WMC reverts to no tuners installed when extenders left on

[Jimmersd]

My network is wired CAT6 with a central switch and satellite dumb switches at the individual TV's. Primarily because I have both an Echo and a Roku sharing each port. I have gotten in the habit of turning the Echo off when I am watching the Roku because I have experienced several strange issues, HDCP failure, incorrect resolution when I switch back to the echo, inability for the Echo to reconnect, etc.

But one problem in particular puzzles me and I have had this happen several times over the last year or so. After inadvertently leaving the Echo on, either overnight with the TV off, or most recently while watching the Roku. When I switch back to the Echo or turn the TV on, WMC is showing the basic tuner setup pop-up saying that tuners are not installed. Wanting to run the live TV setup wizard. This is also evident on the WMC Computer.

The fastest way to repair this problem is to run a System Restore and revert back to a previous working configuration.

I suspect that this probably isn't an issue caused by the Echo, or the network configuration. More like another in the long list of WMC bugs that corrupts the setup or registry. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this and what you may have done to resolve it?

[barnabas1969]

What is the exact text of the message? Does it tell you something along the lines of "New CableCARD tuners detected"? If so, I got that all the time with my InfiniTV tuners... before the Echo even existed.

[RyC]

What is the exact text of the message? Does it tell you something along the lines of "New CableCARD tuners detected"? If so, I got that all the time with my InfiniTV tuners... before the Echo even existed.

His profile says he has HDHR Primes................

[IownFIVEechos]

I know that sometimes if the extender is on before the media center is fully loaded you can get that type of issue. Example your Media center comes out of sleep mode and the echo already wanted the tuner, the SD tuner driver takes a few more seconds to load up after the media center is up. So it truly thinks no tuners exists and the media center goes to the step it thinks it needs, install new tuner etc.

On another note I have seen the echo go into the log off screen from windows when I shut down the media center and forget someone is watching the echo. Makes me believe some how we can get the OS to load by itself? Has anyone ever tried to use the hot-keys and minimize the media center to get into a windows kernel?

[barnabas1969]

What is the exact text of the message? Does it tell you something along the lines of "New CableCARD tuners detected"? If so, I got that all the time with my InfiniTV tuners... before the Echo even existed.

His profile says he has HDHR Primes................

OK, I missed that. It would still be good to get the exact message he is seeing.

[Jimmersd]

I know that sometimes if the extender is on before the media center is fully loaded you can get that type of issue. Example your Media center comes out of sleep mode and the echo already wanted the tuner, the SD tuner driver takes a few more seconds to load up after the media center is up. So it truly thinks no tuners exists and the media center goes to the step it thinks it needs, install new tuner etc.

On another note I have seen the echo go into the log off screen from windows when I shut down the media center and forget someone is watching the echo. Makes me believe some how we can get the OS to load by itself? Has anyone ever tried to use the hot-keys and minimize the media center to get into a windows kernel?

I don't have my htpc setup to snooze so WMC really doesn't shutdown. But once it is in this state I am unable to reinstall the tuners. Windows just refuses to recognize that they are there. I went through this process the first time I encountered it and wound up doing a complete reinstall. It turned out that the easy fix was System Restore. Honestly I don't see this very often at all because I'm pretty diligent about shutting the Echos down.

What is the exact text of the message? Does it tell you something along the lines of "New CableCARD tuners detected"? If so, I got that all the time with my InfiniTV tuners... before the Echo even existed.

Yeah, I do have 2 HDHR Primes and they have been pretty solid. I can't remember the exact error code and I didn't snip the image when I was there but I searched the web and came up with a close approximation.

Also I looked at the Event Viewer around the time that this happened and couldn't find a smoking gun. There are a large number of Session Established/Extender Abruptly Disconnected log entries in the Media Center log but I've gotten use to seeing a bunch of those. Also seeing a bunch of Circular Kernel Context Logger failed to start errors.

Dunno... I might have a crashing disk.

[TeddyR]

Set the primes with a fixed address from the dhcp server. Although the prime cannot be set with a real static address, a static reservation on the dhcp server may help with this issue.

The other thing that can cause this is an AV software. If anything other than the Windows Defender/Security Essentials, uninstall it completely, reboot, rerun the hdhr setup tool to repair/reinstall the dlls/drivers.

[Jimmersd]

Set the primes with a fixed address from the dhcp server. Although the prime cannot be set with a real static address, a static reservation on the dhcp server may help with this issue.

The other thing that can cause this is an AV software. If anything other than the Windows Defender/Security Essentials, uninstall it completely, reboot, rerun the hdhr setup tool to repair/reinstall the dlls/drivers.

Thanks for that. Everything on my network has always been assigned a fixed address except for some wireless and misc stuff that I may plug in as needed. Those get an DHCP address above 192.168.1.100. For instance the WMC computer is 192.168.1.5 and the tuners are 1.6. and 1.7

The only AV on the WMC computer is defender. And the Firewall has been setup to allow HDHR and Extender connections without restrictions.

The first time I saw this issue I took that course and repaired the HDHR setup to no effect. No, I think this is a problem with the way WMC handles the extender connections/disconnections.

