Drive Going Bad - PTVNet or Zipper on Replacement?

[KBrack]

Hey everyone,

Would like some suggestions. I have a couple of enhanced DirecTivos that have been up and running for several years. On one of the machines, I'm experiencing severe pixelation at random times - this started about a week ago. This pixelation lasts between 1 and 20 seconds and sometimes I think the problem is fixed and then it reappears several times in one recorded show.

The problem DVR is a Samsung SIRS4080R running software v.6.2-01 and (if I recall correctly) it has a 140 gig drive that was updated with PTVNet and then MRV and some other goodies added after that.

Is there anything that I should look at before assuming it is a failing drive? I'm sure it is coincidence, but the problems seem to have started after something happened to the TivoWeb Plus v2.0.0 and I installed TivoWeb Plus v2.1b3. (The other machine still has the older version of TWP.) I played around with bufferhack, but reset it to 30 minutes after noticing the problems. Is any of this relevant? What can I do to troubleshoot?

Also, after the problem started, I have heard the drive making some noises that I hadn't noticed before (not clicking, but a whirring) that comes and goes, but the pixellation doesn't occur when this is happening.

Should I go on and bite the bullet and replace the drive now? Any suggestions on what drives to buy? I don't need any more than 500 gigs, but with prices these days, I'll probably go up to that size.

If I do need to replace the drive, I've forgotten the process that I used before. I dug out my PTVNet and found it is an old version (ptvlba48-4.01) and according to DVRUpgrade, they won't let me download their new disk. Is that a problem?

Also, I'm not sure I my original drive is in working order - do I need an image or must I buy InstantCake? (I know I didn't use it in the past.) Is the Zipper a better option? it wasn't available when I last did this, but I know Gunny and RBautch has been praised for making it available. Honestly, I would really prefer to use the Zipper, but want to make sure that it will work properly with my other DirecTivo that has PTVNet on it.

Sorry for all the questions. Any help or pointers to a relevant FAQ would be most appreciated. Things had been working so well for so long - now I'm really rusty!

K

[BTUx9]

easiest way to rule out TWP2.1 as a culprit would be to shut it down for a couple days (but I have trouble imagining how it could be causing pixelation).

Have you checked your satellite signal strength? that's the #1 cause of pixelation, and the tuners and other components CAN go bad over time (in addition to the dish shifting, of course).

You should also check the kernel logs, to see if any messages are coming up... unlike stopples, pixelation is more an indication of corrupt data, and that often throws errors.

If you DO decide to replace the drive, I'm not positive about ptvnet, but many recent s2 hacks survive an mfs backup/restore (especially if partition 9, var, is preserved), so that may be a better option than starting from scratch, so I'd check out mfslive.org

[KBrack]

Have you checked your satellite signal strength? that's the #1 cause of pixelation, and the tuners and other components CAN go bad over time (in addition to the dish shifting, of course).

You should also check the kernel logs, to see if any messages are coming up... unlike stopples, pixelation is more an indication of corrupt data, and that often throws errors.



Thanks BTUx9,

This is an interesting post.

I have checked signal strength and I'm in the mid 90's and high 80's. One interesting thing about my situation - I live very near an airport and the planes sometimes pass between my dish and the sat and I get a small bit of pixellation, so this makes it harder to troubleshoot.

I can't get the full log, Tivoweb Plus throws an error, but here's a portion of the log that I got with the tail button:

