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DaveAS

Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:04 pm

Joined: 23 Jun 2008 Posts: 4

Hi,

I'm seeing a weird problem with a timed recording.

Model: TF5800
Firmware: 5.13.65
Taps autoloaded: Quick Jump + Timer Extend

I set a timer to record an hour long programme, but noticed it was still recording about 1.5 hours past the stop time. On the TV, the channel set for recording was visible, but the Toppy would not respond to any button presses. About 5 minutes or so later, I tried hammering all of the buttons one last time, including those on the front panel, and the Toppy did eventually shutdown.

Powering up again, the timed recording was shown as 0 bytes, so I assume the box really crashed and did a hard reboot. After fixing with recfixer2, the recording was playable but the time was wrong with an hour long programme finishing at the 45 minute mark. At the point where the timer should have stopped, the Toppy displayed "service is not running or scrambled!" Rewinding from this point jumped back about 10 minutes before the end of the original programme.

The whole 2.5 hour recording is present in the file because I can view it on a PC with no problems.

Has anybody seen a problem like this before? More importantly, is there a fix/workaround? As I'm off on holiday next week, I want to feel I can trust this thing without somebody checking on it every 5 minutes. If I get a repeat of the problem, I expect I'll come back to a full hard disk and a lot of missing recordings.

I'm starting to get the "should've bought the Humax" feeling...

--
Dave

simonc

Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:30 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 5616 Location: Cheltenham

Have you got interactive services enabled? I think Wimbledon might be causing the Toppy's flakey MHEG engine to throw a hissy fit...

DaveAS

Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:40 pm

Joined: 23 Jun 2008 Posts: 4

simonc wrote:

Have you got interactive services enabled? I think Wimbledon might be causing the Toppy's flakey MHEG engine to throw a hissy fit...

The failure happened when recording off of "Dave" which doesn't use interactive services AFAIK. Heck, they've only recently discovered widescreen. Wink

--
Dave

simonc

Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:37 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 5616 Location: Cheltenham

Ah, but the Toppy isn't necessarily going to be tuned Dave whilst it's recording Dave. If it was already switched on and viewing BBC1, it wouldn't flip over to displaying Dave.

Either way, you'll definitely have more stable operation if you turn off interactive services.

DaveAS

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 12:12 am

Joined: 23 Jun 2008 Posts: 4

simonc wrote:

Yea, I've done that anyway ready for my hols. One less bug to worry about.

I don't think it was the problem though, because the box was switched off when the timer kicked in. Unless it has a habit of having a quick look at the Beeb before it starts recording. Wink

I must say, I wish I'd read more of the problems on this forum before buying a Toppy. "Turn off this", "use this tap to fix that", etc. doesn't really inspire confidence.

--
Dave

jumbo

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 5:41 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 11 Apr 2005 Posts: 4733

DaveAS wrote:

I must say, I wish I'd read more of the problems on this forum before buying a Toppy. "Turn off this", "use this tap to fix that", etc. doesn't really inspire confidence.

Before you buy one yes but afterwards it inspires more confidence - in a curious way! Devil you know etc...

simonc

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 9:13 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 5616 Location: Cheltenham

DaveAS wrote:

I must say, I wish I'd read more of the problems on this forum before buying a Toppy. "Turn off this", "use this tap to fix that", etc. doesn't really inspire confidence.

That would've given you a slightly skewed impression though as people come on here to discuss their issues rather than fawn over the box (ok, there's occasionally a bit of that too!). I suspect that out of the box, compared to the Humax, the Toppy has more bugs that are likely to affect daily use, e.g. switching channels when recordings start, not waking up to record after a power cut. Once the firmware has been patched up a little though, it's very reliable, dare I say it more reliable: if the Toppy decides to corrupt the disk, it has the decency to only trim the end of a few recordings, the Humax loses the lot Wink

A runaway recording due to a lockup is a little unusual. Does timer extend have any options for extending the recording whilst running?

msteggalls

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:51 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 22 Apr 2005 Posts: 697 Location: Ipswich, UK

Strangely enough I had one of these last night - first problem I've had for ages.

I'm using the Display TAP, and noticed at just after 8pm the time on the Toppy was showing 18:21 and the orange LED (i.e. recording) was on. Found the Toppy was unresponsive, although after a couple of button pushes it rebooted. Surprising when it came but up it didn't do Verifying files. The Toppy had been off and a CT woke it up just before 6pm for the BBC1 news - this file was obviously corrupt but when fixed found it played OK, and contained everything on BBC1 from the News until it crashed - so although apparently locked and other CT didn't fire it was still recoding.

