Driver and tuning adapter problem?

[jziggity]

This morning I wanted to update to the beta firmware for my InfiniTV4 PCI card to resolve the macroblocking issues that are quite prevalent. Feedback here seems to indicate that newest firmware resolves this issue. Before I could update to the latest firmware, I needed to update to the latest driver for the card, so that the "Include Beta Updates" checkbox would appear on the Update tab. It appeared the driver update went fine, but now Media Center (Windows 7) will no longer recognize the tuning adapter. On the tuning adapter itself it is blinking 6 times (Cisco STA1520), which indicates no USB connection. Windows (via the device manager) reports that the tuning adapter is connected and there are no problems. In windows services the Cisco Tuning Adapter Service and Tuning Adapter Host Service are both running. Via the Ceton Diagnostics Tool, the tuning adapter is found and driver installed, and the tuning adapter service is running.

Based on this chain of events, I have to believe the updated driver is not playing nice with the tuning adapter. I already called TWC and they walked me through the standard try a different USB port and different USB cable, which didn't make any difference, and that was the end of what they could (or would) do. We even tried a different tuning adapter, as I have an extra one for whatever reason.

So, how do I roll back the driver on the Ceton PCI card? The "roll back driver" button is grayed out in Windows, so that's not an option. Is it possible to install the latest beta firmware (which I haven't done yet), and THEN roll back the driver to get everything working? As of right now, regular non-SDV channels are coming in just fine through Media Center, but as expected, SDV channels are gone. A reboot of the tuning adapter DOES result in a steady green light, but Media Center still won't recognize the tuning adapter, and as soon as I reboot my computer, the TA goes back into its cycle of 6 LED blinks.

I am wide open to suggestions. Thanks!

[erkotz]

What does the TA status show as on the InfiniTV web page? I suspect that this is actually unrelated to the FW upgrade, just coincidental timing.

[TeddyR]

On an STA1520, 6 blinks usually means the tuning adapter has encountered a problem that prevents it from servicing requests from the PC or Authentication failed. 8 blinks usually means that it is in "Service Disconnect/Authorization required" or what the CableCo techs refer to as brick mode (needs to have an auth signal resent to it or it cannot recieve the authorization signal due to a filter).

[above info originally from a post in the original tgb/windows experts forums and based on a tivo, but the info is the same for Ceton and SD devices as well, I saved the text, looking for the original link if still there...]

--
1. On for several seconds, then blinks on and off steadily
The Tuning Adapter is booting into the Operating System (OS).

2. Blinks twice, pauses, repeats (series of 2 blinks)
The Tuning Adapter is scanning the recommended QAM frequencies for the Code version Table (CVT) download.

3. 3 Blinks three times, pauses, repeats (series of 3 blinks)
The Tuning Adapter is downloading and installing software into flash memory.

4. On for two seconds, off for one second, on for two seconds, reboot ( 2 long blinks and a reboot)
The Tuning Adapter has installed the software update into flash memory.

Note: There will be a slight delay between this step and the next step as the Tuning Adapter reboots.

5. On for several seconds, then blinks on and off steadily
The Tuning Adapter resets and boots into the OS. [same LED indicator as (1) above]

6. Blinks eight times, pauses, repeats (series of 8 blinks)
The Tuning Adapter is in Service Disconnect (brick) mode.

7. Off (no blinks)
The Tuning Adapter is preparing to launch the resident application or has entered standby mode. If the LED remains off for more than a few seconds, press the POWER button on the front panel to power on the Tuning Adapter.

Note: The Tuning Adapter will complete its boot process even in standby mode, but will not provide tuning information to the TiVo device until powered on.

8. Blinks on and off steadily
The Tuning Adapter is initializing. [same LED indicator as (1) above]

9. On (no blinks)
The Tuning Adapter is fully operational, and is able to service requests from the TiVo device.

10. Blinks six times, pauses, repeats (series of 6 blinks)
The Tuning Adapter has encountered a problem that prevents it from servicing requests from the TiVo or the TiVo authentication failed.

11. Blinks four times, blinks a series of dim and bright blinks, repeats (series of 4 combination of dim and bright blinks)
The Tuning Adapter has encountered an internal error. The four blinks indicate that an error exists and the series of dim and bright blinks refer to the error code.


--Edit: original link http://experts.windows.com/frms/windows ... 03151.aspx

[jziggity]

The diagnostics page at 192.168.200.1 was showing that the TA was disabled as well. However, it now appears the situation has been resolved. The chain of events that led to the (apparent) solution are outlined in the response email I sent back to Ceton on the original trouble ticket (see below):

Okay, everything appears to be running now, but only after some bizarre chain of events. At Trudy's suggestion for a possible fix, I rolled the system back using system restore points to the last point saved just prior to installing the latest driver software this morning. Upon doing that, the TA came back online with media center no problems. However now I was missing the Ceton Diagnostics program. I installed the previous version of the driver that I started out with before all of this began (ceton_infinitv_setup_20111017_1_5_4304_06), and the diagnostics program came back at that point. During this install, the TA started flashing the 6 blinks for no USB connection, but by the time the install finished, it came back on steady.