[barnabas1969]

When I had an Echo, it did cause some strange things to happen on the Media Center PC... but I don't remember the details anymore. I reported the problems during the beta, using Ceton's forum that they setup for the beta. Everyone told me that I was crazy to think that the Echo could mess up the PC... but it did. The problems only occurred when the Echo was being used, and they went away when I wasn't using the Echo.

[Jimmersd]

When I had an Echo, it did cause some strange things to happen on the Media Center PC... but I don't remember the details anymore. I reported the problems during the beta, using Ceton's forum that they setup for the beta. Everyone told me that I was crazy to think that the Echo could mess up the PC... but it did. The problems only occurred when the Echo was being used, and they went away when I wasn't using the Echo.

The effect might not be that the Echo is actually causing the weirdness on the HTPC. More that WMC just doesn't know what to do when the extender disconnects or connects and that might cause something in WMC to corrupt. Maybe I'll start holding my breath for an Echo firmware update or a WMC service pack.

[barnabas1969]

... WMC just doesn't know what to do when the extender disconnects or connects and that might cause something in WMC to corrupt.

No, I don't think that's it. My HP X280N extenders were each connected to a "smart" powerstrip that would turn power off to the extender when the TV was turned off. This would cause an "abruptly disconnected" error in the event log, but never caused a problem on the Media Center PC. The Echo caused strange things to happen, even if it didn't crash (which it did frequently). Sadly, I don't have any details on exactly what the problems were on the PC. I just know that they went away when I disconnected the Echo.

[Jimmersd]

No, I don't think that's it. My HP X280N extenders were each connected to a "smart" powerstrip that would turn power off to the extender when the TV was turned off. This would cause an "abruptly disconnected" error in the event log, but never caused a problem on the Media Center PC. ...

What is interesting about your setup is that when your Echo was disconnected, it was because the power was cut to the device. When mine is turned off an electronic presence persists on the network. I can't surf to it in a browser, but WMC seems to think the extender is still there. Did you see spurious reconnects while the Echo was "unplugged"? I usually do when the Echo is switched off. Maybe I'll try to disconnect the power on the Echo and see if the abrupt disconnect/ reconnect pattern stops.

Not sure if this has anything to do with my original posting but...

[barnabas1969]

I didn't connect the Echo to a smart power strip. I only did that with the X280N extenders that I owned. It was because the X280N would magically turn itself on, and I wanted to prevent that from happening.

When I say disconnected, I mean I physically unplugged the cords when I wasn't using/testing it. It caused some flaky stuff to happen on my HTPC when it was connected. I don't remember the details.

[IownFIVEechos]

The March 20th build will keep the Ethernet port live. If you are on the earlier versions it should not show any juice. Am I right you are on the 20th build?

[barnabas1969]

I just remembered a couple of details...

The Echo would cause BSOD's on my HTPC. They never happened before I got the Echo, and would only happen when the Echo was connected. They never happened after I got rid of the Echo either. The BSOD's started before Ceton released the Media Center plugin, so it wasn't their software which was causing the BSOD's... it was the Echo itself.

There was talk about the NIC drivers being a possible cause. I tried updating my NIC drivers, but it didn't help. Other people reported that their other extenders worked fine with no BSOD's (as did mine), but the Echo would cause BSOD's. Several people reported that updating their NIC drivers solved the problem. However, if a Linksys, HP, or XBox extender doesn't cause a BSOD on the same system... and the Echo does... then there must be something different about the way the Echo communicates with the HTPC. The Echo should communicate exactly like a Linksys or HP extender. If the Linksys doesn't cause a BSOD, then the Echo shouldn't either.

But it did.

[Jimmersd]

The March 20th build will keep the Ethernet port live. If you are on the earlier versions it should not show any juice. Am I right you are on the 20th build?

No, both of my Echos are on 2013.304.1657 WMC throws the same connect/disconnect messages for both extenders.

[Jimmersd]

I just remembered a couple of details... If the Linksys doesn't cause a BSOD, then the Echo shouldn't either.

But it did.

Understood. No, I haven't seen any hard crashes on the HTPC, just the loss of HDHR tuners. For the most part, the Echo is well behaved and stable since I got the birthing pains solved, as long as I follow a couple firm rules. The first being that the Echo is always shut down when not in use. Still need to experiment with unplugging from AC though.

[barnabas1969]

If you just unplug it, it won't disconnect "gracefully" from Media Center. You will get a message in the event log that says something about the extender "abruptly disconnected." I did that for years with my HP extenders and it never caused a problem.

[Jimmersd]

If you just unplug it, it won't disconnect "gracefully" from Media Center. You will get a message in the event log that says something about the extender "abruptly disconnected." I did that for years with my HP extenders and it never caused a problem.

Well, if the extent of the problems that I experience with this setup are; occasionally having to sys-restore the HTPC when I forget to conform to the rules and some regular log entries that are a little irritating... in the Asperger's Syndrome sense of the word irritating. I think I'll just live with it.

Thanks for the feedback guys. It was very educational.