SageTV Slow Slow Slow...

[Player0]

I just finally got around to installing SageTV on my capture box last night. I had been using ATI's MMC for a long time. Anyway, I tried both version 1.4.10 and the latest beta 2.xx and both perform very poorly. It takes 8 minutes to load a TV guide from the server, and even then half the guide is blank. It may take upwards of 30 seconds to properly change a channel. The usability is choppy at best, some commands can take upwards of a minute to even register. Ive even shut down all non-essential apps on the machine and still no luck. Everything else on this computer runs fine.

Hardware:

Abit MAX3 with P4 2.8C
512m Corsair XMS4000 (2x256)
Sapphire 9600 Pro
Hauppage PVR350
3x WD2500JB Hard Drives
3Ware 7000 RAID 5 controller
NEC DVD Burner
Creative Labs Audigy
Vantec Nexus 520w PSU
All the fixens...

Running Windows XP Pro with all latest patches, drivers, BIOS. I reinstalled and cleaned the SageTV app multiple times.

I have a 500G RAID5 array which should have pretty good write performance. I have the quality set to Great 2gb/hr. I'm thinking of installing another hard drive on the system to act as a seperate video cache/swap file, but I dont think it will imrpove much. There are no hardware conflicts and the Hauppage has its own IRQ.

Any tips would be greatly useful. I have a lot of work left to do since I only started last night, but this performance makes the software pretty much useless. There's not much I can do to make this machine any faster.

[SHS]

You need wait for it finsh downlaod the TV guide if have lots channel then it dose take time becuase your download 2 weeks TV guide.

[Player0]

Well, I do let it finish. Like I said, it takes 8-10 minutes (during which time I see almost NO network activity, so it's mostly just waiting for the server).

I wouldnt mind waiting so much if the guide actually showed up after it was done. I get 5% of the channels listed tops. I can go to Zap2It.com and get all the channels easy.

The real problem is after that initial set up, when the software freezes and bugs out.

[gplasky]

You say you have been using ATI MMC. Did you have the latest version installed that also included Easyshare? Have you completely uninstalled that? And if so are all registry entries gone for that product? There may be some leftover that are still running. There is no way it should anywhere near that long for those Sage functions. And once the guide is download, that will load instantly on your server.

Gerry

[dadams]

Close it down(not sleep) and open it back up. The guide data should be there. You do have to wait for it to fully download.

[Player0]

I used the ATI removal tool to get rid of all the ATI stuff about a month ago. All the folders were gone. It was pretty clean, but I didn't do a registry sweep. I wouldnt expect to find much. EasyShare. Never used it, but it may have installed at some point. There's definitely no extra apps running in the background, I've already checked that.

Im very experienced with the hardware/software side of things, it definitely seems like a very SageTV specific problem. It *could* be poor HD performance for some reason. I'd need to test that further. But even then, I dont know. It may not like the 3Ware RAID card.

Does it normally take 8-10 minutes to download a full digital program guide? I have 768k/2048k cable. I should be able to get 50-60m in that time.

[salsbst]

If the rest of your system seems healthy then it's not a HD problem.

* 8-10 minutes to download guide data: possibly this is just the result of an overworked server. I think it took a couple of minutes when I installed from scratch. Once you get a complete download you'll never have to worry about this again, since it downloads 10 days worth of data (? two weeks ? I can't actually remember, but its long enough) in advance.

* missing data: maybe the result of incomplete download. Give it longer next time you try just to determine whether it's the slow download or something else.

* freezes and bugs out: something's very wrong. more info on what seems to cause this (if there's any pattern) might allow us to help you more.

Check that your version of Java runtime is up to date? Also, there may be something going on with your 350... there are some settings that may help...are you trying to play through the 350 or the 9600? I don't have a 350 so I'm not of any real use on that subject, but it's something to consider.

[Player0]

If the rest of your system seems healthy then it's not a HD problem.

Wouldnt think so, but the application is constantly writting to the RAID5 array. Im gonna hook up a 40G 8m drive tonight just on a standard IDE channel to see if it helps at all.

Once you get a complete download you'll never have to worry about this again, since it downloads 10 days worth of data (? two weeks ?

Well, I'll have to worry in another two weeks. I guess this downloading is done in the background? Is there anyway to adjust these settings?

maybe the result of incomplete download. Give it longer next time you try just to determine whether it's the slow download or something else.

