
Nov 9 15:45:12 mhtpc mythbackend: mythbackend[2297]: E DVBRead recorders/dtvsignalmonitor.cpp:322 (HandlePAT) DTVSigMon[17](/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0): Program #10351 not found in PAT!#012Program Association Section#012 PSIP tableID(0x0) length(41) extension(0x800)#012 version(23) current(1) section(0) last_section(0)#012 tsid(2048) programCount(8)#012 program number 10352 has PID 0x010a#012 program number 10353 has PID 0x0102#012 program number 10354 has PID 0x0103#012 program number 10356 has PID 0x0105#012 program number 10358 has PID 0x0100#012 program number 10361 has PID 0x0107#012 program number 10362 has PID 0x0108#012 program number 10371 has PID 0x0106
Nov 9 15:45:13 mhtpc mythbackend: mythbackend[2297]: E DVBRead mpeg/mpegstreamdata.cpp:814 (ProcessPAT) MPEGStream[17](0x7fe6c813e288): ProcessPAT: Program not found in PAT. Rescan your transports.
Nov 9 15:45:13 mhtpc mythbackend: mythbackend[2297]: E DVBRead mpeg/mpegstreamdata.cpp:428 (CreatePATSingleProgram) MPEGStream[17](0x7fe6c813e288): Desired program #10351 not found in PAT.#012#011#011#011Cannot create single program PAT.
---------------------------------
Now ironically adapter0 is a SAT tuner,.. but what I do not understand is program number '10371',.. I assume this is some sort of program reference,.. but how do I trace it back?

I note the obvious about re-scanning transports,... and I have done this, ( several times). including removal of the tuners, prior to a total rescan of FreeView and FreeSAT frequencies.

I have currrently 'hidden' the SAT channels for film4 and film4+1 in the hope of narrowing down the rogue recordings,.. but if reboot,.. normal service is resumed....

Can I set a threshold for signal quality,.. I see signal quality in a power search,.. but it does not appear to pass a percentage signal quality..

Can anyone explain what these error messages are trying to tell me,.. eg ...not found in PAT.#012#011#011#011

Are there any wiki references to all of these error messages so I can sort of "decode my log files".

Many thanks....

[dekarl]

Hi jksj,.. I to am also a UK viewer using the Oxford transmitter.. and I also use both FreeView and FreeSAT
Program #10351 not found in PAT!

This is the program_number / service_id / SID of the tv service you are trying to tune to. According to lyngsat its BBC Three which is running from 19:00 to 04:00, see http://www.lyngsat.com/Eutelsat-28A-and ... 2E-2F.html
As your log shows a timestamp of 15:45 it is possible that you found a bug related to services that are not currently running, either in our code or at the broadcasters.
Either way, that is a satellite service, but looking on the program numbers that are found it appears as if you are tuned to the correct transport, but at the wrong time. (the service entry must be present even when the service is not running)

[diyhouse]

DeKarl,.. Thankyou for the feedback,... I understand a little more now,. not sure if this is related but later that same day/session, some FreeView channels would be lost,.. even my local BBC 1 Oxford was unavailable via myth,.. ( longshot I know ) could this potential bug mess subsequent attempted tuning up???

These failed recordings might happen 2 or 3 times a month,... ( of course it messes up programs recorded for the wife,.. so I'm in trouble for that ) fortunately these usually a catch-up,.. but tracking down what is going on depends on system config/setup and that snap-shot in time, and what is being recorded and transmitted at that instant in time....

Is there a level of logging I can turn on, to get a little closer to understanding this problem... I don't mind running some additional logging debug code to find out what is going on.

regards

[stuartm]

MythTV itself starts from scratch when tuning, it resets the recorder each time, so a failed tuning earlier in the day wouldn't lead to it failing later. Some drivers though do contain bugs that cause similar problems, once they get into a failed state they don't recover until they are removed and reloaded, this could explain what you were seeing.

It's also worth ruling out external factors, for example was there scheduled downtime for that transmitter at the time? They periodically reduce power or shutdown transmitters completely to perform upgrades or repairs, these are noted in advance on the DTT website (and elsewhere) but most people would be unaware of these periods of downtime because they don't monitor those websites.

[diyhouse]

Stuart,.. tx for that bit of backend detail,.. I have followed up with TBS to see if their driver handles resets etc,.... although they don't confirm it does... They have responded with some useful stuff about reloading the drivers,.. which has the same effect as a reset.

Does myth do this reload of drivers???

The funnies I experience happen maybe two or three times a month,.... annoying but not show stopping and rarely repeatable, ( its just the hassle from the wife when her program has invariably failed ,.. ),.. with the following info from turboSat I hope to see if a soft reset fixes my problems with tuning and failed records.

I await my next failure to investigate further,.. but for anyone else with a TBS cards,.. here are the commands recommended for my 6284 and 6982.

Regards

-----------------------------------------
you can trigger full reinitialization with reloading the driver in software:

# sudo rmmod saa716x_tbs-dvb
# sudo modprobe saa716x_tbs-dvb
-----------------------------------------

[stuartm]

No MythTV doesn't reload the driver, in most cases it can't because it won't have permissions to do so. It's expected that the driver doesn't get itself into an unrecoverable broken state to begin with. I hate to be the barer of bad news, but it seems like this is a bug in the drivers that can only be fixed by the driver authors.

[diyhouse]

Thanks for the feedback Stuart,.... did wonder about the reload,.. but not surprised by your comment.

But before I track down the bug route I need to see if this is an issue with the driver failing to load or something else,.... Like many of these well established products sorting out subtle infrequent problems/bugs take a little tracking down...

First I need to see if a reload fixes lost tuners... then maybe look at some logging status on the driver.

So little steps first.. On a plus note,... the authors have asked for feedback on my little test,.. ie when I get to see a failed tuner and the system hasn't shutdown...

I will update this post as and when..