HDHR's bricked by software update?

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geek4eye

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HDHR's bricked by software update?

#1

Post by geek4eye » Fri Apr 15, 2022 2:42 am

General questions:
Has anyone had an older HDHR get bricked by loading the SiliD HDHR software on a Windows 10 PC?
Is there any way to do a firmware "factory reset" on these units?

Details:
Am in the process of building new PC for HTPC - got a new TV and would like to do 4K but the old Windows 8.1 box is unable to supply that.

Loaded up Windows 10 21H2, and GaRyan2's WMC package - picked it because am already using EPG123. Followed instructions and all was well until I tried to set up the tuners and remembered I have to load the HDHR software first. Downloaded latest/greatest Win version from SiliD, installed. HDHR_config_gui rattled around for awhile, but eventually found both boxes - a venerable HDHR3-US and a somewhat newer HDHR4-US. When I went to the second tab to do a channel scan, it said it couldn't find the HDHR3 any more. Sure enough, I couldn't ping or get its web page. I did a Scan on the HDHR4 which as usual took a while to find all the channels, but completed normally.

Both tuners had their status lights green, but I wanted to get the old one back by resetting it in order to do its scan. Rather than unplug them (inconvenient location), I cycled the power strip switch. Both units went thru their power up sequence. The nearby HP LAN switch showed both as having active ports. However, now NEITHER of them are working. The green LEDs on the front left are solid on, I forget - but didn't they used to flash with LAN activity? The HDHR4 has a LED on the back by the LAN connector that is red when unplugged, and green when plugged - obviously it can still tell... A lot of fuss and feathers later, including finding an alternate higher current 5V PS block, different LAN cables, different LAN switch, etc., nothing has helped, and they are both dead to the world as far as responding to the LAN (ping, tracert, http, etc.). In other words, I loaded software, it started to work, but I now have two bricks.

Conspiracy theory: (/Incompetence theory?)
Did SiliD put something in their latest software build that pushes a firmware update, which so happens to brick the older units? Their webpage does say "HDHomeRun Sofware for Windows -- includes firmware upgrade". Could it be they actually didn't check for compatibility with older units/versions and just blindly pushed something?

OK, I don't expect a reasonable answer to an unreasonable question, but still, it seems like a big coincidence. The older unit may have had an intermittent problem already and I didn't notice (although it worked well enough to be seen by the software at first), but for the other one to ALSO go out permanently just because of a power cycle seems, well, odd. I had done the same process on another old computer in my shop a few months ago with no issues (earlier HDHR software version). And they're not flakey, they're utterly dead to the LAN. The old phase "the lights are on, but nobody's home" fits perfectly.

Anyway, I seem to have two bricks, which leads to my second question above - is there some magic procedure to force these things back to a "factory reset" state? Unlike most LAN Routers and other such appliances, these don't have a button or a little hole with a reset button behind it for a paper clip reset. Lifted the lid; there aren't any jumper blocks inside like for a PC CMOS reset, just a "CN1" solder-in socket for something.
As I type this it occurs to me maybe they could have hard coded the ip address and did something to break DHCP? They are reserved by MAC address in my Router DHCP table, and show up in the Router's table, but don't show up elsewhere on a different ip address. Am too lazy/tired to persue beyond that without some expert guidance.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

PS... Yeah, this is sounding like more of a hardwre/SiliD problem, so I guess I'll ... ahem, sanitize this a bit and post on their their forum too.

prsa01

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#2

Post by prsa01 » Fri Apr 15, 2022 4:26 pm

Wmc use requires older versions of the drivers. A search will tell you which version and where to download it.

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garyan2

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#3

Post by garyan2 » Fri Apr 15, 2022 9:08 pm

WMC does not require an older version of software unless you are using on early versions on Win10 to watch DRM channels. I've been running the latest software with the latest Win10 versions always without issue.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

prsa01

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#4

Post by prsa01 » Fri Apr 15, 2022 9:34 pm

Maybe this is only on win7 or maybe something has since changed. I've seen many people say they needed to back-rev drivers in able to get their tuners to work with wmc.

Here is one thread: https://thegreenbutton.tv/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13037

geek4eye

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#5

Post by geek4eye » Fri Apr 15, 2022 10:27 pm

Turns out it is a network issue regarding the Router not giving the HDHR's a useful DHCP ip address. Not sure why yet, but subbing in an older Router from a different vendor out of my IT boneyard has got the HDHR's working again (TP-link C9 Archer failing, Tenda WR1800 working). I'll factory reset the TP and see what happens from there. The issue is they didn't have a valid IP address, so no communication was possible. Other software didn't matter as the HDHR's were incommunicado.

I will remain eternally annoyed that SiliD doesn't see fit add the minuscule ~10 lines of html code that it takes to set up a menu for STATIC IP ADDRESSES. But it seems they are the only game in town, so I must be content with the sand in their box and the "quality" of their little simple plastic shovel, rake and bucket.

Space

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#6

Post by Space » Sat Apr 16, 2022 12:03 am

It looks like the HDHR can be configured with a static address, but you need to use the command line hdhomerun_config from the windows machine in which you installed the drivers to do it:

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Format: hdhomerun_config <old ip> set /sys/ipaddr "<new ip> <subnet> <gateway>"
Example: hdhomerun_config 169.254.34.98 set /sys/ipaddr "10.10.20.43 255.255.255.0 10.10.20.1"
Manual

Seems strange that you need to use the <old ip> to set a static IP. Some commands are able to use the <device id> in place of the IP, so maybe that would work?

