andy vt's tools & blog

I've been using DVRMSToolbox 1.2.1.5 (with ComSkip) successfully to find/skip commercials on Vista SP1 MCE for the past month or so, and it's worked really well - beautiful piece of work!

Tonight, however, I noticed that the MCE autocommercial skipping addin had stopped working.  DVRMS files are still being processed (e.g., the XML files are being created) by filewatcher; but when watching programs in MCE, the autoskip component no longer worked; too, all of the remote keys (digits, left/right arrows to skip fwd/back, up/down arrows to enable/disable autoskip) had stopped working.  Restarting MCE and rebooting the system did not address the issue.

Per the troubleshooting instructions on your site, I enabled "write events" and checked the event log - upon starting MCE, I confirmed that "CommercialSkip Version 1.2.1.5" wrote an initialize event to the log (see full event details copied below); so the MCE addin appears to be installed, registered and launching properly ... yet it fails to take action, nor is it responding to key commands.

Any thoughts what may be going on, or suggestions on what the next diagnostic step should be?

Also, a general question - I've seen in the install instructions that one must run the RegisterCommercialSkipAddin.cmd tool to register the addin prior to use; however, this CMD app doesn't appear in the START menu ... is this for older versions of the app?  Does the DVRMSToolbox installer for 1.2.x automatically perform this registration for you (I presume it does, as the MCE addin worked for me immediately after I first installed the app).  Is it possible, in Vista, to reregister the addin?

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Following is the event log initialization entry created by the addin, upon starting MCE:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        CommercialSkipAddIn
Date:          1/8/2009 1:11:17 AM
Event ID:      0
Task Category: None
Level:         Information
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      Tango
Description:
User: arc
Initialize Registry Settings, CommercialSkip Version 1.2.1.5
CurrentAtscZoom = One
CurrentTvZoom = One
IsRegistered = True
NumberOfProcessors = 4
AutoReloadSettings = True
WriteOnMceStateChangeEvents = False
SkipBoxMinMinutes = 0
SkipDisplayType = SkipBar
SkipMaxMinutes = 65535
AutoSkip = True
WriteEvents = True
PromptScan = Prompt
KeyHandleDisableTime = 30
DisableAutoSkipOnBack = True
DisableKey = D7
ForwardKey = Right
BackKey = Left
SkipOnKey = Up
SkipOffKey = Down
CCToggle = D2
KeepDisplayActive = False
SuppressNotFound = True
Debug = False
TerminateAddin = D9
HandleKeys = True
SkipCommericals = True
TrackDvds = True
TrackDvdPerUser = False
BookmarkPath = C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\VideoBookmark
ReuseInterval = 30
DebugFilePath =
AllowedVariance = 10
WolMac = System.String[
WakeExperience = System.String[
ReprocessShow = D3
BookmarkResponseTimeout = 60
ToggleZoom = D1
ATSC169 = One
ATSC43 = Four
TV169 = One
TV43 = Four
AutoZoom = True
ProcessProfile = nativecommdetect
TreatAsTv = False
UseGraphForDetection = False
ForwardOnly = True
ProppageNag = False
SupressSkipDialog = False

Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="CommercialSkipAddIn" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">0</EventID>
    <Level>4</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-01-08T09:11:17.000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>33160</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>Tango</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>User: arc
Initialize Registry Settings, CommercialSkip Version 1.2.1.5
CurrentAtscZoom = One
CurrentTvZoom = One
IsRegistered = True
NumberOfProcessors = 4
AutoReloadSettings = True
WriteOnMceStateChangeEvents = False
SkipBoxMinMinutes = 0
SkipDisplayType = SkipBar
SkipMaxMinutes = 65535
AutoSkip = True
WriteEvents = True
PromptScan = Prompt
KeyHandleDisableTime = 30
DisableAutoSkipOnBack = True
DisableKey = D7
ForwardKey = Right
BackKey = Left
SkipOnKey = Up
SkipOffKey = Down
CCToggle = D2
KeepDisplayActive = False
SuppressNotFound = True
Debug = False
TerminateAddin = D9
HandleKeys = True
SkipCommericals = True
TrackDvds = True
TrackDvdPerUser = False
BookmarkPath = C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\VideoBookmark
ReuseInterval = 30
DebugFilePath =
AllowedVariance = 10
WolMac = System.String[
WakeExperience = System.String[
ReprocessShow = D3
BookmarkResponseTimeout = 60
ToggleZoom = D1
ATSC169 = One
ATSC43 = Four
TV169 = One
TV43 = Four
AutoZoom = True
ProcessProfile = nativecommdetect
TreatAsTv = False
UseGraphForDetection = False
ForwardOnly = True
ProppageNag = False
SupressSkipDialog = False
</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

 msas probably got broken by an update.  try doing a system restore back to a time where it still worked.

