Power outage apparently corrupts wiz.bin file. Help!

[bmcraig]

I have been using Sage for less than a month without any real issues. Today, we had a two second power outage. When I rebooted the computer, my scheduled recordings were missing. It is not a filter issue. I am pretty sure it is the wiz.bin file that is the problem (based on other threads on this subject) My .bak to wiz.bin is dated about the same time, so, both are corrupted. I have deleted my sources and reinstalled them. I have tried programing future recordings, but nothing is getting picked up or recording.

I have contacted support. I have seen others write with similar issues, but it looks like the only thing to do is contact tech support.

I know it may be several hours before I hear from them. Does anyone know how to rebuild the wiz.bin file or otherwise get this thing recording again? I don't mind losing my previously scheduled recordings (a pain, but I can live with it). But I would like to be able to set up recordings again ASAP.

Thanks,
Brent

[blade]

How long did you wait after rebooting Sage before you began changing things? Sometimes after rebooting Sage it takes several minutes (sometimes 5-10) before my upcoming recording schedule reappears.

[GKusnick]

Are you just assuming the wiz.bak is corrupted too, or have you actually tried it? Seems like a cheap experiment. (Obviously you should save the damaged wiz.bin somewhere before overwriting it with the .bak.)

And presumably your next purchase will be a UPS and/or backup software to guard against future disasters of this sort.

[bmcraig]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Are you just assuming the wiz.bak is corrupted too, or have you actually tried it? Seems like a cheap experiment. (Obviously you should save the damaged wiz.bin somewhere before overwriting it with the .bak.)

And presumably your next purchase will be a UPS and/or backup software to guard against future disasters of this sort.

Yes, I tried it and got the same result. Would a reinstall cure this? Or is there some program where I can open the wiz.bin database and attempt to edit/repair it?

Thanks for all suggestions.

Brent

PS. Suggestions on a good backup software would be appreciated as well.

[BobPhoenix]

I use Acronis True Image to backup my SageTV properties and Wiz.* daily. They have a free trial for the Home edition.

BobP.

[bmcraig]

I have backed up the wiz file. But then I just deleted to see what would happen. I restarted Sage. I can now record. Of course, the problem now is the previously recorded programs are not showing up. Is there a way for SAGE to recognize them again, or will they just have to be watched like an imported video?

Brent

[nyplayer]

I use a batch file that someone had posted a while back to do a backup. It keeps up to nine days. I run it every morning at 6:00 am.



del wiz_9.bin
ren wiz_8.bin wiz_9.bin
ren wiz_7.bin wiz_8.bin
ren wiz_6.bin wiz_7.bin
ren wiz_5.bin wiz_6.bin
ren wiz_4.bin wiz_5.bin
ren wiz_3.bin wiz_4.bin
ren wiz_2.bin wiz_3.bin
ren wiz_1.bin wiz_2.bin
ren wiz.bak wiz_1.bin
xcopy /y "C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\wiz.bak"

[Menehune]

If the wiz.bin is deleted you lose all the "details" about your recorded shows and the shows no longer appear in "sage recordings". If the shows should now appear in your "imported videos".

[scat]

The same thing happened to me.

I have a WinTV-PVR-500MCE and use StgeTV, and after a power outage

my SageTV doesn't find the WinTV-PVR-500MCE as a capture device.

This is what I did to fix it.

I rebooted computer and then Sage found my tuner, but it wouldn't display any
video on any channels.

So I selected each capture source and requested it to rescan for channels.

In Sage from Main Menu
Select - Setup Memu
Select - Setup Video Sources
Select - one of your capture source(s)
Select - Channel Setup
Select - Scan for Available Channels
repeat for more sources
exit setup when finished

To protect from future power outages
I then installed a APC Battery backup to protect the computer
and all A/V equipment and the 60" TV.

To protect my SageTV settings

I then Installed this free program Cobian Backup
found here - http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm
Cobian Backup has a tutorial built in to show you how to use the features.

I have Cobian Backup backup my Wiz.bin and Sage.Properties files every day,
and zip them, also I keep 21 days of the files.

I have Cobian Backup backup run a batch file Sage-bu.bat
I copied all the text found under the code: window and saved it as Sage-bu.bat
Many thanks to Enormous for writing the script
I found the script here in the fourum. http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16603
The batch file will run once a month, and it copies the whole SageTv folder.


Utilities for use with SageTV - http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6605

[ybrew]

My wiz.bin got corrupted last night. Did a complete reinstall of windows last night and sage this morning. Wife wasn't too pleased.

