Ceton InfiniTV 4 card issues

When you lose the tuner do any of the following apply:

1. Card is missing from Network Media Devices
2. In Network and Sharing, change adapters, the Ceton adapter is missing
3. Just rebooting the system brings it back

Which of the above apply? Known problems are programs that do scans or automatic logins.

John

Watch that area then and something is either scanning your system or some out login is disability the ceton adapter. You can check the binding (although that is an old issue and fixed in what you're running) and make sure your normal network card is first. (network and sharing, adapter settings, then advanced and advanced again will show binding)

John

Have you guys contacted ceton support? their support is top notch.

After you re-installed windows did you run the Digital Cable Advisor again? If not, that might be your problem.

John

it has nothing to do with cable adviser. the card just isn.t seen by ceton diagnostic tool at all. when you open the diag tool it just searches for the card without ever finding it. to answer your question though, yes i did load cable adviser. i got back out my ceton install instuctions and went down the list one by one just to make sure i didn't miss anything.

the led flashes blue. in the network it shows up but is unresponsive(left or right clicking do nothing). its not the pcie bus as the card requests drivers if you uninstall them or if you install the card in another pc. i've installed it in three different systems all having the same response.

ya, they sent the beta drivers and new beta firmware for the card. installing the drivers had no change and i couldn't install the firmware since the diagnostic toll needs to be able to "see" the card to install the firmware. thanks for the suggestions though. if i seemed a little short earlier i'm sorry, just a frustrated.

Try removing the card, then removing the drivers and reboot the computer.  Make sure you have no trace of the Ceton app.

Then place the card in a different PCIe slot. Go thru the install process.

I've noticed at times there may be  a conflict with the PCIe slots, and moving them around may work out better.

just tried it again with a fresh install of win 7 64 bit and it has the same problem

i do appreciate your comment but if you had read the whole post you would see that i've tried this in three different systems and two different operating systems and i've already stated that it shows that the device drivers loaded fine. i'm not the smartest guy in the world but i would've noticed if the device manager showed a conflict with the tuner. it's already been taken care of thanks to some excellent help from mike.

actually i'm still using the same card. somehow the tuner card remained stuck in network bridging mode since i was sharing one of the tuners with my bedroom htpc. i've never seen a card get the settings stuck even after removing the drivers, oh ya and trying it in two different pc's. once it was set back properly it worked like a champ. i had no idea about it, if it weren't for michael i would still be with out hd channels. my wife and i both thank you.

Can you PM me your ticket # and I'll take a look at it.

Strange thing.  I have had both an old Ceton and a newer one which I thought was a problem tuner.  I have had a trouble ticket open for a while and it got to the point where I thought it was just the new 3f-71 tuner taht was causing my issues, but it has been sent back and I am still having partial recordings that have messages about the tuner being used by another component.  I also have seen the system uptime on 192.168.20x.x show the signs of rebooting with short uptimes that coincide with partial recordings.  Now one thing I have not done since I pulled my dash 71 tuner was go in and reset the tuenr settings using the Ceton uitility and then rerun the Media Center TV setup, but at this point I am curious if I have just sent a card back in response to a problem that was not the card itself.  I would agree that the -71 tuner seemed to fail completely instead of only quickly rebooting like my -78 tuner does, but I would like to help get to the bottom of this soon since I just got two friends convinced to buy and use Ceton tuners this last month and they are both getting nervous (at least one is) after seeing my issues.  One of them has seen these sames issues as well where his tuners quit working all of a sudden and only a restart seems to fix it.  I gave him the link for the beta firmware and he put that on and moved his PC to get stronger tv signals for the tuners and he has been okay since then.  Any word on how this thing is progressing?  Thanks

Just what is happening will depend on several factors and it would help to know:

1. Type of cableCARD (and hence the headend controller) Moto or Cisco
2. If you have SDV in your area
3. Signal level on stations with this issue, if it appears random, the oob signal level

I've seen the following four types of failure:

1. Card crashes. The card stops responding and disappears from media devices. A machine reboot is necessary to bring it back up.

2. Card crashes. The card stops responding but recovers. In media devices (if you keep Network open) the card (or usb device) returns at the bottom. Uptime is reset in the web interface.

3. CableCARD crashes. The card or usb stays up, uptime is not impacted.

4. CableCARD error or conditional access problem. This only impacts stations which are copy once (0x2) and will appear as subscription required for about a minute or so in the recording.

