Why does my HDPVR stops working?

June 18th, 2009

It may happen that the HD PVR stops sending packets indefinitely. This is accompanied by the HD PVR top blue lights and front red light going off. The end-user will then see a Windows Media Center message saying “Low Tv Signal” as well as a DVBLink message box saying that the HD PVR “Needs manual power cycle”. Finally, usually it is also accompanied by an ERRORABORT message logged into output.log file:

[2009/07/04 07:48:23.0224] DirectShow Event received: ERRORABORT (0×00000003).

Stopping/Starting DVBLink service and/or Media Center is not enough to make it working again as the Hauppauge driver/device itself is at fault. One way out of this is powering off the device (with the front power button), waiting 2-3 seconds for the USB disconnected sound signal, then powering it on again. Alternatively, but less convenient, rebooting the computer also reverts the system to a working state.

This seems to occur randomly and it seems related to the HD PVR itself. There are a few strategies that seems to limit this occurence:

  • Disable EPG scanning in DVBLink Media Center plugin
  • Enable Idle mode that stops the HD PVR acquisition when Media Center is not using the HD PVR
  • Avoid using the HD PVR internal IR Blaster and switch to either a Media Center Compatible IR Blaster or firestb
  • Switch the HD PVR on a dedicated USB Controller

We are working with Hauppauge staff to investigate these known issues and fix them. We will let you know of what comes out of it. In the meantime, if you have more pertinent information about those random events, please feel free to tell us about it.

We have heard of different reports that could lead to these issues. Those are theories more than proven facts, but here you go:

  • It had been suggested that some HD PVR might have overheating temperature issues that could lead to this kind of unstability. While first hardware revisions certainly had heat issues, we are not quite sure abour the real pertinence of this with new revisions out there on the market.
  • There is an official Hauppauge report stating that it might be related to  USB data contention on the bus (read here). Which is a plausible explanation given the conditions under which this problem seems to occurs.

Additionally, it’s now possible since the DVBLink for HDPVR 2.0  to use hooks to reset the HD PVR using a remotely controlled power outlet.