Doubts about Tvheadend stability "NO INPUT DETECTED" keeps coming back!

Columbo T

I have been running tvheadend backend on OpenELEC with XBMC as fronted for almost 8 months now and i its never been stable.

My problem is that Tvheadend seems to change my Muxes and/or channel config and i get a "NO INPUT DETECTED" after a while.

This happens about a week of everything running smoothly.

The only way to get it working again is to delete all muxes and re-add the sat-config and redo scan/mapping, this unfortunately kills the XMLTV EPG which never worked again after the first time doing this.

Could anyone please advise? I have searched around on this forum and others for a while now, it seems to be common issue but i haven't found a clear answer/fix to the problem!

My now retired Dreambox newer had any problems with my dish/lnb/diseq so it must be something with Tvheadend or possibly the Technisat FW driver for Linux?

My setup: Technisat Skystar USB DVB-S2
Asus C8HM70-I Mobo with HDMI
2 LNB (Thor and Sirius)

ProfYaffle

Hmmm. I've been running tvheadend for about two years on a variety of TBS, Hauppauge and PCTV adapters, DVB-T/T2/S2. I've never had this.

If your muxes are changing, I can only assume that you have "autodetect muxes" on and - for whatever reason - tvheadend is deciding that you have new muxes and trying to tune them in. I'm not enough of a satellite expert, so I'm thinking in terrestrial terms, but I wonder if you're picking up confused signals due to a slight misalignment or other 'leak' from some other signal source.

It's possibly diseq support - I don't use it - is it practical to wire up directly to the LNB and see if the problem goes away?

The only way to eliminate your driver/fw is to try a different distro (e.g. Ununtu live) or OS (e.g. Windows)... the latter obviously forces you onto a different backend as well (e.g. NPVR, Argus, WMC) so doesn't immediately prove anything even if it resolves the issue.

Is there any pattern to the changed muxes? Are they from the other satellite, or can you trace them to anything else that might be broadcasting?

Columbo T

That was my first guess too so "auto detect muxes" is always turned off, but i think you are right in that Tvheadend gets confused and rearranges something.

Diseq is also a good guess, but the setup hasn't changed since my Dreambox got retired, even if the Skystar has problems controlling the Diseq switch it would probably fix itself after pulling the power to the LNB´s, my problem is permanent, once you get the "NO INPUT DETECTED", the channel will never work again unless i delete all muxes as described.

The only pattern i can see is that it almost exclusively happens to HD Channels, that could be a clue.

I really hope i can avoid setting up a whole new system atm.
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ProfYaffle

Time sharing of some kind? Are those channels 24x7 on those muxes, or anything similar in the sky that could be swamping the signal at certain times?

I suppose you could always back up a working mux/channel config and then use cron to restore it nightly along with a tvheadend shutdown/restart. A bit brutal and - should be - unecessary, though.

Columbo T

No, they are dedicated "one program" channels. Sky is clear and reception is @ 85%

Ron L

I run tvh on a satellite system where I have to turn the dish by manual controls to receive channels on different satellites. Each network is on a different satellite. The older tvh versions would corrupt the channel database on a regular basis. It would find channels on the same frequency as a mux configured for a different satellite and change all those previously scanned channels.

The new tvh version in git and unstable is much better. I configure a separate network for each different satellite and set initial scan off and network discovery off. So far I have not had to delete any channels and rescan. I have small issues where it may rename some channels, but they still tune and they do get their correct names back again next time you watch them.

As for XBMC just reset it's pvr database and it'll be back in sync again.

I've been using the latest master git with XBMC for several months now and it's pretty solid.

I've never been able to get VDR to tune a single thing. Mythtv won't even get past configuring my DVB-S pci card.

Edit: Actually I guess the setting is skip initial scan on and network discovery off.

Columbo T

Thanks Ron for the answer, I'm running the latest OpeneELEC, not sure if that qualifies as av old version of Tvheadend?

Did a reset the EPG database through XBMC several times, are there any other ways i can do that? the XMLTV database is 0Kb.

I both have "initial scan" and "network discover" to off.

3 days ago deleted the muxes again and rescan, now the problems are coming back.... C more Hits HD now gone with "NO INPUT DETECED" :-(

ProfYaffle

You can get a more up-to-date OE tvheadend addon here: http://saraev.ca/tvheadend/4.1/

Columbo T

Thanks Prof. How do i apply the patch? Just copy the files?

OpenELEC doesn't have an apt-get or any other update mechanism for individual packages.

ProfYaffle

I think you can simply install it as a new addon as a zip file (i.e. use Install from Zip).

Youmay need to switch to the Gotham OE (4.0) beta to use it... maybe. Take a backup of anything important and enjoy the ride :)

Ron L

In the web ui if you click on the "About" tab you see the version. 3.9 is the latest available from git source or unstable repo. 3.6 or older are before the dvb rewrite and gave me problems with channel config being changed.

TVheadend version 3.9 works fine with XBMC 12 versions using the pvr.hts addon. The pvr.tvh addon requires XBMC 13. pvr.tvh is optional, you can continue to use pvr.hts.

XBMC 13 doesn't convert your old databases very well. I had to finally just delete my ~/.xbmc dir and let XBMC start over from scratch.

TVheadend 3.9 also uses a new configuration. There are scripts to convert but I didn't try that route, I just started with a fresh .hts config dir.

So if you are changing, first back up .hts and .xbmc if you change to XBMC 13 as well.