new EVA weirdness - copied fron beta forums

[doobre]

Hi there.. EVA 9150 has been fine until just recently..

but now "sometimes" not always, it will take a relatively huge amount of time [like 10-15 seconds] just to display the metadata on the EVA interface, the metadata related to a movie and during this time I can not do any other action, like scroll up/down, back, menu or anything .. it is locked in the process of displaying the metadata..??
by which I mean the duration\description\cast\jpg cover etc..

The only thing that I can think may be involved is that I had a virus on one of my PC's connected to the network by which the EVA was connected.. I re-imaged from the factory default and it scans "clean" using AVG and bitdefender but windows explorer does seem to crash too often..!!

this was the PC from which I had installed the EVA from originally.. [I have not gone thru the EVA setup process again from this PC as the EVA was working fine, except for this weirdness]... and surely this is not the issue as most of the time it is fine..?

I have scanned the EVA using the same Antivirus applications from another PC and they say clean..

So is it possible for a windows virus to get on to the network and the EVA to make this problem?????

EVA network test shows the same as usual and as before, between 31 and 38 Mbps for all shares..

help and some guidance please...
cheers
CD

[StephenB]

The EVA runs linux, so it shouldn't pick up a PC virus.

Where is the EVA media library stored? Possibly it is on one of the PC shares, in which case I think that is one part of the puzzle.

[doobre]

StephenB thanks as always for your reply.

I ran the setup from the PC software just in case, and initially that did seem to make any difference and I thought I had got.. but the next day the same issue...
Q.. Does the EVA rely on the PC for anything once installed ?

anyway further checking.... I found that at the time the problem is there the HD is showing as "not installed" when I go to scan the content on the HD..

If I switch off the unit completely (rear panel switch - not the restart) and switch on, then the HD shows up and I see the media on it and the slow reading of the metadata is gone.. with the HD installed and working properly a full scan of HD and two network shares took only a couple of minutes.. (I have the newest beta release which has been working fine for a long time)...

If I remove the HD completely and switch off/on the unit it will take nearly 30 minutes to do a full scan for media.. but I assume that it will store it somewhere else.. so I assume that the metadata or library info is stored on the HD?

and assuming there is a problem with the HD or it's connectivity this would explain the slow display of all the metadata, and why the playback of A/V media from other shares is unaffected.

So why would the HD work for a while and then stop?, it still sounds like it is turning even when apparently "not installed".. and when I remove it, it does not feel hot. 11

So how to confirm the HD is faulty and how do I fix..?

[muzicman61]

You can choose where you wish the library/metadata to be stored. You can also use USB flash drivers or external hard drives.

You can remove the drive, hook it up to the PC using a USB/Sata adapter and run PC diagnostics on the disk to verify if there are any issues with the drive.

[doobre]

Thanks Muzicman
I found the option to save the library to the NAS..

What diagnostics programme do you recommend ? this is all new to me..

and can I ask.. is it likely to be a problem in the connection between the HD and the EVA.? and how can I tell ?

and lastly for now - is the HD a special type\kind\brand\size\format\version.. etc for the EVA???

[StephenB]

Originally Posted by doobre

Thanks Muzicman
I found the option to save the library to the NAS..

What diagnostics programme do you recommend ? this is all new to me..

and can I ask.. is it likely to be a problem in the connection between the HD and the EVA.? and how can I tell ?

and lastly for now - is the HD a special type\kind\brand\size\format\version.. etc for the EVA???

The internal disk is an ordinary 3.5 inch SATA drive. It is formated for ext (not ntfs or fat32), which is typical for linux systems. This means that you can't access the files on your PC unless you get special tools (ext2fsd for instance). But you can test the drive.

I believe Netgear provides only Seagate drives. If so, the best diagnostic would be Seatools (downloaded from the Seagate web site). To test it, you either need to install it into your PC, or get an inexpensive SATA->USB adapter (with power supply). You can re-use this adapter for testing drives in your NAS (which at some point you will need to do...)

If your PC has an eSATA input, you can also use a SATA->eSATA cable, but you would still need the power supply. You can get this stuff pretty easily at Amazon.

SeaTools doesn't give you much drive status - if you want to see the SMART statistics stored in the drive, you can download Acronis Drive Monitor (a free app on the Acronis web site).

You can run the EVA w/o any hard drive at all - if you have a NAS that may be preferable anyway.