New beta firmware candidate for InfiniTV tuners available

[erkotz]

so I installed the new beta firmware from cetons diagnostic tool and I get large grey pixilation on my ceton infinitv 4 tuners recordings

live tv is ok... signal is 13.5 to 16.0 on all tuners and snr is about 32 - 38

win8.1 update 1

While an SNR of 32 should be OK, I'd bet it actually dips lower. Without more data I can't say what's happening. I'd recommend you open a support ticket with us.

[tzr916]

I have not had to reboot my Eth Tuner since I put this firmware on, about two weeks ago. If it is good for another two weeks, then I think we have a winner!!!

Give it a few more days... Mine has already rebooted twice since having this firmware. Few weeks ago missed several recordings, last might after 11pm so no missed recordings just woke up to wmc error & less than 6 tuners... Can't blame temps (mine are less than 40C). Can't blame RF (mine are now 0 to 3dBmV).

[cybrsage]

I have not had to reboot my Eth Tuner since I put this firmware on, about two weeks ago. If it is good for another two weeks, then I think we have a winner!!!

Give it a few more days... Mine has already rebooted twice since having this firmware. Few weeks ago missed several recordings, last might after 11pm so no missed recordings just woke up to WMC error & less than 6 tuners... Can't blame temps (mine are less than 40C). Can't blame RF (mine are now 0 to 3dBmV).

I was wrong about when I installed the firmware: Sat Apr 19 03:29:59 2014

Uptime: 30 days 13 hours 33 minutes 9 seconds

No slowdown on channel tuning at all after more than 30 days of running. I have rebooted Windows during that time for other reasons (updates, etc). I was so used to rebooting the Ceton Eth6 every time I rebooted Windows (to avoid having it ever fail on me) that I did not test out how long it would remain up during the first month. However, you can see it has been running for over 30 days now.

I replaced the NIC in the two PCs that connect to the Ceton Eth6 with Intel Gigabit CT Desktop NICs about a month ago...replacing the crappy ones that are built into the motherboards. I wonder if that made a difference. It certainly sped up my tuning time.

[Tester]

My experience with this version has mostly been a positive one. Smooth sailing mostly without issues.
Thx

[Sancho]

A little late to the party, but I just upgraded one of my ITV4 PCIe cards via the Diag Tool. Upgrade went fine, but too early to report on anything, other than it didn't mess with my Network Tuners setup (didn't think it would).

A question re: the Disable EAS Forwarding button. It, and other items at the bottom of http://<IP ADDR>/Services/CableCARD.html, do not show up in Chrome, but do in IE 11 (Win 7 64-bit). No need to add to the Compatibility Views list. I clicked the Disable EAS Forwarding button, the page refreshed, but the button is still labeled Disable EAS Forwarding. Is this expected behavior, or should the button's label change to Enable EAS Forwarding? I'm just trying to determine whether or not EAS is actually disabled. I don't want to keep clicking the button, esp. if it operates as a toggle switch, regardless of its label. Which leads to my second and third questions:

2) does that button operate as a toggle switch?
3) is there any way to tell what state the EAS Forwarding is in?

Thanks.

[Sancho]

Also, since the disable_eas.cgi script needs to be run after every reboot, would it suffice to create a bookmark that links to the script:

http://192.168.200.1/disable_eas.cgi

LOL! Be careful clicking that link!

and run it that way? I created said bookmark, and IE didn't choke, but of course there's no feedback. Don't care about feedback, so long as it works. I searched my system drive for that script, but Agent Ransack didn't find it.

[erkotz]

A little late to the party, but I just upgraded one of my ITV4 PCIe cards via the Diag Tool. Upgrade went fine, but too early to report on anything, other than it didn't mess with my Network Tuners setup (didn't think it would).

A question re: the Disable EAS Forwarding button. It, and other items at the bottom of http://<IP ADDR>/Services/CableCARD.html, do not show up in Chrome, but do in IE 11 (Win 7 64-bit). No need to add to the Compatibility Views list. I clicked the Disable EAS Forwarding button, the page refreshed, but the button is still labeled Disable EAS Forwarding. Is this expected behavior, or should the button's label change to Enable EAS Forwarding? I'm just trying to determine whether or not EAS is actually disabled. I don't want to keep clicking the button, esp. if it operates as a toggle switch, regardless of its label. Which leads to my second and third questions:

2) does that button operate as a toggle switch?
3) is there any way to tell what state the EAS Forwarding is in?

Thanks.

The button's labeling does not change. It was largely added as a testing button, so there is no formal reporting/feedback. Pressing it a second time won't hurt, though.

I searched my system drive for that script, but Agent Ransack didn't find it.

The script is on the card itself- not your drive

[Sancho]

A little late to the party, but I just upgraded one of my ITV4 PCIe cards via the Diag Tool. Upgrade went fine, but too early to report on anything, other than it didn't mess with my Network Tuners setup (didn't think it would).

