[linux-dvb] DVB corruption after a month or so.

[Andrew de Quincey <adq_dvb@lidskialf.net>]

Hi, has anyone else noticed something like this problem:

We have multiple servers on one site containing a mixture of recent 
TT/Hauppague DVB-T and DVB-S cards. They have been working perfectly up until 
now.

However, starting roughly on Monday, one by one, the servers have started 
generating really corrupt transport streams. The problem affects all cards in 
a server. Rebooting the server does not help. However if we power the server 
down completely for 10 seconds, then bring it back up, the problem vanishes. 
The problem does not reoccur on the servers which have had the power cycling. 

These servers have been on without a reboot for months. I'm wondering if 
they're hitting some sort of hardware limit. It's unlikely to be a software 
issue as a reboot doesn't help (unless we're not resetting something properly 
in the driver). Also, note that DVB-S AND DVB-T cards are suffering the same 
problem.. which points to a problem in the SAA7146 as the common component 
between them.

It is definitely not a heat issue; the servers are well air conditioned. I 
have just read the temperature of them using the onboard temperature sensors, 
and it seems fine.

My current thought is just to schedule downtime every month, and do a remote 
powerdown+powerup.