Satellite Occasional H7S freezing - how can I analyse?

Well my box is back with world-of-Satellite for some triage just now. I will update this thread with any conclusion just in case anyone else is having a similar problem.
One problem I did identify is that my Freeview Signal (aerial) was overly boosted and was strong but appalling quality. I wonder if this might have made the box freeze?? Never had any problems with recording or anything from the T2 tuner but I do wonder if he tuner may have been "crashing" because of the poor quality signal (which presumably it was trying to attenuate down) and freezing the whole unit.

I also wonder if a bad PSU may be a possibility.

No firm conclusions yet but I have fixed the Freeview signal now by turning down hte boost on the masthead amp from nearly MAX to virtually MIN and the quality has jumped to between 75-100% and signal strength at a steady 85-90%. WoS are testing the box to within an inch of its life (including the PSU) but so far its not crashing for them which is a real bummer for me :-(

Cheers,
Paul
 
So I hit 2 errors last night on box #1 (box #1 is the box that does recognise the internal HD, box #2 doesn't recognise the internal hd).

The first one on box #1 was while watching TV and a recording was ongoing in the background.
The error was:
"WRITE ERROR on recording, disk full?"
I checked my recordings and the recording that was in progress had failed mid way through the recording (at the point where the warning popped up). box #1 didn't hang or lockup at this point, but the HD mount was left in an odd state (there's was a ".." folder options in the "movie" section ... like it had re-mounted the HD or something. As I said, the box didn't hang, just the error message and a failed recording. I rebooted the box at this point and the HD seemed to mount correctly and things behaved as normal.

I setup some random recordings for the middle of the night to test the box while it was in standby mode to see if it would hang.

And sure enough it did hang during the night. At 00:59am to be exact - that was the time the LCD clock on the box stuck at. I've attached the logs.
Enigma2_debug_2020-02-22_23-02-30.zip
Now what's really interesting if you examine the logs are these lines:
< 7052.416> [RecordTimer] activating state 3
< 7052.417> [RecordTimer] stop recording on tuner: D
< 7052.417> [eDVBServiceRecord] stop recording!
< 7052.418> [eFilePushThreadRecorder] stopping thread.
< 7052.418> [eDVBRecordFileThread] aio_suspend failed: Interrupted system call
< 7052.418> [eFilePushThreadRecorder] WRITE ERROR, aborting thread: Interrupted system call
< 7052.418> [eDVBRecordFileThread] waiting for aio to complete
< 7052.418> [eDVBRecordFileThread] Waiting for I/O to complete
< 7056.055> [gRC] main thread is non-idle! display spinner!
The time of 7056 seconds on the last log line corresponds to 1h5
7m since boot. From the name of the log file, you can see it was created at 23:02pm (i.e. the time I rebooted the box).
23:02pm + 1h57m = 00:59am ... the time the LCD froze at!!!
Also, "display spinner" is a pretty good indication of a lockup.

The log file does continue to grow over night ... but as you can see from the logs, the main thread is locked so I assume it's just other processes on background threads that are still alive.

I've tried 3 different HDs in the ZGemma and I've experienced hangs with all 3 HDs (the HDs worked in my previous GB Quad+ receivers for 5+ years)
I'm using OpenViX 5.3.016
 
divil_a_bit

same with my h7s, i have tryed 6 images and no difference
more stable is with PL I7.2
box freeze some time from 4 days working , some time often
what i am shure - it is not from MMC , not from power supply adapter, not from temperature - i put vent and temp of radiator go down but no result
the rest are - ddr memory, CPU, or some of 6 internal PWM power supplies
i have computer repair laboratory and can test this power supplies, but CPU and memory can not
will tell you after test
 
Here's an update on my iussues with my 2 Zgemma H7S receivers that were locking up (hanging) regularly.

