Interesting finding on troubleshooting MRV

[cfb]

Yes, I'm still running a "vintage CE", 0x339, the last one with MRV in it.

Like many others, since the 'universal playlist' went in, I started having problems with MRV and receiver stability. My receivers would go about 2.5-3 days before MRV would start splatting like crazy to an unwatchable point, then MRV would stop working on one box or the other. Sometimes turning MRV on and off would fix it, but in general I needed a reboot. On occasion one box would freeze or reboot itself.

My network is two HR20-100's with cat5e to a gigabit switch. Pretty simple.

So even though this isnt a current CE, I thought it'd be interesting to try removing complexities from the arrangement to see what things had effect. I know the Directv guys are still working on MRV and others like me are sticking with the MRV release.

After taking things like the phone line away, changing out switches and wiring and trying IR vs RF remote control, nothing improved or changed the results.

My last plausible option was to transplant the disk from the external esata chassis into the HR and eliminate the esata arrangement altogether.

It seems to have worked. One box has been running for 5 days and the other for 4. Neither has needed a reboot or frozen up. MRV hasnt gone dead on either box. I still get splats but they're fewer and shorter, maybe one or two every few minutes for a second or so.

I'd be suspicious of the esata, but I have zero local playback problems except for the occasional well known "briiip/zipper". No problems with directv2pc. And the first rounds of MRV CE's before the UPL worked fine for me.

So it seems that there is some sort of combination glitch between the most recent MRV release and an esata drive. Maybe this explains why some folks have/had no problems with it while others did/do have problems.

To wrap things up, I put some drives in the enclosures and put them on a desktop machine using the same esata cables and had them running tests for the better part of a day without a single reported glitch.

Unfortunately its not a solution that everyone is going to want to implement...

 

[JamesJ]

interesting, I am hoping people that are reading this and have held out on downloading the latest ones that are having problems can report in and show us what they are seeing as well.

 

[cfb]

I'm not missing having to remember to reboot both boxes every night before I go to bed, thats for sure.

I wouldnt have really thought about it, but I remembered a fix in one of the prior CE's back a few months ago was for something like "fix slow delete times on esata". That made me curious, as I figured the box wouldnt really care if a drive was internal sata or esata. But that fix told me they're doing something different if they detect and use esata vs an internal drive.

Seems that whatever special things they're doing conflict with the last known implementation of MRV. I've snooped the network when the boxes are glitching and its the MRV server box that just stops transmitting for a second or so. Not something on the receiving end or a network problem.

So apparently something is tying up the server box, not glitching local or directv2pc (which I think buffers a little bit while MRV really doesnt), and causing a starvation of the MRV receiver process. And it has something to do with esata.

Both enclosures are antec mx-1, about the most highly employed DIY esata for directv, tivo and some cable solutions. One drive is a 750GB Seagate DB35 AV drive, the other is a 1TB Seagate Pipeline AV drive. Nothing weird, cheap, slow, obscure or bizarre.

Directv used the DB35 model in some of their HR2x's, and the Pipeline is the drive thats in the Showcase external enclosure that directv has slated for official support.

 

[trehutch]

I have the same setup and the same problems with MRV, good deduction as to what is causing the MRV hiccups with the external drive attached. I am so close in pulling the plug on MRV until it's a bit more stable, but then it works fine and sucks me back in again. Drat!!

 

[cfb]

Yep, mine would run okay for a couple of days, then go off the cliff. Sometimes it'd go unstable in just 12-15 hours.

However the limit of 50 series links, having to double up recordings and series links on both boxes so the shows would be where I wanted to watch them, the extra space taken up, etc was just killing me. I was almost ready to throw in the towel on the product.

With the MRV, we only need the series link on one box, dont have to store the shows twice, and can watch them on either tv. Makes up for a lot. Even if it blows up now and then.

So I guess the two key questions are:

- anyone running on the internal drive with MRV have the same problems I had
- anyone running on an esata that doesnt have any trouble with it

Although I guess the key question is whether this even matters to directv anymore. They might have rewritten or be rewriting the whole thing for all we know...

