Anyone else find 3.x completely unstable?

[mogrinz]

I'm a little concerned, b/c I not seeing anyone reporting the same problems I'm having...

I had a rock-solid 2.x experience, and Sage would run forever w/o problems. Since trying to migrate to 3, I can get 1 to 2 days uptime at best. Then, Sage totally locks the system, making a forced power-off the only way out.

I've gone back to the basics: A clean Windows XP SP2 install. I've removed all cards and USB devices except my PVR-350 (not using the card's output; had too much trouble there in the past) and my ATI all-in-wonder. I'm using the same Hauppauge drivers I used w/ 2.x

Last night I installed Sage on top of this, left it in "watch live tv", and woke up this morning to find it frozen solid again. I've missed almost all my favorties for the past 2 months b/c of this. Thank God for bittorrent!

The system runs fine w/o sage running, so I think that eliminates any heat/memory/cpu/etc concerns.

I've filed a bug report, but how do you really chase down a problem that is essentially "the software locks after running x hours". Especially since no one else seems to be having this issue? My greatest fear is that 3.x ships and I still have these problems. Then I'd have no choice but to look elsewhere.

[Goodspike]

I only found it unstable in the way you describe when Full Screen Exclusive is set to "yes." If you have that on, try turning it off.

Also, have you tried service mode? That should help you in the missed recordings areas. Even if the program crashes (and it doesn't even need to be on) the service should continue recording.

[michelkenny]

I've been using the betas since they came out and never had 1 single problem. As of 3.0.11 I've also been using FSE +VMR9 mode.

[Kanati]

I was unable to use FSE as well because it would lock up if I switched from full screen to windowed mode. And last night I had to kill sage and comskip which had the cpu pegged at 100% and sage would take 20-30 seconds to respond to a button press.

But that's the only problems I've encountered other than tiny little annoyances. I'm currently using 3.0.11 with SageMC16x9.

[cmaffia]

Not sure if this was already explained, and if so my apologies.
What are the advantages to using FSE? It never worked for me (maybe because I am using a AGP FX5200. What models allow FSE and again what is the advantage of using it?

Originally Posted by Kanati

I was unable to use FSE as well because it would lock up if I switched from full screen to windowed mode. And last night I had to kill sage and comskip which had the cpu pegged at 100% and sage would take 20-30 seconds to respond to a button press.

But that's the only problems I've encountered other than tiny little annoyances. I'm currently using 3.0.11 with SageMC16x9.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by cmaffia

What are the advantages to using FSE? It never worked for me (maybe because I am using a AGP FX5200. What models allow FSE and again what is the advantage of using it?

VMR9 requires a lot of GPU and CPU resources (especially at high resolutions and for playing back HDTV). This can be shown by seeing skipping/stuttering, or tearing (screen split diagonally showing two half-frames) -- very annoying on slow horizontal pans.

FSE mode means that only Sage has access to the graphics card (hence the Exclusive) and all other windows are hidden (even those with 'always on top'). This should mean that the GPU is dedicated to Sage. It was meant to be the holy grail for VMR9 playback, and other apps such as ZoomPlayer, BTV, MCE use it...

It should work on your FX5200 -- it does on my dev platform -- provided you are using VMR9 with 3d accelleration enabled.

One way of confirming if FSE is in use (instead of normal full-screen VMR9) is to have an always-on-top window (such as the task manager). It will be hidden in FSE mode.

[mkelly4ca]

What's the advantage of VMR9?

[mogrinz]

I think I'm still alone here: When I say Sage locks up my machine - I don't mean it crashes, or that other Windows programs are still responsive...

When Sage locks, it takes the entire machine with it. You can ping it on the network, but that's it. No ctrl-alt-del, no mouse, nothing. Frozen solid. I have to basically unplug it to get it back.

I've been using the betas since they came out and never had 1 single problem. As of 3.0.11 I've also been using FSE +VMR9 mode.

I'm happy for you, and I think most people are having your experience - but if this thread becomes a bunch of "it works for me!", it doesn't really help

I just want to know if anyone else has my problems

Tx

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by mogrinz

I think I'm still alone here: When I say Sage locks up my machine - I don't mean it crashes, or that other Windows programs are still responsive...

When Sage locks, it takes the entire machine with it. You can ping it on the network, but that's it. No ctrl-alt-del, no mouse, nothing. Frozen solid. I have to basically unplug it to get it back.

Well, if you're using FSE mode, it sort of seems that way if Sage hangs, because it has the screen, it's frozen, and there's no way to stop it (that I've found).

That's why I asked if you were using FSE mode. I get frequent crashes with that turned on.

[cmaffia]

Originally Posted by nielm

It should work on your FX5200 -- it does on my dev platform -- provided you are using VMR9 with 3d accelleration enabled.

I am not able to get it to work with mine.. fresh installs and all. I've tried every beta so far too. I can confirm that I am using VMR9 with 3d accelleration enabled. I am at work so I can't give you the error message that it gives me. I just assumed that the feature wasn't compatible with my card.

[mogrinz]

Originally Posted by Goodspike

That's why I asked if you were using FSE mode. I get frequent crashes with that turned on.

Nope; not using FSE.

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by mkelly4ca

What's the advantage of VMR9?

