Continuity Errors on TBS6904 on DVB-S2

Chris M

Hello All,

In the last several weeks I've begun to encounter a weird issue with the TBS 6904 tuner card on DVVB-S2 transponders on the Astra2 (19.2E) satellites and wondering if anyone has encountered something similar.

What is happening is on DVB-S2 transponders (DVB-S seems to be fine) I will notice periodic breakups in the video stream and the continuity and transport error counters in TVHeadend will increase. The bizarre thing is, this problem seems to be isolated to only the Astra2 satellite, other satellites (13E and 28E) do not exhibit this symptom. I've tried moving cables around to different ports, and the problem always seems to follow the Astra2 satellite - i.e. Astra2 is always a problem no matter which port it's connected to and the other two are always fine.

I've tried wiping the OS and re-installing a fresh copy with the latest Open Source drivers and TV Headend 4.3-2111 but still the issue persists.

Has anyone encountered something similar, or is this likely a failing tuner card (though this has to be the weirdest failure mode I've ever observed).

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Jonas Lang

What hardware/OS are you running TVH on.

Chris M

Running under Debian 11 on a Supermicro 1U server with an Intel X3470 processor and 32GB of RAM.

Jonas Lang

Sounds more like interference rather than a failing tuner. Have you a motorised setup or using a diseq switch arrangement. Have you tried satellites further east or west of the current satellites you have tested so far for similar behaviour.

Chris M

Could be interference of some kind I suppose. No motor and I don't believe there are any diseqc switches in the path. There is a multi-switch, but we have tried different ports with the same result.

For some context, this server is actually colocated in a datacenter and the satellite feeds are provided by the datacenter. Supposedly they have put a meter on the feed and don't see any issues with the source signal, which is why I'm thinking some weird configuration issue or hardware issue.

Jonas Lang

Just a little curious. What hardware do you have located locally. If the data centre are providing satellite feeds to you what method/hardware is involved in this link of the chain. I have a satellite dish with a cable fed into a tuner which in turn is attached to a server/pc all located and controlled locally without any 3rd party intervention. I assume you have good reason for a data centre’s involvement.

Kai Schwarz

Not sure if the issue I had fits to yours, but give it a read: https://tvheadend.org/d/8275-epggrab-status-bad-high-ber-tvh-restarting

Right after startup, TVH stopped playing recordings again and again after few seconds. I noticed Kodi losing the connection quite often and had an eye on the status tab at tvh.
Deprecated Muxes were the reason for all this. Maybe it helps.

Chris M

Jonas Lang wrote:

> Just a little curious. What hardware do you have located locally. If the data centre are providing satellite feeds to you what method/hardware is involved in this link of the chain. I have a satellite dish with a cable fed into a tuner which in turn is attached to a server/pc all located and controlled locally without any 3rd party intervention. I assume you have good reason for a data centre’s involvement.

At the local end is just an Emby server for personal use and family/friends. I'm actually located in Canada, so colocating a server is the only feasible option to vacuum up European satellites. I agree that the 3rd party introduces some uncertainty between my tuner and the dish and I've advised them of the interference suspicion.

Chris M

To close the loop on this, it does appear that the problem was a physical issue. I had the datacenter replace all the switches and connectors between my tuner and the dish and the problem has gone away.

Thanks to all that responded! Sometimes the simple answer is correct one.