Ceton Infinitv USB disappearing

[nurho83]

Ok, for some reason I’m having this same problem with my Infinitv USB tuner.  I had a working setup with a PCIe version of the Infinitv.  I wanted an additional four tuners and, because it’s a tad toasty inside my case I decided to go with the USB version of the tuner.  After getting it installed and getting the cablecards paired, everything seemed fine.  However, for some reason, the USB tuner just disappears at times.  I’ll get notices that the tuner cannot be found (<ShowName> was not recorded because the tuner is not working or is not installed.).  When I go to the Diagnostics thing in Media Center I only see the PCIe card.  When I go to the Ceton diagnostic I only see the PCIe card.  I have to unplug the power from my USB and replug it in.  Then it works fine.  I’ve disabled every power saving setting I know to disable and it’s still happening.  Tonight I thought to reboot the computer in hopes of avoiding it but that didn’t help either.  Anyone run in to anything similar?  

Asus P5W Motherboard with some flavor of a quad core Intel CPU, 6GB of RAM.  Suggestions welcome.  

I’ve submitted a ticket to Ceton but thought I’d reach out here to see if anyone had any ideas.  

[mpatnode]

I had a similar problem with one of my internal ATI tuners (which is just a USB device).   I ended up running a USB cable out the back of the case and plugging it back into a different USB Hub, which solved the problem for me.   You may just want to try a different USB port on the machine that maps to a different controller if you haven’t already.

[captain_video]

I’ve used many different types of USB tuners over the years and this was a very common problem with just about all of them.  Sometimes the problem stemmed from a flaky USB hub, a bad connection, or bad cable.  If you’re connected directly to a USB port on the PC, try a different port.  If that doesn’t work, try a different cable.

I’ve got two internal InfiniTV4 tuners but never tried the USB version.  If it does not have an external power supply and only uses the USB port to provide power you may want to try using an external powered hub.  It’s possible the tuner is putting too much of a load on the internal USB port.  You might also want to try some contact cleaner on the USB connection.  Dirty contacts make for a bad or intermittent connection which could be causing your tuners to drop off line.

[prestonfaiks]

I had this exact same issue with my Ceton USB tuner the day after you posted.  I rebooted and that didn’t help.  I had to unplug it from the wall power (its not powered from USB).  After that, no issues so far.  The one thing I did notice was that windows informed me it had done an update after I did the reboot.  I wonder if the issue is related to performing that update.

[buceyes]

I had the same issue as well. “Solution” was to remove power from the Ceton device and plug it back in.  Hopefully a cause/fix can be found. Not easy to convince the wife to get rid of the cable co. DVR when the HTPC is flakey.

[prestonfaiks]

I had mine go unavailable temporarily (didn’t have to cycle power) again after printing to a USB-connnected photo printer. After that, I re-arranged how I plug the USB cables into the computer so that the Ceton Tuner is the only thing using that specific Host Controller (You can check this in Device Manager). Its been working so far (only a day or two) so hopefully that fixes the issue for good.

[jeffhesser]

i ran into this so often i began keeping a log of the occurrences and eventual solution.  Was happening nearly every day for a week while i was tracking it.  It generally required a reboot AND power cycling of the ceton USB device to resolve.  I have gone almost a week now without the issue recurring and my most recent solution was to stop using the off button on my harmony remote…. (started simply hitting power on the TV as all sound is run through the TV this has been fine)  Sounds odd but my hypothesis is there is a command in the built in off sequence that locks my machine or something which interrupts the USB communications and kills me.  I have not yet reprogrammed the harmony to a simplified power off but if this solution holds i will do that next.  

[nurho83]

I’ve been working on this with the Ceton people since I started the topic.  I’m still not sure what’s going on but I’ve discovered a couple of things.  At least part of the problem is rebooting the computer.  For some reason the USB tuner NEVER comes up in the Ceton diagnostic thing.  It shows up in device manager and I can even browse to the device’s web interface but it’s like Media Center can’t see it.  I’ve had this happen independent of a reboot but it happens with EVERY reboot.  I have to pull power on the device and plug it back in and it seems fine (knock on wood).  I’m still not entirely sure my initial problem wasn’t a cable or power issue but the reboot thing seems to drive the USB device nuts for some reason.  

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