Me TV

failed to lock to channel ...today

Asked by segal

Hi Michael (Dave from across the road - you have visitors)

I installed me tv and it was running fine for a few days was recording shows etc and replaying in xine.
Today when I tried to start it I get a failed to lock to channel pop up and that is as far as I get.
Normal app window appears with epg but no picture.
The aerial works fine in other device.
I have had trouble with the graphics card I was using and the driver not running when the comp starts up so I put a different card in in the hope it would work.

lspci shows the dvb card is recognised.
Any ideas? I have restarted a few times.
\
thanks
Dave

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segal
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Michael Lamothe (lamothe-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#1

Hi Dave,

As mentioned, the "Failed to lock to channel" issue is indicative of a reception issue. In your case it seems odd though. Anyway, glad that you got it working.

On some systems, to get the HD channels working smoothly, you might need to add extra buffering to the xine player to get a smoother experience. Open the ~/.xine/config and look for these 2 lines,

#engine.buffers.audio_num_buffers:230
#engine.buffers.video_num_buffers:500

Remove the '#' and increase those numbers by a factor of 10. i.e.

engine.buffers.audio_num_buffers:2300
engine.buffers.video_num_buffers:5000

See if that helps.

Cheers,

Michael

Revision history for this message
segal (iamsegal) said : 		#2

Hi Michael.

thanks for dropping by and sorting out the buffering.
To help troubleshoot the failed to lock issue....
I started the machine this morning and was running tv on me computer just fine.
After about an hour I clicked back on metv and I got the failed to lock channel popup again.
Currently there is no driver installed for the display adapter.

Revision history for this message
Michael Lamothe (lamothe-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#3

From what I saw your signal was very dirty, this can cause many issues. Let me look at your antenna ... darn it, must be at the back of the house, I can't see it, well it's dark also. We can continue this off-line with level 1 support ;)

Revision history for this message
Michael Lamothe (lamothe-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#4

Hey mate, there's no need to continue this conversation on Launchpad. What's your email address? I tried the new "Contact this user" feature but I don't think that it worked.

I'm more than happy to help you out but it's hard to get out with the kids. Let me know if you want me to come over tomorrow to have another look.

Cheers,

Michael

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segal (iamsegal) said : 		#5

you can find me on <email address hidden>
We are acquiring a new motherboard and cpu and will attack the problem again after it is built. That particular machine is quite old.
Do you recommend any particular graphics card/mobo?
Once we have that put together we will try again and it should work.

Revision history for this message
segal (iamsegal) said : 		#6

OK so we proved it is not software...

Processor- $469.00 - Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 EU80570PJ0876M / AT80570PJ0876M (BX80570E8500)
Mobo GA -73PVM-S2H $189.00
Ram - DEK B48MB-88PRTL $198
OS 8.10 from CD and lamothe repositroy with install of ME TV.

Result - Digital Television installed under Sound and Video when run you get the option to scan for channels. Chose AU and Canberra. No channels found using roof aerial. Tried again then restarted.
Restarted again after fail. Tested again with broken coat hanger and found most channels except win.
Wierd.
Will post now for restart....

Revision history for this message
segal (iamsegal) said : 		#7

Just before restarting i swaped aerial over to the main one form the roof and it froze. no error and clicking on X did nothing.
So restarted.
opened digital tv again...
Still no Win but other channels are running ok except buffer issues.
Wowo when i show meters the meters apear with strength of 90+ and S/N ratio of imn 50%

Revision history for this message
segal (iamsegal) said : 		#8

Now cool thing is I replaced the cables and for about 10 seconds i got feedback that the signal strength was the same ut the S/N ratio was up to a minimum of 60%. then it dropped to 0% on both readings. Swapped the aerials back but still o%!

Revision history for this message
segal (iamsegal) said : 		#9

btw had to force quit.
Now restarted, still with broken coat hanger as aerial.
SC 10 canberra works dodgy (ie bad reception)
sc10 hd works dodgy
sc 110 works dodgy

so it appears that other than reception it is now working fine. 5 minute s of tv..... No win tv though...
uh oh I clicked on sbs hd and got grey screen of death.
Damn how can i hand this over to old people....METV allows mme to force quit.
Forgot to mention that i installed the prop dirvers for the onboard vid card which came by default.
I am now going to bend the dell video card so it fits and restart.