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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Digital Cinema Forum   » failure during a show - "Media Block Disconnected" (Page 1)

 
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Author Topic: failure during a show - "Media Block Disconnected"
Gavin Lewarne
Master Film Handler

Posts: 278
From: Plymouth, UK
Registered: Aug 2009

- posted 05-27-2013 01:27 PM      Profile for Gavin Lewarne   Email Gavin Lewarne   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
2 hours 5 minutes into a show today the picture and sound suddenly stopped. After a few seconds the server (DSS200) gave the error

"Transport Not Available - Media Block Disconnected"

I rebooted the projector and powered off the server and took the access panel off the rack to get to the back of the server. I checked the "link" cable between the server motherboard Ethernet port and the Cat862 link port - was secure and seemed fine. I re-seated the cable anyway and rebooted the server.

After everything was loaded It allowed me to continue the show. The little "!!" icon was flashing and the error message it reported was "There was a hardware fault and playback was interrupted".

I checked the server logs and all it listed was the media block disconnect at the time it happened and my subsequent reboot.

To be sure I have ordered another short gigabit Ethernet cable off ebay to replace our current link cable just in case the cable itself is acting up.

Has anyone else seen this?

If it happens again I will be calling our NOC but have to say that after 8 months of use this is the first show-stopper we have had. On this one occasion I am willing to brush it off as an isolated glitch but will certainly be keeping an eye on it.

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Philip Jones
Film Handler

Posts: 90
From: England
Registered: Dec 2011

- posted 05-27-2013 03:42 PM      Profile for Philip Jones   Email Philip Jones   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
We had this a few months back when we were doing the Twilight Marathon show. It happened about half way through the third film, exactly the same error message as you.

A projector reboot solved it and it's never happened again. I put it down to the server getting confused with such a massively long show (I think the file with the 4 films was about 900gb).

Ours is also a DSS200. The projector was an NEC2000

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Kris Verhanneman
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 182
From: Belgium
Registered: Dec 2009

- posted 05-27-2013 03:56 PM      Profile for Kris Verhanneman   Email Kris Verhanneman   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
for what it's worth...

reseat the cable between the DSS200 and the mediablock (remove and replug a few times)

If the network cable between those two is a small blue one replace that cable by another cat6 cable.

Should fix the thing.

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Gavin Lewarne
Master Film Handler

Posts: 278
From: Plymouth, UK
Registered: Aug 2009

- posted 05-27-2013 06:11 PM      Profile for Gavin Lewarne   Email Gavin Lewarne   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Kris Verhanneman
for what it's worth...

reseat the cable between the DSS200 and the mediablock (remove and replug a few times)

If the network cable between those two is a small blue one replace that cable by another cat6 cable.

Should fix the thing.
this is exactly what I did and have ordered a replacement for. On close inspection that little blue lead is not the best quality. The outer cover is not really tight around the wires and the wires themselves don't seem very tightly twisted.

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Tony Bandiera Jr
Film God

Posts: 3067
From: Moreland Idaho
Registered: Apr 2004

- posted 05-27-2013 11:07 PM      Profile for Tony Bandiera Jr   Email Tony Bandiera Jr   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Gavin:

If it happens again after replacing the external link cable,. you will need to check the internal cable at both the "Backplane" end and where it actually plugs into the CAT 682 media block. (To access the media block end you will need to remove the media block itself, very carefully, to get to that connector.)

The process does not endanger the security lockouts but MUST be done carefully, and I strongly urge you to contact Dolby Tech Support for the specific instructions.

I had to do that ONCE on an older server (DSS200-2) and it has worked fine since.

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Gavin Lewarne
Master Film Handler

Posts: 278
From: Plymouth, UK
Registered: Aug 2009

- posted 05-28-2013 05:08 AM      Profile for Gavin Lewarne   Email Gavin Lewarne   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Thanks tony. I had thought about the internal links too but any further than the external cable and ill have to go through the NOC.

But good info, and I'm glad I'm not the only one to have experienced this!

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Pete Naples
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1565
From: Dunfermline, Scotland
Registered: Feb 2001

- posted 05-28-2013 06:15 AM      Profile for Pete Naples   Email Pete Naples   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
It's not uncommon, the link cable is the obvious culprit to check first.

I've seen a couple of internal cable issues too.

What's really probably happening is that the Cat862 runs out of data for whatever reason, could be a physical connection issue as discussed, or possibly a slightly deeper issue with the RAID array.

There's been some improvements in the software of late too. It should be upgraded to latest when your equipment is serviced Gavin.

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Gavin Lewarne
Master Film Handler

Posts: 278
From: Plymouth, UK
Registered: Aug 2009

- posted 05-28-2013 09:01 AM      Profile for Gavin Lewarne   Email Gavin Lewarne   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Pete Naples
It's not uncommon, the link cable is the obvious culprit to check first.