A question re: the Disable EAS Forwarding button. It, and other items at the bottom of http://<IP ADDR>/Services/CableCARD.html, do not show up in Chrome, but do in IE 11 (Win 7 64-bit). No need to add to the Compatibility Views list. I clicked the Disable EAS Forwarding button, the page refreshed, but the button is still labeled Disable EAS Forwarding. Is this expected behavior, or should the button's label change to Enable EAS Forwarding? I'm just trying to determine whether or not EAS is actually disabled. I don't want to keep clicking the button, esp. if it operates as a toggle switch, regardless of its label. Which leads to my second and third questions:

2) does that button operate as a toggle switch?
3) is there any way to tell what state the EAS Forwarding is in?

Thanks.

The button's labeling does not change. It was largely added as a testing button, so there is no formal reporting/feedback. Pressing it a second time won't hurt, though.

I searched my system drive for that script, but Agent Ransack didn't find it.

The script is on the card itself- not your drive

Thanks for the quick reply.

Duuuuhhhh, forgot that the web server is on the card So I guess using a bookmark that points to the script is sufficient to disable EAS forwarding. Just looking for the easiest route to do that after a reboot.

[kd6icz]

Firmware worked fine for 2 weeks. Now in the past 24 hours my PCIe had disappeared twice. So far no issues with my ETH.

[golfdude]

i sent in a support ticket for this very same issue.. mine died 3 times in 2 days.. waiting for a reply from them...

[kd6icz]

They had me install two Microsoft hotfix's and so far I've been good for 24 consecutive hours.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2679255
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2713128

The thing is I think I've installed them before. I dunno. Lot's of hotfix's have been installed.

[Saml01]

I have 2 InfiniTV 4 Channel Tuners. One installed the firmware without a problem, the other all i get is "Saving new firmware to device failed".

Hopefully the device is still under warranty and purchased from an authorized reseller (not a "grey market" item). Run a diag and open a ticket and if it is still warrantied they may send you an RMA replacement.Which is absolute BS on ceton's part

This is a known issue that Ceton has never publicly acknowledged. It is mainly seen on the USB versions but it seems that it also happens on some releases of the pcie versions as well. I believe it is one of a bad batch of flash chips used on the devices, improper updating of the flash chip by the firmware writing tool, or bad design that has channel map updates writing to an area of the flash exhausting the limited write cycle of the chips..

IMHO this is a BS move on Ceton's part. I have such a card that after 1 or 2 updates has stopped accepting anymore. I am outside my warranty and I wanted the latest firmware so I called them. They charged me $35 bucks plus shipping to "fix the card". I couldn't imagine what they could fix so i wrote down all the numbers off the card before sending it. I figured that's their way of saying we'll send you another card since we know we put out a firmware that frys the chip and doesn't allow anymore updates. Maybe it was just a nice thing to do for a customer. Nope, they somehow updated my card to the, at the time, latest firmware and sent it back to me. This leads me to believe that while Ceton diagnostic or the system tab does not allow the average user to update the card, I guarantee there is a way to do it. My guess is through the command prompt and with some kind of switch to make it ignore whatever check it performs and fails. Maybe a telnet session into the card.

Erkotz, why dont you guys just give those out of warranty a way to update their cards? If it fries the card so what, its already out of warranty.

[STC]

^ They most probably have rigs to enable a JTAG connection direct to the right pins on the PCB. I believe the Infinis do not have JTAG headers that would make the job relatively easy to do at home.

[Saml01]

^ They most probably have rigs to enable a JTAG connection direct to the right pins on the PCB. I believe the Infinis do not have JTAG headers that would make the job relatively easy to do at home.

If its that complicated then they should fess up to their mistake and issue those people an RMA'd card regardless of warranty status instead of staying hush about it. I have been reading this and the AVS forum and it seems that most got burned before their warranty was up. A lesser few got burned after the warranty and are stuck with an out of date card. Warranty is intended to protect the buyer from manufacturing related failure, I get it. But this was a failure that came as a result of careless programming. Now I have a card that I can never A. Update B. Sell.

[signcarver]

I don't think it was careless programming but "careless" supply of chips (or other component that is only needed when flashing them) as it has been going on for quite a few years that some don't like upgrading more than once or twice (don't remember if it is firmware or "hardware" version that is having trouble with upgrades they are updating different things)... "same" thing happened to echo/android and rather than fess up to defective hardware since "some" couldn't take the upgrade they dropped it rather than fixed it. I have read that cablelabs prohibits jtag headers but there are always other ways to program/replace a chip.

[Ed]

That would be careless engineering and/or careless QA testing then on Ceton's part.

[Bill]

I have 2 InfiniTV 4 Channel Tuners. One installed the firmware without a problem, the other all i get is "Saving new firmware to device failed" and this is in the logs.

