Phoenix 2.5 update breaks Gemstone menus on my extenders

[JerryB]

I've just installed the new Phoenix update (2.5). Immediately after installing it I receivee 2 error messages that appear to be related to a null error in a vfs cache file. After this, Gemstone data menus (TV recording listings etc) are completely blank on my extenders. However, the same menus are fine on my computer-based clients.

I've deleted my SageTV directory and restored the directory from a backup twice and confirmed that my extenders work perfectly until I install the Phoenix upgrade and then the Gemstone menus fail. I've also tried removing the Gemstone menus and reverting to the standard SageTV menu on the extenders. The standard SageTV menu works fine on the extenders with the Phoenix upgrade installed. If I then activate Gemstone menus on the extenders the menu system again fails with no programs showing up in the menu.

If anyone has any idea what's going on or what I should try next please let me know. In the intermim, I've reverted my system to the pre-Phoenix update install status so that I can continue to use Gemstone on my extenders.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by JerryB

I've just installed the new Phoenix update (2.5). Immediately after installing it I receivee 2 error messages that appear to be related to a null error in a vfs cache file. After this, Gemstone data menus (TV recording listings etc) are completely blank on my extenders. However, the same menus are fine on my computer-based clients.

I've deleted my SageTV directory and restored the directory from a backup twice and confirmed that my extenders work perfectly until I install the Phoenix upgrade and then the Gemstone menus fail. I've also tried removing the Gemstone menus and reverting to the standard SageTV menu on the extenders. The standard SageTV menu works fine on the extenders with the Phoenix upgrade installed. If I then activate Gemstone menus on the extenders the menu system again fails with no programs showing up in the menu.

If anyone has any idea what's going on or what I should try next please let me know. In the intermim, I've reverted my system to the pre-Phoenix update install status so that I can continue to use Gemstone on my extenders.

You want to send me you logs/phoenix.log and I can see if there's something in there that might shed some light on things. You can email metadatatools at gmail dot com.

[JerryB]

Originally Posted by stuckless

You want to send me you logs/phoenix.log and I can see if there's something in there that might shed some light on things. You can email metadatatools at gmail dot com.

I just sent the requested log file.

[jusjoken]

It will be interesting to see what the issue may be as I am not having any issues with Gemstone and the latest 2.5.0 phoenix core update. I have checked a client as well as one of my extenders and I have no issues on either.

Can you describe or send a picture of what specifically you are seeing.... is the Main Menu just blank?

Thanks
k

[bialio]

I saw that the default phoenix vfs file removed some views that had gemstone tags - maybe that's causing something?

[JerryB]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

It will be interesting to see what the issue may be as I am not having any issues with Gemstone and the latest 2.5.0 phoenix core update. I have checked a client as well as one of my extenders and I have no issues on either.

Can you describe or send a picture of what specifically you are seeing.... is the Main Menu just blank?

Thanks
k

The main Gemstone menu is fine, as is the first submenu. Both of these are just menu's and neither depict any actual recordings. However, when I go from one of these submenus to a menu that does contain recordings, eg, current TV shows, all TV shows, recorded movies, imported movies, etc., I get a screen with a several blank rectangles and the word "null". If it was occurring on my computer I could capture an image for you. However, I'm not seeing any problems with the upgrade when running SageTV on my computers. The problem only occurs on my 2 extenders that are connected to TV's.

If you want, I could send you the Gemstone properties files for one of these menus (eg current TV shows) and you could import it into your system and see if it displays correctly on your extender. I'm baffled and can't explain why the exact same menu works fine when I run SageTV on a computer but not on an extender and it's definitely somehow related to the Phoenix update.

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by bialio

I saw that the default phoenix vfs file removed some views that had gemstone tags - maybe that's causing something?

Unless it was a clean install and the "x-vfs.xml" file was not found then it should not have downloaded another one.... and that file, old or new, should not have any gemstone tags in it... as all the gemstone tags should come from the "z-gemstone-vfs.xml" file.

Which file are you referring to?

k

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by JerryB

The main Gemstone menu is fine, as is the first submenu. Both of these are just menu's and neither depict any actual recordings. However, when I go from one of these submenus to a menu that does contain recordings, eg, current TV shows, all TV shows, recorded movies, imported movies, etc., I get a screen with a several blank rectangles and the word "null". If it was occurring on my computer I could capture an image for you. However, I'm not seeing any problems with the upgrade when running SageTV on my computers. The problem only occurs on my 2 extenders that are connected to TV's.

If you want, I could send you the Gemstone properties files for one of these menus (eg current TV shows) and you could import it into your system and see if it displays correctly on your extender. I'm baffled and can't explain why the exact same menu works fine when I run SageTV on a computer but not on an extender and it's definitely somehow related to the Phoenix update.

Can you upload the "vfs-cached.xml" file from the userdata/cache folder as I am sure it is vfs related. You can also try deleting that cached file and seeing what happens when it gets recreated.

k

[bialio]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

Unless it was a clean install and the "x-vfs.xml" file was not found then it should not have downloaded another one.... and that file, old or new, should not have any gemstone tags in it... as all the gemstone tags should come from the "z-gemstone-vfs.xml" file.

