Posts by LybsterKodi

I had similar problems a while back and switched from NTFS to ExFAT (Ext4 is not an option for me). I'll probably be shot for suggesting this but I believe that LE isn't properly flushing the disk buffers even when shut down correctly, or mishandling data transfer via SAMBA. In my case the connected disk is a powered 6TB Seagate that ran brilliantly on the RPi3.

The RPi4 has a 3A PSU (bought with the pi from thehihut) and the Seagate also has a 3A PSU

On one occasion, after I had copied files to the HDD (formatted to NTFS) I left the RPi4 running overnight came in the next day and it was still running, shut it down properly and when I went to start it up again I had disk corruption.

Switching to ExFAT stopped that particular problem but I can't use it now because the ExFAT deiver isn't reporting the time in the same way as Windows which rather messes with my backup system.

I tend to buy a lot of box sets, mainly TV series and we are generally watching several at a time (well not exactly at the same time) eg currently we have: Andromeda, NCIS, Not Going Out, Only When I laugh, Taxi on the go.

Videos are organised into a tree, top level is A..Z within that each series has its own folder and then a separate folder for each season

Its a nice feature that the current tree/branches are maintained as long as Kodi is running. However, when turned off its all lost.

What I would like is a mechanism to store & restore the currently active nodes to save me having to go through and re-select.

I'm beginning to think either I'm a jinx or my RPi4 is duff. Whilst I have s/w to test Windows h/w & s/w I don't have anything for the Pi so any suggestions welcome.

I'm guessing your HDDs are attached va a powered hub - mine is powered but plugged straight into a USB 3 port.

I'm getting an error message when I try to search or set up a new message, type a title and click into the Message box

Error Message

The server encountered an unresolvable problem, please try again later.

Exception ID: 0ed2be90ecef9a3d00ba140ad879721d874fa097

the Exception ID changes each time

Tried in both Slimjet & Chrome

RPi4, 128GB MicroSD card, 6TB USB powered drive, LE 11 nightly 20230416, latest firmware patches

I have added

force_turbo=1

core_freq_min=500

to config.txt which seems to have stopped video playback freezing at odd intervals.

When the Pi & the HDD have been powered down when I turn things on again I turn the HDD on first then the Pi. The Pi puts up the message showing the nightly in use and that's it. I have to turn the Pi off and on again for it to boot correctly.

Quote from chewitt

^ Netgear 8-port Gigabit switches are £20 on Amazon. Switch from USB drives and Sneakernet to Ethernet and an SFTP client app (Windows to HTPC) that queues files and transfers them in the background while you're doing something more interesting.

Fair enough BUT since I don't want to lay cable throughout the house and WiFi doesn't cut it I'd need to replace my current 100MB powerline ethernet adapters with gigabit devices, then buy a new PC since my current one only has a 100MB ethernet port.

I already get things going on my Windows PC over SAMBA and just let it get on with it. Generally speaking even with the slow speeds on the RPI3 that wasn't to bad since its only changes (mainly new videos) that were being transferred.

Also if the implementation of ExFAT delivered the same time modified details as the old RPi3 I'd wouldn't have had to move the HDD. I could probably have coped with a few software mods if the variation was consistent but it wasn't, well it was always an hour out but the files affected varied.

When I started to digitise our DVD/VHS collection I was running off a server, tried several pieces of software for the front end and settled for a while on UMS. Then I saw Kodi on an RPi and went down that route with an RPi3. Moved from a 1TB HDD to a 3TB to a 6TB USB HDD all on the RPi3 with no problems. Then I tried to switch to the RPi4 and I've encountered problem after problem.

There are two reasons for choosing the RPi route:

1) its small and neat (apart from the rats nest) - I have things stuck in a draw which is part of the TV stand

2) its inexpensive

So to repeat, the problems only started with the RPi4, and from my experience are more software development than hardware related (based on years of being in IT as developer, consultant, and manager). I think I came in when it was still to immature and hadn't appreciated how long the development / maturity cycle can be in the environment that Kodi/LE is developed in.

I can "solve" the problems by reverting yet again to the dual RPi3 setup and tolerate the major rats nest of cables but a single RPi4 is a much neater solution.

PS: I loved your response about the SD card speed - wish I'd used it.

Thanks.

Wonderful. So on the RPi3, Windows and my Linux PC they're implemented the same way (ie give me the same time) on the RPi4 they're implemented differently. WHY?

