Hi,

just got my Vista build working properly with my sat TV yesterday and scheduled a recording which didn't work. My system is:

Vista Ultimate 32, TV Pack + hacked DLL
HVR 4000 TV card
HD 4850 GFX card
Using Vista MCE to view TV

Through the Vista TV guide I set a recording for the middle of last night, I had read that you shouldn't immediately put the PC to sleep so I waited a minute after setting it and then put it to sleep.

This morning no recordings took place. I checked the BIOS and the sleep is S3 which from what I've read is the ideal one to have.

Any ideas why it didn't wake up and record? Hitting record while watching TV works like a charm, no problems.

Thanks

Try the MediaCenter Standby Tool (MST).  It fixes a lot of the problems with S3 sleep, scheduled recordings, and the like.  It's not entirely perfect, but it's 95% of the way there.

You should go take a look at what Media Center's own history log shows and what Windows' event log shows for why nothing happened.

This is a bug in TV Pack.  The guide will become corrupt, and scheduled recordings stop taking place.  Until a patch is released by MSFT, your only option is to completely go through TV setup again.  Even then, there's no guarantee that the guide won't become corrupt again.

Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Event Viewer

Look at the System and Media Center logs for that time span, maybe there are some clues.  I think S3 standby in Vista is still quite buggy and unreliable.  I've had problems on 2 different computers with 3 different video cards. 

Aaron

I just tried it again but this time instead of hitting the sleep button on my remote, I used the sleep option within MCE. Recording worked no problem. Highly weird.

aaronp:

....  I think S3 standby in Vista is still quite buggy and unreliable.  I've had problems on 2 different computers with 3 different video cards. 

Aaron

I have to disagree. As long as you have reasonably new hardware and BIOS (bug-free ACPI support), and the latest of any manufacturers' drivers, S3 sleep works very reliably, with no need for any standby tool. I accept that some manuafcturers' drivers are worse than others - for example when I had a Hauppauge tuner card it would rarely sleep on idle (and they acknowledged the bug), but with BlackGold everything works superbly. Sleep wake sleep wake, wake to record, sleep after record, away mode when recording, then sleep after that, correct sleep on idle, etc.

I would however say that when I tried TV Pack it did screw that reliability completely. At least in my experience.

The problem with Media Center is that everybody's experience is so different. That's not a bug, but a bit of a general Windows architectural flaw in my opinion. Maybe too much is delegated down to drivers.

JB

aaronp:

Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Event Viewer

Look at the System and Media Center logs for that time span, maybe there are some clues.  I think S3 standby in Vista is still quite buggy and unreliable.  I've had problems on 2 different computers with 3 different video cards. 

In my experience with the TV Pack guide corruption bug, there would be no evidence in Event Viewer of missed recordings.  The recordings would show up in my scheduled recordings list for that day, and when the time would come for the PC to wake and record, nothing happened.  No errors, no warnings, no crash files generated, no Media Center log entries created noting missed recordings or scheduling conflicts -- it'd just miss the recording.

And I agree with the previous commenter.  With fairly new hardware, S3 in Vista is very reliable.  The only problems I've had involved the PC randomly waking at unwanted times when I played around with installing WebGuide.

I suppose you guys will have to qualify what "fairly new hardware" means.  The newest hardware that I tested this with was a dual-core HP s3100n using a 8500GT graphics card.  It's not a high-end gaming machine by any means, but plenty modern enough to support Vista.  In fact it was manufactured after Vista was released and sold with Vista on it by HP. 

Specifically, the biggest problem that I had was TV-out video frequently (but not always) not returning when the machine wakes from S3 and occassionally returning with the wrong resolution.  I had this problem with another 8500GT (only difference being that it was full height) and an ATI 1650 and on two different computers (admittedly the other computer was an older P4).  I probably tried 10 different driver versions and every tweak and setting that I could locate on the net, but S3 was still inconsistent and enough so that I'm (sadly) back to having a 24X7 MCE machine and wasting a bunch of electricity.  Through my googling I found that many other people have had similar issues with S3 and Vista.  So I know I'm not alone.  Maybe this is the fault of the drivers, I frankly don't know, but it happened on multiple pieces of different mainstream fairly modern hardware so I doubt it's only the drivers.

Aaron

Well I guess that qualifies as fairly new hardware.

For what it's worth, my setup (full-time HTPC) is an Asus M2A-VM Mobo, AMD Sempron, and integrated ATI X1250 graphics. I switched to the Asus about a year ago that from a 3 year old Gigabyte Mobo, because I did have S3 sleep problems with that, and was as frustrated as you are now! Also, AMD and ATI are one and the same, and the Asus was an AMD accredited/approved socket AM2 Mobo, so I was fairly sure it would all work together, and it does.

I've got all the latest drivers, but it's worth saying that with standard 'Windows update' audio driver sometimes I'd have problems with either no-sound or distorted sound after wake-up, but with the latest RealTek driver from their website there are no such problems. With very early Catalyst drivers there were also problems with the screen not coming on after wake, but they've all been long-since fixed by ATI.

I guess if there are 'bugs' in the Vista S3 sleep process, then it's in the way it allows drivers to 'break the rules', or at least not do things Microsoft were expecting them to do - otherwise I can't see how everybody's experience is so different.

I wish there was single point of reference for 'Green-Button-User accredited' hardware and drivers, where everyone can rely on it working in the real World, and not just on the manufacturer's say-so.

JB

Heh, yeah, I don't mean to imply that it's universally buggy on everyone's system.  But it does seem to be one of those things that's extremely sensitive to motherboard and graphics hardware and drivers, and perhaps to the multitude of related settings so it's fair (IMO) to let people know that it's not uncommon to experience issues with it (regardless if where the fault is).  By the way, I'm a fan of Vista and I usually defend it against the hoards of naysayers, but it's not without its share of frustrations.

As a funny anecdote, the older P4 machine that I mentioned above was given to me years ago by MSFT for beta testing.  It's not a fair data point because it was one or two years before Vista but still a little enlightening that it doesn't work well with S3.  I seem to hear different iterations of which hardware "should" or "is qualified" to work with Vista, so admittedly I'm not sure where this older machine stands as far as whether I should expect features like this to work.

Aaron