Which file are you referring to?

k

So, it was x-vfs.xml, but what I remembered from the diff is backwards from what actually happened. There's tag defined in there for gemstone now, and one filter that uses it :

236			<item name="mediaresourcetype" label="Media Resource Type" class="sagex.phoenix.vfs.filters.MediaResourceTypeFilter">
237				<option name="value" list="true"/>
238				<tag value="gemstone"/>
239			</item>

[JerryB]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

Can you upload the "vfs-cached.xml" file from the userdata/cache folder as I am sure it is vfs related. You can also try deleting that cached file and seeing what happens when it gets recreated.

k

The "vsf-cahced.xml" file is attached. I tried deleting the file and allowing it to get recreated but the recreated version had exactly the same problem.

Could this possibly be related to whether or not advanced views are enabled on the extenders?

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by JerryB

The "vsf-cahced.xml" file is attached. I tried deleting the file and allowing it to get recreated but the recreated version had exactly the same problem.

Could this possibly be related to whether or not advanced views are enabled on the extenders?

I don't think this is the issue but the vfs.xml file is not needed...

<!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\vfs.xml-->

Phoenix handles this well - I think - so it's not likely causing the issue but it is not needed.

I did not see any other issues in that file.

If you can send me the logs/gemstone.log file perhaps I can find an issue. Make sure in the Options/Utilities/Log Options that DEBUG mode is on... then recreate the issue and upload the log.

Thanks
k

[JerryB]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

I don't think this is the issue but the vfs.xml file is not needed...

<!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\vfs.xml-->

Phoenix handles this well - I think - so it's not likely causing the issue but it is not needed.

I did not see any other issues in that file.

If you can send me the logs/gemstone.log file perhaps I can find an issue. Make sure in the Options/Utilities/Log Options that DEBUG mode is on... then recreate the issue and upload the log.

Thanks
k

I don't know if it was the problem or not but I deleted the vfs.xml file from my pre-Phoenix update version of SageTV. I then reinstalled the Phoenix update and can no longer reproduce the problem. I don't get the Phoenix error message that I was getting and menus appear correctly on both computer monitors and extender-connected TVs. I have the debug log file but there doesn't seem to be any reason to send it since the problem is no longer present. Thanks for your help.

[stuckless]

I think i'm getting closer to figuring out why, but could you send me a zip of all the xml files defined here

  <!--THIS FILE CONSISTS OF THE FOLLOWING VFS FILES-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\x-vfs.xml-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\vfs.xml-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\z-gemstone-vfs.xml-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\plugins\bmtweb\Phoenix\vfs\bmt.xml-->

@bialio, @jusjoken - i did add the Gemstone Tag to the core Phoenix stuff, and I think I did add the tag to that specific filter, mainly because I wanted to preserve where it came from. In this particular though, that shouldn't be an issue.

From what I can tell from the logs, the vfs manager is complaining that it cannot find, the view, phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos, but that view does exist in the xml. This is a bug, since the view exists in the xml file, but its also another "timing" issue related to the vfs files and how they are loaded and processed. Since this view is defined last, and it's used by other views, it gives an error on load, since at the time the other view (that depends on phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos) is read, the phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos view is not defined. I just need to figure out how phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos got moved to the end.

[JerryB]

I think we were posting messages at the same time. Deleting the vfs.xml that jusjoken said was unnecessary seems to have resolved the problem. In any event, I just emailed you the 4 files you requested from last night's backup (before deleting vfs.xml). Hopefully they will give you a clue as to how phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos got moved to the end. Let me know if you need anything else.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by JerryB

I think we were posting messages at the same time. Deleting the vfs.xml that jusjoken said was unnecessary seems to have resolved the problem. In any event, I just emailed you the 4 files you requested from last night's backup (before deleting vfs.xml). Hopefully they will give you a clue as to how phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos got moved to the end. Let me know if you need anything else.

Yeah, it looks like the vfs.xml was the curprit here... that file should not exist in anyone's directory (since it's been removed a long time ago).

[hoep]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I think i'm getting closer to figuring out why, but could you send me a zip of all the xml files defined here

  <!--THIS FILE CONSISTS OF THE FOLLOWING VFS FILES-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\x-vfs.xml-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\vfs.xml-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\z-gemstone-vfs.xml-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\plugins\bmtweb\Phoenix\vfs\bmt.xml-->

@bialio, @jusjoken - i did add the Gemstone Tag to the core Phoenix stuff, and I think I did add the tag to that specific filter, mainly because I wanted to preserve where it came from. In this particular though, that shouldn't be an issue.

From what I can tell from the logs, the vfs manager is complaining that it cannot find, the view, phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos, but that view does exist in the xml. This is a bug, since the view exists in the xml file, but its also another "timing" issue related to the vfs files and how they are loaded and processed. Since this view is defined last, and it's used by other views, it gives an error on load, since at the time the other view (that depends on phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos) is read, the phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos view is not defined. I just need to figure out how phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos got moved to the end.