Oh, and I do have interactive services disabled

Martyn

_________________
Model: TF5800 Silver; Disk: Samsung 300gb ; Firmware: 5.13.65 Patched; Purchased: 15-Apr-2005; Tx: Sudbury;
Autostart TAPs: Improbox (2.5) TF5000 Display (1.53a); Description Extender (2.23); Filer (2.21RC3); Extend (1.7); stirf (1.3Cbeta); EPGnavigator (6.10); UK Auto Scheduler (0.73) & Goldfish Screensaver (0.5) Smile

TV: Panasonic TX-L37V20B LCD; Remote: Harmony 885
Updated 01Nov10

DaveAS

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 12:19 pm

Joined: 23 Jun 2008 Posts: 4

simonc wrote:

That would've given you a slightly skewed impression though as people come on here to discuss their issues rather than fawn over the box (ok, there's occasionally a bit of that too!).

Yes, I suppose that's another way to look at it.

simonc wrote:

A runaway recording due to a lockup is a little unusual. Does timer extend have any options for extending the recording whilst running?

Not that I'm aware of. Sounds like it's a real bug, especially as msteggalls has very similar symptoms.

--
Dave

R2-D2

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 12:24 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 12149

DaveAS wrote:

Sounds like it's a real bug, especially as msteggalls has very similar symptoms.

If neither of you are running the Bios patches then that would be something to try.

_________________
Troubleshooting -- User Manual -- Dark Side of the Matrix: Firmwares and Patches

CharlieBoy

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:09 pm

Regular contributor Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 93

I've experienced such a "locked" recording twice in the past week - on the 2nd and on the 9th (coincidence that they were both Tuesdays?). For me the real problem isn't the huge .rec file generated, but all the missed CT timers that didn't start while the "locked" recording was ongoing.

I have interactive turned off and am running the MyStuff recommended patched firmware (ie. including Bios fix).

Any other thoughts? Thanks.

_________________
TF5800, F/W: MS6 Recommended F/W 12/9/2009 -Sy+UUu
TAPs: EPG2MEI v0.96; MHEG On/Off A3; Extend v1.7; SecCache (UK) v0.4; EIT Sub (Game) v0.6; Font Manager 1.0d; MyStuff 6.4; MyInfo B5.6;
Sig generated by MyInfo on 14/7/11

R2-D2

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:19 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 12149

Timeshift on? If so, [Kt] may help.

_________________
Troubleshooting -- User Manual -- Dark Side of the Matrix: Firmwares and Patches

CharlieBoy

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:31 pm

Regular contributor Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 93

R2-D2 wrote:

Timeshift on? If so, [Kt] may help.

No. On both ocassions the Toppy was unattended in standby. It came out of standby to start a CT - but then locked into that recording, didn't go back into standby, and no further CTs started.

I didn't have [Kt] installed at the time (I was using "MyStuff Recommended" firmware downloaded in August), but I do now (having updated today to the latest "MyStuff Recommended").

CharlieBoy

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:13 pm

Regular contributor Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 93

R2-D2 wrote:

Timeshift on? If so, [Kt] may help.

Only just realised what you actually meant by "Timeshift on?". Embarassed

But the answer is still "no". Both "Timeshift" and "Interactive" are disabled in the Toppy's native menu.

ROWANMOOR

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:45 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 31 Mar 2005 Posts: 738 Location: Redhill, Surrey

I had this on Tuesday evening as well. About 2 minutes past 6. Kids were watching (just finishing watching) a recording - they would have turned off the TV and left the recording to come to the end and stop. It had just started recording something on Cbeebies.

I know it was 6:02 as when I looked at it for the time a few hours later it still said 6:02.

When I turned the TV on it had a frozen picture from Cbeebies. The recording was enormous and corrupt.

No idea of the cause, but it is the first time in a VERY long time that the Toppy has locked up on me.

I did wonder if it was warning signs of PSU problems, but it is a bit of a coincidence that it was Tuesday for both of us.

I also have Interactive and Timeshifting turned off, but of course it was recording.

My problem was the timers that didn't fire as well. The corrupt recording wasn't much of an issue as it was a kids program - they have enough of them recorded not to notice.

CharlieBoy - what channel was it tuned to? What time did it lock up?

_________________
Cheers,
Rowan.

Toppy: TF5800pvrt Remote: Harmony 885
F/W: MS6 Recommended F/W 12/9/2009 -EpVr+CbCfCtDDsEgEmEvEzFpFsHsIMPePfPsScUUaUuUyVbVcVdWfZ
TAPs: SecCache (UK) v0.4; EIT Sub (Game) v0.6; EPG2MEI v0.96; TAP Commander 1.34; Font Manager 1.0d; Extend v1.7; MHEG Control B2.1; QuickJump 1.72; MyStuff 6.4; TF5000 Display v1.53; MyInfo B5.5;
Sig generated by MyInfo on 8/7/11

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