I'll have a full read of the article tomorrow after I help out someone in Oz with some strange SQL he wants. In the meantime does the article explain why the dates reported are different for random files each time I check? Last time it showed 893 .mp4 files and the time before 179.

Would this explain why its taking the HDD 4 - 6 times longer to spin up than it took on the RPi3?

I'll try moving to NTFS tomorrow - oh joy 12 hours of file copying.

<RANT>

I keep trying to move to the RPi4 but it seems that every time I try I find more problems, problems reintroduced. I'm not (at least in my eyes) trying to do anything difficult or weird and I'm losing the will to go on.

Sorry to moan like this but I've been battling this since September 2021 and I'm wondering if I'll ever get there. Do you think its worth trying version 12?

</RANT>

Not here - it takes some magic key presses, the fabulous turn off, turn on again (which I used a lot when I was working and running IT) doesn't work.

I've written a utility to check all files on the 6TB drive attached to the RPi4 (LE11 14/04/2023) and check their modified time, file size etc and if different to the file on my backup drive copy across.

An important point is that no files have been transferred over to the RPi4 HDD after it was attached to the RPi3 AND the utility was run and everything brought into sync.

I just ran the utility and was very surprised that all 7026 .nfo files needed to be transferred and also 179 .mp4 files. Knowing how long this would take over my 100MB LAN I opted to take the HDD from the RPi4 and hook it up to a USB 3 port on my Windows PC. Imagine my surprise when running the utility there were no .mp4 files needing transfer. I'd checked one file whilst it was on the RPi4. ExanDiff reported the live and backup files to be identical. The modified time on the live file was 16:17:28 on the RPi4 version and 15:17:28 on the backup. However, when connected to the Windows PC both showed 15:17:28

Both the live and backup disks are formatted to exFAT because having them as NTFS when I last tried moving to the RPi4 meant I had a lot of corruptions.

Any suggestion as to why the wrong time is being reported on some files?

RPi4B 4GB, 6TB Seagate HDD, Haupagge Dual HD tuner

LE nightly 14/4/2023

Shadertoy, TVHeadend (server & client)

Problem: intermittent freezing and intermittent pixelation (not at the same time)

I don't think its the videos since I've just tried replaying one that froze 4 times last night and pixelated once and it played through perfectly.

I have deinterlacing turned off which solved the "stuttering" problem. Are there any other settings I can try to stop freezing/pixelating?

Quote from petediscrete

Remember time is money.

Well it would be if I wasn't retired <G>

I did have an & in the password. Changed it and no difference so far. I can't reboot for a couple of hours since its busy recording.

Some thoughts went through my head when I read your two posts

1. why do you restrict the characters typed into a password field

2. if you do restrict them why don't you warn the user that their password is invalid (preferably why as well) and prevent it being stored

3. I know its low risk and I should have said something years ago but you should not be storing the password itself

I'll let you know tomorrow if the Pi needs a password after rebooting.

I've just rebooted.

The bad news is that changing the password whilst TVHeadend is recording caused things to lock up and forced to reboot. I'll be explaining to my friend tomorrow that the rugby he wanted to watch has vanished

On the good news side I'm now being prompted to log in and it looks as though (no idea why) the samba password having invalid characters was what was causing a 30seconds + when the HDD was coming out of spin down state.

Thanks for the recommendation but 1) I'm a Yorkshire man and trying not to spend money and 2) I had a TV hat and found the connection to its coax plug a wee bit temperamental.

Thanks - if my move to the RPi4 works (looking doubtful) I'll check out the alternative to TVHeadend recommended.

I think its more than just the password logon that's wrong. I'm trying to sort out some miss-named thumbnails (OK in the RPi3 but not here - mainly case differences) and whilst doing so found a number of videosseemed to have vanished - mild hard drive corruption so they could be recovered.

I keep making an attempt to switch to the RPi4 but keep having to revert to the RPi3s. I had hoped that this time it would have worked but I'm beginning to doubt it.

Sorry to sound so negative but I started this journey September 2021 and I'm still not there.

I should have a spare RPi3 soon and I want to set it up as a digital recorder for a friend. My tuner is a Haupagge but he's not having that but I do have a spare August T202.

If anyone has got it to work with an RPi3 please tell me how.

As requested

SAMBA_WORKGROUP=WG

SAMBA_SECURE=true

SAMBA_AUTOSHARE=true

SAMBA_MINPROTOCOL=SMB2

SAMBA_MAXPROTOCOL=SMB3

SAMBA_USERNAME=MyName

SAMBA_PASSWORD=MyPassword