Unit freezes when playing mp4 files

[mole_hill]

Hi all. Today one of my HDRs has started freezing when trying to play, pause or stop mp4 files. The only solution is to power it off at the switch or reboot via webif. But on reboot the same thing happens if you try and play an mp4. I've tried it on a number of files from different sources.

I guessed it might be that the file system has gone read only as I recall reading something about that on this forum. I'm running CF 2.17 so ran option 1 fix disk from maintenance mode. It finished fairly quickly. After exiting the mp4 issue still exists.

The box still records and doesn't appear to have any issue with playing regular files.

Any ideas what else I can try?

 

[Ezra Pound]

Has the Humax played these MP4 files in the past?, if not then I suspect that the files are simply not compatible with the Humax. It might be worth re-running fix-disk and posting the results on the forum, if it finished quickly I think it exited before it had completed, probaly with an error of some kind

 

[mole_hill]

Thanks. The files are either iPlayer or YouTube files saved using the custom firmware. Some have been played previously.

I'm running fix disk again now...

 

[mole_hill]

Ok fix-disk results below. On restart the box started playing, stopping etc mp4s ok for 30s or so but now is playing and will not let me stop an mp4 file i.e. unresponsive to remote.

Checking disk sda
 
Using superblock 0 on sda3
Using superblock 0 on sda1
Using superblock 0 on sda2
 
Unmounted /dev/sda1
Unmounted /dev/sda2
Unmounted /dev/sda3
 
Running short disk self test
 
No pending sectors found - skipping sector repair
 
Checking partition /dev/sda3...
e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
hmx_int_stor: 34/655776 files (2.9% non-contiguous), 1818102/2622611 blocks
 
Checking partition /dev/sda1...
e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
hmx_int_stor: 14/65808 files (7.1% non-contiguous), 14023/263064 blocks
 
Creating swap file...
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 1073737728 bytes
UUID=e68b5bd8-a1af-4d34-a96a-7cbfef46d8d7
 
Checking partition /dev/sda2...
e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
hmx_int_stor: 9938/29860704 files (3.7% non-contiguous), 52147823/119209984 blocks
Removing extra swap space.
 
Finished

 

[mole_hill]

This problem seems fixed now following a factory reset, drive reformat and re flashing firmware. I did the whole works on it so I'm not sure which action fixed it but something worked. I hope it doesn't happen again any time soon.

 

[Trevor Jasper]

I've had something like this where a corrupt/bad file has caused the machine to stop playing/freeze/unable to stop and becomes unresponsive to the remote - a reboot via the webif fixes it. However, in my case it was linked to the dlna indexer falling over on the files - have you re-enabled content sharing? I'm fine as long as I don't enable content sharing. I have tried deleting what I believed the source of the corrupt files to be but haven't tested since with content sharing on. I'm away for long periods at the moment and I daren't leave the box becoming unresponsive.

As you've re-formatted the hd, I guess any corrupt file(s) may have gone now....

 

[mole_hill]

If it happens again I will investigate those items first, thanks.

In hindsight and with more time and without the added pressure of "what have you done now" ringing in my ears I may have suppressed the panic mode that kicked in and sought to logically try a wider range of different things to identify the cause. Instead I reserved a replacement at Argos as a fall back position and then threw the book at the unit so to speak! Next time...

 

[Wallace]

Been there, got the T-shirt!