I didn't want to asked

[humptybump]

Originally Posted by mogrinz

I think I'm still alone here: When I say Sage locks up my machine - I don't mean it crashes, or that other Windows programs are still responsive... When Sage locks, it takes the entire machine with it. No ctrl-alt-del ...

I have this very problem when I use any Video decoder other than the SageTV one or the Hauppauge one - i.e. If I try to use the NVIDIA, etc. MPEG decoders.

I gave up trying to figure things out and just stayed with the Hauppauge software based decoder (InterVideo NonCSS Video Decoder for Hauppauge) - I have a PVR-500.

I had this same problem with SageTV 2.1

[mogrinz]

FWIW, I don't think it was the decoders - I'm using the Frey ones at the moment, but I do think I may have found the problem. We'll see tomorrow AM if I turn on the TV and Sage isn't frozen.

I have been running Full-screen, not FSE, and while investigating some driver versions, etc had switched Sage into a window. Lo and behold, Windows pops up w/ a "delayed write error" writing the recording to my D drive. After that, the machine was locked. That error must have been happening while I was full-screen, but it was never shown. I had my 250g D drive on a Promise Ultra 100 TX2 controller. I updated my mb drivers and pulled the now no-longer necessary Promise controller. So far, no write delays. Some graphic/display issues, but they may be from other changes I was making while trying to track down the problem.

Fingers crossed...

[TwistedMelon]

Originally Posted by mogrinz

I think I'm still alone here: When I say Sage locks up my machine - I don't mean it crashes, or that other Windows programs are still responsive...

I have the exact same problem. You're not alone. However, the hard hang doesn't happen at any sort of regular interval. I've not changed anything on my system since the time I set it up. Well, since the time I set up SageTV (I had to remove the Snapstream garbage after evaluating that POS).

Anyway, I've had Sage run fine for a week and perhaps a bit more. Sometimes only 2 or 3 days. Over the past week though it hasn't been able to stay up for a consecutive 24 hours, hanging about 2 times per day.

I'm about to update to the latest RC to see if anything changes.

ASUS motherboard with P4 2.6GHz and 1GB of RAM. 2x200GB SATA HD connected to the mobo's controller.

I'm running the Sage Service on Windows XP MCE 2005 (MCE itself is disabled).

Using Hauppauge PVR-500MCE (I don't seem to have any Hauppauge decoders available though)

I'm using Overlay renderer as VMR9 drops frames regardless of which video card I try (have tried ATI 9600, 9700, 9800).

Using ffdshow filter for decoding. The Sage decoder seems to only decode a single NTSC field, not a full frame, regardless of what settings I make. (I saw the hangs before installing ffdshow).

And my OS is up to date with all the latest security patches (a couple of times I was ready to blame those patches foor the problems).

Once I get everything set up again I'll make sure to leave it in windowed mode over night so I can check for any possible errors in the morning. I'm also about to check my Windows Event log to see if anything comes up in there.

Bruno

[oolong]

I've had the same locking/hanging problems ever since the last build. The one before that was fine...

It seems to be getting worse every day. I only need to hit fast forward or rewind to lock it up for 10, 20, 30 seconds... And soon as I hit play on a show it will lock for 10, 20, 30 seconds.

Not running in FSE mode either...

I have not tried the RC yet, but this is getting really bad...

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by mogrinz

Windows pops up w/ a "delayed write error" writing the recording to my D drive. After that, the machine was locked. That error must have been happening while I was full-screen, but it was never shown. I had my 250g D drive on a Promise Ultra 100 TX2 controller.

I've gotten the "delayed write error"s before with add-on HD controllers. I've used a Promise(Maxtor) Ultra 100 TX2, Maxtor SATA150 card, and even a Belkin controller, I have gotten "delayed write errors" with all of them Moved some drives back on to the MB and haven't seen any errors in a week. I've had those errors on 2 different motherboards and 2 different WinXP installs, so it just seems that those cheapy HD controllers just aren't up to the task with 4 HD's recording at the same time. Hopefully a good hardware RAID card would be able to keep up.

I wish I could find a IDE RAID card with OCE and up to 8 drives, only seen 4-channel OCE'd cards.

[dvd_maniac]

I have the 3ware 9500s-8 SATA raid-5 card and I was getting getting the "delayed write error" messages a few times. I have 4x400GB Seagate drives attached. I've had to rebuild the array 4x in the last 3 months because of it.

[GbrNole]

my pc became unstable when the fricking fan fell off my 6600gt!!!!

glued a new one on and it's all good now.

actually since i mention it it worked out well because the stock fan on my msi 6600gt is fairly quiet but could be better. when it fell off i took a good quality quiet 60mm fan, cut the fan body off with a dremel and glued the fan motor/blades assembly to the stock heat sink. i had to make the cover hole slightly larger with the dremel but it took about 5 minutes.

the card is noticably more quiet now and runs a little cooler. just food for thought for those with 6600gt agp's with noisy fans.

[mogrinz]

Well, since I moved the HD back to the motherboard and eliminated the Ultra 100 TX2, no more delayed write errors. Sage was up almost all weekend and finally hung tonight - but Windows was still responsive, so at least I was able to kill/restart Sage. I consider this a big step from where I was at least.