WMC stops recording at 3:58pm

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Roginator

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WMC stops recording at 3:58pm

#1

Post by Roginator » Mon Jan 02, 2017 7:01 am

Anyone else having their recordings stop at a certain time almost every day? I was trying to record the Game of Thrones marathon from my small, local cable company (GCI) in Alaska, but every day it would stop recording an episode about 3:58pm.

I thought maybe it had something to do with a change to dynamic IP address. I emailed the ISP and they said they weren't doing anything at that time. They brushed aside my request for a short-term static IP address.

I turned on the HDHOMERUN logging feature. Where is that log file found?

(edit... I found how to send a support ticket to SiliconDust, but am still curious where the log file is...)

stuartm

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#2

Post by stuartm » Mon Jan 02, 2017 7:30 am

Is there anything in the Windows event log for media center for that time?

Roginator

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#3

Post by Roginator » Mon Jan 02, 2017 10:32 am

It's showing:

"Portions of Game of Thrones: Blood of My Blood may not have been recorded. A signal loss occurred during the recording."

Maybe I need to dig out the antenna signal amplifier... I already checked all the easily-accessed cable connections.

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#4

Post by Roginator » Mon Jan 02, 2017 10:44 am

Signal strength and signal quality are showing 100% now. Maybe I need to check it at 3:58pm, although it appears the HDHomeRun only gives snapshots of these values.

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#5

Post by bennytheball » Mon Jan 02, 2017 1:58 pm

IS this possibly about the time that EPG123 is doing it's WNC database update? I've had the same problem with CETON ETH6 tuner.

Roginator

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#6

Post by Roginator » Mon Jan 02, 2017 9:54 pm

There's no indication anything odd is happening at that time. I'm setting up a test to try to duplicate the bug. Maybe when HBO is recording two shows at once it splits the signal power? <scratching head>

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#7

Post by Roginator » Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:37 am

I set 3 HBO shows to record at 3:58pm. I don't think it even made it that far -- with 2 of the shows stopping -- one with a weak signal notice. So I scrounged for a couple of coax cable (after I had tossed dozens of them in a house cleaning recently) and set up the Motorola signal amplifier I luckily saved.

The power level went from 7 dBmV to 21.8 dBmV. Signal quality dropped a little below 100% on a couple of channels but remained about 35.6 dB.

I'm going to assume my problem was simply an underpowered signal with some minor event happening at 3:58pm that dropped it below adequate. I'll set up 3 overlapping recordings at 3:58pm tomorrow just to see what happens.

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DavidinCT

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#8

Post by DavidinCT » Tue Jan 03, 2017 2:59 pm

Just a quick one, check your time and check your time Zone... If your time is off, it will stop shows early and if your time zone has changed, it will cause havoc.

If your clock drifted even 4-5 min it could cause this type of issue (cliping shows off at the end). I even run a script to sync my time 2 times a week, as I noticed over a month my machine (new motherboard, get that one) would drift about 1-2 min a month and even 30 seconds could cause issues sometimes.

If it is SIGNAL problems, then it's always not that easy... could be a tuner issue as well (failing tuner).
-Dave
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glorp

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#9

Post by glorp » Tue Jan 03, 2017 3:36 pm

There's an option in the Tasks that "optimizes" WMC at a scheduled time. I believe that's 4:00 am by default. Disable that or change the time.

Roginator

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#10

Post by Roginator » Wed Jan 04, 2017 6:26 am

Thanks for the suggestions. It's not the clock. And the optimization is still set to 4am.

I tried another test today on the newly-amplified signal. Three different HBO channels recording at the same time. Two of the three survived, but the 3rd died a bit later than usual. The signal on the middle tuner was rock solid, but the other tuners sometimes had signal quality that dropped to a little less than 90% at times.

Another test is set for tomorrow.

Buying a new HDHomeRun Prime might be a good idea. I always thought a backup would be wise.

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#11

Post by Roginator » Thu Jan 05, 2017 4:30 am

Geez... all 3 amplified recordings in today's test stopped at 3:58pm. The lights on the HDHomerun went out, but Media Center still showed them as recording until their scheduled end times.