Code: Select all

Jan  4 04:17:25 ocur[21]: ocur: Starting update from ceton_infinitv_beta_fw_14_4_6_21.IMAGE (5984750)
Jan  4 04:17:25 ocur[21]: ocur: Built cert store
Jan  4 04:17:25 ocur[21]: ocur: Parsed PKCS7
Jan  4 04:17:25 ocur[21]: ocur: No dp fields specified
Jan  4 04:17:25 ocur[21]: ocur: Got download params
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Checking signer 1/1
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Verified signer
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: currentOCUROrganizationName "CableLabs"
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: currentMFGOrganizationName "Ceton Corp."
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: NotAfter: Tue May 22 23:59:59 2018 (0x5b04aeff) UTC
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: NotBefore: Fri May 23 00:00:00 2008 (0x48360900) UTC
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: SigningTime: Sun Apr  6 09:04:04 2014 (0x53411884) UTC
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Signed during validity period
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Found Mfg signature
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Verified mfg signature
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Verify Done.
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: Got valid code image offset
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: board version 17
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: Checking 1 hardware ids
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: This firmware matches our hardware id
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: Firmware version of image 0xe040615 >= current version 0xd050684, continuing
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: Actual Code Image Size 5983386 (header was 144)
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: Saving signature to "/ceton/rw/ocur/slot_two/sig.dat"
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: WARNING: Failed to write sig, trying again
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: ERROR: Failed to write sig
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: ERROR: Unable to write new firmware
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: ERROR: Failed to write firmware
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: ERROR: Unable to handle image
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: ERROR: Failed
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: WebUpdate done
Jan  4 04:18:52 ocur[21]: ocur: STT time Sun Apr 27 21:06:00 2014 UTC

Erkotz any idea on this? Tried updating through the webpage and the Ceton Software.

[RyC]

I have 2 InfiniTV 4 Channel Tuners. One installed the firmware without a problem, the other all i get is "Saving new firmware to device failed" and this is in the logs.

Code: Select all

Jan  4 04:17:25 ocur[21]: ocur: Starting update from ceton_infinitv_beta_fw_14_4_6_21.IMAGE (5984750)
Jan  4 04:17:25 ocur[21]: ocur: Built cert store
Jan  4 04:17:25 ocur[21]: ocur: Parsed PKCS7
Jan  4 04:17:25 ocur[21]: ocur: No dp fields specified
Jan  4 04:17:25 ocur[21]: ocur: Got download params
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Checking signer 1/1
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Verified signer
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: currentOCUROrganizationName "CableLabs"
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: currentMFGOrganizationName "Ceton Corp."
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: NotAfter: Tue May 22 23:59:59 2018 (0x5b04aeff) UTC
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: NotBefore: Fri May 23 00:00:00 2008 (0x48360900) UTC
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: SigningTime: Sun Apr  6 09:04:04 2014 (0x53411884) UTC
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Signed during validity period
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Found Mfg signature
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Verified mfg signature
Jan  4 04:17:43 ocur[21]: ocur: Verify Done.
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: Got valid code image offset
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: board version 17
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: Checking 1 hardware ids
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: This firmware matches our hardware id
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: Firmware version of image 0xe040615 >= current version 0xd050684, continuing
Jan  4 04:17:44 ocur[21]: ocur: Actual Code Image Size 5983386 (header was 144)
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: Saving signature to "/ceton/rw/ocur/slot_two/sig.dat"
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: WARNING: Failed to write sig, trying again
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: ERROR: Failed to write sig
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: ERROR: Unable to write new firmware
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: ERROR: Failed to write firmware
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: ERROR: Unable to handle image
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: ERROR: Failed
Jan  4 04:17:57 ocur[21]: ocur: WebUpdate done
Jan  4 04:18:52 ocur[21]: ocur: STT time Sun Apr 27 21:06:00 2014 UTC

Erkotz any idea on this? Tried updating through the webpage and the Ceton Software.

Submit a support ticket to Ceton support

[Saml01]

I don't think it was careless programming but "careless" supply of chips (or other component that is only needed when flashing them) as it has been going on for quite a few years that some don't like upgrading more than once or twice (don't remember if it is firmware or "hardware" version that is having trouble with upgrades they are updating different things)... "same" thing happened to echo/android and rather than fess up to defective hardware since "some" couldn't take the upgrade they dropped it rather than fixed it. I have read that cablelabs prohibits jtag headers but there are always other ways to program/replace a chip.

Yeah thats says a lot about a company and their product. Rather than deal with the issue they ignore it and screw the customers.

There is a reason why Erkotz or any other Ceton rep hasnt chimed in, because there is no way to defend their actions. They sold a faulty product and anyone they no longer had to legally support was ignored.

[cybrsage]

The Echo is a very different beast - Ceton selected the chips used in the system based on what the maker of those chips said they could do but they fibbed about it. Nothing could be done to fix it short of start over from scratch and wait for technology to catch up with them.

As for the InfiniTV, they released a firmware just a few months ago (in this very thread no less) which fixed almost everyone's stability issues; I call that a good support. You cannot blame Ceton for not enabling the ability to do things at home that CableLabs says they are not allowed to enable.