Humax box keeps crashing with blank screen

[phd]

Hi,
My Humax HDR-FOX T2 keeps randomly crashing, it seems to be getting worse, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day.
I recently gave it a good clean inside, including the fan. I suspected the fan may be the problem, so I bought a new one,
as close as I could find, although have not fitted it yet. I am running the custom firmware, and have the fan package installed.
The system monitor show the fan kicking in about every 30 mins dropping the temp down, so it looks to be working, within reason.
Occasionally I do get an entry in the crash log, but more often than not I don't get anything.
The power seems to be on, I can hear the hard disk spinning, but I get a blank (black) screen, and cannot access via the WebIF.
I've tried deleting to free up space, and am currently trying to copy the contents off, before it dies completely.
What can I do to narrow down the cause, whether it's software or hardware, and if so which bit?
I haven't run a fix-disk lately, but I thought I'd extract the files before trying that.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Black Hole]

What can I do to narrow down the cause, whether it's software or hardware, and if so which bit?

Everything you need to know is here: Steps for Resolving HDR-FOX Crash/Reboot Issues (click)

I haven't run a fix-disk lately, but I thought I'd extract the files before trying that.

Why? Fixdisk doesn't have a track record of trashing anything that isn't already trashed.

 

[Luke]

have the fan package installed.
The system monitor show the fan kicking in about every 30 mins dropping the temp down, so it looks to be working, within reason.

Are you sure? Last I heard was that sysmon does not know whether the fan is on or off but only what the Humax would attempt to do with it.
Your observation indicates that you either don't have the fan package installed, or you haven't re-enabled it after a crash.

 

[phd]

after a crash sometimes it knows, and the webif says "some packages have been disabled" does anyone know which ones? Normally I just reboot and all seems to be reenabled, unless I'm mistaken? More often than not, at the moment it doesn't even realise it's crashed, or at least to a point it can't update the crash log.
The fan package is installed, not sure if it gets disabled or not, I can feel the fan blowing our warm air, but not all the time, as indicated by the system monitor, if that can be trusted!

 

[Black Hole]

You have a number of misconceptions.

Sysmon is only looking at the temperature reported by the HDD. It infers what the "standard" (non-CF) fan behaviour would be based purely on temperature thresholds. Sysmon does not report what the fan is actually doing.

The fan package only applies a continuous minimum fan speed "pedestal" value, so that if the standard firmware sets a fan speed less than the fan package setting, you get that minimum airflow rather than (say) zero.

The intention of the fan package is to stabilise the system temperature, avoiding the sudden triggering of the fan at full blast (noisy) and avoiding temperature cycling stress on the hardware. If the fan package is running and correctly set, you should not see much change in system temperature over time (once it has warmed up from cold).

I'm sure I've written almost exactly the same before.

after a crash sometimes it knows, and the webif says "some packages have been disabled" does anyone know which ones?

This happens if two crashes happen in quick succession, and is a safety feature in case it is a CF bug causing the crash (so as to break the cycle). The packages affected are all the ones which integrate tightly with the standard firmware (ie anything to do with hardware or the firmware operations), rather than the packages which act in isolation (just on files, within the OS), and are listed if you watch the reports during fix-flash-packages.

Normally I just reboot and all seems to be reenabled, unless I'm mistaken?

Rebooting does not necessarily restore full functionality, there are subtleties which might need to be restored properly. The way you do that is by running the fix-flash-packages diagnostic, which reinstalls the relevant packages so as to overwrite any accumulated defects.

You can disable the crash behaviour, because in practice only alpha testers ever see CF bugs.

For anyone who wishes to disable this automatic plugin-disable safety net, you can... run the plugin_autodisable/off diagnostic.

The result is packages not being disabled in the event of multiple crashes, but they still might need fixing (although not necessarily) and they might need fixing regardless of whether the system crashed. The fan package is a case in point: it can just stop working.

More often than not, at the moment it doesn't even realise it's crashed, or at least to a point it can't update the crash log.

If the processing thread which would analyse the crash and write to the crash log has crashed, it can't.

My long-term experience with HDR-FOXes is that they become more prone to crashing as they get older. My guess is that as the components age, the data valid delay for a read cycle goes out-of-spec and sometimes produces rubbish which then results in misoperation further down the line, or similarly a write cycle stored invalid data in the first place. There is nothing which can be done about that.

 

[phd]

Thanks for the info.
Should I see a fan process running or will it just set the value at startup and let the normal fn controller take over?

