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BSOD now no network traffic

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:54 pm
by Joram
I hope this is the right place for this...
Moderator Note: Split topic from EPG123 Bug Reports

This is a sort of follow-up to the "WMC in Restore Down" thread (http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... =5&t=10379) which may involve a program bug.

The issues reported in that thread have persisted, although life's been too hectic to do anything more about them. To recap, every morning when we turn on the TV, WMC has been found to be in a "restore down" small window instead of in full-screen mode. But now I have an update to that story that may take us beyond that issue.

Two days ago (Dec. 12), we went into the family room in the morning to turn on the TV, only to find the Media PC in a BSOD state. After rebooting (I took a photo of the blue screen), WMC came back up normally, but now we can't get on the Internet. The specific error message from the Windows network troubleshooter is, "Local Area Connection doesn't have a valid IP configuration."

According to the Event Viewer there was a critical error at 4:22 that morning. The reason this may be of interest to this thread, is that the time jibes not only with the time of day when EPG123 is scheduled to download the newest guide info, but also with the test recordings that have been interrupted around that time.

So something happened around the time that EP1G23 was to update the guide, that led to the BSOD and then to the loss of Internet connectivity. (I'll be researching that error message about a valid IP configuration.) In some way, it may have some link to both the "restore down" window issue and to the issue regarding the interrupted WMC recordings, given that they all occur around the time that the guide update process should be finishing up.

OTOH, ever since we lost Internet connectivity and the program guide can't update, WMC has been in glorious full-screen mode the last two mornings when we turned on the TV. :D It's no longer "restoring down."

I have to think that these issues are all somehow related to something that's happening with EPG123.

We can provide images and logs if needed to track down the problem.

Thanks in advance for looking into this.


P.S. According to Device Manager, the network card is running fine.

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 11:26 pm
by rkulagow

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:30 am
by Joram
rkulagow wrote:Make sure that it's not this

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/12/1 ... e-internet
Whoa, that's bad!! :shock:

But this is a Windows 7 PC and it hasn't received Windows updates for a couple of years. (We don't surf the Web on it, using Firefox only to visit specific Web sites like Hulu.)

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:44 am
by STC
BSODs on modern Windows OSs are usually indicative of hardware malfunction.
Start with your NIC.

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:58 am
by garyan2
I have absolutely no answer on the restore down, but I have confirmed and duplicated that updates cause current recordings to get interrupted. In the next release, I will have the client program check to see if there are any recordings in progress and abort/postpone. I haven't troubleshot further than that, but it may just be the reindexing and not the update that causes the problem.

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:00 am
by Joram
STC wrote:BSODs on modern Windows OSs are usually indicative of hardware malfunction.
Start with your NIC.
Device Manager says that the NIC is working fine, but as Gershwin wrote, "it ain't necessarily so." Ran PC-Doctor (a diagnostics program that comes with some Hewlett-Packard PCs) and the NIC passed all tests except those that involved going on the Internet. For that matter, Windows can't even find the local network (Workgroup), thinking that I'm on an unknown public network.

Tonight I tried several things that have been reported to solve the "Local Area Connection" issue in some cases: disconnected and reconnected the Ethernet cable; disabled the firewall; restarted the DHCP client. None of these helped. Next, I'll try using System Restore to go to a previous restore point. If that doesn't do the trick, more serious measures may be needed.

Also ran sfc /scannow, and Windows didn't find any corrupted system files.

I'm almost hoping that it's a hardware and not a software issue. I can change out hardware but I have no programming background. If I end up changing the NIC or the hard disk, does anybody know (1) if recorded copy-once shows (from premium channels) will still play OK; and (2) if it will be necessary to do a new "hit" on the CableCARD?

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 2:20 pm
by garyan2
I've had something similar in the past on one of my laptops. What I needed to do was disable the NIC hardware and re-enable for it to actually see the network and obtain an IP. Might want to try that if you haven't already.
nicDisable.PNG
Make sure you do it as shown to disable the hardware, and not just the interface.

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 4:11 pm
by STC
Joram wrote:Device Manager says that the NIC is working fine, but as Gershwin wrote, "it ain't necessarily so."
Right, you still don't really know if the NIC is working or not.
Also, pull RJ45 out and plug it back in, that will force a handshake starting from layer 1. Check port other end of cable at the switch/router. Check everything systematically: Try a different device plugged in to the switch/router port to rule out problems there.

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 4:44 pm
by Joram
Thanks a bunch for the ideas.

I disabled the NIC and re-enabled it as Gary suggested, and that didn't do the trick. Then I disconnected and reconnected the Ethernet cable at the PC, as STC suggested, and also at the network switch -- no difference.

Next steps will be to use a different Ethernet cable and also to hook up a laptop to the same cable. If changing the cable doesn't help to establish a network connection, but a different computer does connect, then my main suspect will definitely be the NIC on the HTPC.

My wife was hassling me this morning: "Why are you trying all these different things when you know the problem all started during a guide update?" "It's proper troubleshooting," I replied. "You have to rule out all the other possibilities."

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 6:55 pm
by Joram
UPDATE: I'm pretty sure now that it's NOT the HTPC or the NIC inside it. I hooked up a laptop to the same Ethernet connection that the HTPC has been having problems with, and the laptop experienced the same issue. (It works just fine on a different network in the house.)

So it looks like some part of the network's hardware is what's acting up. I'll change out the Ethernet cables and see if that helps. The PC is in the family room on a Powerline network with my wife's office PC upstairs where the router is, so it could be the Powerline adapter causing the problem. If that's the case, this would make it the first time that the Powerline network failed to work.

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 8:44 pm
by STC
^ Powerline network may have become faulty and zapped the NIC hence the BSOD.

Re: EPG123 Bug Reports

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 12:12 am
by Joram
STC wrote:^ Powerline network may have become faulty and zapped the NIC hence the BSOD.
Could the Powerline adapter have killed the NIC? :o

Sometime tomorrow, we're going to move the router down to where the HTPC is located and plug it directly into the computer to see what happens.

Re: BSOD now no network traffic

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 12:15 am
by Joram
UPDATE: Today I took the router downstairs and plugged it directly into the HTPC. We got Internet access.

Therefore the problem must lie with the powerline networking adapter.

Re: BSOD now no network traffic

Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 9:16 pm
by Joram
NEW UPDATE: We replaced the powerline networking adapters Monday night, and the issue is gone -- network and Internet access are back.