Part of it was my fault. I *know* I shouldn't mess with the sagetv server once it's setup.

I'm putting a backup system in place today - I'll be using Second Copy 2000 to backup my SageTV folder. I'll set it to keep at least 5 copies of that folder probably.

Live and learn.

[stevech]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I use Acronis True Image to backup my SageTV properties and Wiz.* daily. They have a free trial for the Home edition.

BobP.

I do the same. And a full disk image once a week.

I see Acronis 9.0 home version selling on the retail shelves for $25. Big price drop

And I have a low cost UPS on my SageTV PC.

[nerys]

Not sure if this is related to your issue but every now and then I also get corruption after a power outage if the battery backup runs out. (not always)

sage won't run gives me an error usually a java error or something like that either way sage won't open at all.

I usually just replaced the wiz or sage.properties file and all was well again.

one time I opened the file (I think it was sage.properties) and there was a crapload of garbage at the bottom. like it started writing random programming characters to the file and sage could not handle reading this.

all I did was remove all the garbage back to where the lines of settings looks sensible and all was well again. sage loaded fine nothing seemed to be lost.

Again not sure if this is your problem but it sounds similar.

Good Luck
Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

[hemicuda]

didn't the UPS software initiate a 'proper' shutdown procedure before the batteries were exhausted? The biggest problem I have w/ mine is if the shutdown sequence has already started and power is restored it will not power back up on its own.

[nerys]

I never used that feature (and for that reason largely too)

I just figure the UPS will get through it or it won't this way at least (usually) the powersupply will reset to on when power is restored (some bios' allow you to set this option)

I want that new 750 watt ups I saw for $130 locally. that would run my sage machine for over 7 hours in most cases - enough to get through most all power outages. (except the 3.5 day outage we just had recently :-) hehe

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

[hemicuda]

750W eh? must have a whale of a set of batteries to get that kind of runtime. I have a 2200W running a router box and my workstation and I'm lucky to get 20-30min tops. If my 3kW wasn't rackmount I'd take it to the new house.

[nerys]

Where in the world did you get a 2200watt ups ?? or do you mean 2200 vamp ?

wow that would run my system for an entire day !

My sage system is extremely power tweaked. right on the edge for low power operation. it only consumes on average 74 watts of power never going over 115 watts. (thats the box alone which is all I would plug into the ups the router amp and modem would have its own ups)

Chris Taylor
http://www.neys.com/

[cmaffia]

I configured XP with the scheduler to backup my WIN.BIN and property files to my server every night at 2am. MANY times this little procedure saved me from disaster as my WIN.BIZ is almost 2 years old.

Originally Posted by nerys

Where in the world did you get a 2200watt ups ?? or do you mean 2200 vamp ?

wow that would run my system for an entire day !

My sage system is extremely power tweaked. right on the edge for low power operation. it only consumes on average 74 watts of power never going over 115 watts. (thats the box alone which is all I would plug into the ups the router amp and modem would have its own ups)

Chris Taylor
http://www.neys.com/

[hemicuda]

Originally Posted by nerys

Where in the world did you get a 2200watt ups ?? or do you mean 2200 vamp ?

wow that would run my system for an entire day !

2200VA is approx 2200W. APC sizes their units to run about 5-10min @ rated load. The hardware I have hooked to mine runs it at about 23% most of the time.

[nerys]

hmm interesting the unit I am looking at is 1250vamp but only 750 watts IIRC I might have to be careful what brand I buy if there numbers are sketchy. I would love a 2200watt unit ! what did that cost ? How big is it ?

Also how did you get scheduler to back up a file to a remote server ? I would be happy with to an alternate hard drive on the same system !

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

[stevech]

Originally Posted by nerys

Also how did you get scheduler to back up a file to a remote server ? I would be happy with to an alternate hard drive on the same system !

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

not to butt in but ...
Acronis (and I suppose others) has a scheduler - when to backup, what drive or folders to backup, where to backup to. The latter can be any folder on any drive or LAN accessable folder. So it's simple. Mine does a full backup (5GB) of the C: drive once a week and each night it does an incremental of C:. Sends to an always-on PC in the garage (web server, home automation, etc.)
I don't backup the video drives. Gulp. Too big.

I have another Acronis job that runs each night and backs up only the Sage folder tree rather than a full drive image.
By the way, this is done across a WiFi LAN. 5GB (compressed backup) takes 65 minutes - at 2AM.

I'm thinking about going to RAID 1 for the video storage for protection from a drive failure. RAID 5 is too costly. I do worry that RAID 1 is too slow. Many differing opinions on this on the web.