I've seen a couple of internal cable issues too.

What's really probably happening is that the Cat862 runs out of data for whatever reason, could be a physical connection issue as discussed, or possibly a slightly deeper issue with the RAID array.

There's been some improvements in the software of late too. It should be upgraded to latest when your equipment is serviced Gavin.
Thanks Pete.

New cable will be arriving tomorrow and I will swap it asap. Its interesting your comment about a RAID issue, I would not have thought of that. I do regularly check the system tab on the server and we have 0 reallocated sectors on all drives and it never throws an error log entry when doing its automatic weekly early monday morning RAID verify.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

- posted 05-28-2013 03:59 PM      Profile for Steve Guttag   Email Steve Guttag   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I have found that it is generally best to pull logs after any incident and note, as accurately as possible, the date/time of the incident. Via the logs, one (e.g. Dolby) can determine what lead up to the failure...this beats changing cables on the hunch it may be the problem. If it is an under-flow or some such thing...then there is likely a software fix for it and that would be a better solution.

What version of the software are you running?

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Gavin Lewarne
Master Film Handler

Posts: 278
From: Plymouth, UK
Registered: Aug 2009

- posted 05-29-2013 05:11 AM      Profile for Gavin Lewarne   Email Gavin Lewarne   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
The server is running 4.5.4.2 and currently only has about 1tb of data on.it if that makes any difference.

The server itself is a DSS200-3 and was new in December. It also has a slightly.different backplane to anything in the Dolby documentation and anything our installer had seen before so most likely a newer revision.

Other than this issue and a couple.other minor interface glitches it has been completely reliable

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

- posted 05-29-2013 05:31 AM      Profile for Steve Guttag   Email Steve Guttag   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I can't say I've had any of our 4.5 systems have the mediablock get disconnected but I've had numerous SMS get disconnected (shouldn't stop the show but it does make it uncontrollable (no GUI) until a reboot. System 4.6.0 (32) will correct for that. I do recommend moving away from 4.5.x.x (they all had their undocumented features).

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Gavin Lewarne
Master Film Handler

Posts: 278
From: Plymouth, UK
Registered: Aug 2009

- posted 05-31-2013 01:56 PM      Profile for Gavin Lewarne   Email Gavin Lewarne   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Just an update on this.

When this issue happened I restarted the server (on Monday). Since that time it hasn't had any issues but up to yesterday the "debug (reconnect count)" in the cat862 section of the system>theatre devices tab had increased to 7

Yesterday morning the link cable was replaced with the new one I ordered and the server rebooted.

After 6 shows we now have a more normal "debug (reconnect count)" value of 1.

I guess the original link cable may well have been the culprit.

Thanks for the advice everyone [Smile]

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Marco Giustini
Film God

Posts: 2713
From: Reading, UK
Registered: Nov 2007

- posted 05-31-2013 05:41 PM      Profile for Marco Giustini   Email Marco Giustini   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I've seen a couple of servers which were disconnecting (one between shows, one during) and nothing seemed to fix the problem but a new 862. I am aware that the link cable is a crucial component and replacing it can usually fix this issues, but I somehow struggle to understand how a small cat6 ethernet cable could suddenly fail like that?
Anyway as Steve says, get rid of the evil 4.5.x [Smile]

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Gavin Lewarne
Master Film Handler

Posts: 278
From: Plymouth, UK
Registered: Aug 2009

- posted 05-31-2013 06:29 PM      Profile for Gavin Lewarne   Email Gavin Lewarne   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Marco Giustini
I've seen a couple of servers which were disconnecting (one between shows, one during) and nothing seemed to fix the problem but a new 862. I am aware that the link cable is a crucial component and replacing it can usually fix this issues, but I somehow struggle to understand how a small cat6 ethernet cable could suddenly fail like that?
Anyway as Steve says, get rid of the evil 4.5.x
Lets be honest - who is to say our server has not been randomly disconnecting since we have had it. It certainly has not interrupted any other shows but the server is on 24/7 so the chance of any disconnect stopping a show is actually slim.

I didnk know the significance of the "debug (reconnect count)" entry in the system tab before so didn't pay that particular item any attention. Only reading through older threads here lead me to have a look at that.

Other people have suggested swapping the (supplied) link cable, so it must be something others have seen, and fixed using this method.

As I said before the original blue cable as supplied with the server was not of the best quality when I looked at it closely.

It could have been faulty from the beginning.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

- posted 05-31-2013 08:15 PM      Profile for Steve Guttag   Email Steve Guttag   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
It would not have been the first crappy Ethernet cable out there. I've been disappointed with many premade cables (not picking on Dolby...just a general statement)...then again, I'm also disappointed with many handmade cables too.

Sometimes, reseating the stupid things clears stuff up too. One thing I've found is that when we use good cable with good connectors...we just don't get Ethernet issues.

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