T4 (2TB): New software crashes

[fredofrog99]

Thanks for keeping this forum up to date, it helps alot.

Purchased an almost new barebone T4 with a 2TB installed by the last owner. Appears in very good nick - nothing to complain about etc.

The HDD is basically new and empty and I did a factory reset before starting off (ignored the international english guide that came with it and used the Help button instead). The internet is working fine and I have experienced some common issues in the posts I read this morning all of which are not a deal breaker (e.g. removing or not LCNs, freeview plus for 7/9/10 not available, youtube sound ok picture missing etc) since they have workarounds

A couple of software crashes have started though.

1 - Access Firmware version: Menu > Information > then the wait message followed by error and restart.
I did a online check for latest version and appears everything up to date, just cannot tell you what that version is

2 - Press Info followed by Back or Exit = crash
Watching live TV and press Info which appears to be doing nothing then press Back or Exit or OK twice (all too close) causes this.

If these are known bugs then I missed finding the posts this morning. If you need the logs let me know (and also how to get them, it's been a while since I've done this)

Query
BACKGROUND TRANSPARENCY
Can the transparency background be made darker when moving through menus with live TV in the background? Hard to read the text depending o the show on at the time.

PRIME CENTRAL COAST
I live in Lake Macquarie NSW and hence get Newcastle and Central Coast reception equally well. All channels are working fine except for Prime Central Coast NSW which scans perfectly has excellent reception, just nothing happening thereafter. It shows up as a duplicate since Prime Newcastle is scanned earlier and it works fine. Interested if anyone gets the same problem although the chances are slim someone has a T4 and bothers or tries to gets both.

EPG
EPG is v.good (thanks to whoever codes the PICONS just need WIN/NBN/7flix and resizing the guide is awesome). The P2 used to differentiate the currently selected event (i.e program background colour change) from the other events, this one doesn't. If you are watching the Big Bash this morning, I moved from ONE down to another channel and the BBL wasn't highlighted or shaded differently.

AV RECEIVER
Any quirks to look for whening connecting? I'm updating the Yamaha probably to another budget Yamaha (or similar).

OVERALL (RCU/HEAT)
The T4 is better than my old P2 but the RCU is designed by satan herself (buttons too close together and too easy to click through like an insanely fast mouse pointer though layout is ok), the unit does get v.warm even though it's a cool day today and T4 is sitting on top of a coffee table while we're changing over some furniture.

Finally, any best practice hints (links) with networking back to my PC. It's my weak area but so far I can find files via DLNA play them just any tips for permissions at both ends - the old P2 was hard work in this area.

Thanks, fredofrog99 (Rob)

[Gully]

Hi and welcome

Just focusing on the crashes for the moment as they are not expected.

I would suggest you download the latest beta version firmware and install that from USB as per instructions and set everything up from scratch.

The beta is very stable and much improved so no concerns in using it.

[fredofrog99]

Ok will do. The last owner did say the software was up to date (that was 2 weeks ago)

[MrQuade]

(e.g. removing or not LCNs, freeview plus for 7/9/10 not available, youtube sound ok picture missing etc) since they have workarounds

For Youtube, Install the latest firmware from USB as-per Gully's advice. No need for workarounds then.
The link to the firmware is here in case you didn't see it.

1 - Access Firmware version: Menu > Information > then the wait message followed by error and restart.
I did a online check for latest version and appears everything up to date, just cannot tell you what that version is

The online check only checks for minor version updates, and not major updates.
The major version number of the firmware will be something like "4.4", "16.1", or "17.5". The minor updates are just signified by date of release.
You have to manually check the forums, or rely on the email notification from Beyonwiz to know when the major updates are released.
The fact that your Version Information check failed, tells me something is majorly wrong with your firmware installation.
Again, advice is to upgrade to the latest.
And a reminder that you need to set up from scratch after the latest majkor update (recordings are all kept, but settings and timers will be lost).

2 - Press Info followed by Back or Exit = crash
Watching live TV and press Info which appears to be doing nothing then press Back or Exit or OK twice (all too close) causes this.

