InfiniTV 6 ETH - Tuner not available in Multiple 7MC

[jagomez]

I recently upgraded from 2 InfiniTV 4 PCIe to 2 InfiniTV 6 ETH and since I did it I'm having all sorts of issues. I have upgraded the CETON firmware to the latest (not the beta, since I'm not using tuner pooling), then reinstalled 7MC from scratch in all 4 machines and assigned tuners to each one. It works perfectly for 24 hours more or less then at some point one of the machines starts saying "Tuner not available", "Subscription Required", "Tuner Conflict", etc. At that point I have to reboot the 6ETH, the computer and go over the setup tv signal again which usually fixes the problem. But then it happens again and eventually have all 4 7MCs without working tuners.

I'm not sure where to start to troubleshoot. I even put fixed IP addresses on the 6ETH just in case. It worked pretty good when I had the InfiniTV 4 PCie. Any ideas?

BTW-> Network is all Gigabit.

[erkotz]

Are you sure you didn't overcommit the tuners? That's what it sounds like happened. I would still recommend you upgrade to the latest beta firmware.

[Jay]

Are you using tuner pooling or assigning specific tuners to specific PCs? If the later, then I don't think you would have an overcommitment issue, but I could be wrong.

[foxwood]

Are you using tuner pooling or assigning specific tuners to specific PCs?

It's right there in black and white in the original post:

I have upgraded the CETON firmware to the latest (not the beta, since I'm not using tuner pooling),

[JohnW248]

Have you checked the tuner temps? Read the review by Andy on Missingremote.com on the 6 tuner model and his experiments with locations and cooling.

[ZPrime]

I'm having the same sort of problem, I suspect it may be a faulty ETH6. Only difference is that I'm running the latest beta firmware, which I only loaded because it mentioned improved TA compatibility (and I'm forced to use a TA with Time Warner and SDV all over the place). I only have a single WMC box that I want to use all 6 tuners with (my remaining two TVs both have 360s at them as Extenders).

I have a ticket open with Ceton (MIJ-556-37709) but haven't had a reply in a few days now... I'm able to generate macroblocking / picture and sound problems "at will" by manually tuning 5 tuners from the web interface while watching the 6th with WMC. At some point after doing this, the signal reading on the web interface will go off-chart negative on most or all of the tuners, sometimes including the one that is actively in use by WMC. I don't know if this is just a display bug, or the signal is actually in the toilet, but the fact that WMC seems to still be playing *something* implies that signal isn't as bad as the interface says... but something funky is definitely happening.

If I stop the web-tune on one tuner ("tune" to frequency 0 to disable it - doesn't seem to matter which one), that stops the macroblocking, but then if I start using WMC to try to tune several shows (start up a bunch of test recordings) it will throw errors about no signal / channel unavailable. Only way to resolve is to reboot the 7MC PC, and sometimes reset the ETH6.

With 6 tuners active, my temps were in the lower 60s originally - sitting in a cool crawl space that is below ground level, on top of my (plastic, cool to the touch) Synology NAS. Suspicious of temperature, I moved the ETH6 to a wire shelf about 6 inches above the NAS and that dropped temps by about 8 degrees, but didn't improve the problem. Apparently the bottom of the ETH6 puts out as much or more heat than the top does, so getting it up on taller feet to allow airflow across the bottom is helpful. Don't know why they didn't give it taller rubber feet - the heat from the Ceton was enough to make the adhesive try to come loose.

I'm ready to go return/exchange the unit at Microcenter (my 30 day window ends on 7/21), but I want to make sure Ceton think that is a viable solution / good idea before I do it. It certainly seems like a hardware problem since I'm showing the signal go to the toilet and all of this crazy macroblocking when all 6 tuners are live (and they are still within temp spec).

[erkotz]

I'm having the same sort of problem, I suspect it may be a faulty ETH6. Only difference is that I'm running the latest beta firmware, which I only loaded because it mentioned improved TA compatibility (and I'm forced to use a TA with Time Warner and SDV all over the place). I only have a single WMC box that I want to use all 6 tuners with (my remaining two TVs both have 360s at them as Extenders).

I have a ticket open with Ceton (MIJ-556-37709) but haven't had a reply in a few days now... I'm able to generate macroblocking / picture and sound problems "at will" by manually tuning 5 tuners from the web interface while watching the 6th with WMC. At some point after doing this, the signal reading on the web interface will go off-chart negative on most or all of the tuners, sometimes including the one that is actively in use by WMC. I don't know if this is just a display bug, or the signal is actually in the toilet, but the fact that WMC seems to still be playing *something* implies that signal isn't as bad as the interface says... but something funky is definitely happening.

If I stop the web-tune on one tuner ("tune" to frequency 0 to disable it - doesn't seem to matter which one), that stops the macroblocking, but then if I start using WMC to try to tune several shows (start up a bunch of test recordings) it will throw errors about no signal / channel unavailable. Only way to resolve is to reboot the 7MC PC, and sometimes reset the ETH6.

With 6 tuners active, my temps were in the lower 60s originally - sitting in a cool crawl space that is below ground level, on top of my (plastic, cool to the touch) Synology NAS. Suspicious of temperature, I moved the ETH6 to a wire shelf about 6 inches above the NAS and that dropped temps by about 8 degrees, but didn't improve the problem. Apparently the bottom of the ETH6 puts out as much or more heat than the top does, so getting it up on taller feet to allow airflow across the bottom is helpful. Don't know why they didn't give it taller rubber feet - the heat from the Ceton was enough to make the adhesive try to come loose.