In cases 3 and 4, if you go to Media Center, recorded tv, scheduled, history you'll see the recordings listed as recorded, not recorded or partial. Each recording can be clicked on for additonal information. Usually this is where you'll see ended for use by another component which in my experiece is a cableCARD crash/reset.

If you have a cisco card, you can open the Ceton web interface and click on cableCARD and then open Diagnostics and it will show you the boot time of the cableCARD. If you made a note of this with your last error, you'll know if the card restarted and when. The Ceton LOG also has a lot of information but it may be a bit difficult to find what you're looking for. Check for things like card restart or reset, server busy, etc.

Cisco CableCARD(tm)
Diagnostics
H/W Model: 0800, Ver: 0012
MAC Address: 00:21:BE:49:3C:2E
SL. No: PKGTSGSQW, Mode: MMODE
Boot Time
Thu Jan 26 2012, 5:35:37 PM GMT
Current Time
Sun Jan 29 2012, 3:38:28 PM GMT
Free Memory: 1554 KB
Bldr Ver: 124
OS Ver: PKEY1.5.2_F.p.2801
Build Time: Feb 3 2011, 17:13:46
Resource Status: 00021C1F00027DBF
BFS: Received, Hub ID: 44

-9 dBmV is just on the edge of being low, but only worth attacking if you see if happen on alot of the channels.

No SDV rules out TA communication errors.

With both type 1 and 2 failures the log file gets wiped and reset. With the Sub Req error where the recording continues there may be something in the log that will refer to getting a conditional access pmt and resetting and retuning. I don't know why this is happening but since you see it on a Moto controller and I see it on a Cisco controller it points to a problem with the way the tuner is communicating with the cableCARD.

I would start a ticket with Ceton and if you find the card crashed, run a scan from the diagnostic tool even though it can't find the card and then again after you reboot. If you have an uptime reset, do a diagnostic scan and file it and if you see the partial recording in the recorded tv history, you can check the log, run a scan and figure the time of the error by skipping through the recording to the Sub Req screen and checking that time against the recording start time.

Hopefully they'll be able to pin this down soon.

John

Have you sent this information to Ceton? If not why not open a ticket and submit what you've found.

It would also  be interesting to know (for us here) the type of cableCARD, system operator, if you have SDV and type of Ceton tuner and FW and Driver (although I think there is only a single driver available now).

John

Is there any way you can describe how you and Mike resolved this issue?  I recently installed a ceton pci card and, after resetting it to factory settings, have been unable to locate the media device on my windows 7 machine.

I've got two InfiniTV4's, a HDHomeRun Prime, a dual tuner HDHomeRun (latest version), and two Hauppauge 2250's configured for my primary PC.  The HDHomeRun and HDHR Prime are shared with other PCs on my network.  The InfiniTV4's and Hauupauge tuners are all PCI-e versions installed in my HTPC.  They all work in harmony and I rarely have issues with any of them.  I got my first InfiniTV4 in the first production run back in August of 2010 and it's worked beautifully from day 1.

The first thing I'd do is uninstall any unnecessary software that could be causing conflicts with the tuners.  Some AV programs can wreak havoc with WMC so uninstall any third party AV, malware, anti-spam, etc., programs and install Microsoft Security Essentials.  Get rid of Zone Alarm or other extraneous programs running in the background and just keep the apps essential to supporting your HTPC functions.  The cleaner the install, the fewer chances of problems.

Secondly, consider swapping out any unnecessary hardware that could have flaky drivers.  If you're using USB tuners, consider replacing them with PCI-e versions.  The only time I ever had issues with tuners dropping off the grid was when I was using USB tuners.  I've never had the problem after switching to PCI-e and networked tuners.

The absolute best approach is to perform a fresh install from scratch and only install the hardware and software that you need.  Start of with a barebones configuration that allows you to perform the basic functions you need using WMC.  Create a backup before attempting any other hardware or software installations so you have a working configuration to fall back on without having to reinstall everything from scratch. 

I like to get a stable system and then clone the hard drive with something like EaseUS Disk Copy (freeware).  Keep the backup handy in case you need to copy it back to your working hard drive.  If you have issues after adding hardware or software, don't even bother trying to fix it by uninstalling the offending item as sometimes things are left behind that don't get scrubbed with a simple uninstall.  Instead, simply copy the backup over to the working drive and you're up and running again in short order.