When I set up this software, I dont have a choice as to how long I give it. It sits there on the setup screen saying downloading. I cant complete set up until it finishes that step (which is kind of annoying). I am giving it the full time it requests. And still I only get like channel 11, channel 25, channel 28, channel 43, etc. Just random ones. All the channels are there otherwise, just saying No Data.

freezes and bugs out: something's very wrong. more info on what seems to cause this (if there's any pattern) might allow us to help you more.

Not sure what else is wrong. I start up the program, I go to LiveTV (whatever its exactly called), and thus the slowness begins. As soon as I try to scroll up or down through the channels, its slow. It might take 2-3 minutes to get to channel 33. Once I open the channel, I have another minute wait before it comes up. If I want to change channels, I have another minute wait. Increase volume, wait. I tried to open another MPEG file last night, and it never opened! But about 20 minutes later it finally opened up while I was doing other things. Very bad things.

Check that your version of Java runtime is up to date? Also, there may be something going on with your 350... there are some settings that may help...are you trying to play through the 350 or the 9600? I don't have a 350 so I'm not of any real use on that subject, but it's something to consider.

Im just playing it through the monitor for now. I wont be sending TV out from this box. I will have a client box for TV watching, but I need to get this first box up and running first. I will check in to Java Runtime. It MAY not even be installed. This is the kind of information that I should probably be looking for THen again, I'm a web developer and most of my boxes do have the latest Java installed. I'll check when I get home.

Thanks

[TunaBoo]

It may be your video settings or video drivers in some way. Make sure you have the newest java and video card drivers installed, and then change around codecs and such within Sage. Try hardware acceleration and PowerDVD or such.


SAGE writes at like 500 KB a second per show it is recording. Your hard drives can handle this...

[Player0]

Running the latest cats for the video card. They work fine on all 3d games and the like. No performance loss there. All other overlay software seems to work fine.

I dont have PowerDVD installed. Hardware Acceleration is enabled (by default I beleive) is it advantageous to remove that?

[stanger89]

I realize you mentioned you don't have extra programs running but:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...&threadid=4375

What kind of HDDs do you have setup in RAID-5, Sage never seemed to have trouble with my 6400, but I never recorded to it (just Library Import stuff).

[Player0]

Ive been working in it tonight.

That thread was great, thanks. My problems were the same, it kept getting slower and slower.

I made sure my Java was fresh, I defragged, and I turned of Norton Autoprotect. I'll see if this worked.

[Player0]

I turned off NAV, installed a cache drive, turned on VMR instead of Overlay, and yeah, the slowdown bugs are mostly gone. I can still lock up the program if I turn more than 4 channels up or down at a time too quickly. Well, a temporary lock up of about 45 seconds.

My guide is still missing. All the channels are there, but theres hardly any data. What can I do to refresh this guide or get data in to it? I must be missing something.

On the System Stats, it sais 0 minutes until next EPG update.

[stanger89]

Theoretically removing and re-adding a channel wil force the guide to update again. I wonder if NAV hosed something with the guide download. If it says 0 min, sounds like it might never have been downloaded completely.

[SHS]

Try killing sage from runing and then del the Wiz.bak and Wiz.bin and re-start sage

[Player0]

I have reinstalled from scratch since killing Sage. I have also killed the wiz. files twice and reconfigured. None of this gets the guide working properly for some reason.

It just misses almost all the channel data.

[stanger89]

Try uninstalling/reinstalling Java, I crashed Sage really good somehow this morning (PC just rebooted when I tried to wake Sage) and after that Sage wouldn't even start. I tried all kinds of remove wiz and properties files, reinstall Sage, none of which helped. All it took to fix it was to uninstall/reinstall Java.

[Player0]

Already did that yesterday

[SHS]

Player0 what you zip code
Also post screenshot of what your seeing what ver of SageTV are you using?

[Player0]

My Zip is 12603. I use Time Warner Poughkeepsie Digital. However, I have tried the other Time Warner ones (basic, extended, etc) and no luck.

I can do a screenshot, but Im not sure what good it will do. When I go to the EPG, most of the channels say NO DATA, except for a few here and there, which have the proper information, like TBS or Lifetime.

THis happens on version 1.4.10 and on 2.0.15 (which seems to work better, even though its got the no-guide).