Playing program and suddenly went Black - ! The channel is scrambled or not available

petrev

Member
Hi,

Watching "Labyrinth" tonight - Started Chase Play but then stopped for a while and resumed after it had finished recording. Alright for a while then suddenly the screen went Black and then the message came up - ! The channel is scrambled or not available .

I tried starting from the beginning but all Black and the same message now.
The file in the Media List had no ENC Icon so I decided to check the WebIF and it showed the file without the DEC flag and as Playing in the Status area..

The file now has the DEC flag (stopped showing as Playing) but still plays as a Black screen etc.

Did the Recursive Auto-Decrypt that I have set kick in while I was playing it back and cause this ??

Any (other ?) ideas why the whole file is now "Black" ??? Any way to recover the file as I still had about 30 minutes to watch ?????

Pete
 
Possibly. It depends on the exact sequence of things happening.

Normally when the programme completes it will come to the attention of auto-unprotect immediately, but then it takes a little while (indeterminate) to reach the DLNA index, and only after that can the auto-decrypt scan pick it up as ready for processing. If the file was in use, auto-decrypt would abort - but if the playback was in pause, it might not detect that it was in use.

If you have undelete installed you might find the original file in the delete bin.

It seems too coincidental to postulate another cause, but under other circumstances I would suggest this is an example of the Humax forgetting its encryption keys. This would render any existing (encrypted) recordings unplayable until a reboot (preferably a cold start), and any new recordings unplayable after the reboot.
 
Hi,

Testing - Set a quick recording "The Pool" and aborted after 2 minutes.
Looked at the WebIF and while checking things saw the Status change to Playing - The Pool (which I wasn't so I assumed it was decrypting) .
Quickly went to Media and started playing said file - Black Screen and Scrambled message.
Back to WebIF and file still showed with no DEC Icon (ODEncrypted)
Set another recording going for same and allowed to record for 2 minutes.
Back to WebIF and after a few minutes of refreshing WebIF both files showed DEC.

Black file still Black - Second file plays fine.

Concurrent playing and decrypting should be avoided it seems.

Hopefully all further files will be OK as long as I don't try to play them while they are decrypting or decrypting doesn't happen to occur while I am watching ???

Must install undelete . . . .Thanks BH

EDIT: Just a guess at a scenario . . .
Labyrinth : Resumed playback at a point well into the recording while the Decrypt process had already been started from the beginning and then after a while the decrypting process caught up to my playback position in the file and this destroyed the whole file (somehow) ?

Pete
 
This seems to be a recurrent error at the moment. I've had it a few times, and so have others. It seems to be when the box is working hard, such as if you are recording 2 HD programs whilst watching a third one from the Hard disk. Out of interest, are you on the custom or stock firmware? I wonder if there is something in the custom firmware which is causing it...?


Hmmmm. Beef with Apple. Sounds delicious.
 
Any (other ?) ideas why the whole file is now "Black" ??? Any way to recover the file as I still had about 30 minutes to watch ?????

You could try removing the DEC status from the command line. If the file is still encrypted then having that flag set in the sidecar file would cause the symptoms you've observed.

You would need to use the hmt utility from the CLI - specifically
Code:
humax# hmt +encrypted /media/My\ Video/path/to/recording.ts

You can start typing bits of the path to the recording then use the tab key to try and autocomplete them.


Posted on the move; please excuse any brevity.
 
You could try removing the DEC status from the command line. If the file is still encrypted then having that flag set in the sidecar file would cause the symptoms you've observed.

You would need to use the hmt utility from the CLI - specifically
Code:
humax# hmt +encrypted /media/My\ Video/path/to/recording.ts

You can start typing bits of the path to the recording then use the tab key to try and autocomplete them.


Posted on the move; please excuse any brevity.

Hi,

Thanks.

Used the CLI as above and tried to play after resetting flag but still Black etc.

Went to WebIF and shows ODEncrypted and is being Decrypted again it seems (Playing in Status Area)

. . . . DEC Icon again, but still Black. Lost forever methinks !

Cheers
Pete
 
By the way, what does your auto.log say?

Interesting . . .