I have another HDHomerun Prime on order.

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#12

Post by stuartm » Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:36 am

Stopping at 3:58 is a bit indicative that at that time another recording was trying to start (WMC starts recordings a couple of minutes early). If you already have a tuner in use then another tuner may be starting up at that time. It's possible your power supply is bad/weak and can't power that many tuners. First thing to try before a whole new unit would be to try a new power supply IMO.

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#13

Post by convertapple » Thu Jan 05, 2017 4:22 pm

glorp wrote:There's an option in the Tasks that "optimizes" WMC at a scheduled time. I believe that's 4:00 am by default. Disable that or change the time.


Disable (untick) + retest = ?

Your reply to glorp indicates misunderstanding the advice.

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DavidinCT

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#14

Post by DavidinCT » Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:01 pm

stuartm wrote:Stopping at 3:58 is a bit indicative that at that time another recording was trying to start (WMC starts recordings a couple of minutes early).
Or another process or task that is causing problem. Something EXACTLY at 3:58 tells me it's something else kicking off that is causing this.

Roginator wrote:Geez... all 3 amplified recordings in today's test stopped at 3:58pm. The lights on the HDHomerun went out, but Media Center still showed them as recording until their scheduled end times.

I have another HDHomerun Prime on order.
If it's exactly at 3:58pm, and they all fail with Low signal (if you have 1 or 3 recordings going). I woul start by checking the Windows Event log. Check the task optimization to make sure it is 4AM and not PM (because that would cause this problem, as that process kills WMC services and restarts them, a signal loss would show).

Check the Event log in Windows and also check the scheduled tasks to see if anything else is scheduled to kick off at 3:58pm... Could be another task that is causing it.
-Dave
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Roginator

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#15

Post by Roginator » Fri Jan 06, 2017 2:44 am

I didn't see this before, but the software Dell uses to look for problems (PC-Doctor) had a task scheduled for about that time. (also Windows Biometric Services - which I doubt I use).

I moved the PC-Doctor task to AM instead of PM and disabled Windows Biometric Services. My recordings today worked fine.

I plan to check it tomorrow just to be sure, but it's looking hopeful.

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DavidinCT

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#16

Post by DavidinCT » Fri Jan 06, 2017 3:51 pm

Roginator wrote:I didn't see this before, but the software Dell uses to look for problems (PC-Doctor) had a task scheduled for about that time. (also Windows Biometric Services - which I doubt I use).

I moved the PC-Doctor task to AM instead of PM and disabled Windows Biometric Services. My recordings today worked fine.

I plan to check it tomorrow just to be sure, but it's looking hopeful.
Is this a dedicated machine, or a comblo (desktop computer/WMC machine) ?

If it's a dedicated PC, that is only used for WMC with no other uses, I would try to remove/fully disable that software. Personally, I would back everything up and rebuild Windows 7 if you have all that "dell" software stuff installed. Over the years, it causes havoc if you dont use the software and makes the machine run slower.

I have watched some of the dell programs do bad things. One did backups ever day, they did a update that broke it so it could not delete the old backups, after a year I got the computer when a 1tb drive had 29mb free on it. Others watching the computer slow to a crall, after a rebuild with a CLEAN Windows 7 install, performance got about 30% better...

Give it a shot for a few days, let us know how it worked out. Think about rebuilding if it's a dedicated machine
-Dave
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Roginator

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#17

Post by Roginator » Sat Jan 07, 2017 5:13 am

So far, so good. One more test scheduled for tomorrow, but it's looking like PC-Doctor may have been the cause.

I use this computer for everything, and as long as it's working, I don't want to tinker with it. It still runs pretty well. I do run a cleaner, defragger and malwarechecker on it every so often.

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#18

Post by DavidinCT » Sat Jan 07, 2017 5:21 pm

Roginator wrote:So far, so good. One more test scheduled for tomorrow, but it's looking like PC-Doctor may have been the cause.

I use this computer for everything, and as long as it's working, I don't want to tinker with it. It still runs pretty well. I do run a cleaner, defragger and malwarechecker on it every so often.
Good to hear ! And I completely understand the "everything" PC...
-Dave
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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