TV Portal Won't Run

ChrisDaniels said:
I'll stick to what I said before, there's something iffy with your network.
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I agree it's almost* the only reasonable conclusion, the trouble is: what, and how to fix it? The fiddling about is gathering evidence to try to work it out. As an engineer I don't like magic fixes, I want to understand the circumstances and why the fix worked, and the limitations of the fix (a random fix that just happened to work might be fragile). The EPG update problem is a case in point - we have found that a regular wake-up solves it, but what are the boundaries?

When I move the HomePlug from the HDR I will have replicated the network conditions that were extant when the HD portal started running. I have already swapped the wires in the router. The HDR is fine. There is no reason for the router to treat the HD any differently because it is on a HomePlug instead of a wire, and yet it seems to. The MSP has no trouble phoning home, and there is no reason for the router to treat that external traffic any different from the portal traffic, and yet it seems to. A DS1000 swapped onto the same wire as the HD works on its own portal. Go figure. I'm pinning hopes on a factory reset at the router. I am thinking of buying a long Cat5 just to be able to connect the HDR in EXACTLY the same way as the HD and see what happens.

* there is still a niggle in my mind about the lack of an aerial connection. Apart from the network configuation, that is the principle difference between how the HDR and the HD is being operated. The DS1000 doesn't have an aerial socket in the first place. The HD worked when it did have an aerial. It all fits and is more rational than random router funnies.
 
It's only a limited comparison but I've just checked and my HDR can launch the custom portal, and then chain into the Humax portal without an aerial connected.
 
WARNING: Contains gratuitous smugness. Readers of a sensitive disposition should cover their eyes.

Having got back from a few days away, with a 15m Ethernet cable in hand, I tried every combination of HDR- via the HD-FOX route and HD- via the HDR-FOX route - and came to one inescapable conclusion. I've just been down to Asda and come back with a naff 15m aerial lead. Plugged the HD-FOX into a signal and guess what: iPlayer!

I have not evaluated when it needs an aerial and when it doesn't, but I guess nobody else has hit this problem because nobody else is using their kit as a stand-alone media player. I now have to decide whether to organise an aerial lead to the bedroom (not a bad option, a bit of work but with the bonus of live telly as well as iPlayer and streaming), or to rely on the DS1000 for portal stuff (which doesn't need an aerial in the first place). I might try the custom portal and see if that suffers the same problem.

Told you so.
 
You requested for somebody with an HD to try the Portal with the aerial lead disconnected. I did and the Portal still worked.
It was only a brief disconnection but the box had received its regular 4.30 updates. Now that your box has gone through that cycle, disconnect your aerial and see if the Portal still works.
 
No, didn't even put it in standby, just pulled the aerial plug out.

I will try again later and disconnect it from the mains to see if that makes a difference.
 
Same here! I get a message onscreen: Certificate security validation failure.

I am running the Custom Portal. Connected to the TV via Scart (RGB)

I got the same result when selecting Our Portal

Put into standby- replaced aerial- back to normal.
 
That's a different message, presumably due to the different access route.

The next question for the BYTs is: where do we find the flag that's causing this (there was a mention of an initialisation flag previously in the discussion), and is there anything the MSP can do to set it up?
 
I think I might have guessed why the portal doesn't run without an aerial feed. How does the box tell the current date and time? The HD-FOX T2 has no idea until it picks up the EPG data (don't know whether the same is true of the HDR-FOX T2). I thought I might be able to see something in a database dump, so I copied DB to USB and looked at the result - apart from not knowing how to read the .db files, I see they all have a 1/1/1980 time stamp.

Is there some telnet witchcraft I can use to try initialising the system clock?
 
Black Hole said:
I think I might have guessed why the portal doesn't run without an aerial feed. How does the box tell the current date and time? The HD-FOX T2 has no idea until it picks up the EPG data (don't know whether the same is true of the HDR-FOX T2). I thought I might be able to see something in a database dump, so I copied DB to USB and looked at the result - apart from not knowing how to read the .db files, I see they all have a 1/1/1980 time stamp.

Is there some telnet witchcraft I can use to try initialising the system clock?
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Ah, that makes perfect sense! With the clock set to that far ago then the encryption negotiation will fail - the certificate is not yet valid.

Edit: If you install the ntpclient package then that should set the clock for you at each boot (assuming Internet access from the Humax)
 
I've got the MSP on a USB stick (otherwise I wouldn't be able to telnet). Trying to figure out how to install busybox now...
 
Black Hole said:
I've got the MSP on a USB stick (otherwise I wouldn't be able to telnet). Trying to figure out how to install busybox now...
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The USB stick isn't actually required for telnet - it's baked in to the custom firmware.

humax# opkg update
humax# opkg install busybox
 
I'm getting a runtime error when I try to access the settings to set advanced mode (I think I've mentioned that one before) and I can't see busybox in the normal package listing. Better give me the telnet incantation.

(posts crossed in the post)
 
Code: 
humax# opkg update
Downloading http://hummypkg.org.uk/hdrfoxt2/base/Packages.gz.
Inflating http://hummypkg.org.uk/hdrfoxt2/base/Packages.gz.
Updated list of available packages in /mod/var/opkg/base.
humax#
humax# opkg install busybox
Package busybox (1.18.3-1) installed in root is up to date.
humax#
humax# date
-/bin/sh: date: not found
humax#
humax#
I must be doing something wrong.

PMN: the problem with packages etc on my system turns out to be FAT32 - symbolic links etc that redirect commands to the right executable are not compatible with FAT32, and (at the moment) need an Ext3 drive to be connected.
 
hmm, try installing ntpclient and see if that sets the time for you:

humax# opkg install ntpclient
 
Black Hole said:
Do I need a reboot or something?
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Shouldn't do...

I'm not sure why the date command isn't working for you, perhaps try the full path?

humax# /mod/bin/busybox/date

or

humax# /media/drive1/mod/bin/busybox/date
 
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