I'm ready to go return/exchange the unit at Microcenter (my 30 day window ends on 7/21), but I want to make sure Ceton think that is a viable solution / good idea before I do it. It certainly seems like a hardware problem since I'm showing the signal go to the toilet and all of this crazy macroblocking when all 6 tuners are live (and they are still within temp spec).

I just looked at your ticket - our notes indicate that a voicemail was left for you late last week. Did you not receive it?

[ZPrime]

I'm having the same sort of problem, I suspect it may be a faulty ETH6. Only difference is that I'm running the latest beta firmware, which I only loaded because it mentioned improved TA compatibility (and I'm forced to use a TA with Time Warner and SDV all over the place). I only have a single WMC box that I want to use all 6 tuners with (my remaining two TVs both have 360s at them as Extenders).

I have a ticket open with Ceton (MIJ-556-37709) but haven't had a reply in a few days now... I'm able to generate macroblocking / picture and sound problems "at will" by manually tuning 5 tuners from the web interface while watching the 6th with WMC. At some point after doing this, the signal reading on the web interface will go off-chart negative on most or all of the tuners, sometimes including the one that is actively in use by WMC. I don't know if this is just a display bug, or the signal is actually in the toilet, but the fact that WMC seems to still be playing *something* implies that signal isn't as bad as the interface says... but something funky is definitely happening.

If I stop the web-tune on one tuner ("tune" to frequency 0 to disable it - doesn't seem to matter which one), that stops the macroblocking, but then if I start using WMC to try to tune several shows (start up a bunch of test recordings) it will throw errors about no signal / channel unavailable. Only way to resolve is to reboot the 7MC PC, and sometimes reset the ETH6.

With 6 tuners active, my temps were in the lower 60s originally - sitting in a cool crawl space that is below ground level, on top of my (plastic, cool to the touch) Synology NAS. Suspicious of temperature, I moved the ETH6 to a wire shelf about 6 inches above the NAS and that dropped temps by about 8 degrees, but didn't improve the problem. Apparently the bottom of the ETH6 puts out as much or more heat than the top does, so getting it up on taller feet to allow airflow across the bottom is helpful. Don't know why they didn't give it taller rubber feet - the heat from the Ceton was enough to make the adhesive try to come loose.

I'm ready to go return/exchange the unit at Microcenter (my 30 day window ends on 7/21), but I want to make sure Ceton think that is a viable solution / good idea before I do it. It certainly seems like a hardware problem since I'm showing the signal go to the toilet and all of this crazy macroblocking when all 6 tuners are live (and they are still within temp spec).

I just looked at your ticket - our notes indicate that a voicemail was left for you late last week. Did you not receive it?

My phone is on me 24/7 as I'm an IT guy, and I show no missed calls or voicemail. I pickup unknown numbers since I use it for work...

[ZPrime]

I just looked at your ticket - our notes indicate that a voicemail was left for you late last week. Did you not receive it?

Received an update on the ticket and replied to you guys. I'll be looking for another reply (possibly a call?) on Tuesday...

[Jay]

Are you using tuner pooling or assigning specific tuners to specific PCs?

It's right there in black and white in the original post:

I have upgraded the CETON firmware to the latest (not the beta, since I'm not using tuner pooling),

You are correct, I missed that. Thanks for pointing out the obvious.

[jagomez]

Are you sure you didn't overcommit the tuners? That's what it sounds like happened.

You mean as in assigning the same tuner to more than one 7MC? If so, not likely.

I would still recommend you upgrade to the latest beta firmware.

I can do that. You are recommending that I use tuner pooling? I use Would I be able to go back if I do? Do I still get Ceton support?

Have you checked the tuner temps? Read the review by Andy on Missingremote.com on the 6 tuner model and his experiments with locations and cooling.

According to the tuner webpage the temps hovers around 33 to 35C on both. It doesn't seem to be that high.

BTW-> What are reasonable Signal Levels and SNRs for this device?

[JohnW248]

Signal levels should be between +/- 7 dBmV (although cable companies may specify 11 dBmV which works with their STBs) and S/n should be 30 dB or better.

[ZPrime]

jagomez, good luck with this. My situation hasn't improved and it's getting kind of old... started my own thread up about it rather than replying in yours, but I have a feeling we might be suffering the same problems.

When you have missing tuner issues, what happens if you pull up Ceton Diagnostics? On mine, the CableCard tab will often say it has no CableCard installed / can't find it... but then it will mysteriously show up after the diags refresh a few times.

I've also had the status page on the Eth6 load glacially slow, almost as though the CPU in the Eth6 is busy with "something" behind the scenes and unable to respond to web requests. Again, not something I would expect from a stable / functioning device...

[shortcut3d]

I also get random missing tuner issues, but can tune back to the channel and it will start again. It's somewhat cascading problem because I need to restart the ETH and then the HTPC to get it to go away for a while. I have a scheduled weekly restart, which seems to minimize problems.

Also, I use Echos as extenders (definitely does not help reliability), which means tuners are managed centrally. That likely contributes to less tuner not available issues.

[kp4akb]

For Tuner Pooling,
am I assuming that every computer needs to have the same Beta Software and that the tuners need to be reset to factory default?

[Chburnham]

I was just wondering did you ever get this problem fixed?