Here is a snapshot of the system monitor for the disk temp from power up this morning, would this suggest the fan package is running or not?
I did try reinstalling it about 30 mins ago. I currently set the fan settings to 98% to see if that helped, but it doesn't seem to be on all the time, so maybe not setting that minimum speed correctly?

I bought a second hand unit from eBay as a precaution (yet to arrive) to use as spares if nothing else.

 

[Black Hole]

would this suggest the fan package is running

No.

I did try reinstalling it

If all you did was uninstall and then re-install from the WebIF Packages screen, that won't be enough. Run the fix-flash-packages diagnostic from WebIF >> Diagnostics. I wish people would do what they're told and not make up their own procedures!

 

[phd]

Normal apps if you uninstall and reinstall sets thing up as defaults, I didn't know these packages would be any different!
Looking at the fix-packages log, it looks like that's all it did anyway!

 

[prpr]

You need to reboot after running the fix-flash-packages diagnostic.

Should I see a fan process running

No. It's a library which hooks in to the main humaxtv process, which only gets started when you boot, so...

 

[Black Hole]

Normal apps if you uninstall and reinstall sets thing up as defaults, I didn't know these packages would be any different!
Looking at the fix-packages log, it looks like that's all it did anyway!

The difference is a force-reinstall.

 

[phd]

Is there a way to clear the system monitoring logs, and maybe back them up for reference?
Also, when I switch the Storage to Network, and navigate to files I've transferred off, it does not play them, saying unrecognized file type.
I thought it would just use the network storage as an external hard disk equivalent, and just play / decrypt as if it were on the internal hard disk?
Is USB external drive any different or would that be the same?
Is it using it as a DLNA server?
I do have the auto decrypt flag removal package running.
Is there a way to access the files this way without just copying the files back to the internal drive to replay?

 

[Black Hole]

Is there a way to clear the system monitoring logs

WebIF >> Diagnostics >> View Log Files. You see the "clear" button? I wonder what it does...

and maybe back them up for reference?

I can think of several ways. Where do you want to back them up to?

Also, when I switch the Storage to Network, and navigate to files I've transferred off, it does not play them, saying unrecognized file type.
I thought it would just use the network storage as an external hard disk equivalent, and just play / decrypt as if it were on the internal hard disk?

Nope. "Network" is DLNA. There was a long discussion about the limitations of DLNA many years ago, you can go and find it yourself.

Is it using it as a DLNA server?

Well there you go, you worked that much out.

Is USB external drive any different or would that be the same?

FFS why not find out for yourself? No, USB is accessed as storage and does not suffer the same limitations as DLNA... That's why we have network-shares-automount.

Is there a way to access the files this way without just copying the files back to the internal drive to replay?

network-shares-automount.

I do have the auto decrypt flag removal package running.

It would be better if you actually decrypted them as well, not just removed the anti-decryption flag. It sounds to me like you have an off-line archive of encrypted recordings, which is not a total disaster (now we have off-line methods to decrypt), but isn't great. That's the reason your DLNA accesses were failing: only the original HDR-FOX's DLNA server would be able to decrypt, and the client was receiving encrypted packets it had no way of knowing were encrypted.

These are all questions unrelated to the thread title, and should have been one or more separate forum threads. Off Topic!

 

[phd]

Thanks!
There is only so much hunting around, ppl can do without going down the wrong rabbit hole, getting the right search text to come up with a relevant answer is not the same as asking a question and getting a direct answer!
Whilst this thread is active, better to just ask here, rather than keeping track of multiple threads, with maybe one response. It's all kind of relevant to the recovery from a dying machine.
If someone (you) know the answer, a quick response surely doesn't hurt, not everyone is an expert.

 

[Black Hole]

If someone (you) know the answer, a quick response surely doesn't hurt, not everyone is an expert.

There is such a thing as spoon-feeding. Some of us have put an awful lot of time and effort into the CF and forum, and the information is there to see, so we don't really like having to spend more time and effort repeating it (or directing people to it). Not to mention the difficulty of ensuring information is updated when necessary, if it ends up getting repeated in multiple places.

You get the CF for free, so put some effort in. That's also no excuse for topic drift.

NEWBIES GUIDE

 

[trog]

Whilst this thread is active, better to just ask here, rather than keeping track of multiple threads,

And if everyone started a new thread before looking to see if the answer to their issue was already posted previously the multiple threads would multiply further and make searching even more like finding a needle in a haystack. Your argument has no merit and your reason just adds to the problem .