Tip: Improve Sability Of Your System

[SDeGonge]

Previous to SageTV I was an MCE2005 guy. The system worked fairly well but occasionally I would run in to stability issues and need to reboot the system. I found that rebooting the system daily solved my problems. I created a scheduled task to reboot my system daily at 4:00AM...

C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe -r -f

I'm using XP by the way. When I switched over to SageTV I kept the scheduled task just to play it safe since I usually don't have anything going on at 4am anyway.

[Opus4]

I wouldn't think that this is a tip that needs to be followed by the average user. Personally, I rarely reboot my SageTV server running Windows XP. The usual reason for me to reboot it is when I install something new. If it needed to be rebooted regularly, I would start to think there was something wrong on the system.

- Andy

[mr_lore]

I agree, but after about month, the UI starts to feel slugish and a reboot fixes it, most likely due to memory leaks in vista and or Java. I have yet to setup a scheduled reboot because like you said I am usually tweaking something/installing something/etc and it happens naturally.

[jsin]

Originally Posted by SDeGonge

Previous to SageTV I was an MCE2005 guy. The system worked fairly well but occasionally I would run in to stability issues and need to reboot the system. I found that rebooting the system daily solved my problems. I created a scheduled task to reboot my system daily at 4:00AM...

Call me strange, but for me, "improving stability" means setting up a system in such a way as to reduce the number of reboots required.

[stanger89]

IMHO:

1. A system that has to be rebooted daily isn't stable
2. Daily reboots aren't improving stability, they're just decreasing the probability of you seeing it

I'm like Andy, I only reboot my server when I do some sort of hardware/driver change that requires it, or if the environment forces me to. I've never seen an appreciable change in responsiveness.

[SDeGonge]

Perhaps I should have stated it differently. The purpose is to clean up issues with he Windows operating system rather than the Sage app. I've got other apps running on this server also (email server, home automation, geneal home usage). Windows XP is a good OS but some apps are not (memory leaks/bugs). I'm sure the system would run fine but eventually you're going to run into a problem with some app that doesn't clean up after itself. For me I'm more comfortable having the system reboot daily...just to start fresh.

[evilpenguin]

Daily is a bit excessive, but if I go a month where I don't have to shut down XP for some update/patch then i'll usually make a point to do it manually.

[GKusnick]

My thinking is that if you're going to build a SageTV server on XP, make it a single-purpose, Sage-only server, and don't try to use it as a general-purpose workstation at the same time. If you want a reliable multi-purpose server that runs Sage, email, and all the rest without periodic reboots, use server-grade parts and a real server OS (and still resist the temptation to use it as a workstation too).

[Paul H]

Install Maxmem fromAnalogx.com on all your computers to fix memory leaks, it's freeware.
http://www.analogx.com/contents/down...m/Freeware.htm

[briands]

Originally Posted by Paul H

Install Maxmem fromAnalogx.com on all your computers to fix memory leaks, it's freeware.
http://www.analogx.com/contents/down...m/Freeware.htm

Wow... I didn't realize Analog X was still doing any development. Last time I visited the site, it looked like it had been abandoned.

[Ryokurin]

No, there is some issue between Java and windows XP. I used to have to do similar weekly, and this was over several systems as I would eventually have a virtual memory is low notifications or eventually get errors on playback if not a outright crash. upgraded to vista and now the only time I reboot is during patch tuesday. I think most of the people who have no problems with XP are likely just using that system as a server, not also a playback device.