Recommending Gigablue to others?

[leshay]

Hi

I am a member of another forum which is dedicated to the my previous PVR. This PVR is slowly becoming obsolete and many/most users are looking for replacements (as I did prior to buying a Gigablue Quad Plus)

I am now at the point where I intend to post on that other forum my feelings and experience with the Gigablue.

I am sorry to say that I will be recommending others NOT to buy a Gigablue.

The main reason is that the main and primary function of a PVR is to record and replay TV programmes fails with this machine. I have NOT YET managed to watch a single programme all the way through without blocking/freezing/skipping forward by several minutes, and some are just plain unwatchable. The very same recordings can be watched all the way through if copied over to my PC or, streamed to my PC.

This may or may not be down to the software (I am using VIX 041 at the moment), but in any case, failing to fulfill its main function makes it impossible to recommend this box.

There are many issues discussed on this forum, and it *seems* to me that there may be driver issues that could be the root cause of this - whatever the cause, the manufacturer needs to wake up if they want to make any success of this box.

BTW, the issues I have are not limited to the above alone, there are a few other issues of lesser but annoying importance.

I will post a copy of this post on the other forum also.

[Joe_90]

It's up to you to post whatever you feel are your experiences with the box. For what it's worth, I've had the Quad Plus since it was released in April and I've found it faultless from a hardware perspective. It's got the two standard DVB-S2 tuners installed plus two plug-in DVB-T (not T2) tuners. There is a 1TB 2.5" HDD installed by the vendor. I've not taken the cover off it.

I used OpenMIPS images (it's the "factory" default) to begin with and had a lot of green screens initially. Gradually improved over the weeks as I loaded the nightly images regularly. Then switched to OpenATV which I found more configureable and better EPG and selection of skins. Also tried OpenRSI which was also very good. Beta tested the initial ViX images and did some config work on the LCD screen layout. No problems with standard recording/playback until ViX 024/025 when the new bootloader, kernel and drivers were released for any images based on OE 2.3 (as ViX 025 was and also OpenATV 4.2). After that I got pausing/skipping/pixellation when playing back programmes I had recorded. Sometimes the box would work for hours after a reboot without an issue, sometimes only minutes, but it was always during playback of a recorded programme. The proof that it was not a recording problem was that I could play back a section perfectly which had suffered severe glitches during a previous play. I tried several images after 025, up to and including 32 but always had issues afterwards. I did a lot of research on ATV and MIPS forums and found that the symptoms were common across the images on the Quad Plus and that there were also other issues with Quads including re-booting etc. The issue, on the Quad Plus, certainly, seems to be associated with memory over use and fragmentation. The resolution seems to be with Gigalbue to resolve with either driver or kernel code changes or both. I found that if I called up the information and memory screen from the menu while playing back a recording I could see the system gradually using all the RAM on the system to cache reads from the HDD until the free memory got down to a couple of megabytes at which point the playback started to glitch. I decided I'd switch back to my last image backup prior to the switch to the new kernel/drivers which was 023.

I stayed on ViX 023 for the past 4-6 weeks without any playback issues. However, being on 023 meant that I couldn't access the plug-in server any more so I was kind of "stuck" with a stable, but un-updateable system.

I downloaded 041 on Thursday and also installed the cacheflush plug-in and set the minimum free memory on my system to 20480 kB using the plug-in settings. I did this based on info I had seen on the ATV forum. After setting the minimum free memory I disabled the plug-in, but left it loaded on the system in case I had to use the actual cache flush facility. The box has been running since then without any issues. I've watched all the F1 recordings I made over the weekend while other recordings were in progress. The free memory figure has never dropped below about 28MB and I've not seen a single glitch.

This MAY be a potential workaround for you until Gigablue sort their s**t out. I think it's a great box but let down by slow response from the manufacturers. My 2 cents!

