[mythtv-users] DVB-S : no lock

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Greets,

still on my way getting things done here.

Now I face the fact that some (all?) of my 0-Byte-Recordings seem to
come from the fact that one of my two Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus DVB-S cards
doesn't get a lock.

I checked this by shutting down mythbackend, and running szap and
dvbscan, on each adapter.

At first I thought the card was defective or the sat-cable-connection
loose or something. Checked the connectors etc., even remounted the
pci-cards.

Both cards show up fine in "dmesg" or "lspci".

I then started checking things with dvbscan and szap.

It shows that this adapter doesn't get a lock for *some* channels.

See:

mythtv at mythtv ~ $ szap -a0 "ProSieben"
reading channels from file '/home/mythtv/.szap/channels.conf'
zapping to 728 'ProSieben':
sat 0, frequency = 12544 MHz H, symbolrate 22000000, vpid = 0x01ff, apid
= 0x0200 sid = 0x445d
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
status 01 | signal f600 | snr 6637 | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 01 | signal f400 | snr c38c | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 01 | signal f400 | snr 9a3b | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 01 | signal f400 | snr 843a | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 01 | signal f400 | snr c198 | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 01 | signal f400 | snr 95aa | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 01 | signal f400 | snr 872f | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 01 | signal f400 | snr bfae | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 01 | signal f400 | snr 9148 | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 01 | signal f400 | snr 87a9 | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 01 | signal f400 | snr a125 | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
^C
mythtv at mythtv ~ $ szap -a0 "arte"
reading channels from file '/home/mythtv/.szap/channels.conf'
zapping to 486 'arte':
sat 0, frequency = 10743 MHz H, symbolrate 22000000, vpid = 0x0191, apid
= 0x0192 sid = 0x7034
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
status 01 | signal f400 | snr f81d | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 1f | signal f400 | snr ff6d | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal f400 | snr ff82 | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal f400 | snr ff86 | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal f400 | snr ff7e | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
FE_HAS_LOCK
^C
mythtv at mythtv ~ $ szap -a0 "BBC World"
reading channels from file '/home/mythtv/.szap/channels.conf'
zapping to 1432 'BBC World':
sat 0, frequency = 11597 MHz V, symbolrate 22000000, vpid = 0x00a3, apid
= 0x005c sid = 0x2742
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
status 01 | signal f800 | snr e633 | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
status 1f | signal f800 | snr ff96 | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal f800 | snr ff9a | ber 00000000 | unc fffffffe |
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal f800 | snr ffb0 | ber 00000008 | unc fffffffe |
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal f800 | snr ff9f | ber 00000008 | unc fffffffe |
FE_HAS_LOCK

--- And dvbscan fails completely!

mythtv at mythtv ~ $ dvbscan -a0 /usr/share/dvb/dvb-s/Astra-19.2E
scanning /usr/share/dvb/dvb-s/Astra-19.2E
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
initial transponder 12551500 V 22000000 5
>>> tune to: 12551:v:0:22000
DVB-S IF freq is 1951500
WARNING: >>> tuning failed!!!
>>> tune to: 12551:v:0:22000 (tuning failed)
DVB-S IF freq is 1951500
WARNING: >>> tuning failed!!!
ERROR: initial tuning failed
dumping lists (0 services)
Done.

---

Both dvb-s-cards are connected to the same LNB up there, so I assume
there is nothing wrong with the alignment of the LNB.

adapter1 records fine, btw ...

I have already disabled "quick tuning", rescanned channels yesterday
with higher timeouts.

A q regarding the timeouts: in some older thread it was recommended to
try increasing timeouts, even doubling these values.

mythtv-setup doesn't allow me to double them, is it safe to simply edit
the values in the db? Any recommendation for the values to try?

---

So I removed adapter0 from mythtv to assure that recordings work out
fine in the meantime.

Ah, maybe important:

I run media-tv/mythtv-0.21_p20877 on a gentoo box here.
Kernel version 2.6.30-gentoo-r6 right now.

I had also tried 2.6.28 yesterday, without a difference.

The reason was that 2.6.30 gives me this in "dmesg":

IRQ 21/cx88[1]: IRQF_DISABLED is not guaranteed on shared IRQs

my googling lead to some postings saying "broken since 2.6.29", so I
tested 2.6.28. That msg was gone, yes, but the tuning/locking wasn't
better on adapter0.

-

I hope I described the issues ok ...
Thanks for any help on this, Stefan