Losing sound in recording and video breaking up

[enigmatic]

Hi,

I'm running a Series 1 Philips Tivo in Australia using the OZTIVO image.

The Tivo was reimaged a few months back and had been running well up until about a week ago when I started to note some consistent issues. I originally thought these may be due to the set top box I have but on review, I think it is the Tivo.

I've kept the Tivo image up to date and the recordings have been cleared down regularly so there is hardly anything clogging up the drive.

The issues are:

1. I set a recording of a show e.g the Grand Prix and the show records fine. On watching the show, I find that I lose sound at around 50 mins into the recording. Video appears to be OK but as I fast forward into the recording, the video breaks up and becomes jumpy. Almost looks like it has recorded every other second rather than continuous.

2. Even when I don't record, I find that the Tivo loses sound and video becomes jumpy. This is generally noted after the Tivo hasn't been used for a day or so.

The reason I don't think this is an issue with my set top box is because the Tivo regains sound when I change channels.

Please can you help and advise whether this may be a hardware issue or perhaps some kind of HDD or cache issue?

Thanks,

Chris

[PlainBill]

It's a classic example of a hard drive with marginal sectors in the area being used for buffereing. The clincher is the fact the problem goes away when you change channels.

The solution is simple. Download the drive manufacturer's advanced diagnosics and run a non-destructive media scan. Any marginal sectors are replaced with spare sectors. It would be a good idea to replace the drive, particularly if the problem reappears in a few months.

PlainBill

[enigmatic]

Hi,

Thanks for the response. I grabbed the WD utilities and ran them but found no errors.

I think I may need to nuke the drive, run a Windows utility such as Disk Keeper and then re-image it with the Oz Tivo image?

Will also look at getting a new HDD at the computer market this weekend as a spare.

Cheers,

Chris

[enigmatic]

Have just been going through my logs on my Tivo and found this:

/var/log/tverr/
Jul 9 18:06:14 (none) TmkTransform::Trace[207]: Have a buffer (0) with zero segmentsDid someone zero memory?
Jul 9 18:06:14 (none) TmkTransform::Trace[207]: leaking buffers = pt->theBuf = 0x30301000. Trying to recover.
Jul 9 18:55:04 (none) last message repeated 9 times
Jul 9 18:55:04 (none) last message repeated 9 times
Jul 9 18:56:08 (none) last message repeated 33 times
Jul 9 18:56:08 (none) last message repeated 33 times
Jul 9 18:57:10 (none) last message repeated 42 times
Jul 9 18:57:10 (none) last message repeated 42 times
Jul 9 20:33:11 (none) last message repeated 42 times
Jul 9 20:33:11 (none) last message repeated 42 times
Jul 9 20:36:16 (none) TmkTransform::Trace[219]: Have a buffer (0) with zero segmentsDid someone zero memory?
Jul 9 20:36:16 (none) TmkTransform::Trace[219]: leaking buffers = pt->theBuf = 0x30301000. Trying to recover.
Jul 9 20:38:46 (none) last message repeated 7 times
Jul 9 20:38:46 (none) last message repeated 7 times
Jul 9 21:09:12 (none) TmkTransform::Trace[219]: Have a buffer (0) with zero segmentsDid someone zero memory?
Jul 9 21:09:12 (none) TmkTransform::Trace[219]: leaking buffers = pt->theBuf = 0x30301000. Trying to recover.
Jul 9 21:14:40 (none) last message repeated 7 times
Jul 9 21:14:40 (none) last message repeated 7 times
Jul 9 21:33:40 (none) last message repeated 21 times
Jul 9 21:33:40 (none) last message repeated 21 times
Jul 9 21:35:58 (none) last message repeated 9 times
Jul 9 21:35:58 (none) last message repeated 9 times
Jul 10 20:56:56 (none) TmkTransform::Trace[216]: Have a buffer (0) with zero segmentsDid someone zero memory?
Jul 10 20:56:56 (none) TmkTransform::Trace[216]: leaking buffers = pt->theBuf = 0x30301000. Trying to recover.

[anyoneinracks]

I have a very similar problem that started when I installed a cache card.
I am sure this is a known problem (also known as issue, these days) but I cannot find any mention of it anywhere in the fora.