Corrupted wiz.bin!? :(

[darcilicious]

Long story short, it would seem my wiz.bin file has been corrupted. I'm not sure what this file handles vs what the .properties files handle but as of right now I have lost: list of upcoming and previous recordings, live tv, guide data, and favorites. If I go through the Setup Wizard again, all the related configuration settings are there and fine (e.g. the HD-PVR is still listed as a source, the channel lineup is correct, etc) but I still don't have any functionality.

Is my best recourse to reinstall SageTV into a fresh directory or do I have another choice?

[GKusnick]

Wiz.bin contains the database of recordings, favorites, program guide data, imported media, and so on. If you have a recent backup, you can just shut Sage down (including the service) and restore the backup to get back to a functional system (though a few recent recordings may show up as imports).

If you don't have a recent backup, let this be your wake-up call to establish a regular backup schedule for (at minimum) Wiz.bin, Sage.properties, and any other important data on your system that you don't want to lose.

There may be an automatically created Wiz.bak on your machine, which may or may not be usable. You could try that if you don't have a backup you made yourself (or if it's more recent than your most recent backup).

[darcilicious]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

There may be an automatically created Wiz.bak on your machine, which may or may not be usable. You could try that if you don't have a backup you made yourself (or if it's more recent than your most recent backup).

Thanks for your response.

Unfortunately, because I didn't realize that this was the real problem, I restarted the SageTV service multiple times, and now I don't have a reasonable backup.

So, consider me woken up ;-) In the meantime, how do I get a working system again? Fresh install? It's strange to me that going through the setup wizard again doesn't get back to a workable state considering that it has related dated (e.g., it knows about the tuner source and TV lineup so why isn't my program guide getting re-populated, even after forcing an update through the web server?)

[stanger89]

You should be able to just delete the bad wiz.bin/wiz.bak.

[darcilicious]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You should be able to just delete the bad wiz.bin/wiz.bak.

Yes, though it wasn't obvious until the service had been running for awhile that the guide, etc would come back. But it seems SageTV no longer has any idea what's been recorded and/or archived. Any chance a rescan will help recover that metadata? If not, oh well

[GKusnick]

No, the airing metadata is stored in Wiz.bin. Once that's gone, Sage can't tell the difference between orphaned recordings and imports.

[darcilicious]

Okay dokay. One last question: If SageTV is running as a service, do I have to shut the service down to make a proper backup of wiz.bin and various properties files?

Thanks again!

[GKusnick]

I don't shut down anything for backup purposes; I just let Windows Backup do its Volume Snapshot thing to ensure a consistent backup. Others may have other recommendations.

[stevech]

I use SecondCopy to keep the last 10 days of wiz.bin

[scat]

I use Cobian Backup 8 and I have several profiles I use, one is I backup the following
Sage.properties
Sage.properties.autobackup
Wiz.bin
Wiz.Bak

the other Sage profile I use is I backup the whole SageTV root folder.

I aso have a profile for my EventGhost settings.

I keep 30 days of all so I can't revert to any of them.
So my suggestion is keep you backups on a seperate physical drive and not a partitioned drive.

Scat

[jelwood]

I use Babgvant's SageTV BackupFiles Utility.

http://babgvant.com/files/folders/sa...ntry10187.aspx

He has a whole collection of Utilities that he's written for SageTV. You can checkout his other utilities here.
http://babgvant.com/files/10/default.aspx

[davephan]

I use a disk image of the C drive to backup SageTV, the operating system, and everything else on the C drive. If you had a recent disk image of your C drive, your problem would be fixed in less than 30 minutes.

Dave

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jelwood

I use Babgvant's SageTV BackupFiles Utility.

http://babgvant.com/files/folders/sa...ntry10187.aspx

He has a whole collection of Utilities that he's written for SageTV. You can checkout his other utilities here.
http://babgvant.com/files/10/default.aspx

I too use this along with SJQ to backup.. wiz.bin wiz.bak and sagetv properties file after each recording. The files are so small it takes very little space also the utility cleans up old backups.

[darcilicious]

So far, no one has mentioned the need to shut down the service to make a backup, so I'll get that going today. Thanks everyone, too, for your list of suggestions on how to backup SageTV!

[darcilicious]

Originally Posted by jelwood

I use Babgvant's SageTV BackupFiles Utility.

http://babgvant.com/files/folders/sa...ntry10187.aspx

He has a whole collection of Utilities that he's written for SageTV. You can checkout his other utilities here.
http://babgvant.com/files/10/default.aspx

Thanks I went this route and have added the backups to my Mozy collection (for offsite). Thanks again everyone!

[davephan]

Originally Posted by darcilicious

So far, no one has mentioned the need to shut down the service to make a backup, so I'll get that going today. Thanks everyone, too, for your list of suggestions on how to backup SageTV!

I shut down the SageTV service, and many other services before taking a periodic disk image. Supposedly it isn't necessary, but I shut down the services and applications that do not need to be running before taking a C-drive disk image.

Dave