My workaround was:
I edited ../STVs/Phoenix/vfs/x-vfs.xml and added as the first view after the lines
<!-- Default views visible (by default) to users -->

the phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos code:

<view name="phoenix.view.bmt.allvideos" label="All Videos">
<description>All Sage Videos</description>
<view-source name="phoenix.view.primary.recordedtv"/>
<view-source name="phoenix.view.primary.recordedtvarchived"/>
<view-source name="phoenix.view.primary.importedtv"/>
<view-source name="phoenix.view.primary.recordedmovies"/>
<view-source name="phoenix.view.primary.importedmovies"/>
</view>

this solved the issue for me..
regards
hoep

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by stuckless

  <!--THIS FILE CONSISTS OF THE FOLLOWING VFS FILES-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\x-vfs.xml-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\vfs.xml-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\z-gemstone-vfs.xml-->
  <!--P:\SageTV\SageTV\plugins\bmtweb\Phoenix\vfs\bmt.xml-->

The solution to the "broken menus" or "no views" is basically to
1. delete vfs.xml (since it is NOT USED -- and is legacy file from a couple years ago)
2. update x-vfs.xml from the repository.

The reason for the failure is that x-vfs.xml is packaged and distributed with Phoenix UI (and not with the Phoenix API). So, when we make changes to this file, you never get updates, unless you run the Phoenix UI. If you use Phoenix without the Phoenix UI, then the x-vfs.xml file is downloaded once, and then never updated again.

This particular problem stems from a change that was made in Phoenix a few releases back (not in 2.5) whereby, Phoenix attempts to opimize ALL the vfs files on startup and creates a temporary file containing all the entries (there are couple of reasons for this, but I won't go into details). Because really old copies of x-vfs and vfs files contain copies of the views specified in the bmt.xml then there is an issue when all the views are merged together. In news copies of x-vfs.xml there are NO bmt views, and the bmt views are all contained in the bmt.xml file.

The solution is to remove vfs.xml and then replace your x-vfs.xml file with the updated one from the repository.

x-vfs.xml download link
https://sagephoenix.googlecode.com/s.../vfs/x-vfs.xml

[BobbyDing]

Tonight I updated phoenix to the latest and Gemstone lost its views. I hadn't checked the forum before updating. Since the family was just about to sit down and watch TV I quickly loaded the stock UI and it got me through the evening. After reading this thread I checked the folder and I did not show a vfs.xml. I stopped the sage server and did replac the x-vfs.xml with the one in the link. But when I restarted Gemstone I'm still missing all the views. I tried removing/reloading Gemstone via the plugins. Same. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Bobby

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by BobbyDing

Tonight I updated phoenix to the latest and Gemstone lost its views. I hadn't checked the forum before updating. Since the family was just about to sit down and watch TV I quickly loaded the stock UI and it got me through the evening. After reading this thread I checked the folder and I did not show a vfs.xml. I stopped the sage server and did replac the x-vfs.xml with the one in the link. But when I restarted Gemstone I'm still missing all the views. I tried removing/reloading Gemstone via the plugins. Same. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Bobby

Could you post the firest few lines of your vfs-cached.xml file so that we can see which files are being included. Also, you might want to send me your logs from SAGE_HOME/logs/*.log and I can review any errors. You can email me metadatatools at gmail dot com.

[BobbyDing]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE vfs SYSTEM "vfs.dtd">

<vfs>
<!--GENERATED FILE - DO NO EDIT-->
<!--LAST UPDATED - Tue May 07 19:50:05 EDT 2013-->
<!--THIS FILE CONSISTS OF THE FOLLOWING VFS FILES-->
<!--C:\Program Files (x86)\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\x-vfs.xml-->
<!--C:\Program Files (x86)\SageTV\SageTV\.\STVs\Phoenix\vfs\z-gemstone-vfs.xml-->
<!--C:\Program Files (x86)\SageTV\SageTV\plugins\bmtweb\Phoenix\vfs\bmt.xml-->
<tags>
<tag value="tv" label="TV"/>
<tag value="movie" label="Movie"/>
<tag value="video" label="Videos"/>
<tag value="dvd" label="DVD"/>
<tag value="bluray" label="Blu-Ray"/>
<tag value="picture" label="Pictures"/>
<tag value="music" label="Music"/>
<tag value="videodisc" label="DVD or Blu-Ray"/>
<tag value="epg" label="Program Guide"/>
<tag value="metadata" label="Metadata"/>
<tag value="online" label="Online"/>
<tag value="web" label="Web" visible="false"/>
<tag value="android" label="Android" visible="false"/>
<tag value="landingzone" label="Landing Zone" visible="false"/>
<tag value="primary" label="Primary View"/>
<tag value="default" label="Default View"/>
<tag value="simple" label="Simple" visible="false"/>
<tag value="homevideos" label="Home Videos"/>
<tag value="gemstone" label="Gemstone" visible="true"/>
<tag value="gemsource" label="gemstone Source" visible="false"/>
<tag value="gembasesource" label="gemstone Base Source" visible="false"/>
</tags>


Hope this is what you need. I'll send the rest to you email.

Thanks!