What is msas?  Is there another method to restore this service?  e.g., if I uninstall and then reinstall the DVRMS suite?

I've made a couple of changes to the MCE system (updated video driver, uninstalling troublesome apps like imon) which I'd rather not redo by going back - so I'd prefer uninstall/reinstall of DVRMS, if you think that'd suffice to to resolve the "msas" issue.

Question w/respect to uninstall/reinstall - will this preserve any customizations (e.g., to the process files rule, etc) that I've done?  Or should I make note of any such changes so that I can reapply the config after reinstall?

removing imon might be what did it.  i think they use MSAS (Media State Aggregation Service) for their vfd writer (AFAIK it's the only way to get that sort of MC info).

system restore may remove customizations done, copy the profiles dir to make sure you keep a copy.

aha - well, that would explain it ... yes, I removed IMON because I suspected it was causing (or at least contributing to) system crashes I was experiencing.  Removal of it has already cleared up one persistent MCE tuner error, so hopefully the system stability will be better as well.

Since imon is not present now, though (and I don't want to return to it via sys restore) - how else does DVRMSget access to MSAS?  e.g., if one installed DVRMS on an MCE system without imon, would the DVRMS installer install MSAS as well?  I'm still hoping that an uninstall/reinstall (and I'll archive the profiles dir in dvrms prior to doing this) will resolve the issue?

spent another few hours in troubleshooting tonight, still no luck :(

 I found another thread here (MCE AddIn not working in Vista Home Premium - http://babgvant.com/forums/t/2083.aspx) where I found some tips on reregistering both mcestate.dll (via installutil) and atl.dll (via regsvr32).

Prior to doing this, though, I confirmed that the MSAS process (c:\windows\ehome\ehmsas.exe) was running ... it looked to be started by svchost.exe.  I enabled "log MSAS events" in DVRMS' Commercial Skip tab GUI, but haven't found any evidence of these events being logged to Windows' event viewer (I monitored system and application).

I then proceeded with reregistering first mcestate.dll, then atl.dll - in both cases, killed the running ehmsas process first and then started MCE, which rekicked off the ehmsas .... neither of these resolved the problem.  Although DVRMS' file processing is still working (as evidenced by log files and creation of the XML files), the MCE addin/control is nonexistent.

Finally, I enabled extra logging (per the troubleshooting steps) by adding DebugMceState = 1 and CommercialSkip = 1 to HKLM\Software\DvrmsToolbox ... on the web page it indicated that these log files were written to %PUBLIC%\DvrmsToolbox, but I found no evidence of any new files there while running the MCE shell and playing back programs - is this the expected place for the log files?

I did find one (and only one) occurrence of an ehmsas error in Windows' event log, from yesterday (when the problems started, I believe); does this help shed any light on the issue?

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-RestartManager
Date:          1/8/2009 10:24:20 PM
Event ID:      10010
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:     
User:          Tango\arc
Computer:      Tango
Description:
Application 'C:\Windows\ehome\ehmsas.exe' (pid 3104) cannot be restarted - Application SID does not match Conductor SID..
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-RestartManager" Guid="{0888e5ef-9b98-4695-979d-e92ce4247224}" />
    <EventID>10010</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>3</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-01-09T06:24:20.489Z" />
    <EventRecordID>33298</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="4108" ThreadID="5480" />
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>Tango</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-2383914143-2785776594-1338692952-1001" />
  </System>
  <UserData>
    <RmUnsupportedRestartEvent xmlns:auto-ns2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events" xmlns="http://www.microsoft.com/2005/08/Windows/Reliability/RestartManager/">
      <RmSessionId>1</RmSessionId>
      <Pid>3104</Pid>
      <FullPath>C:\Windows\ehome\ehmsas.exe</FullPath>
      <DisplayName>Media Center Media Status Aggregator Service</DisplayName>
      <AppVersion>0</AppVersion>
      <AppType>0</AppType>
      <TSSessionId>1</TSSessionId>
      <Status>67108865</Status>
      <Reason>1</Reason>
    </RmUnsupportedRestartEvent>
  </UserData>
</Event>

hiya - just checking back, got this resolved ... finally swalled my tech cred pride and used ol' system restore - sure enough, soon as I did that BAM! the blasted MCE addon starts working again.  So my pride is damaged, but at least I don't have to watch any more commercials while nursing it ;)

Thanks!