I'm still struggling with my GigaBlue UHD Quad 4K and Opticum Red Robust Unicable 2 LNB, despite the recent changes to OpenVIX and Huevos's advice on adjusting the Satellite Equipment Control plug-in.

If I launch a series of recordings from different transponders on 28.2E, I can successfully occupy all eight FBC virtual tuners simultaneously. This appears to confirm that my basic configuration is connect. (I notice, though, that one of the GigaBlue websites sternly advises daisy-chaining the tuners A to B, B to C, C to D, D to E etc., rather than connecting them all to Tuner A, which is the only possibility now offered by OpenVIX. But it may be that what happens behind the scenes amounts to the same thing.)

However, sometimes a channel selected may take six or seven seconds to appear, or even longer. I haven't been able to work out what circumstances lead to this extended delay. The 'Tuner failed' message appears almost at the end of the delay, just before the picture shows. I've tried increasing the relevant Satellite Equipment Control parameter as suggested by Huevos, but this does not eliminate the message -- it only extends the wait before it appears.

This I can live with. But a more serious problem has occurred on several occasions, when a timed recording on one transponder starts while a recording from a different transponder is already in progress: the recording in progress is immediately halted and abandoned. If I then try to switch to that transponder to restart the recording manually, I get a black screen, and the receiver seems to be more or less locked up, apart from the other transponder being recorded from. I can get it out of this state by forcing a GUI restart via the Web or app interface. Only the FBC tuners have been affected by this; recordings from ordinary LNBs connected to Tuners I and J always work as expected.

It's tempting to wonder whether this is another timing problem, causing the receiver to become confused. Looking at the logs, I notice that the system repeats one particular line many times when making a recording -- the one containing "UnicableTuningWord 0x809c." Like this:

<251680.579> [Timer] Record RecordTimerEntry(name=The Long View, begin=Tue Jan 21 09:01:00 2020, serviceref=1:0:2:288D:7FE:2:11A0000:0:0:0:, justplay=0, isAutoTimer=0)
<251680.582> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.582> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x88d7, guard_offset 0
70249502(?)
<251680.582> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.582> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.583> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.583> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.583> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.583> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x80ab, guard_offset 0
7023e500(?)
<251680.584> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.584> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.584> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.584> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.585> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.585> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x80ab, guard_offset 0
7023e500(?)
<251680.585> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.597> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.598> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.598> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.598> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.599> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.599> [eDVBSatelliteEquipmentControl] [prepare] UnicableTuningWord 0x809c, guard_offset 0
7023aa00(?)
<251680.599> [TimerSanityCheck] conflict not found!


This looks as though something is not responding as it should. Might some other parameter in Satellite Equipment Control have a bearing on it?