If these are known bugs then I missed finding the posts this morning. If you need the logs let me know (and also how to get them, it's been a while since I've done this)

Just symptoms of the bad firmware image on your T4 I think.

Query
BACKGROUND TRANSPARENCY
Can the transparency background be made darker when moving through menus with live TV in the background? Hard to read the text depending o the show on at the time.

Not with the built in skins, but you may want to check IanSav's Overlay HD skin, which allows a lot more UI customisation.

EPG
EPG is v.good (thanks to whoever codes the PICONS just need WIN/NBN/7flix and resizing the guide is awesome). The P2 used to differentiate the currently selected event (i.e program background colour change) from the other events, this one doesn't. If you are watching the Big Bash this morning, I moved from ONE down to another channel and the BBL wasn't highlighted or shaded differently.

You are the second one to report something similar to this recently from memory, but it sounds like another symptom of the bad firmware to me.

AV RECEIVER
Any quirks to look for whening connecting? I'm updating the Yamaha probably to another budget Yamaha (or similar).

No real gochas. Either HDMI or Optical should work fine.
You can turn off Dolby/DTS downmixing assuming that your receiver supports Dolby and DTS. (long-press AUDIO from live TV to find this toggle setting).
This will allow you to get mutlichannel audio from the T4.
Do not turn off AAC downmixing, as your receiver will certainly not accept AAC audio over HDMI/Optical.

Finally, any best practice hints (links) with networking back to my PC. It's my weak area but so far I can find files via DLNA play them just any tips for permissions at both ends - the old P2 was hard work in this area.

This can be thorny, depending onm the Whims of Windows/Microsoft.
My advice is to simply not use DLNA to start with. Horrible protocol in general. Use Windows networking shares on the T4 and on your Windows PC to share files. It is so much easier to access recordings on the T series than it was on the DP series.
Make sure that you set up a username and password on the Windows PC for your T4 to access (if sharing files from the PC). MS made some changes recently that tightened up security such that it is a MAJOR pain to try to share files to guest network users. Almost impossible in fact.

And once again, update to the latest 17.5 firmware, as it contains a boatload of improvements to the Windows networking components.

[fredofrog99]

17.5 loaded. T4 started itself after USB was removed and powered down. No problem from what I can see.

Info > About now works. Seems to navigate quicker.

Need to adjust settings back to which I spent most of today getting right - lesson learnt.

The issue with Prime Central Coast might be the T4 doesn't distinguish it from Prime Newcastle which on the P2 messed up the EPG and here also fails to stream.

Will see what is fixed or working better and report back tomorrow.

[Grumpy_Geoff]

PRIME CENTRAL COAST
I live in Lake Macquarie NSW and hence get Newcastle and Central Coast reception equally well. All channels are working fine except for Prime Central Coast NSW which scans perfectly has excellent reception, just nothing happening thereafter. It shows up as a duplicate since Prime Newcastle is scanned earlier and it works fine. Interested if anyone gets the same problem although the chances are slim someone has a T4 and bothers or tries to gets both.

The issue with Prime Central Coast might be the T4 doesn't distinguish it from Prime Newcastle which on the P2 messed up the EPG and here also fails to stream.

How did you do the scan? Location scan with "Australia - Full scan" or a specific region?
Is the broadcast channel/frequency correct for Prime Central Coast NSW? Either check the Infobar (bottom right-hand corner) or in MENU->Information->Service->BLUE/Tuner status.

Perhaps this is one of those 'single frequency networks' thingamies with the same frequency/channel used and your reception just happens to be smack bang in the middle of both.
Or perhaps the issue is the T-series can't handle those well. Way past my knowledge; I'm just pissing in the wind. I think there's a few on the board who would know though.

[prl]

It doesn't sound like a single frequency network (SFN) to me. In an SFN transmitters all send exactly the same data (including service names) on the same frequency.

[dRdoS7]

Hi,

PRIME CENTRAL COAST
I live in Lake Macquarie NSW and hence get Newcastle and Central Coast reception equally well. All channels are working fine except for Prime Central Coast NSW which scans perfectly has excellent reception, just nothing happening thereafter. It shows up as a duplicate since Prime Newcastle is scanned earlier and it works fine. Interested if anyone gets the same problem although the chances are slim someone has a T4 and bothers or tries to gets both.