Inside media center, the TA now shows ready instead of disabled, and SDV channels are back working again. I'm afraid to do anything else to the setup at this point, lest something break again. The overall goal was achieved however, in that I was able to upgrade the firmware of the InfiniTV4 PCI card to the latest beta to deal with the macroblocking issues.

So I am back to running the same version of the driver that I started out with. I'm guessing for some reason something got wonky during the driver update process that knocked out the communications between the Ceton card and the TA, but I have no idea why that would have happened. At any rate, it appears to be back to status quo. I will certainly keep an eye on things for the next few days to make sure nothing else goofy starts happening. If anything else comes up reference this issue, I will reply again to this trouble ticket.

Thank you (Trudy) for your assistance. It was driving me batty.

~ JZ

[jziggity]

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! Must have spoken too soon. Why must this be so !#@@%$ difficult?! Now my TA is (supposedly) running correctly, however I am getting "subscription required" messages on channels I know I am supposed to get. If I try tuning to them inside the diagnostics tool, it will return a "success" message. If I try tuning to them inside media center, it will give me the "subscription required" message, until I tune to another working channel and back again, then the "subscription required" channel will work. What the...? Do I need the cable company to do something with the TA on their end again?

This is just on a few random SDV channels, not all of them. And so far, it doesn't appear to be a problem on an Xbox 360 extender....?

[JohnW248]

Are you on a Cisco or Moto System? There are more things to check but need to know what system you're on.

[jziggity]

It is a Cisco STA1520 (from the first post). I'll tinker with it more tomorrow and see if I can determine exactly what sequence of actions reproduces it. For a little while, I thought I might be changing channels too fast and the TA was just not able to keep up. I'm not sure if that's a possibility? I was checking out a few different channels via the XBox and couldn't reproduce it there, so maybe it's just a Windows thing? I don't watch TV directly on the computer, just record stuff there. But it would obviously be a problem if a program I had set up to record didn't work because the TA won't allow the channel to come through.

I will update here if I learn more, but certainly still open to suggestions.

[JohnW248]

From Web Gui for you Tuner, Click the Tuning Resolver Menu tab and then right click on the Diagnostic Navagation Map:

DIAGNOSTICS NAVIGATION MAP
Status Summary
POST and Boot Results
Versions and MACs
Network and Tuning Status
RF Statistics (This will give you DAVIC which should be CONNECTED and will give you signal strength information)
PowerKEY Information
QPSK SIL Information
Bootloader Information
SAM Information
SARA Information
Component Information
SAM EDCT Information
SWITCHED DIGITAL VIDEO (Will give you information on Switched Digital Video)
SDV MINI CAROUSEL (Will give you information on your node, updates etc. This keeps track of the channels others in your area are using as well as you.)
SDV SESSION INFO A (Data on Tuners 1 & 2)
NextPage
SDV SESSION INFO B (Data on Tuner 3)
SDV SESSION INFO C
Tuning Resolver (Will show if authorized and configuartion file date and time and channel table date and time)
UDCP
Serial Link Protocol
Serial Link Anomalies (Shows the last few downloads of channel table data)
Previous

You can leave pages open in a browser and check back and refresh them when you see a problem. If your Tuning Resolver doesn't look like this you have problems:
TUNING ADAPTER
Authorized: Yes
OpStatus: Ready
ChanTblLoadTime: 12/17@04:09:27
HmacKeyGenTime: 12/17@04:15:00
TA CONFIG FILE
LoadTime: 12/17@04:09:23
Version: 12/16@20:36:42
Size: 9KB
NumChan/Split/Desc: 769/0/3
LastLoadErr: NoErr
LastErrTime: n/a
APDU STATISTICS
Total Tx/Rx: 113626/113080
Status Tx/Rx: 112970/9

You don't get a new configuation file every day, only when they make some changes to where they're hiding the channels. As long as you're getting channel tables and have up and down communications without errors, the TA should be working.

John

[fiteclub]

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! Must have spoken too soon. Why must this be so !#@@%$ difficult?! Now my TA is (supposedly) running correctly, however I am getting "subscription required" messages on channels I know I am supposed to get. If I try tuning to them inside the diagnostics tool, it will return a "success" message. If I try tuning to them inside media center, it will give me the "subscription required" message, until I tune to another working channel and back again, then the "subscription required" channel will work. What the...? Do I need the cable company to do something with the TA on their end again?

This is just on a few random SDV channels, not all of them. And so far, it doesn't appear to be a problem on an Xbox 360 extender....?

Jziggity, I'm having the same issues as you. I am in the process of doing a windows restore. Hope it works!

Have you been able to resolve the issues? I would like to have the new driver but not at the expense of losing the TA!

