Zgemma H.2S Standby question

Johnboy1951

As detailed on another thread I have this box set up to make its tuners available as Sat>IP tuners which are managed by Tvheadend on another device.
All is working fine ........ except ......

after some time of no use of any tuner, the tuners become unavailable for use by the Sat>IP clients.

It appears to be some form of standby, although I am not sure.
So that both tuners can be available, no channel must be playing on the box.

Can someone tell me how this 'standby' (if that is what it is) can be disabled so that the tuners are permanently available on the LAN?

Operating system/image is
OpenATV 6.4.20201121 (2020-11-19)

I have gone through the settings on the webif page but have not found it ...... of course I might well have missed it.

This is problematic because the Zgemma is in the media press and using the remote to kick it into life is not an option.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Gerry Wicklow

Never had that issue even if I haven't touched the box for 3-4 days the tuners are available as needed. Then again I'm running Vix. Still it seems a bit odd. Are you putting it into a deep standby? that may behave differently

Johnboy1951

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Never had that issue even if I haven't touched the box for 3-4 days the tuners are available as needed. Then again I'm running Vix. Still it seems a bit odd. Are you putting it into a deep standby? that may behave differently

I am not doing anything at all.
Just the tuners are not available in the morning unless I reboot the Zgemma from my PC.

I have no idea where I might find the settings for standby so I can check what is set. I hope someone knows and can tell me.

I do not even know if it is standby that is causing this, but it does seem likely.

Gerry Wicklow

I suppose you could leave it running normally. Ok you'd tie up a tuner but it would stop it going into standby. Just as a proof to see if that is the issue. In fact I still think that a stream command will over ride a tuner and switch to the requested channel same as record will grab a tuner if it needs it.

Johnboy1951

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

I suppose you could leave it running normally. Ok you'd tie up a tuner but it would stop it going into standby. Just as a proof to see if that is the issue. In fact I still think that a stream command will over ride a tuner and switch to the requested channel same as record will grab a tuner if it needs it.

When I initially set this up I could only use one tuner fully, through TVH. That was why I set the start up to not tune to any channel.

Maybe some changes I have made to the set up will allow what you describe ..... TVH to override the preselected startup channel.

Thanks for the suggestion.
I will give it a try and see how it works out.

Johnboy1951

It appears it will not be simple to test ...... will have to extract the box to a monitor and then get coax cable to the tuners in order to test, because I have not found a means to set up a startup channel in the browser interface.

Johnboy1951

Duh!
I think I found my problem.

Because I have no monitor attached I was starting the box in standby mode.

I have changed that and will test over the next couple of days to see if that helps.

Thanks again

greasepalm

Has box lost ip or has it changed by any chance.Are tuners getting a signal for all and samba is running.
If using a tuner on box it would need to be working before using it on other place?

Webif has control of box via pc as power is red or green.

Johnboy1951

greasepalm wrote: »

Has box lost ip or has it changed by any chance.Are tuners getting a signal for all and samba is running.
If using a tuner on box it would need to be working before using it on other place?

Webif has control of box via pc as power is red or green.

All is functioning as required, the only problem was that the tuners became unavailable to TVH if not used for a time.

Maybe changing the start up to full boot will rectify things, and prevent it going into standby in future.

I will know after a few nights left unused.

Gerry Wicklow

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

It appears it will not be simple to test ...... will have to extract the box to a monitor and then get coax cable to the tuners in order to test, because I have not found a means to set up a startup channel in the browser interface.

there shouldn;t be any need for a specific start channel. The box will default to whatever it was last watching. Also no need for a monitor. Use "capture screenshot" in WEBIF as long as it is not in standby.

Johnboy1951

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

there shouldn;t be any need for a specific start channel. The box will default to whatever it was last watching. Also no need for a monitor. Use "capture screenshot" in WEBIF as long as it is not in standby.

The capture screenshot is not very responsive, so searching around would be slow and cumbersome.

Hopefully no further action will be necessary if the overnight tests work out.

Johnboy1951

Well things did not work out as planned ...... story of my tech life

When testing I was getting conflicting results so decided to do a factory reset.

I also began thinking about how to prevent standby without locking out one tuner, and decided I would use a USB DVB-T stick and have one of the Saorview channels as the default on start up. I have no need of an extra DVB-T tuner.

All seemed to be going well in tests and then I discovered that the DVB-T tuner was not active after booting the device ...... but does become active if the GUI is restarted.

Doing things this way meant I did not need to install bouquets or scan Sat channels, as they are not used at all on the Zgemma.

Now if I can figure out how to ensure the USB DVB-T tuner is active on reboot that should sort things out.

greasepalm

Never Factory reset an early zgemma as very deep crap waiting to happen..

Johnboy1951

greasepalm wrote: »

Never Factory reset an early zgemma as very deep crap waiting to happen..

I had no problem at all ..... it even retained my plugins.

greasepalm

You were lucky this time as hundreds had issues trying to reflash boxes and reboot issues.
Its a common thing.

Johnboy1951

Any suggestions how best to restart the GUI after each boot?

greasepalm

Unsure why you cant use remote or WEBIF on pc to control functions on box.

Johnboy1951

greasepalm wrote: »

Unsure why you cant use remote or WEBIF on pc to control functions on box.

Of course they work ....... but device is not convenient so remote is out of the question.

I can indeed restart the GUI from my PC ....... which would of course require me to be at a PC to do so when required.

Much better option is to have it restart automatically ....... hence my question above.

greasepalm

Not sure it can be done automatically as its waiting for a command.