[leshay]

Hi
I do have a 65332 swap file set up, and I downloaded the CacheFlush plug in but where has it gone? It still isn't showing in the plug in list! Where do you go to adjust its settings?

[Alec]

I have the latest image on my VU+DU2, but I have still a old image on my Quad. Everything seem to work Okay except the SNR is crap, and it is poor on scanning unless I add the file, also the fast fwd and play is poor . I would not recommend anyone to buy it for a motorised system for that reason.

[Joe_90]

Hi
I do have a 65332 swap file set up, and I downloaded the CacheFlush plug in but where has it gone? It still isn't showing in the plug in list! Where do you go to adjust its settings?

Why have you a swap file set up? The Quad Plus has almost 500MB of RAM available after the image is loaded. Swap files are for boxes with limited RAM and too many plug-ins running. Theoretically, cacheflush plug-in is also for boxes with limited RAM needing very strict memory management. The Quad Plus shouldn't need cacheflush ordinarily, but the current issue with video file playback seems to need it.

It's entirely possible that whatever issue is present in the GB drivers is consuming all your RAM and then going to swap file which will be really slow.

I don't know what your problem is with the cacheflush plug-in not showing? Have you re-booted since you downloaded it? It's in my plug-in menu. Your box is haunted

[Rob van der Does]

If 'CacheFlush' helps for this problem, a swap-file might as well.

CacheFlush is especially (and even only?) useful in case of memory fragmentation and/or errors in memory management that cause unused memory can't be reclaimed. And although a swapfile doesn't 'fix' those problems, it will allow a longer period of trouble free running.

Or in other words: if you say CacheFlush helps, that would be a clear indication of such memory problems.

In the past we've seen such errors caused by GStreamer in combination with specific kernels. But of course it can also be a driver issue.

[leshay]

Why have you a swap file set up? The Quad Plus has almost 500MB of RAM available after the image is loaded. Swap files are for boxes with limited RAM and too many plug-ins running. Theoretically, cacheflush plug-in is also for boxes with limited RAM needing very strict memory management. The Quad Plus shouldn't need cacheflush ordinarily, but the current issue with video file playback seems to need it.

It's entirely possible that whatever issue is present in the GB drivers is consuming all your RAM and then going to swap file which will be really slow.

I don't know what your problem is with the cacheflush plug-in not showing? Have you re-booted since you downloaded it? It's in my plug-in menu. Your box is haunted

Hi
Swap File? Well, I am trying anything I can to improve things. As it happens, I don't think the Swap File has actually been used yet - it remains at 65532 free.

I have now found the CacheFlush - you are right, it needed a reboot. It is now in the PlugIn list.

As far as 'plenty of RAM' is concerned, I am looking at the Memory screen as I type, and there is 572548 total and 1755 free - that seems to suggest the RAM is far from 'plenty' to me.

Now I will need to set up Cacheflush - any help with best use of those settings would be appreciated.

[Joe_90]

Is the 1755 (kB) free indication there when you are playing back a recording? If so, it's indicative of the memory munching going on. If you are just watching live TV, try the memory info menu and you should see over 300 - 400,000 kB free.

All I did with cacheflush was to set the minimum memory free allocation to the maximum allowed in the menu - 20480kB. Then I saved the setting. If you do nothing else, the plug-in will run every 30 minutes (default) and flush the caches. By default this action displays a little icon on the screen for a configurable number of seconds. But I didn't let it do that. After I checked my memory utilisation at intervals while playing back a recording I could see that the memory free figure never dropped below about 28,000 kB. After that I went back into the cacheflush plug-in menu and disabled it and saved the setting. So, no further actual cache flushing going on but the minimum free memory never drops below about 28MB. The setting seems to "stick" even through reboots (or else the plug-in is setting it at boot time even though it doesn't run subsequently?). Either way, I'm happy with it the way it is. I may check again after installing 042.

[leshay]

Hi

Yes I was watching a recording at the time. I am in the process of a Software Update right now, and it would appear that the box may have frozen - have had the waterfall on screen for about 15 min now.