Apr 7 11:38:31 (none) kernel: ApgManager Transition from state FAST_LOAD to STEADY_STATE
Apr 7 11:39:12 (none) kernel: ....sending Done event
Apr 7 11:39:12 (none) kernel: ....sending Done event
Apr 7 12:42:46 (none) kernel: !!!!WARNING: Needed 2 tries to set video STC to 0x084c2f5a
Apr 7 12:42:46 (none) kernel: Before = 0x084cce38, After = 0x084cce66
Apr 7 12:42:46 (none) kernel:
Apr 7 18
Apr 7 13:06:05 (none) kernel: !!!!WARNING: Needed 2 tries to set video STC to 0x04a6b090
Apr 7 13:06:05 (none) kernel: Before = 0x04a6b0c8, After = 0x04a6b0f6
Apr 7 13:06:05 (none) kernel:
Apr 7 14:31:34 (none) kernel: !!!!WARNING: Needed 2 tries to set video STC to 0x11e2d383
Apr 7 14:31:34 (none) kernel: Before = 0x11d0432f, After = 0x11d0435d
Apr 7 14:31:34 (none) kernel:
Apr 7 14:32:46 (none) kernel: !!!!WARNING: Needed 2 tries to set video STC to 0x132578a0
Apr 7 14:32:46 (none) kernel: Before = 0x132578d7, After = 0x13257905
Apr 7 14:32:46 (none) kernel:
Apr 7 14:59:10 (none) kernel: !!!!WARNING: Needed 2 tries to set video STC to 0x132b61db
Apr 7 14:59:10 (none) kernel: Before = 0x132b6212, After = 0x132b6240
Apr 7 14:59:10 (none) kernel:
Apr 7 23:47:02 (none) kernel: !!!!WARNING: Needed 2 tries to set video STC to 0x008d197a
Apr 7 23:47:02 (none) kernel: Before = 0x00baef1e, After = 0x00baef4c
Apr 7 23:47:02 (none) kernel:
Apr 8 01:15:28 (none) kernel: EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
Apr 8 01:15:30 (none) kernel: EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
Apr 8 04:10:06 (none) kernel: Reseting the audio decoder since it appears to be frozen.
Apr 8 06:21:30 (none) last message repeated 2 times
Apr 8 06:51:28 (none) kernel: Reseting the audio decoder since it appears to be frozen.
Apr 8 06:52:00 (none) kernel: Reseting the audio decoder since it appears to be frozen.
Apr 8 16:59:39 (none) kernel: !!!!WARNING: Needed 3 tries to set video STC to 0x22242a99
Apr 8 16:59:39 (none) kernel: Before = 0x22242ad8, After = 0x22242b06
Apr 8 16:59:39 (none) kernel: Before = 0x22242b06, After = 0x22242b34
Apr 8 16:59:39 (none) kernel:
Apr 8 17:45:25 (none) kernel: Reseting the audio decoder since it appears to be frozen.

Is this relevant? Should I post more?

Thanks so much!

K

[rbautch]

To see if your drive is bad, look in your /enhancements directory for a tool called drivemonitor.sh, and run it. See here for more info. link (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6560618&highlight=drivemonitor.sh#post6560618)
If you don't have it, download it from the files section of DDB.

[KBrack]

To see if your drive is bad, look in your /enhancements directory for a tool called drivemonitor.sh, and run it. See here for more info. link (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6560618&highlight=drivemonitor.sh#post6560618)
If you don't have it, download it from the files section of DDB.

rbautch,

Thanks for the tip. I re-ran the tweak.sh script (Thank you SO MUCH for that!) and here's what I got once I ran drivemonitor:

No hard drive errors were found in your kernel log.
Your primary drive hda S.M.A.R.T. satus is: PASSED
No secondary drive was detected.
Your primary drive (hda) temperature is 37 degrees Celsius.
Number of reallocated sectors on your primary drive (hda) is 1,
which is not yet in excess of the threshold set by your drive manufacturer.
If the number of reallocated sectors continues to increase, your drive may fail.
Results of extended self test for primary drive (hda) are not yet available.
Run drivemonitor.sh again after two hours for results.
Commencing extended offline self test for hda now.


This looks like the drive is not the problem. I'll re-run again tomorrow morning to see the results of the extended test.

Now that I think about it, I did have a similar problem a couple of years ago when I was using the S-Video port. I switched to the standard output and haven't had any problems until now. Do you think that might be related.

Any ideas from anyone would be most appreciated!

K

[rbtravis]

Sounds like your Multi-Switch is going bad. Try bypassing multi-switch with f/f barrel connectors and see if the problem goes away. :)