People use mobile phones for many things as unsure if that could be used in your home?

Johnboy1951

greasepalm wrote: »

Not sure it can be done automatically as its waiting for a command.

People use mobile phones for many things as unsure if that could be used in your home?

No it will have to be done from within the Zgemma itself.

Rather than restart the GUI maybe there is some means to ensure the USB tuner is activated/enabled during boot ......

Gerry Wicklow

I still dont know why you dont just leave it on. I checked before and power consumption is only a about one watt extra between standby and on. Also if using screen capture from webif, you can set the refresh rate in seconds.

Johnboy1951

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

I still dont know why you dont just leave it on. I checked before and power consumption is only a about one watt extra between standby and on. Also if using screen capture from webif, you can set the refresh rate in seconds.

Sorry if I was not clear ...... it is on, tuned to a Saorview channel using the USB tuner.

Unfortunately, for some reason I am unaware of, the USB tuner is not active on start up (cold boot or reboot), but is active if after a boot I restart the GUI.

There is not much point in having a USB tuner that does not activate when the box is started or restarted.
I am looking for some way to ensure this tuner is active after a reboot.

I have checked and the relevant driver is loaded ..... just the tuner is not active.

greasepalm

Does the usb port not turn off in standby mode as if i have an external hdd it spins down as power is shut off,but hdd has an external power supply.

Usb tuner should be seen in tuners when booting up,what type is it and is it a supported one?

Johnboy1951

greasepalm wrote: »

Does the usb port not turn off in standby mode as if i have an external hdd it spins down as power is shut off,but hdd has an external power supply.

Usb tuner should be seen in tuners when booting up,what type is it and is it a supported one?

In truth I do not know, but the box is not going into standby with the present settings ...... one channel continuously playing.

EDIT: Checked and USB tuner remains powered even on Deepstandby .... it has a power LED I can see.

greasepalm

On my H7s i just hit the power button to knock it off,maybe i should use menu for standby lol.

Do you have timeshift running as not allowing box to do the right thing.

niallb

Hi. I've been running satip on my system since our last conversation and thought I had a similar problem, until I realised it only happened to CNN. I love having tvheadend on a separate system so thank you!

I don't run the GUI at all so there's nothing to argue with the tuners.

You can make sure the dvb tuner loads early by adding the module name in /etc/modprobe.d . I'll look into the exact line required if you need it.

When you control it from PC do you use SSH? lsmod will list the modules and dmesg may let you see if there's an error.
You could watch the system log and reload the module if there's an error.

Johnboy1951

greasepalm wrote: »

On my H7s i just hit the power button to knock it off,maybe i should use menu for standby lol.

Do you have timeshift running as not allowing box to do the right thing.

There is nothing running on the box except sat to ip, and now the player for the Saorview channel which I should not need.

Johnboy1951

niallb wrote: »

Hi. I've been running satip on my system since our last conversation and thought I had a similar problem, until I realised it only happened to CNN. I love having tvheadend on a separate system so thank you!

I don't run the GUI at all so there's nothing to argue with the tuners.

You can make sure the dvb tuner loads early by adding the module name in /etc/modprobe.d . I'll look into the exact line required if you need it.

When you control it from PC do you use SSH? lsmod will list the modules and dmesg may let you see if there's an error.
You could watch the system log and reload the module if there's an error.

Hi!
Good to hear all is working well for you.

I was not running the GUI until I began to notice a problem with the standby (?) causing the tuners from being available.
I enabled the GUI to see if I could find a reason .... and am now down the rabbit hole

The driver is loading successfully and is there even before a GUI restart. There is no difference in output between reboot with and without a GUI restart ...

# dmesg | grep -i rtl
[   12.058000] usb 1-2.2: dvb_usb_v2: found a 'Realtek RTL2832U reference design' in warm state
[   12.122000] dvbdev: DVB: registering new adapter (Realtek RTL2832U reference design)
[   12.209000] rtl2832 7-0010: Realtek RTL2832 successfully attached
[   12.209000] usb 1-2.2: DVB: registering adapter 1 frontend 0 (Realtek RTL2832 (DVB-T))...
[   12.349000] input: Realtek RTL2832U reference design as /devices/platform/ehci-brcm.0/usb1/1-2/1-2.2/rc/rc1/input5
[   12.349000] rc rc1: Realtek RTL2832U reference design as /devices/platform/ehci-brcm.0/usb1/1-2/1-2.2/rc/rc1
[   12.380000] usb 1-2.2: dvb_usb_v2: 'Realtek RTL2832U reference design' successfully initialized and connected
[   12.380000] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_rtl28xxu

In what way did you ensure there was no GUI launching?
Just wondering if there was something I did that I should not have done.
Do you have standby enabled?

I most often use the terminal in Webif but have also used ssh as in output above.

Hopefully the problem is something I have forgotten and you might recall

sibersha

Could you set a cron timer to restart GUI every hour or so. Not ideal but might be a workaround

Johnboy1951

sibersha wrote: »

Could you set a cron timer to restart GUI every hour or so. Not ideal but might be a workaround

Possibly, but I am leaving that until I have exhausted the more acceptable options ....... as in this should not be happening so I must have some setting incorrect.

Johnboy1951

This morning, having left it running last night tuned to Virgin Media 3 on the USB tuner, it was still active and the two DVB-S/2 tuners were available for use to TVH. It was not in standby.
At least in that configuration it was OK last night.

I will leave it set as is for another few days to see how it behaves.