[jziggity]

I haven't had much time to delve further into this issue, and I haven't been running in to it too much either, at least not on the channels I regularly watch. Right now I am running the beta firmware on the InfiniTV PCI card, and the driver software from April 2011 (I believe). I've been pretty busy with work and holiday planning stuff, so I haven't had a chance to do some in-depth troubleshooting yet. The most recent issue I've had is occasional messages that the station was unavailable with an SDV 1 error. A quick power cycle of the TA has solved this, but I've only had to do it once in the past week.

My next plan of attack is to attempt to upgrade to the latest driver software, but only after uninstalling the current one I'm on. I'm hoping that will help with my other issue of the tuner card taking several minutes to wake up from sleep mode. If that doesn't work, I have an open ticket with Ceton on the SDV error 1 problem, which they provided several possible fixes for, which I haven't gotten to yet either.

[fiteclub]

I haven't had much time to delve further into this issue, and I haven't been running in to it too much either, at least not on the channels I regularly watch. Right now I am running the beta firmware on the InfiniTV PCI card, and the driver software from April 2011 (I believe). I've been pretty busy with work and holiday planning stuff, so I haven't had a chance to do some in-depth troubleshooting yet. The most recent issue I've had is occasional messages that the station was unavailable with an SDV 1 error. A quick power cycle of the TA has solved this, but I've only had to do it once in the past week.

My next plan of attack is to attempt to upgrade to the latest driver software, but only after uninstalling the current one I'm on. I'm hoping that will help with my other issue of the tuner card taking several minutes to wake up from sleep mode. If that doesn't work, I have an open ticket with Ceton on the SDV error 1 problem, which they provided several possible fixes for, which I haven't gotten to yet either.

Well, long story short, Windows restore failed to complete so I decided to uninstall the beta Ceton driver software and then reinstall them. (I typically do my HTPC updates and such using windows remote desktop. I have implemented the concurrent RD login hack so that I can fiddle with things on the HTPC while still watching WMC) This time I logged out of the WMC account before doing the reinstall. This time it installed just fine; TA was found and channel map resolved; I then updated to the latest beta firmware and that went fine too. Don't know if the single login thing had anything to do with it, but I thought I would mention it. Good luck with your troubleshooting.

[bad_chorizo]

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! Must have spoken too soon. Why must this be so !#@@%$ difficult?! Now my TA is (supposedly) running correctly, however I am getting "subscription required" messages on channels I know I am supposed to get. If I try tuning to them inside the diagnostics tool, it will return a "success" message. If I try tuning to them inside media center, it will give me the "subscription required" message, until I tune to another working channel and back again, then the "subscription required" channel will work. What the...? Do I need the cable company to do something with the TA on their end again?

This is just on a few random SDV channels, not all of them. And so far, it doesn't appear to be a problem on an Xbox 360 extender....?

I am having the exact same problem: tuning to a channel within WMC by either (1) selecting the channel from the guide, (2) typing in the channel number, or (3) by pressing PREV on the remote to jump back to a channel, leads to a subscription required error (I am subscribed to the channels where I get the error). If I tune to the channel by "flipping through the dial" (i.e. pressing channel up until I get to the desired channel), the channel tunes right in with no problem. Here is a video of the behavior: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSJIjsaXBUs

Another way to cure the Subscription Required error is to resize the WMC window from full screen to normal and back to full screen. All my drivers are up to date, and I have the beta updates allowed. This error doesn't happen all the time, but when it is happening, it happens on almost all channels higher than 1062 and on no channels lower than 1062.

Ceton support has advised that I need a new tuning adapter (STA1520 from Cox) because it is "resetting repeatedly." I can do the 1.5 hour round trip drive to get yet another new one from Cox, but is this error really caused by a defective TA box and not some problem in the interaction between WMC, ITV4 and the TA? If the TA box is defective, why does flipping through the dial or resizing the WMC window fix the problem?

I can't make much sense of the web diagnostic pages, but when I click Tuning Adapter -> Diagnostic Menu -> SDV Mini Carousel Info it says I have 163682 Load Failures.

[Dkeyguy1]

I'll state right up front that due to my cable provider still trying to transport us all from the dark ages, I, as yet, do not use tuning adapters......
But, these tuning symptoms are identical to what I had with all three of my main machines, at various times through their history with me,
due to what I finally found out was the InfiniTV drivers not correctly installing. I'd love to spout a lot of technical jargon and claim brilliance,
but in the end the truth is that trial and error and a dim light bulb (idea), (realization dawns), (boy do I feel dumb).....hence forth I obey my newly
formed rule that when such tuning errors occur, I open ceton diagnostic tool, clear tuner configuration, reboot, do NOT run any mc stuff at all,
install desired tuner drivers, discover tuners in diagnostic utility, run media center set up. Since this practice it has been months with no issues to speak of.
Every driver is un-installed after a reboot, before running any instance of mc. Install of new one is the same.
I would imagine that it may be necessary to uninstall and unplug tuning adapter before installing new (beta) ceton driver?
As I have yet to do tuning adapters (soon) I will keep reading these but will refrain from more input on the subject, (thankfully, huh?)
I apologize for long windedness, high caffeine day......