If two channels have the same name, the one with stronger signal is saved. I have the same here: 2 sets of networks/channels all with the same names, but different frequency ranges. The only way to force the T* to use a channel from the transmitter you want, is to do a manual scan of that frequency.

Our Toppies used to scan & keep both, like your P2. The only use I can think of that is if a transmitter fails, you have a ready backup. But there was no mechanism on the Toppy to switch to the other for recordings, so pretty useless. On the T* there is "Use automatic selection of alternates" (or "Override found with alternative service:" in OWIF) for Autotimers, but don't know if it works in that fashion.

dRdoS7

[prl]

... If two channels have the same name, the one with stronger signal is saved. ...

And that's the problem. The signal strength measurement isn't all that great and it's the wrong thing to measure, and that means that sometimes the broadcast channel with the lower signal quality is selected. The order of the scans is only relevant if both channels have the same signal strength measure.

What should be compared is the signal quality, measured by comparing the Bit Error Rates (BER) of the two channels, and selecting the one with the lower BER.

BER is a measure of how many errors were detected by the error correction codes in the signal.

I think that the reason signal strength is used is that it's available from the tuner almost immediately after tuning, while it takes some time for the decoder to get into a state where useful a BER can be obtained. IIRC Peteru last looked at this a while back, and made some improvements, but using BER instead of signal strength would slow down tuning significantly.

[dRdoS7]

Hi,

... If two channels have the same name, the one with stronger signal is saved. ...

And that's the problem.

The alternative is no automatic selection (a scan option?): let the user decide, if they want to, either, or both. Maybe sort the groups of channels by frequency after the scan, for ease of comparison.

dRdoS7

[grampus]

It’s a long time since i had a similar issue.
ABC reception around Leongatha.
ABC was being received on 2 separate frequencies.
One from Melbourne, and one from Mt Terrible
From memory both were same LCN being delivered.
I think spec Op41 said that in this case the lower quality signal should be placed in the tables at LCN 350 and up.
Not sure how “lower quality “was defined.

Is my memory suspect here? has this spec changed?

[prl]

...
I think spec Op41 said that in this case the lower quality signal should be placed in the tables at LCN 350 and up.
Not sure how “lower quality “was defined.

Table 2 of OP41 strongly implies that bit error rate (BER) is the measure of signal quality to use for transmitter selection.

my memory suspect here? has this spec changed?

No, and certainly not recently changed. OP41 was last updated in July 2016.

[fredofrog99]

Both crashes reported no longer occur although I did get one with a plugin.

The Prime issue is Beyonwiz related. The Samsung and Bauhn TVs manage both frequencies for Prime without a problem so easy workaround.

The EPG skin (black/grey/gold) is better than the mostly blue (default?), but saw plugins with skins to download. Are these working and tested? I read a post a few days ago where it was not recommended to get these plugins/drivers (not sure if for skins or other function) instead stick with basic setup. The black/grey version is good enough. The Foxtel EPG is the best I've seen and it has some of that feel although the multi-colour event fields are better as a solid dark colour.

Now to start setup on network..............

[dRdoS7]

Hi,

The EPG skin (black/grey/gold) is better than the mostly blue (default?), but saw plugins with skins to download. Are these working and tested? I read a post a few days ago where it was not recommended to get these plugins/drivers (not sure if for skins or other function) instead stick with basic setup.

As posted previously:

you may want to check IanSav's Overlay HD skin, which allows a lot more UI customisation.

Not available from Plugins (yet, though there is a method - look here: viewtopic.php?f=56&t=12075#p159771), need to d/l and install (very easy). Have a read of both.

dRdoS7

[IanSav]

Hi dRdoS7,

As posted previously:

you may want to check IanSav's Overlay HD skin, which allows a lot more UI customisation.

Not available from Plugins (yet, though there is a method - look here: viewtopic.php?f=56&t=12075#p159771), need to d/l and install (very easy). Have a read of both.

The better reference is: OverlayHD Skin... .

Regards,
Ian.