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Problem Tracking
This page is used to track problems with technical issues of concern to MCTV 15 equipment, production facilities, cable casting and Internet streaming. New material is added to the top of the list. All reports from phone, email or word of month should be recorded on this page.
Open Issues
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Closed Issues
Office: Google's gmail and Spam
Apr 8, 2009
Kathy: I tried using the help section of Gmail to find out how to delete all the spam messages with one click and this is the answer I received.
The very first line of your spam message list should contain the link "Delete all spam messages now", which will do the trick.
However, we do not have a "Delete all spam messages now" button at the top or anywhere else that I can see. Any suggestions? I have been trying to empty the spam folder but since there were over 1500 in there this morning, I don't have time to delete them page by
page. - Kathy
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- Google gmail is very good at identifying undesirable emails and flags them as Spam. These email as placed in a Spam folder and are automatically scheduled for deletion 30 days after they have been delivered.
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- It is not necessary, nor desirable to manually delete spam from this folder. No spam filter is perfect! This folder should be thought of as a safety net. Desirable emails can be retrieved from the Spam folder only if they have not been deleted. By default, Google provides 30 days worth of Spam retention which is adequate time to find and reclassify good emails.
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- "Delete all spam messages now" is available in the Spam section just before the first email item. I checked this link on both Mac and Windows using several different browsers. Again, it is not a good idea to be manually deleting spam, just allow Google gmail to handle it.
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- Time: < 15mins - John Cumming
Studio: Power problems on Camera 3
Apr 7, 2009
Kathy reported that Camera 3 has an intermittent power issue. It seemed to be working fine during the setup of this afternoons shoot. I will investigate. - John Cumming
Studio: Bad Audio Levels
Apr 7, 2009
Kathy reported that audio levels were bad during recent productions conducted by students. A quick investigation by Todd and John could but find anything at fault. Total time spent <20 mins. Many issues of this type are as a result of a poor understanding of the equipment and it's setup. I will continue monitor for problems. -John Cumming
Media Server: Music playing over video
Apr 7, 2009
Todd Cory reported by telephone to John Cumming that music was playing over one of our locally sponsored shows. The cause of this is currently unknown. The solution was to quit and rerun the Media Server software. I spent less than 10mins to login remotely, rerun and check the output of the media server. There might be a slow memory leek within the Flash/Zinc architecture that becomes known via long run times. I requested a weekly reboot from the Program Director. I am not sure this is happening. -John Cumming
Media Server: Graph Edit Failed
Sept 19, 2008
Todd Cory reported to Kathy that the media server had an error message on the screen. This message reported that 'Graph Edit.exe' had failed. This software is developed by Microsoft and used by Zoom player in the playback of our videos. Zoom player was attempting to playback Judith's 08-291 show on Fri, 7am when the failure occurred. The error message was dismissed. I ran Judith's show by hand and it seemed to be functioning correct. I ran the previous show 'Peak Moment'. It too seemed to run correctly. Without repeatability I have no way to determine the root problem that caused the failure. We should continue to monitor for further failures. - John Cumming
Media Server: Clock Errors
Sept 16, 2008
Todd Cory reported several problems on Tuesday mornings playback. Gangji is an hour long show. The first half hour played correctly. The second half hour was interrupted by the music that plays during the EBB. Todd also reported that the onscreen clock was incorrect. Both Kathy and John checked that schedule, XML and CUT files for shows that had an issue. No problems found. The program director will re-run the media server software once a week during the regular schedule update. We will endeavor to monitor for playback problems. - John Cumming
Media Server: No Audio on Some Shows
Sept 13, 2008
Val Sheppard reported a problem with the audio for California Country. Investigation brought to light that both 'California County' and 'Midnight Massacre Theatre' had audio encoded in LPCM format. LPCM is the European official formating for DVD audio. In the USA the offical format is Dolby Digital AC3. Despite being encoded in the European format it should work correctly within our playback system. Further investigation will continue on Tuesday, Sept 16, 2008. All scheduled playback of 'California County' and 'Midnight Massacre Theatre' will play without audio until a technical fix can be implemented. - John Cumming
