Immediate deletion of recordings - windows update?

[maurohair]

I have been using sage for about 6 weeks now. I made the jump to Sage after because I didn't like the restrictions placed by Tivo (7 hours a movie to my PC, the 'copy protected' tivo file format...etc.

Anyway, I started with one server in the bedroom controlling my cable box with a PVR-150. Then I bought a second PVR-150 and set up another server in the living room. Initially I was going to use Sage Recorder and use the livingroom box as a network encoder. That was before I realized that Sage Recorder doesn't support the PVR-150. I know I could have run 2 PVR's in the bedroom box, but I didn't want to move the cable box from the living room to the bedroom, and then there was the issue of using 2 IR blasters on one machine.

Each server has two local separate HD's, each with a recording directory (CAPTURE_1, CAPTURE_2). I also set up the bedroom server to use the recording folders on the living room box by adding UNC share paths, and vice versa with living room box. So, each server has two local and two network recording folders; the two servers basically share 4 recording folders. Each server is running v2.2.8 stock STV. I use the 2.0 stock STV with Neilms dynamic menu module for the client driving the MVP's.

My network is wired, and I had no problems with this setup. I also have two mediaMVP's, one in the bedroom and one in the living room. I use Matt's plugin to run the MVP's from the bedroom server. The bedroom is my 'primary' machine (i.e. I try to record most stuff from this box) so that I can use the program data collected when I watch things on the MVP. The files recorded with the living room box show up in the video import directory on the MVP (i.e. Client running on bedroom box).

About a week ago I upgraded to v4.0. I noticed that for the past week, I would schedule recordings on each box but the recordings didn't seem to be there when I wanted to watch them. I know that it was recording because each box would change channel correctly, the interface would indicate that sage was 'recording', and I could even see the files through windows explorer. I had about 300GB available according to Sage System Information, I double checked my recording directories in setup and made sure that the diskspace rule was set to 'use all'. I thought I was going nuts. Then I thought that it was a problem with version 4.0. So, I unistalled everything, deleted the Frey Technologies and Sage TV folders and jumped back to version 2.2.8

The problem was not solved. I noticed that it would record files, and immediately after recording the file would be deleted..poof! within seconds of the recording finishing. I then unistalled and reinstalled everything about 5 times to no avail. I had a hunch that it wasn't a Sage problem becuase both version 4 and 2.2.8 had the same problem. Also, both separate machines had the same problem. I even changed the 'seeker_delete_partials_IR_off' thingy to false in the Sage properties file. Didn't do a thing.

In complete despair, I checked my system restore points. I suspect that the problem started after a windows update that required an automatic restart of my machines. Last night, I rolled back both machines to before the update and it seems to have worked - so far. I scheduled some recordings in the night to run as a test, and they are still there. I'm still going to monitor the situation to see if the problem is solved.

Has anything like this happened to anyone else? I'm running XP home SP2 on each box, with automatic updates on (until yesterday - now auto updates are off). I'd appreciate any input....cheers

[maurohair]

I forgot to mention, the windows update in question was identified in my restore point as 'Software Distribution Service 2.0'. I have no idea what that is or what it does.

[Opus4]

Unless SageTV considered the recording files to be corrupt for some reason, it shouldn't be deleting scheduled recordings like that. Maybe the recordings were broken up into many little files?

One thing you should check, though, is to make sure there is nothing like Norton Protected Recycle Bin turned on for your recording dirs -- when SageTV has to delete a recording to make room for a new one, the file continues to take up space & another recording gets deleted... and on and on. (This doesn't sound like what you described, but I thought I would mention it anyway.)

- Andy

[maurohair]

Thanks for the reply Opus. I had read that the files could become broken up by background processes, and therefore sage would delete the 'mangled files', however, I could literally see that it was creating one file for each recording.

I never got a chance to test the files to see if they would play in other apps because they were immediately deleted. This occurred on both the local disks and network disks. These were manual recordings, so logically I thought that the "delete_partial" flag in the sage properties file would not apply.

It just seemed odd that two different systems, which had performed flawlessly for 5 weeks would suddenly do this. I mean, one system going nuts is one thing, but both at the same time.....when they are two independent systems? After much thought, it occurred to me that it had to be something outside of Sage.

I don't think I have a protected recycle bin, my AV on both machines is NOD32. In anycase, it was working fine before. The only common denominator is the windows update that installed itself automatically and restarted the machines.

I looked in the add/remove programs to see if I could see any new XP hotfix that might be causing the problem. Nothing. Just SP2 which has been there for a while.

The test recordings I made are still there (thank God), and I'm reluctant to undo my restore operation to see if I can duplicate the deletion problem. However, all other things being equal, I don't know what else it could possibly be. My upgrade to v4.0 coincidentally occurred around the same time as the windows update. If it was a bug in v4.0 the Sage community would be screaming blue murder by now. The only 'event' on my system was this blasted windows update. Who knows?