Quite a few - In use then
Code:
01/04/2013 00:20 - -------------------------------------------------------
01/04/2013 00:20 - Media scan starting, DLNA server status: 1
01/04/2013 00:20 - dedup scan completed in 0.582 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:20 - In use.
01/04/2013 00:20 - decrypt scan completed in 2.579 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:20 - shrink scan completed in 0.608 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:20 - mpg scan completed in 0.642 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:20 - expire scan completed in 0.61 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:20 - Media scan completed in 5.15 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:30 - -------------------------------------------------------
01/04/2013 00:30 - Media scan starting, DLNA server status: 1
01/04/2013 00:30 - dedup scan completed in 0.575 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:30 - DECRYPT: /media/My Video/Labyrinth/Labyrinth_20130331_2101
01/04/2013 00:30 - DLNA: http://192.168.1.66:9000/web/media/515.TS
01/04/2013 00:46 - Done... 5.94 GiB in 959.977 seconds - 6.33 MiB/s
01/04/2013 00:46 - decrypt scan completed in 963.35 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:46 - shrink scan completed in 2.204 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:46 - mpg scan completed in 0.712 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:46 - expire scan completed in 0.669 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:46 - Media scan completed in 967.632 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:50 - -------------------------------------------------------
01/04/2013 00:50 - Media scan starting, DLNA server status: 1
01/04/2013 00:50 - dedup scan completed in 0.602 seconds.
01/04/2013 00:50 - DECRYPT: /media/My Video/Labyrinth/Labyrinth_20130331_2101
01/04/2013 00:50 - DLNA: http://192.168.1.66:9000/web/media/515.TS
01/04/2013 01:07 - Done... 5.94 GiB in 1050.932 seconds - 5.79 MiB/s
01/04/2013 01:07 - decrypt scan completed in 1055.141 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:07 - shrink scan completed in 1.583 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:07 - mpg scan completed in 0.73 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:07 - expire scan completed in 0.654 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:07 - Media scan completed in 1058.866 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:10 - -------------------------------------------------------
01/04/2013 01:10 - Media scan starting, DLNA server status: 1
01/04/2013 01:10 - dedup scan completed in 0.649 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:10 - decrypt scan completed in 3.402 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:10 - shrink scan completed in 0.644 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:10 - mpg scan completed in 0.681 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:10 - expire scan completed in 0.654 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:10 - Media scan completed in 6.178 seconds.
01/04/2013 01:20 - -------------------------------------------------------
 
Your auto.log shows lots of 'checks' but only one action e.g. DECRYPT: /media/My Video/Labyrinth/Labyrinth_20130331_2101
 
I was wondering if it was showing the same Decypt taking 16 and 17.5 Minutes e.g. a Total of 33.5 Minutes
 
Well it says Done after 16 min (Complete file at 5.94GiB each time)

01/04/2013 00:30 - DECRYPT: /media/My Video/Labyrinth/Labyrinth_20130331_2101
01/04/2013 00:30 - DLNA: http://192.168.1.66:9000/web/media/515.TS
01/04/2013 00:46 - Done... 5.94 GiB in 959.977 seconds - 6.33 MiB/s
01/04/2013 00:46 - decrypt scan completed in 963.35 seconds.

and again Done after 17 min

01/04/2013 00:50 - DECRYPT: /media/My Video/Labyrinth/Labyrinth_20130331_2101
01/04/2013 00:50 - DLNA: http://192.168.1.66:9000/web/media/515.TS
01/04/2013 01:07 - Done... 5.94 GiB in 1050.932 seconds - 5.79 MiB/s
01/04/2013 01:07 - decrypt scan completed in 1055.141 seconds.
 
Hi,

Did a test with Jonathan Creek tonight . . .

Watched Chase Play and stopped near end.
Waited for the Status to show JC Playing (Decrypt in progress from the Log).
Started watching again (Status then showed as Chase Play) and paused until Decrypt was complete - carried on playing OK, but when I stopped and went to resume again it was Black. The Undelete copy (encrypted) is fine but the new Decrypted copy is broken.

HTH
Pete
 
Thanks - I need to do some investigation to work out what is going wrong and see what I can do to stop it happening.
 
Seems like Playing a file while it is being Decrypted breaks the Decrypted copy. The file you are watching at this time is the Original and when you stop playback the Swap occurs (Without Undelete the Original is lost) - Any re-playing of the program is then of the broken decrypted copy and is Black.

Seems the Decrypt may need to be aborted if someone starts to play a file while Decrypt is in progress - Though I am sure I am being very simplistic in my presumptions and analysis - There is way too much going on under the hood for me to understand it except in the broadest terms.

Pete
 
I think the problem is caused by the encrypted flag being restored by the Humax app. when the final play stops. A simpler test case is to play any encrypted file which has not been set to auto-decrypt. Whilst it is playing, remove the encrypted flag using 'hmt -encrypted file.hmt', then stop the playback. The encrypted flag will be restored. The app. probably keeps its own internal copy of the hmt file and writes it out at the end of the playback.

This will enable the auto-decryption process to decrypt the same file twice (i.e, mangle it).
 
Hi,

When I did the test last night using J. Creek the auto.log shows only one decrypt pass. and the file was Black.

Pete
 
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