Planet Replay

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

hdonzis — Tue Aug 09, 2011 12:57 pm

Author: hdonzis

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 12:57 pm

Space wrote:

Actually, I believe the 5Ks download/retain 13 days of data.

Here is the data my guide currently holds:

8/8 4:30pm - 8/21 8pm

So it actually has a little more than 13 days currently (including the prior days data).

It's all a matter of perspective. The pre-4Ks ask up to day 8 and the 4Ks/5Ks ask up to day 12. Today is the 9th, not the 8th, so the 21st is 12 days forward. The fact that it holds one day back may figure into "retains", but the people discussing this are asking about days forward, not days back. And, the 5K downloads 12 days and retains 13 days, it doesn't download/retain 13 days...

Henry

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

Space — Tue Aug 09, 2011 12:47 pm

Author: Space

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 12:47 pm

Actually, I believe the 5Ks download/retain 13 days of data.

Here is the data my guide currently holds:

8/8 4:30pm - 8/21 8pm

So it actually has a little more than 13 days currently (including the prior days data).

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

RichG — Mon Aug 08, 2011 3:47 pm

Author: RichG

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 3:47 pm

hdonzis wrote:

RichG wrote:

Quote:

Thanks for the clear explanation, Rich. I have a 78-channel lineup, and AFAIK my SS has only ever gotten 7-8 days of guide info. I'm going to try your suggestions later tonight & I'll post my results.

WiRNS doesn't send any number of days of guide data, the RTV requests the days that it wants. 4Ks and 5Ks ask for 12 days of guide data, and pre-4Ks ask for 8 days of guide data (I posted the RTV CG request algorithm here). WiRNS can load up to 14 days of guide data simply as an independent virtual RTV which has its own channel guide to view...

Henry

Thanks Henry!

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

hdonzis — Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:42 pm

Author: hdonzis

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:42 pm

RichG wrote:

Quote:

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

RichG — Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:29 pm

Author: RichG

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:29 pm

Quote:

Went and reviewed the network traces again and you're right WiRNS: is sending 8 days of channel guide data to the SS. I thought I saw WiRNS advertise 14 days (or whatever number of days is specified in the Configuration-Guide Data setting) but sends the correct amount. This would explain why the % complete goes slowly to 23%, then jumps into updating the Zones info. The WiRNS guys can verify whether or not WiRNS is sending the 8 or 14 number (# days file size for vnd.replay.gz.)

In the words of Adrian Monk, "This is what happened:" WiRNS is sending Channel Guide data to the SSs in 1/2 MB bursts. This is fine for the network units (4000s,5000s), but problematic for the dial-up units. At best, the modems in these units are 300 TIMES SLOWER than a 10 mb/s home network. Freesco can hold 10K (default) of backlogged data before it has to throw away the overflow. Windows has a 75k buffer before it has to throw away the overflow. Obviously these 2 combined can not accommodate 1/2 MB of data. Both of these software packages have features (Window Full) to throttle the data from Wirns and prevent buffer overflow. Vmnet8 - the VMWare NAT pseudo-router is either dropping this message or passing it along too late and data corruption occurs. This data must be retransmitted until it gets through successfully (long download times) or the retry count is exhausted (what Susan and I were experiencing.) The other consequence of converting to bridge mode is the packet size adjustes down from 1K+ to the MTU of the modem. For my modem, 590 bytes with a 533 byte payload. This means that Freesco does not have to waste time repackaging the data.

All that this really means is that this solution is not configuration dependent -> it should improve downloads whether you ar running Freesco on th same machine as WiRNS or on a separate platform. Everyone should follow the old axiom "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," but if the download time are painfully long, you might want to try resetting your ReplayTV modem speed back to Default, and trying this approach.

Rich

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

amblinn — Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:59 am

Author: amblinn

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:59 am

Back from vacation (and pleasantly surprised by the continuation of the ReplayTV service... not that I'm going back, though ).

Just wanted to add my $0.02 that I also switched over to bridged mode, and my download times have gone from about 20 min per day of guide data to about 2 min per day of guide data. Definitely much nicer.

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

Susan G — Fri Aug 05, 2011 12:06 am

Author: Susan G

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 12:06 am

Quote:

I'd be interested in knowing what would happen if you were to go through the initial setup again. If that works, then this theory has more credibility.

Hi Rich-

I changed the IP addresses for eth0 and the modem dial-in as you suggested -- in my case, to 192.168.0.201 and 192.168.0.210. My WiRNS PC is 192.168.0.100. This is with the VMWare Player in Bridged mode.

I changed the ZIP code to a valid one I'd never used before and connected to get phone numbers. That went very smoothly, and I was able to select my WiRNS lineup on the input screen.