Sept 15, 2008
Audra Gibson reported the audio problem via the new phone system. The Monday evening 6:30pm showing of California Country played without audio. This is the same problem that Val reported on Sept 13. Investigation will be conducted on Tuesday, Sept 16. - John Cumming
Sept 16, 2008
In an effort to fix audio dropout problems, the 'Haali's Media Splitter' http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/ was installed on the media server. This software is yet another MPEG2 demultiplexer that has some high end capabilities. Unfortunately this changed the way the 'California County' played back but did not make the audio work correctly. - John Cumming
Removing the Haali Splitter but the 'impossible'. The audio now works on all the shows regardless of being AC3 or LPCM encoded. Additional checks on show playback confirmed that all required features are working correctly. - John Cumming
Media Server: Incorrect Playback
Sept 5, 2008
Some programming on channel 15 plays the first few seconds of the video. In correct operation, this is normally skipped over during the start up of the video. The Program Director prepares a cut file for each show to be played. This cut file describes which part of the video is to be played, usually some video is removed from the beginning and at the end of the show. - John Cumming
Sept 9, 2008
All problematic videos were reviewed. The cut files were correct for both the show start and end. Further investigation showed that the media server was not correctly demultiplexing some of the shows. The MPEG2 splitter was replaced with the 'Gabest Universal Open Source MPEG Splitter v1.0.0.3'. This appeared to fix playback problems with the show opening and closing. - John Cumming
Media Server: Hum on Audio
Aug 29, 2008
All programs on ch 15 (including the satellite services) have a 60 hz hum now. Can you check the cable leaving from the mini-t pro to the IF modulator to see if that lost the ground wire please? - Todd Cory
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- The new media server was installed on Aug 22, 2008. It looks like that might be part of the problem. I will have a look at it next week. - John Cumming
Media Server: Network Permissions
Aug 27, 2008
The 'media_clean' utility application can not be ran correctly from a network attached drive. Windows prevents the application from accessing files stored on the network drive.
The new media server and the editing computer at the studio are now connected by a gigabit lan. This allows for very fast transfers on new programming for DVD's directly to the media server.
In the process of preparing a new schedule we make use of a utility application to create and verify every program and schedule entry. Windows networking is preventing this application from access the files stored on the media server when the application is run from the editing computer.
The short term solution is to finish the scheduling process on the media server. This is similar to what we have been doing. For the long term, I will investigate windows networking access permissions. - John Cumming
Media Server: DVD Ripping Failures
Aug 27, 2008
Kathy reports what many DVD's that were submitted for cablecast can not be read on the editing computer. Some of the disks however can be successfully read on the office computer.
With the new gigabit lan setup, it is very important that DVD's are prepared on the editing computer in order to take full advantage of the network speed. Therefore the DVD device needs to be fixed in order to read all our submitted disks.
The editing computer drive reads all disks that we make at the studio and burns all our disks that we get donations for.
I have done initial tests on several on the DVD's on a different system and found no problems with the disks. Turning my attention to the editing computer:
- looked for driver updates for the DVD drive - Non available; and
- updated the flash memory for the DVD drive - No effect;
What next? I will try swapping DVD drives in order to rule our software problems. I the problem drive does not work in another system then it will have to be replaced. If does nor work my headache will continue! - John Cumming
Sept 2, 2008
I swapped out the DVD reader from 'Scotty' the live production computer with the CD reader in 'Spock' the editing computer system. All DVD's can now be read using this drive. This proves that the DVD burner in Spock has read issues with many of the DVD's we tried to use with it. Kathy has been instructed to use the DVD reader for preparing shows. The DVD burner seems to work fine for burning the disks. No further acting is required at this time. - John Cumming
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