I replaced the 12v/3A PSUs that came with both of them with a better quality 12V/5A PSU and I haven't had a hang on either recevier since.
That's 10 days uptime on both and I've even setup constant recording on both boxes to put extra stress on them.
 
i have tried with other 3a ps but no effect, may be need more powerful.
now i will put 10A and see what will happen.
 
i have 10A 12V for security camera with good filtering - noise free, thats why i use this.
now 2 days is stable, will see how long
 
Hi, having just glanced through this thread i see there is a thought of possible overheating. I am not familiar with the H7 but it can be a problem with the small form boxes with internal hdd in that there probably is a cooling fan, but most stock images do not include a fan control which invariably is on the oem image that gets overwritten. If your box has a fan ensure you have a fan controller and if not get the fan control plug-in.
 
Hi, having just glanced through this thread i see there is a thought of possible overheating. I am not familiar with the H7 but it can be a problem with the small form boxes with internal hdd in that there probably is a cooling fan, but most stock images do not include a fan control which invariably is on the oem image that gets overwritten. If your box has a fan ensure you have a fan controller and if not get the fan control plug-in.

Mine is definitely not over heating. I tried with external HDDs as well.

Changing the PSU from a 12v/3A to 12v/5A PSU (and a better quality PSU) made the difference. I was having hangs every few hours with the old PSUs on 2 different Zgemma H7S receivers.
I replaced both PSUs and I haven't had a single hang since
 
My box was replaced and the new box does not hand at all. It was with the old original stock PSU too so maybe there is a batch of boxes that need a beefier PSU (because of a certain component / faulty component) and maybe my mis-behaving box was one of those boxes and the new box was not. That being the case - if divi-a-bit has one of these "more hungry" boxes too then his use of a beefier PSU would have the same effect of stabilizing it.

Just speculation of course but it seems to be plausible.
 
this trick with powerful adapter not decided problem 100%, may be 50% of freeze
may be is helpful to use grounded power supply but this not clear problem at all
i have check inside pwm supplies - they are very good - no noise - 5v , 3.3v, 1.8v, 1.25v,1v ,0.9v
the rest are - RAM , processor, tuner - but can not check
 
today i take off main board and sow one capacitor from S tuner was broken ( at the bottom of the board ), i thing they broke when assembled in case
this is important part for tuner - C115
next days will tell you result
 

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one week tested with many programs , sat and so 24 h per day - no problem at all
may be this capacitor was the problem
they can broke when assembling main board in case , because of high metal spacers of the bottom of the case
 
Mine is definitely not over heating. I tried with external HDDs as well.

Changing the PSU from a 12v/3A to 12v/5A PSU (and a better quality PSU) made the difference. I was having hangs every few hours with the old PSUs on 2 different Zgemma H7S receivers.
I replaced both PSUs and I haven't had a single hang since

I realise I haven't updated this thread since this.
I hit the hangs after this post ... serveral times in fact.

It turns out it wasn't the PSU after all - there was a h/w fault with both receivers (confirmed by the supplier).
Both were replaced and have been 100% since with the exact same image and HDD. I backed up the image before sending back the faulty receivers and re-installed the exact same image on the replacement receivers.
 
Can i just hijack this thread, i notice my h7s freezes sometimes when pressing the down arrow or selecting a bouquet after pressing the down arrow. Sometimes it takes forever and i get the spinny circle and it locks up, sometimes takes what feels like an age to load the channels in the bouquet. I also tried installing Openatv 7 beta in a new slot and it still happened on there, i think its something to do with the EPG, also the EPG is on the USB, should i move to internal memory? I tried all 3 usb slots and no issues with USB timeshift either. Also external HDD playing and recording everything fine.
 
Can i just hijack this thread, i notice my h7s freezes sometimes when pressing the down arrow or selecting a bouquet after pressing the down arrow. Sometimes it takes forever and i get the spinny circle and it locks up, sometimes takes what feels like an age to load the channels in the bouquet. I also tried installing Openatv 7 beta in a new slot and it still happened on there, i think its something to do with the EPG, also the EPG is on the USB, should i move to internal memory? I tried all 3 usb slots and no issues with USB timeshift either. Also external HDD playing and recording everything fine.
I would not move the EPG to internal memory leave it on usb. Could slow the box further been in the flash, i would make sure you have your usb formatted to ext 3 or 4 though.
 
Did all that and happened again im 99% sure its the USB, going to try the old usb from my h2s and see if it happens again
 
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