 

[Jimbo]

In an entirely different situation, about a month or so ago, I turned the MRV ON just for the hell of it and started losing my PLAYLIST .
It would be GONE, I was still able to get to it thru the History, but nothing showed in the Playlist, this went on for several weeks till I decided to check what was on and what wasn't , I eventually turned MRV OFF and the Playlist re appeared and has been there ever since.

 

[cfb]

I had the playlist disappear a few times, and a few instances of new recordings not showing up in the playlist but accessible from the history. A reboot generally restored the playlist.

I think they fixed it in the last or next to last mrv release, because I havent seen that problem since.

 

[cfb]

Turns out to not have been a permanent fix, but it did last 3x longer without the esata. MRV went kablooie last night on one box and I had to reboot them to get it back. No combination of turning mrv on/off and location sharing on/off had any effect.

 

[Matt L]

Mine are acting up and I have no external drives. hope we get MRV tomorrow...

On a related or not note, I was downloading an on-demand HD movie and it took forever and caused splats and stuff during live programming. The whole system got very laggy and was close to unusable during the download that took hours and hours for a 1:33 movie, so something is really buggy in the network section.

 

[Jhon69]

Mine are acting up and I have no external drives. hope we get MRV tomorrow...

On a related or not note, I was downloading an on-demand HD movie and it took forever and caused splats and stuff during live programming. The whole system got very laggy and was close to unusable during the download that took hours and hours for a 1:33 movie, so something is really buggy in the network section.

MRV testing is not supposed to restart until after the next national release.

 

[cfb]

I think it'll be a few weeks before we see another MRV CE.

So much for my esata theory.

Matt, quick question...you ever done anything with mediashare, hooking up a pc to the HR boxes, PlayOn or anything like that? Its a long shot but the only thing I can think of that was coincidental to my HR's going from needing a reboot every day or two to them lasting a week+ (other than removing the esata) was that I bought a new computer. The only thing the old computer did that was at all related to the HR was that I'd set it up for mediashare with viiv, tversity and playon. I havent set up the new machine to do any of that, and I keep getting a message that the directv mediashare renderer has been found and do I want to configure it. It occurred to me that I turned that computer on just once in the last week, and that was within hours of the one HR/MRV failure I did have this week.

I have noted when sniffing network traffic that both HR's kept wanting to talk to that old computer every few minutes, sending it a flurry of packets.

So maybe its something to do with MRV and mediashare related features. I dont think theres any way to tell the directv box to stop doing mediashare. I did direct wire the two HR's together for a day or so, which didnt solve the splatting problem. Didnt keep them isolated that way for long enough to see if it affected box stability though.

 

[trehutch]

I have had my playlist go way as well, but it wasn't really gone. I simple reboot fixed all concerns. I thought all my season passes were gone my wife was freakin' out. Reboot seems to solve it all. I still think MRV is worth it now with all the hiccups currently. JUst rebbot and it seems to solve and problems. I am looking forward to the next MRV release. I also have to reboot when the box gets unresponsive and locks up. annoying yes but MRV rocks season passes went from 50 to 100 with two boxes. Does anyone have 3 DVR's hooked up to MRV and what has been their experience????

 

[Matt L]

Yes, I have tried media share and found it to be worse than worthless. I guess I have too much stuff on my computers, it just burbs and say" No thank you!".

I have thousands of Mp3s and pictures on my computer, and while the HR2xs see the computers, I have 4 on my network, (2 MCE, a Vista plus an XP), and content they will in no way play it. Start and MP3 and if it plays it just starts jumping and then locks up. I've had to pull the plug on my HR23 after it locked up with MP3s.

All my HR2x units see the computers as well as my Samsung B650 TV with media share, all the HR boxes are on it's list. The Sammy is in my bedroom along with an HR20. Since I only had a single network feed to that point, all but my laptops are hard wired, I used an old Linksys router as a switch. It's interesting to see just how much network activity there is. The HR20 is always sending info, the Sammy not so much.