Two Problems need advise

[jphhughes]

I am a new registered user of SageTV and have been using it as my full time PVR and have encountered the following two problems.

1. About every thirty minutes the TV screen image freezes for about 10 second and then continues on. I am guessing that it may have to do with the time shifting and that Sage is doing some housekeeping. Has anyone else experienced this condition? (Hauppague 250, Nvidia 5200 svideo out)

2. When using Sage my systems (HP P4 2.66MHz 512 RAM) becomes slow to respond to other commands such as opening other programs, browsing internet and so forth. I ran Task Manager and check CPU performance and that does not show any apparent reason. CPU usage runs around 27% with minor jumps when staring programs. So again anyone else experiencing this problem and if so is their a solution.

Appreciate any help or direction Thanks

[salsbst]

I have recently built a new Sage machine. In the v2 beta, I've noticed that playback of a prerecorded show pauses for about 1 second when one recording in the background stops and another starts. I hadn't seen this on my previous machine which ran 1.4.10. I chalked it up to a beta issue.

Interesting that I am also using an Nvidia-based 5200 FX via TV out, though. I wonder if there's a PCI logjam that is responsible for this. I new I'd end up kicking myself for using ACPI.

Are you using the beta or 1.4.10?

[jphhughes]

I am using 1.4.10. I don't thing it is the video card as I have been using Microsoft Media Center 2004 without these types of problems. The more annoying of the two prolems is the system slow down issue. I can click on an opened program in the task bar and wait for 20 seconds or more before I see any response.

[Opus4]

Originally posted by jphhughes
1. About every thirty minutes the TV screen image freezes for about 10 second and then continues on.

Prerecorded shows, or live TV? If it is live TV, then the pause is caused by SageTV ending one recording (all live TV is recorded) & starting the next show. SageTV has to build a buffer for the next show before it begins playback. 10 seconds seems excessive to me, though, since I only get a very short delay for this.

2. When using Sage my systems (HP P4 2.66MHz 512 RAM) becomes slow to respond to other commands such as opening other programs, browsing internet and so forth. I ran Task Manager and check CPU performance and that does not show any apparent reason. CPU usage runs around 27% with minor jumps when staring programs. So again anyone else experiencing this problem and if so is their a solution.

I think this has to do with memory usage. SageTV seems to use quite a bit of memory during playback, so everything else gets swapped out to the Windows cache. When you try to run something else, the Windows memory manager has to swap things back in.

Those are my suggested possibilities for those 2 issues.

- Andy

[jphhughes]

Andy

Thanks for the additional information. I will actually try and time it, perhaps it just seems like 10 second.

On my second problem I remembered something else that happens related to this and that is when I shut Sage down using the X box in the upper right hand corner of the sage window the box depresses and then it takes A VERY LONG TIME before the windows disappears. However if I go to the task bar and right click and hit close it zip closed. Very strange.

[salsbst]

I have noticed the same thing about the close box.

I suspect that the close box politely shuts down the app and for some reason right clicking the task doesn't (though it is supposed to). I say this b/c I've noticed that sage.properties didn't seem to get updated with my changes in some cases and I suspect they were times when I right-clicked and chose close.

[Opus4]

Originally posted by jphhughes
...when I shut Sage down using the X box in the upper right hand corner of the sage window the box depresses and then it takes A VERY LONG TIME before the windows disappears. However if I go to the task bar and right click and hit close it zip closed.

But... how long did it take for the right-click context menu to pop up on the task bar?

Choosing Close, clicking X, & pressing Alt-F4 are all supposed to send the same Windows message (WM_CLOSE) to an application, unless I am forgetting something from when I programmed actual Windows apps instead of games... Still, it does seem strange, so perhaps I am wrong about all of them sending the same Windows message. Hmmm... one more 'unless': if that X button is not a standard one from Windows & SageTV is drawing it & handling clicks on it differently, then that could be another explanation. Without seeing the source code, who knows.

- Andy

[jphhughes]

Sarcasm, very helpful thank you.

[jphhughes]

salsbst
It was in response to Andy comments which I felt were very sarcastic. But I too take no offense. I will figure this our one way or the other. Thanks

[jphhughes]

I would agree lets delete the post prior to these comments "Choosing Close, clicking X, & pressing Alt-F4 are all supposed to send the same Windows message (WM_CLOSE) to an application, unless I am forgetting something from when I programmed actual Windows apps instead of games... Still, it does seem strange, so perhaps I am wrong about all of them sending the same Windows message. Hmmm... one more 'unless': if that X button is not a standard one from Windows & SageTV is drawing it & handling clicks on it differently, then that could be another explanation. Without seeing the source code, who knows", so I don't see how you could consider them constructive. Look at my position I am new to SageTV so I would hope to be able to continue posting questions and looking for solutions and help, and hopefully get to a point where I can be of help to others. Again the comments are forgotten as far a I am concerned.

[Opus4]

Originally posted by jphhughes
It was in response to Andy comments which I felt were very sarcastic.

My, aren't you being a bit touchy today? How long have been online and participated in forums? Perhaps you don't understand that it can be difficult to judge the emotional content of written/online communication, which means you shouldn't assume something has a negative connotation unless it is quite obvious that it does. Besides, that is what those little smilies are used for: indicate something is meant good naturedly, not offensively. (OK: unless you use an icon indicating displeasure, I suppose.) I don't see how in the world my post was supposed to be taken as sarcastic. I can assure you that if I intended what I wrote to be insulting to you, you would have no doubt about it.

Since you seem incapable of understanding my point, let me spell it out in more detail: Previously, you said other apps were slow to respond after using SageTV for a while. I suggested that the use of SageTV to play back a recording used quite a bit of memory, seeming (at least on my system) to cause quite a bit of Windows & other apps to be swapped out of physical memory. When something outside SageTV is accessed, it can take a while for it to respond. You then mentioned that SageTV closed more quickly if you chose to close it from the taskbar. I simply asked whether it took a while for that pop-up context menu to appear, perhaps due to memory swapping taking place. Then _after_ the pop-up loaded, perhaps SageTV closed faster since other system-related tasks were out of the way already. I'm sorry you weren't able to connect the comments regarding those 2 slow-downs. I was essentially asking: Did the pop-up appear immediately & thus you actually closed SageTV faster than clicking on the X, OR was there a delay before the pop-up appeared, evening out the total time to close SageTV?

I also recognized that closing an app _should_ follow the same Windows programming path, though SageTV could be programmed differently -- another possibility for why there was a difference in closing speeds.

Could there be a 3d reason that is the actual cause? Sure. I'm just offereing my opinion on what _might_ be happening.

Is that clear now? (OK, I'll admit I was a bit sarcastic now...)

- Andy, wandering off to do something else...

[justme]

jphhughes,
I've been around these boards a long time and I can assure you that Opus4(Andy) was originally only trying to help you figure this out. As he says it's hard to judge emotion by text alone, so please try to give the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, enough talk of the past. Lets try and figure out what's going on.

[jphhughes]

I agree and with that said, I did some additional testing last night and was unable to duplicate the conditions I had reported. ALthough the system was what I consider somewhat slow to respond it was acceptable. I used task manager to monitor memory usage and as Andy said Sage uses a fair amount of memory but it never reach a really low level. Also the CPU usages never get above 35% and is usually in the 20-25 % range with the exception of opening programs.

I am looking at SaveTV to replace Microosoft MCE so I have been using both alternating between them. I did not do this last nigh so I will investigate that as a possible caause of the problem. Perhaps running MCE closing it down and then running Sage may cause this problem. That's pure speculation on my part. I am a user of the product and not an engineer. Thanks again for your help