V2 screen freezes for no apparent reason.

[gibster]

Hi All:

i've been trying to chase down a problem for a few weeks now and don't seem to be getting any closer to a fix for the issue.

Here are the symptoms:

V2 will be on for a day or two. I'll be watching TV (test cricket of late) and the screen will just seem to freeze like a lost signal or something. I'll bring up the program guide and select a different channel, or try changing the channel with the up/down button. I just get the spinner which keeps going on for 4 or 5 minutes until I restart the V2 by powering it off then back on after leaving it off for a few seconds.

During this time of being frozen the clock does not advance on the front display, and the remote and front panel buttons are non-responsive.

I had tried turning off time shifting in case it was something to do with that. When that didn't solve the issue I turned it back on.

I have turned on debug logging and assume the logfile found in logs is the debug log. I've attached the Enigma-2 logs (before and after power cycling_, and the enigma2_execution.log for your perusal.

Hopefully someone will be able to tell from these what might be going on.

Cheers

Gib

[prl]

V2 will be on for a day or two. I'll be watching TV (test cricket of late) and the screen will just seem to freeze like a lost signal or something. I'll bring up the program guide and select a different channel, or try changing the channel with the up/down button. I just get the spinner which keeps going on for 4 or 5 minutes until I restart the V2 by powering it off then back on after leaving it off for a few seconds.

The first of those (changing channel using the EPG) seems to be what happened in the log you posted. There doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary in the log after you did the channel change until the spinner started.

During this time of being frozen the clock does not advance on the front display, and the remote and front panel buttons are non-responsive.

The spinner displays when something has blocked the main dispatch loop in the enigma2 process. Enigma2 is the program that turns a Linux computer with some tuners and A/V devices into a PVR.

The dispatch loop handles things like remote control button presses and timer activation. The spinner is a notification that that's not happening, and basically tells you that things like button presses or the updating of the clock can't happen..

Hopefully someone will be able to tell from these what might be going on.

Two common causes of the dispatch loop being blocked is that it's run something that causes an infinite loop, or it's run something that calls the operating system, but that call never returns.

If you can log into the V2's command-line interface, then it's possible to check whether enigma2 has gone into an infinite loop.

It's possible that it's down to corruption of the V2's firmware. Reloading the firmware from USB might help, but it's a bit of a long shot.

[gibster]

Two common causes of the dispatch loop being blocked is that it's run something that causes an infinite loop, or it's run something that calls the operating system, but that call never returns.

If you can log into the V2's command-line interface, then it's possible to check whether enigma2 has gone into an infinite loop.

It's possible that it's down to corruption of the V2's firmware. Reloading the firmware from USB might help, but it's a bit of a long shot.

I'll give both of these a try and see what happens. I had reloaded the firmware a while back because of a similar issue but had put it down to an issue with the old 3 1/2" HDD and it's caddy. I replaced those items and reloaded the firmware at that time.

I'll give it another go and see what happens.

If it freezes up then I'll see if I can log in via CLI.

Cheers and thanks for the pointers.

Gib

[prl]

No problem. Good luck with it.

[gibster]

Hiya:

OK, a little more info.

Had Channel 7 Melbourne HD up again in background. Came back into room and picture was frozen again. Instead of opening program guide this time I tried just changing the channels and got the spinner.

I went ahead and SSL'd into the V2 with no problems. Issued a few commands to see if it responded and the system did. Issued a reboot command and the V2 rebooted.

I've attached the latest logs before and after the reboot. Maybe you can make something out that I can't see.

Next step will be firmware update.

Cheers

Gib

[adoxa]

Was it using the USB tuner? I've had problems with that occasionally causing freezes (I used to prefer it for recording, but since switching back to auto the freezing has stopped).

[gibster]

Was it using the USB tuner? I've had problems with that occasionally causing freezes (I used to prefer it for recording, but since switching back to auto the freezing has stopped).

Hi. I had changed preferences a while back to see if that was an issue. Originally I had it set on A for the preferred tuner, but I changed it to C after encountering these problems and that seems to have had no effect on it.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's just a V2 issue because I never used to have these problems with my T4 or T2. Those are long gone now, so just the V2 and I'm wondering if it's more prone to firmware corruption. This will be like the 5th or 6th time in the last year I've done a firmware re-install. Will see what happens now.

Cheers

Gib

[gibster]

Re-flashed and restored. Will see what happens now. If it freezes again I'll re-flash and not do a restore just in case.

Gib