I'm not sure how adding a menu to set up static IP addresses would help, as the device would have to have an IP address in the first place in order to access the GUI, although I think it assigns itself a default IP address if there is no DHCP server response.

EDIT: I also vaguely remember having a similar problem as you with the HDHR not being able to be configured via DHCP. It was working fine and then I upgraded the HDHR firmware and then it no longer worked. I had to switch to another router to get it to start working again. So there must have been some incompatibility between the DHCP changes made in the new firmware (at the time) and the older router I was using.

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garyan2

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#7

Post by garyan2 » Sat Apr 16, 2022 1:00 am

prsa01 wrote: Fri Apr 15, 2022 9:34 pm Maybe this is only on win7 or maybe something has since changed. I've seen many people say they needed to back-rev drivers in able to get their tuners to work with WMC.

Here is one thread: https://thegreenbutton.tv/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13037
No, latest drivers work fine on Win7 as well. Where I have seen a problem is if trying to install the latest drivers on Win10 versions before 1709. The latest HDHR install packages sees you are installing on Win10 and tries to install .NET 4.8 which is not compatible with the OS and fails. For Win7, it installs the C++ distribution packages.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

geek4eye

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#8

Post by geek4eye » Sat Apr 16, 2022 1:11 am

Ahhh.... Alllllmost.

Seems the HDHR3-2US, HDHR4-2US and the new HDHR5 4k Flex don't support that construct.
If you do the command to list the functions available for a particular unit (manual page 6) as in

Code: Select all

>hdhomerun_config 10AABBCC get help
you get a list, but /sys/ipaddr ... isn't on it. For example for the HDHR3:
Supported configuration options:
/lineup/scan
/sys/copyright
/sys/debug
/sys/features
/sys/hwmodel
/sys/model
/sys/restart <resource>
/sys/version
/tuner<n>/channel <modulation>:<freq|ch>
/tuner<n>/channelmap <channelmap>
/tuner<n>/debug
/tuner<n>/filter "0x<nnnn>-0x<nnnn> [...]"
/tuner<n>/lockkey
/tuner<n>/program <program number>
/tuner<n>/status
/tuner<n>/plpinfo
/tuner<n>/streaminfo
/tuner<n>/target <ip>:<port>
/tuner<n>/vchannel <vchannel>
So running the specific command

Code: Select all

>hdhomerun_config 10AABBCC set /sys/ipaddr "192.168.1.101 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1"
comes back with
ERROR: unknown getset variable
On the other hand doing a command structured the same for /sys/features returns reasonable results.

I think you're right that the command line example showing the source as an IP address is odd, but as you say, all the other commands work with the Serial Number aka <device id>. I tried it both ways, same results which fit as the /sys/ipaddr isn't on the feature list - and it is complaining about getset not the device.

Yeah, so the Catch-22 here is that if it can't get a good address from DHCP, you can't talk to it anyway, so it wouldn't solve the incommunicado problem. DHCP has to work before you could set a static IP. Meh.

Oh, well... Thanks for linking the manual; have never come across it and it is always good to have.

Cheers!

Space

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#9

Post by Space » Sat Apr 16, 2022 7:52 am

The manual is actually for the "Tech" series of hardware which was meant for commercial use. I guess not all of the commands exist on all models (I've never really looked at it closely).

Note that an IP address is allocated to the device if it does not get a response from a DHCP server. A random address starting with 169.254.x.x will be assigned, so you can access the device (if your PC is on the same LAN segment, or directly connected to the HDHR) if you set your PC to a static IP address starting with those two octets and a netmask of 255.255.0.0.

Although readdressing your entire network for this issue is probably not an ideal solution (plus not having a consistent static IP address for the HDHR could be annoying, although I don't think WMC cares if the IP address changes)... Plus this address space is a link-local address that is not normally routable, although I don't know if that would prevent your router from sending traffic from those source addresses through a NAT gateway.

geek4eye

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#10

Post by geek4eye » Sun Apr 17, 2022 3:12 pm

It is all back to working normally. I did a factory reset on the TP-Link router, loaded it with latest/greatest/2021 firmware (had been 2018) and set it up entirely by hand (no importing of settings). Put in the DHCP reservations as before. Power cycled the HDHRs and observed the router including them in its devices table, where it lists the DHCP lease time as "permanent". All well until ... next time?

It didn't occur to me to go looking for the HDHRs on a 169. address - had this misguided notion they would default to a 192.168.0.x like most other LAN network appliances. Silly me. Still, it wouldn't have done any good, as SiliD has apparently crippled these units by not including /sys/ipaddr functions. At least we've left a detailed record of the symptoms, background and solution (for now?) for others in the same circumstances to find.

Thanks for the help!!!

geek4eye

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#11

Post by geek4eye » Sun Apr 17, 2022 3:17 pm

P.S. For those interested, there is a parallel thread over on the SiliD forum that starts with the same questions. Got good help there also.
https://forum.silicondust.com/forum/vie ... 38#p382838

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#12

Post by geek4eye » Sun Apr 17, 2022 3:41 pm

P.P.S. A large part of the contents of that manual are on the SiliD web page for hdhomerun_config which is the command line executable.
Conspicuously absent from the sample unit feature help list is /sys/ipaddr.

https://info.hdhomerun.com/info/hdhomerun_config

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