Fwd: Question Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus.

Fwd: Question Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus.

[Marc Bolós]

Dear sirs,

I'm a systems engineer (from spain, so excuse my bad english) working
for some time with all kinds of TV receivers.

First I wanted to thank you all for your work.

I saw that sometimes your tips on this list are very helpfull, so I
wanted to make you a question that maybe you can help me with.

I've been working for some time with those devices, and recently I have
a problem which I've never seen before. The point is that I tune
properly frequency and I start watching all channels, but after some
time  one or 2 tuners stops, and you cannot tune again any frequency
until you reboot all server.

One thing very strange there is that always are the same tuners which
fails. Signal is OK.

I don't have any error on syslog nor dmesg. And once you reboot it works
again.

Have anyone seen this problem before and can help me please?

Thanks a lot for your time,
Kind regards

Marc.

Re: Question Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus.

[Steven Toth]

> I've been working for some time with those devices, and recently I have
> a problem which I've never seen before. The point is that I tune
> properly frequency and I start watching all channels, but after some
> time  one or 2 tuners stops, and you cannot tune again any frequency
> until you reboot all server.

Interesting. If it was previously working fine, and very reliably,
then what has changed in your software stack or environment?

What happens if you rmmod and modprobe the driver? Does this help?

>
> One thing very strange there is that always are the same tuners which
> fails. Signal is OK.

Do you mean it's always the same physical card that fails, or any of
your nova-s-plus cards fail in the same way?

>
> I don't have any error on syslog nor dmesg. And once you reboot it works
> again.
>
> Have anyone seen this problem before and can help me please?

I haven't seen this before.


-- 
Steven Toth - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com

Re: Question Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus.

[Marc Bolós]

Thanks for your reply Steven. I'll reply inline also.

El 13/08/12 15:20, Steven Toth escribió:
>> I've been working for some time with those devices, and recently I have
>> a problem which I've never seen before. The point is that I tune
>> properly frequency and I start watching all channels, but after some
>> time  one or 2 tuners stops, and you cannot tune again any frequency
>> until you reboot all server.
> Interesting. If it was previously working fine, and very reliably,
> then what has changed in your software stack or environment?
>
> What happens if you rmmod and modprobe the driver? Does this help?
I tryed 2 times and it didn't work. I did some tests, the most 
interesting part is that sometimes, it recovers with a restart script 
that I have. maybe at this point it's better that I explain full 
situation with details, so you know better.

I have a lot of linux systems working arround world for TV recording. 
Some of them are for DVB-S recording. I'm using this cards for sometime 
now and it's the first time that I see this problem, and only in one 
country. For example we say that we have 2 countries, A and B. The point 
here is that country A, which I live, I have this system working for 2 
years, and I never saw this problem (it works with kernel drivers and 
debian squeeze amd64). On the other side, country B , I had this cards 
working fine before with another operating system (fedora 64). We 
switched some time ago operating system and now we have debian on all 
countries. Now in country B and debian kernel drivers, is the first time 
I see this problem (kernel them are using is exactly same .deb package 
which I compiled to allow more than 16 dvb adapters to be pluged on a 
system). I've replaced physical cards for new ones, and the problem 
still persists. After introducing a little hardware and operating system 
now I start explaining more detailed the problem.

Right now in digital systems, we use one app to tune and demultiplex and 
other to record files. When you start the system, it tunes everything 
OK, and it starts recording. After some time (always random), some 
tuners leave working (always same transponders, it happens also trying 
on another card), then my record software detects it and restarts the 
tuning instance. I think the main problem (when stops working) is that 
sometimes there is little loss in signal, but it should recover normal 
on aplication restart. But there are 2 transponders that can't restart 
normally. it tryes for some attemps, but you allways have the same 
results. No lock, no carrier, no signal. The interesting point here, is 
that if I restart full server, it works again (but I don't want to have 
a server rebooting 3 or 5 times a day...).

I've checked syslog, dmesg, kernel log and there isn't any trace about 
any hardware or software issue :(

The problem is cronic, is allways there. And the only recover solution 
that I found is to reboot server.

Also I tryed last git drivers, compiling myself, but doesn't work with 
this card and debian OS.
>> One thing very strange there is that always are the same tuners which
>> fails. Signal is OK.
> Do you mean it's always the same physical card that fails, or any of
> your nova-s-plus cards fail in the same way?
>
>> I don't have any error on syslog nor dmesg. And once you reboot it works
>> again.
>>
>> Have anyone seen this problem before and can help me please?
> I haven't seen this before.
>
>

Re: Question Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus.

[Steven Toth]

> The problem is cronic, is allways there. And the only recover solution that
> I found is to reboot server.

And if you reboot the server, and immediately re-use the failed card,
it works reliably again for another 2 hours?

In other words, it's not heat / environment related?

-- 
Steven Toth - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com

Re: Question Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus.

[Marc Bolós]

I understand your point.

I tryed this. Also I was in that country last week to record a near 
country, and I personally checked that wasn't heat problem (I have 
remote hands there which reported me the same).

Before going there, I got same idea you're proposing so I implemented 
into restart script a 5 minutes delay before tuning it again. I also 
tryied 10 minutes to be sure that wasn't heat problem.

And regarding 2 hours, normally it's about 2 or 3 days before fails. 
Sometimes it's some hours later. Totally random. For example today I 
restarted this morning, and no failure for the moment on any of both 
transponders.

The problem is really very strange.

El 13/08/12 16:49, Steven Toth escribió:
>> The problem is cronic, is allways there. And the only recover solution that
>> I found is to reboot server.
> And if you reboot the server, and immediately re-use the failed card,
> it works reliably again for another 2 hours?
>
> In other words, it's not heat / environment related?
>

Re: Question Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus.

[Steven Toth]

> And regarding 2 hours, normally it's about 2 or 3 days before fails.
> Sometimes it's some hours later. Totally random. For example today I
> restarted this morning, and no failure for the moment on any of both
> transponders.
>
> The problem is really very strange.

Hmm. I don't know then.

Other Hauppauge commercial customers are using those cards 7x24 with
no problem, although I don't know with which kernel and or/driver
version.

My guess is that the the PCI reset which occurs during a reboot is
fixing or resolving some issue with either an internal CX23883 issue
(unlikely) or more likely, the tuner/demod/LNB power block becomes
unstable, is not reset by reloading the driver (as it should be) and
the only course of action is a full reboot.

I just don't know why other users would not be seeing that.

- Steve

-- 
Steven Toth - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com