[ECEC]

I recently upgraded my HTPC with a GT430 card. I disabled the onboard GPU, then installed the latest drivers from the Nvidia website. After a reboot, XBMC came up fine as usual and I enabled DVXA support from the settings menu. Since then, while watching movies or tv shows the video will freeze for a brief moment (less than a second) every 10 to 30 minutes. All content is from my server, and it's occurred on .mov trailers, SD and HD content.

Where do I need to look to start troubleshooting?

Specs:

Win7 64 bit
2gb RAM
C2D 2.3ghz
EVGA GT430
XBMC 10.0

[ECEC]

Bumping this because things got way, way worse. Movies and TV shows started taking a long time to begin playing, and would pause 10 seconds in to buffer. Last night they stopped playing at all, and I would get a message to check the log file as XBMC wasn't able to play the show. I switched skins and rebooted XBMC to see if that was the issue, and it wasn't. I rebooted the HTPC, and the display never came back on (for some reason the GT430 I just installed doesn't show any of the boot up process, it comes on at the Windows login).

I'll be tearing it all apart this morning, as well as pasting the contents of the log. I'm hoping that one of y'all out there have seen this issue before and can point me in the right direction. Using the 360/PS3 sucks in comparison to XBMC.

[ECEC]

Here's the full log: http://pastebin.com/CVpY5NBm

And a snippet of the video failing to play:

Code:

08:24:13 T:2140 M:1164296192  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: V:\TV Shows\Supernatural\Season 01\Supernatural - S01E11.avi
08:24:13 T:2140 M:1164292096 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player)::Put MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
08:24:13 T:3624 M:1164222464  NOTICE: Creating InputStream
08:24:15 T:3624 M:1163988992  NOTICE: Creating Demuxer
08:24:45 T:3624 M:1158131712 WARNING: could not find codec parameters for V:\TV Shows\Supernatural\Season 01\Supernatural - S01E11.avi
08:24:45 T:3624 M:1158529024   ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenDemuxStream - Error creating demuxer
08:24:45 T:3624 M:1158348800  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit()
08:24:45 T:3624 M:1158348800  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit() deleting input stream
08:24:47 T:2140 M:1162702848   ERROR: Playlist Player: skipping unplayable item: 0, path [V:\TV Shows\Supernatural\Season 01\Supernatural - S01E11.avi]

[ECEC]

So, more fun. I uninstalled all non-default add-ons and had the same problem. Then I uninstalled XBMC entirely, including the profile folder. I then reinstalled XBMC 10, and added one video source that pointed to my TV Show directory, but didn't setup a scraper or anything. Same problem. I enabled debugging mode and didn't see my CPU usage or anything go up. Same thing as above in the log:

Code:

08:47:23 T:1420 M:1174855680  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: V:\TV Shows\30 Rock\Season 5\30 Rock - S05E01.mkv
08:47:23 T:1420 M:1174855680 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player)::Put MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
08:47:23 T:3100 M:1174822912  NOTICE: Creating InputStream
08:47:23 T:3100 M:1178382336  NOTICE: Creating Demuxer
08:47:55 T:3100 M:1172344832 WARNING: could not find codec parameters for V:\TV Shows\30 Rock\Season 5\30 Rock - S05E01.mkv
08:47:55 T:3100 M:1173372928   ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenDemuxStream - Error creating demuxer
08:47:55 T:3100 M:1173504000  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit()
08:47:55 T:3100 M:1173352448  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit() deleting input stream
08:47:55 T:1420 M:1174523904   ERROR: Playlist Player: skipping unplayable item: 0, path [V:\TV Shows\30 Rock\Season 5\30 Rock - S05E01.mkv]
08:47:55 T:1420 M:1174777856  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
08:47:55 T:1420 M:1174777856 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player)::Put MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
08:47:55 T:1420 M:1174777856  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
08:47:55 T:1420 M:1174777856  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting
08:48:05 T:1420 M:1172287488  NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: V:\TV Shows\30 Rock\Season 01\30 Rock - S01E01.avi
08:48:05 T:1420 M:1172287488 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player)::Put MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
08:48:05 T:1600 M:1172254720  NOTICE: Creating InputStream
08:48:05 T:1600 M:1172398080  NOTICE: Creating Demuxer
08:48:36 T:1600 M:1176961024 WARNING: could not find codec parameters for V:\TV Shows\30 Rock\Season 01\30 Rock - S01E01.avi
08:48:36 T:1600 M:1177620480   ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenDemuxStream - Error creating demuxer
08:48:36 T:1600 M:1177620480  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit()
08:48:36 T:1600 M:1177620480  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit() deleting input stream
08:48:37 T:1420 M:1178800128   ERROR: Playlist Player: skipping unplayable item: 0, path [V:\TV Shows\30 Rock\Season 01\30 Rock - S01E01.avi]
08:48:37 T:1420 M:1178796032  NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()

I tried an HD file as well as an SD file. All of the files I'm attempting to play work fine in VLC (although the picture quality is garbage).

Obviously this isn't a XBMC problem, but can anyone point me in the right direction? My next step is to remove the GT430 and go back to on board HDMI to see if that makes a difference. :/

[ECEC]

In the continuing adventures of EC and his video problems....

I removed the GT430 card, then performed a clean install of the Nvidia drivers. No problems viewing media! Files opened just fine. On a whim, I decided to install the GT430 again, doing yet another clean install of the Nvidia drivers. Everything works! So I have no freakin' clue. If it occurs again after I restore my XBMC setup, I suppose I'll try reinstalling the drivers again.

Hopefully this thread will help someone else if they run across the same (non) issue.

[DrBunsen]

I've got a GT430 as well and don't have the issues you described (though I do have horrible distortion when I FF or REW). Hopefully your hitches don't return.

The main reason why I wanted to reply is because I wanted to pass along that my card (a Zotac ONE fanless card) does show me POST information when booting the PC. Since yours isn't showing it, it may be that your motherboard is still outputting to the onboard card, even when it's disabled. I've seen settings for something like "Primary Video" in some BIOS setups. It shouldn't make a difference with the hitches you were seeing, but at least maybe you might be able to see the POST information.


Ray

[ECEC]

I've got a GT430 as well and don't have the issues you described (though I do have horrible distortion when I FF or REW). Hopefully your hitches don't return.

The main reason why I wanted to reply is because I wanted to pass along that my card (a Zotac ONE fanless card) does show me POST information when booting the PC. Since yours isn't showing it, it may be that your motherboard is still outputting to the onboard card, even when it's disabled. I've seen settings for something like "Primary Video" in some BIOS setups. It shouldn't make a difference with the hitches you were seeing, but at least maybe you might be able to see the POST information.


Ray

Since my last post I've determined that either my Win7 install is corrupt, or my network is completely FUBAR'd. At one point during my troubleshooting, simply opening up XBMC and navigating to a TV show was topping a full minute, and would instantly kick me off the wifi network. I even duplicated the issue with a USB wifi adapter. Since then, I've (or in reality a very good friend with all of the tools and the insane love of tough cable runs) run a cable to the HTPC so I can remove the wifi out of the situation all together.

Even just switching over to a LAN connection started causing me network problems in XBMC (and outside of it as well). I couldn't play music or HD files, but I could browse the network with no problems. Very strange. My new SSD drive gets her sometime next week, so I'm hoping that a fresh install of Win7 and XBMC will relieve the issue.

Thanks for the note about seeing the POST screen, I'll dig through the BIOS and see if I can find anything.