I did also download the 043 zip so I may have to re-flash. This is the first time I have tried the update via the Software Update menu - so far it appears to not work.

Thanks for the indications of settings for CacheFlush.

I will disable anyway to try out the 043 update to see if any improvements there.

[Joe_90]

If 'CacheFlush' helps for this problem, a swap-file might as well.

CacheFlush is especially (and even only?) useful in case of memory fragmentation and/or errors in memory management that cause unused memory can't be reclaimed. And although a swapfile doesn't 'fix' those problems, it will allow a longer period of trouble free running.

Or in other words: if you say CacheFlush helps, that would be a clear indication of such memory problems.

In the past we've seen such errors caused by GStreamer in combination with specific kernels. But of course it can also be a driver issue.

I had thought about using a swap file but I figured that whatever error was causing all the RAM to be used would then extend into the swap area and make the system completely bogged down and slow, perhaps? The problem with the RAM utilisation is that it happens very quickly. In some cases all the RAM was being used for file cache within about 10 minutes. I had seen some very insightful discussion on the ATV forum about this problem and one of the contributors had developed some scripts to set minimum free memory to 60MB and to flush the cache at intervals. The consensus was that cache flushing was probably not the best way to tackle the problem as it could lead to the system being slow in other areas. But I seem to have been able to avoid the actual cache flushing by using the plug-in to just set the minimum free memory at 20MB and it has been trouble free so far. Obviously, the solution awaits some action from Gigablue to fix properly

[Joe_90]

Hi

Yes I was watching a recording at the time. I am in the process of a Software Update right now, and it would appear that the box may have frozen - have had the waterfall on screen for about 15 min now.

I did also download the 043 zip so I may have to re-flash. This is the first time I have tried the update via the Software Update menu - so far it appears to not work.

Thanks for the indications of settings for CacheFlush.

I will disable anyway to try out the 043 update to see if any improvements there.

I got the software update prompt last night, but was watching other stuff so I didn't bother. I couldn't actually see the 042/043 image in the ViX image manager, but I'm assuming that there still some settling down issues with the new servers that have come on-line in the past week.

[Rob van der Does]

Theoretically the actual use of swap would indeed slow down the system. But if you would really experience it?
Anyway: if CacheFlush saves you from reboots, you should be fine. And the amount of free mem shouldn't be set to high either, as that would also slow things.
Anyway: if you experience that is is working fine with your settings you must be a happy man.

[Larry-G]

As far as 'plenty of RAM' is concerned, I am looking at the Memory screen as I type, and there is 572548 total and 1755 free - that seems to suggest the RAM is far from 'plenty' to me.

Ordinarily the Linux operating system uses memory very differently to windows, it considers free memory as wasted and will always use as much as possible, freeing up portions as and when requested by the system. So it's not in any way unusual to see the figures you have quoted.

Sent from my iPad Air using Tapatalk HD

[leshay]

Ordinarily the Linux operating system uses memory very differently to windows, it considers free memory as wasted and will always use as much as possible, freeing up portions as and when requested by the system. So it's not in any way unusual to see the figures you have quoted.

Sent from my iPad Air using Tapatalk HD

Hi

I do appreciate that maximizing the use of available Ram may be expected, but if it does this in a way that leads to the symptoms I have had while replaying a recording then that may show bad memory management.

So far (early days yet), Fat-Tony's suggested use of CacheFlush has helped in my case (I have watched a couple of recordings with no glitches), and this further suggests that his ideas on the memory issues are correct.

[Rob van der Does]

Normally Linux uses most of the available memory. Apparently things get out of control atm on several GB's, and that seems to be why Linux gets into trouble.
So in this case, and as has been more or less proven by several users, forcing Linux to keep some extra memory free (and in addition to that flash the cache regularly) seems to be the trick to let Linux and the application Enigma survive.