I went ahead and did a Net Connect at that point, which I knew was a little foolish, since I hadn't rebooted. I wanted to see what would happen anyway, and sure enough the connection failed at "Transferring additional information...".

I then cleared the Channel Guide twice and tried a Net Connect again. That also failed.

Then I went into Setup. The SS said all or some of my setup info was no longer available, which I knew was a good sign! I entered another new ZIP Code, and this time after it got phone numbers I selected my provider again, selected Connect, and it went through getting Channel Guide data without a hitch.

It took about 20 minutes for 78 channels, which isn't bad at all. I forced a Net Connect again after scheduling a recording, and with one day's updated data it completed in about 7 minutes, which is great.

I'm pretty sure I could have avoided the failed connections by just clearing the Channel Guide twice after "Getting Phone Numbers..." and going back into Setup, but I did want to see both the "wrong" way and the "right" way after all my previous attempts. That might sound crazy, but now it makes sense to me.

BTW (to answer my own question in another thread ), I never had to go the "power down/unplug" reboot route.

I'm thrilled to finally have this working, and without your suggestions re Bridged mode, etc., I might well still be struggling with this!

Thank you so much!

-Susan

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

Susan G — Thu Aug 04, 2011 6:24 pm

Author: Susan G

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 6:24 pm

RichG wrote:

Quote:

This is not a major issue. The only reason I can think of for this to fail is that your home network doesn't have a DHCP on it. If you do then something strange is going on. The reason for suggesting you use the DHCP client setting is to place Freesco on the same subnet as your WiRNS server. This will eliminate any firewall issues in your configuration. You can accomplish the same thing by manually assigning IP addresses to both your eth0 and modem adapters in Freesco. Most consumer routers assign DHCP addresses in the 50-150 number range. Assigning numbers between 200 and 254 should avoid conflicts. Assign using this formula: (same as WiRNS).(same as WiRNS).(same as WiRNS).(unique above 200).
DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE USING NAT IN VMWARE!

Quote:

I switched back to DNNA after the change-of-heart announcement, but I do want to get WiRNS working again in preparation for the inevitable. When I tried last night with the exact same settings that worked before I kept getting network connection errors at the end, so I'm back to troubleshooting, but at least I know it's possible to get this working!

Using bridged mode helps avoid the problem, but it doesn't solve it: it still takes a few interactions between WiRNS and the SS to settle in to a working data exchange. In my setup, I net connect daily without any failures so far, but I send to the SS 417 channels and guide data for 2 weeks. If you are sending (for example) 50 channels, the guide data may still be bursting to the replay before the 2 endpoints establish a workable exchange. I'd be interested in knowing what would happen if you were to go through the initial setup again. If that works, then this theory has more credibility.

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

RichG — Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:29 pm

Author: RichG

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:29 pm

Quote:

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

Susan G — Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:52 pm

Author: Susan G

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:52 pm

@RichG:

Quote:

Changed the VMWare network interface to "Bridged" instead of "NAT", changed the network setting in Freesco to use DHCP (setup->Advanced settings->(62)Local network->(627)Use DHCP client to y). x out to the screen that lets you save the setting save then reboot.

I was finally able to get a successful net connect with my Showstopper/FREESCO/VMWare setup when I changed the VMWare ethernet connection to "Bridged", so thank you very much for that tip! There's still something not right with my settings, because "Use DHCP client" enabled actually didn't work -- I had to leave that at "n".

I switched back to DNNA after the change-of-heart announcement, but I do want to get WiRNS working again in preparation for the inevitable. When I tried last night with the exact same settings that worked before I kept getting network connection errors at the end, so I'm back to troubleshooting, but at least I know it's possible to get this working!

Thanks-

-Susan

P.S.: And thanks for posting your info, Pennee!

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

RichG — Thu Jul 28, 2011 2:50 pm

Author: RichG

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 2:50 pm

WORKING SOLUTION for SHOWSTOPPER HS2000

(sorry about the formatting, but I'm new to this)

My setup:
- Desktop ( WiRNS Server) -> Creative Modem Blaster, Realtek PCIe GBE network adapter, XP Pro
- Laptop (Dial-Up Server) -> Thinkpad X61s, Thinkpad Modem (CXT), Intel 82566MM network adapter, XP Pro SP3, VMWare Player (3.1.4), Freesco 0.3.2 (noauth beacuse true dial-up)
- Replays:
2 Replay 5000 (network connected)
1 ShowStopper HS2000
- 2 Telco Phone Lines

The 5000s have worked flawlessly with WiRNS - first with version 2 and now with version 3; the SS was a different story:

Dataflow for SS: SS->Telco(line1)->Telco(Line2)->Laptop Modem->VMWare serial->Freesco cuax->Freesco eth0->VMware->WiRNS Server->VMWare->Freesco eth0->Freesco cuax->VMWare serial->Telco->SS

The WiRNS server modem refuses to interact with the SS, but the SS and Thinkpad play nice together. Loaded the SS dialing prefix with the Line 2 phone number and the SS and WiRNS connected on a regular basis; did not change the modem speed as modems are pretty good at finding a working speed on their own, did change my zip code. Like others, the initial call showed progress to 88% then got the dreaded Network Connect Error. Discarded the changes, once again chaned my zip code and attemped to connect to ReplayTV's service. It also terminated abnormally! This happened consistantly until a 243-Zones (6)Clear Channel Guide was executed. Tried to just get the Channel Guide from WiRNS without changing the zip code. It connected, spent a long time (about 1 hour) downloading, then died with "problem with connection" message (not exact). This time there was an added bonus of the channel guide getting wiped out. Connecting to the replay service gave the same results as before: it failed. As before, clearing the channel guide resolved the problem. A network trace revealed that both the initial setup failure and the get channel guide failure occured when WiRNS sent a large burst of data to the SS. It appears to be a problem in the VMWare-Freesco coupling. Changed the VMWare network interface to "Bridged" instead of "NAT", changed the network setting in Freesco to use DHCP (setup->Advanced settings->(62)Local network->(627)Use DHCP client to y). x out to the screen that lets you save the setting save then reboot.

After this, the network traces showed much better flow control, and the SS completes all interactions with WiRNS. I download 417 channels for 14 days in less than 1 hour.

Threr is a caveat: Freesco may not have the correct driver for your native ethernet controler. The pcnet32.gz driver is for, among others, the vmware NAT interface. In bridge mode you are using your native network adapter. If when you boot Freesco, it will say, in red, that there is no network interface, this tells you that you need a different network driver. the link Freesco.sourceforge.net modules.zip contains alternate drivers and installation instructions.

Good Luck,

-Rich

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

hudsonsmom — Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:33 am

Author: hudsonsmom

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:33 am

My setup...
- Showstopper 2000
- Vista Laptop
- External Zoom 56k USB modem
- magicJack
- VMware Player 3.1.4 <installed locally on laptop>
- WiRNS 3.0 Beta (updated to 3.0.4) <installed locally on laptop>

Now that there's time, I will probably order a chat-cord, to see if I can simplify things - and get rid of the external modem and magicJack.

Timing...
- My "test" setup only included 31 channels - it ran in 46 minutes.
- I updated the Schedules Direct list for the essentials (53 channels), and re-ran NetConnect - it ran it 59 minutes.

I'm planning to do a weekly forced connections, and 1-2 hours is workable.

Once again, thanks to everyone for your help I LOVE my Showstopper, and am ecstatic that I don't have to give it up. Thank you!!

Hope this helps.
Pennee

Susan G wrote:

Yes, congratulations! I'm definitely interested in the final download stats, since I've been trying to get a similar setup working for days. My connections always fail at the very end.

Are you running FREESCO in VMWare player, or natively?

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

RichG — Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:14 am

Author: RichG

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:14 am

sillyname99 wrote:

I downloaded 0.3.2 and the pcmcia driver, but either I don't have the settings right or I didn't do the right thing with the driver. I continue to google, looking for instructions or tips.

Susan, did you have a good reference for settings?

Thanks

Don't know where you got the driver. If you go to freesco.sourceforge.net and download the Freesco 0.3.2/modules 032 zip file, you'll find modules.html inside. This web page has the driver names for various network adapters and instructions for installing a driver. To save you some time, the driver must be placed in \ROUTER\DRV on the freesco floppy.

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

rmeden — Wed Jul 27, 2011 9:39 pm

Author: rmeden

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 9:39 pm

Here's a new piece of info for folks doing FreeSCO modem setups in a VM.

When setting up FreeSCO for LaHo, the PC didn't have a serial port. I used a USB->Serial adapter. There were *lots* of retransmissions and while it worked, it worked slowly and sometimes there were interrupt problems (seen if I typed commands directly to the modem in minicom)

The solution was drop drop the USB-Serial adapter and put in a PCI one. Ever since connections (mine and others) have been very clean.

Robert

Re: Modem instructions for using WiRNS and 3xxx/showstoppers?

hdonzis — Wed Jul 27, 2011 2:53 pm

Author: hdonzis

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 2:53 pm

If you're looking for instructions on setting up FREESCO version 0.3.2, then you should be looking here, with the step-by-step instructions being here...

Henry