[mythtv-users] canceled recording (Recorder Failed) mystery

[Bob Gamble]

Here is what I seen last night when a scheduled recording failed and I tried
to manually start it.  I selected to start watching livetv.  It would bounce
me back to the menu.  This is using the
test script.  I restarted the backend but it would not let me watch livetv.
 I rebooted.  Again, it wouldn't let me watch livetv.  It came up with the
message on the screen "Could not connect to
the master backend server -- is it running?  is the ip address set for it in
the setup program correct?"  Of course it was and as far as I could tell,
the mythbackend was running.

After stopping and restarting the backend a couple more times, it finally
let me watch livetv, at which time I used the keyboard to change to the
channel I wanted to record.  I manually started
the recording.  It was supposed to record until 11pm but stopped at 9:30pm.
 After this, I began testing using the box_type=H21 in the test script.  It
let me watch live tv, change channels without
failure both with the keyboard and the Harmony remote.

I noticed though, when changing with the keyboard, before it changed to the
right channel, the channel I was originally on (NBC), would
quickly flash on the screen.  Even if I was on that channel several channel
changes previous.  So for example, I started on channel 5, NBC.  I changed
to 206 successfuly.  I changed to 550, and
before changing to that channel, it would flash channel 5 on the screen.
 This happened every time I changed channels with the keyboard thereafter
for several more changes.  I can't explain any
better than that.

So this indeed is a strange issue.  Sorry the time I spent troubleshooting
was a bit lagged.  I think I'll have more time to test in the next couple
days.

On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 8:26 AM, Bob Gamble <kiksadiweb at gmail.com> wrote:

> This is some testing I was able to do over the last couple of days.  I put
> the test script in place of the original.  It has had a pretty good rate of
> success until I started "messing" with it by
> trying to watch live tv.  When changing channels with the keyboard, it
> worked without error quite a few times.  Actually I couldn't get it to fail
> with the keyboard method
> (running "directv.pl setup_channel").  I noticed any 3 digit channel
> change would first try to go to the first number of the channel sequence.
>  For example, changing to 206 would first try changing
> to channel 2 until it got the rest of the numbers, then finally change to
> 206.  Amazingly it was successful each time (out of 10 or so changes).
>
> Using my Harmony 880 however was unsuccessful nearly every time.  I would
> see a blank screen for several seconds then it would bounce back to the main
> menu with "Irrecoverable error."
> I would love to stop there and say the remote was the only problem but I
> still see where I get "Canceled recording: Recorder failed" on some
> occasions when it has tried running a scheduled
> recording.  Next I will change the box type to H21 and see how that goes.
>  I hope to do this tonight if possible.  I will also use the original remote
> for the PVR350 to see if it fails as the Harmony
> does.
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 11:29 AM, Bob Gamble <kiksadiweb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That's right.  I'll have time this weekend to do some more
>> troubleshooting.  Thanks again for your help.  I'll let you know what I see.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 4:13 PM, David Gesswein <djg at pdp8online.com>wrote:
>>
>>> > Thanks again. I will report back this weekend on any results should I
>>> need
>>> > to do this. An interesting thing is happening since I wiped the
>>> > cards and schedule source two nights ago. When reconfiguring this time
>>> I
>>> > tried the external channel change command:
>>> > /usr/local/bin/directv.pl
>>> > on its own, with no parameters. I haven't had a failed recording since
>>> > then.
>>> >
>>> The difference is setup_channel sends the sequence box on, channel
>>> change, OSD off, then verifies channel changed and retries if not
>>> correct.
>>>
>>> Without it all it does is send the channel change command. Since it
>>> doesn't
>>> check the channel you can't get this error:
>>> Excessive channel change retries, commanded 206 got 13
>>>
>>> Instead you may get a recording of the wrong station. It would be good if
>>> you have the time to track down why the setup_channel doesn't work.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> mythtv-users mailing list
>>> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
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>>>
>>
>>
>
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