Can't Get Sage Service to Start

[Ron]

Sage stopped working this morning. I went to the server and found that the service was off. Tried to restart but it wouldn't. The message my Win 7 service is giving me is "The Sage TV service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs."

I have no clue what this means. I've rebooted my server, I've tried to repair Sage 7.19, I've removed and reinstalled. All to no avail.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

[davephan]

Do you have an image you can use to recover your computer? If you have an image, your system would be working in less than 30 minutes. You might have to re-install the OS and everything if nothing else is successful. If you have to re-install, you should re-install everything on a different hard drive so you save all the data on the old hard drive, in case you need something later. Maybe it's a good opportunity to switch from a conventional hard drive to a SSD at the same time.

After you get the system working again, you should buy Acronis True Image Home 2012 with the Plus Pack. The Plus Pack will allow you to recover onto different hardware, which will also protect you when your system board fails.

Dave

[Ron]

Originally Posted by davephan

Do you have an image you can use to recover your computer? If you have an image, your system would be working in less than 30 minutes. You might have to re-install the OS and everything if nothing else is successful. If you have to re-install, you should re-install everything on a different hard drive so you save all the data on the old hard drive, in case you need something later. Maybe it's a good opportunity to switch from a conventional hard drive to a SSD at the same time.

After you get the system working again, you should buy Acronis True Image Home 2012 with the Plus Pack. The Plus Pack will allow you to recover onto different hardware, which will also protect you when your system board fails.

Dave

Dave:

Unfortunately I don't have an image, but this would be a good impetus to get me to start backing up my system. I do own Acronis but it's not installed on my Sage server.

I am going to trying to restore to an earlier point hoping that might flush out my problem. Short of that, guess I'm going to have to do a reinstall. Ugh!! Oh, and my system drive is an SSD.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by Ron

Dave:

Unfortunately I don't have an image, but this would be a good impetus to get me to start backing up my system. I do own Acronis but it's not installed on my Sage server.

I am going to trying to restore to an earlier point hoping that might flush out my problem. Short of that, guess I'm going to have to do a reinstall. Ugh!! Oh, and my system drive is an SSD.

That's great that you have an SSD already. I have one on my general purpose computer, and it makes a big difference. I should help SageTV be more responsive too.

Acronis has a drive clone feature. Maybe you should clone the SSD drive to an old conventional drive if you have one laying around, to back up all the data.

I think it is really important now more than ever to image your SageTV system periodically, since it is possible for all support and the forum web site to suddenly be gone one day. I wish I would have thought about backup more carefully too. I should have bought a few client licenses to backup my HD-200 and HD-300 extenders.

Dave

[jmonier]

I have what seems like the same problem. In my case, it happened when I did the latest Java update but I don't know whether it was due to the update specifically or just because Sage was stopped for the update. This Java update required a computer restart and I don't remember that happening typically so it could be something different in this latest Java.

I also seem to have trouble detecting my HDHomeRun tuners from CW-EPG although they work fine from the HDHR applications.

So I have a few possibilities, but no idea how to proceed from here.

update: Per a post in another thread I uninstalled Java and reinstalled it. Now everything is OK.

[GKusnick]

Try disabling the SageTV Service and starting the app in non-service mode to see if any error messages pop up. Also check your log files for diagnostic messages. If you don't have log files, turn on debug logging (as described in the FAQ) and generate some.

In my opinion it's always worth spending a few minutes trying to understand what's causing a problem before blowing it away. In particular, if you don't know when the problem actually originated (as distinct from when it became obnoxious), then you don't know if restoring an image will help. The problem might have already been present, undetected, when you took your image. Imaging is not a guarantee of trouble-free operation. It's just a way of rewinding the clock to an earlier point in the history of your problem, the real causes of which may go back farther than you think.

[Ron]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Try disabling the SageTV Service and starting the app in non-service mode to see if any error messages pop up. Also check your log files for diagnostic messages. If you don't have log files, turn on debug logging (as described in the FAQ) and generate some.

In my opinion it's always worth spending a few minutes trying to understand what's causing a problem before blowing it away. In particular, if you don't know when the problem actually originated (as distinct from when it became obnoxious), then you don't know if restoring an image will help. The problem might have already been present, undetected, when you took your image. Imaging is not a guarantee of trouble-free operation. It's just a way of rewinding the clock to an earlier point in the history of your problem, the real causes of which may go back farther than you think.

Thanks, Greg, for your thoughts. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I'm just about finished with the clean Win 7 reinstall. Yes, I remembered to copy my properties and wiz.bin file. So I won't be able to figure out what happened.

My recollection is there might have been a Java update just before the server went haywire. And restoring to an earlier point didn't help. But I'll certainly look into it further, the next time it happens. My Sage server had been running flawlessly for many months, that's why it's baffling.

[jmonier]

Originally Posted by Ron

Thanks, Greg, for your thoughts. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I'm just about finished with the clean Win 7 reinstall. Yes, I remembered to copy my properties and wiz.bin file. So I won't be able to figure out what happened.

My recollection is there might have been a Java update just before the server went haywire. And restoring to an earlier point didn't help. But I'll certainly look into it further, the next time it happens. My Sage server had been running flawlessly for many months, that's why it's baffling.

Too bad you had to do the Win 7 reinstall. The Java update is definitely the problem and things can be fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling Java (with the SageTV service stopped). (I'm posting this mostly so that other people reading this know that the Win 7 reinstall is probably not needed and that they should be sure to stop the SageTV service manually before attempting the Java version 31 upgrade.)

[doncote0]

Originally Posted by jmonier

Too bad you had to do the Win 7 reinstall. The Java update is definitely the problem and things can be fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling Java (with the SageTV service stopped). ...other people... should be sure to stop the SageTV service manually before attempting the Java version 31 upgrade.)

Great point, jmonier. I have never seen an error free Java update with any sage process running.

[jjstok]

Can I hop in here? I've got the same problem with my service. I isntalled some updates tonight, rebooted and dead. I can't disable the service and run the Sagetv.exe. It doesn't respond. I have no error logs in Windows regarding the service. Just that it started and stopped... some services stop.. if they have no work to do.

I've rebooted numerous times in between attempts to fix. Repaired, reinstalled 7.19, uninstalled ran registryfix, reinstalled, uninstalled, regfix, installed 6.x. Same issues. Upgraded to 7.19. During any installations, the SageTVServiceControl.exe never opens. Same issues. Anti-virus on or off doesn't matter. I'm getting no where...

And finally found this posting... and Uninstalled Java 6.31 and reisntalled. And success.... I wasted a lot of time before find this. Glad my backup was solid!

Thanks!