DVB - PC Cards Anyone had this problem?

[elyl]

Anyone had this problem? (resolved)

This started happening a couple of days ago, and hasn't sorted itself out. Most of the channels are fine on my dual FloppyDTV setup, but if I switch to a handful (Dave, UK Gold+1) then the screen goes blank. Nothing too unusual there, the channel's just off-air, or the signal's poor or something... the problem is, once I've switched to one of these channels, when I try switching back to a working channel, nothing is displayed for those either! I then have to reboot the system (or restart the FireDTV Common Interface service) to get video back on these channels.

It does this without fail on the affected channels, in VistaMC and also in the FireDTV Viewer. The strange thing is, if I load up the FireDTV CI program, whenever I switch to one of the dodgy channels, the CI program pops up, and seems to cycle through picking up the CAM, and saying the CAM is detached (CI program window title changes to CI Module Detached for a couple of seconds, then goes back to normal, and the boxkey/NAG details popup, then it goes back to CI Module Detached, and just loops at this). I thought this might be an indication that my CAM was dead, but I have dual tuners and I tried it with just one cam at a time, and the same thing happened with both of them.

I also tried reinstalling Vista on a seperate partition just in case my installation had been messed up, but got the same problem. Anyone else had this problem before?

 

[Jip]

ive been having some problems recently. ive got a tt1500c and using dvbviewer. it was all good, pretty much all the channels worked then some of them just stopped. switching back and forth made some work. thought it was a signal problem so i played with my variable antuattor, but that didnt seem to sort it

dunno if its related

 

[señor ding dong]

Me too with DVBviewer and Vplug. Went a couple of Vplug versions back. Problem solved.

 

[elyl]

I'm not using Vplug, I'm using proper CAMs.

 

[elyl]

OK guys, I managed to resolve this problem. I am not going to reveal how, because I want to see if it starts happening to other people.

I have a sneaking suspicion that VM are up to their old tricks. I'm sure you've heard that certain hacked set-top-boxes (Starview, Eurovox, etc) tend to get "hit" at various times, where they stop decoding the encrypted channels (StarView, if I remember, was the worst for this). People believe this was ECM (electronic counter-measures, fancy!) by VM in an attempt to deliberately cause these boxes to fail.

The precedent for this was confirmed when VM started to target hacked cable modems, and managed to "brick" a number of them by using a backdoor attack.

Now, if Virgin had found a way to attack probably the most common type of CAM that can decode their Nagravision encryption, I reckon they'd test it on a handful of channels in one area first (the cable modem attack took place in one ex-NTL area, and was then rolled out to the rest of the country). I may be completely wrong, but this might be what happened to me.

The symptoms of the problem were, when I switched to one of the dodgy channels (Dave, UK Gold +1, Bravo, Bravo +1, Bravo 2, Sky Sports 1,2,3 - all these are on various transponders, so not really any pattern to the madness) my CAM seemed to go into an endless loop of resetting itself, and re-establishing connection with the CI. This would happen until I changed the channel away from the dodgy one, and either rebooted the system or removed/reinserted the CAM (the CAM would effectively be useless after viewing one of these channels until you removed power from it).
It's possible VM were transmitting something on the data stream of these channels which causes the Joker-based CAMs to have a fit.


Now, this is all speculation for the time being, and as I say, I have a fix for the problem, but I'm not going to make it public on this forum (which the VM ECM folk doubtless read). If other people have symptoms exactly matching my problem, please reply on this thread.

 

[garlicbred]

My cam crashes out on a few channels too - exactly as you say, I started a thread about it somewhere

 

[elyl]

Does viewing one of these channels crash out your CAM completely? If you switch to another encrypted channel what happens? What area are you in?

 

[cafe.racer]

I haven't had it working long, but my zetacam did it once yesterday.

It sounds very similar to what the Diablos were like before the November FireDTV update, not that it's limited to the FireDTV.

I'll keep trying the Diablo vs the zeta, as it might be a bit too early to say.

 

[koni55]

Same thing here with those channels with a zetacam blue joker 0.79 and fun4 combo.

Any chance you can PM me the solution please?

Thanks.

Koni55

 

[grumpy]

Same thing here with those channels with a zetacam blue joker 0.79 and fun4 combo.

Any chance you can PM me the solution please?

Thanks.

Koni55

I seem to be having the same trouble with a zeta flashed to joker 0.79 in exCW

is there a solution to this? could someone maybe PM me the fix, its been driving me bonkers...

 

[maw123]

I hadn't noticed this problem before (as i tend to do most of my recording on the free to air channels) but after reading this thread I experimented switching to one of the channels mentioned, and I had the same issue, and could not view any encrypted channels until i rebooted ny PC (removing/reinserting cam to my firedtv wouldn't do the trick)

Elyl, would you be able to PM me a copy of your solution as well?

Thanks

 

[Klutsh]

Just tested this, ExNTL Pure area.
I am able to switch to all the above channels without any problems, I'm using:
FloppyDTV C/CI, hardware 1.26.02, Firmware 2.4.0 - B51440.
BlueZeta flashed with Joker 0.79.
Titanium 2 card, Latest AU files.

I am using Vista x32 SP1, and am currently veiwing with DVBViewer and MediaPortal / TV-Server 1.0 RC1
I was also using Vista MCE 2 days ago, will try that again soon, I killed it trying to sort the channels out.

however I do know of someone in the same area that is currently experiencing problems like this but I think it is more his TT1500 and vplug setup rarther than decrypting issues.

 

[neathdrew]

nver had this issue....

using vista mce with floppydtv
blue zeta cam or white icecrypt with 0.79 joker firmware
fun 5 with au or sometimes mosc with au

only issues i've had is with all these recent keyrolls and the new au method the fun went down so used a rom 11mosc for a while but now using the latest flash for the fun all ok......does take a min or to to update keys after a roll sometimes - other times a few seconds but all channels work fine......

 

[koni55]

I use fun 4's, I wonder if that is the common factor?

If anyone else has this issue can you post your setup details to see if we can find a common cause.

Fun4 - flashed AU ex-TW
Zetacam blue flashed Joker 0.79
Firedtv both the version 1 and version 2 - latest firmware.

I wonder if a fun5 would fix this?

Cheers

Koni55