100% CPU and black screen upon loading

[sabre]

After reinstalling and pointing to the old directory, i did not have a black screen, but it froze. so the black screen likely is not really a sympton.

Did you fully uninstall and delete the directories? Also, I ended up no using the wiz.bin file and used the one that was created. But i did end up putting back in my properties file. So make backups prior to reinstalling (I tried to use the older bin file, but that froze under the new install, so went to the new one created and that worked fine).

[rrussell]

I would classify my problem as more of an initialization issue. I either got stuck with a splash screen saying "Priming Seeker" or I'd get a black screen before the user interface was displayed.

It never happened that I would get the UI and THEN see a freeze.

[KoolKat_Milw]

Well what you can do is then (correct me if it migt damage anything)...

1. backup your .wiz file and your properties file
2. reinstall Sage
3. make sure your recording directory is different than the one where all your shows are.
4. run sage to ensure that its working.
5. restore .wiz file and property file
6. start adding recordings back one at a time


This might help

-KoolKat

[mrgibbysworth]

For me, I get problems with Sage hanging on startup, 100% CPU etc. Everytime its the same thing: power went out while sage was recording, and there is a half-a-show somewhere that needs to get deleted. Keeping the last wiz.bin and sage.properties works as long as I manually delete the offending show. In my case its usually easy to spot as its the newest file in the recorded shows folder, and is usually pretty small (<1gb).

[mls]

One of the first things Sage does when it starts up is scan the directories to match up files. If a file is corrupted (from a power outage or whatever) that can cause it to hang.

Look for 0 length files and delete all the ones with matching show name/date if there are splits. Also could delete any suspiciousely short files too, since they probably are useless leftovers or failed recordings.

SageTV should then be able to correct itself scanning for files the next time it is started.

Better idea, get a batery backup UPS

[mkanet]

I just want to add that I too also had the 100% utilization/black screen startup. The only thing that fixed it was starting from a new wiz.bin.

I didn't think that the problem would be narrowed down to a recording. I sure hope the next version handles this issue. From doing searches, it looks like this happens enough to where Sagetv needs to improve handling of corrupt files. These are the kinds of things which reminds me I'm still on a PC and not a real tivo

[mkanet]

Okay, I just rebooted my PC while sagetv was sleeping. I think it/sagetvservice was recording something at the time. Anyway, after I rebooted, SageTV started using 100% CPU utilization again. I stopped the service and killed the sagetv process, deleted the show it was "stuck" on, and restarted everything.

Is there something I need to do before shutting down so this doesnt happen? It seems like this happens pretty regularly.

[sabre]

I am not sure about that. But as an update to another 100% issue I had. I was getting 100% utilization when playing video--decoding w/ Nvidia decoder. Took a couple of nights to figure it out, but turns out it did not like the 'video hook' driver that one uses with UltraVNC. I deleted the driver and it works fine. Funny that it was only after a reboot and about 30 days after i installed the driver.

[mkanet]

I just happened, AGAIN! Why does this happen every time I reboot?

This is when I have a recording in progress and reboot. I'm pretty sure I know what mpeg recording its stuck on, it's the one that it's trying to finish record. If I stop the service, delete the recording, and start it up, it continues recording that show. If I try to start sagetv to stop the recording, the interface has the famous black screen of death (100% CPU).

Can somone PLEASE help me make sagetv reliable. I seriously doubt it's anything I'm doing that is out of the ordinary except for rebooting during a recording (which I can't help but avoid since sagetv records all the time).

I read something about having back-back favorites lined up for recording may cause this? Anyway, this is becoming a real pain

[mkanet]

I waited the last one out. After 100% CPU utilization for the length of the remainder for the show, the CPU went down and I was able to use it again. Geez! Pretty lame bug. This is actually worse than the FF/REW bug since it cripples my SageTV.

[Opus4]

Instead of just telling the forum about it, have you filed a support request with SageTV? If you can reproduce something like this, I'm sure they would like to know about it. If you've already submitted a support request... great! If you haven't yet done so, there is a link in my sig lines.

- Andy

[ozfiles]

I had the black screen of death.

I tried a few things but the thing that fixed it for me was I disabled the Sagetv service by right clicking on my computer and then scrolling down to manage from there you go down to Services and Applications and then double click on services in the right hand pane.

Scroll down the list until you see sagetv and double click on it and hit the stop button and I also disabled the service in the startup type.

Close everything and fire up Sagetv and all should be ok again.

I hope this helps.

regards

[GreggWG]

I found half of a Star Trek DS9 episode on my storage drive. Sure enough after deleting it the SageTV Service started working normally again, thanks for the quick fix guys!

[mahcsm]

Originally Posted by YellowBox

Nope, didn't do it. One by one, I moved my video files to another directory, in backwards chronological order, trying Sage in between each move. I went back a week and a half before I just decided to rename the directory, and it was still a no-go. 100% cpu, all the way.

Is there something else you guys did that I'm missing? Anything with wiz.bin, properties file, something?

(By the way, I don't have a "black screen". It looks fine when it starts up, but freezes anyway. I hope this is the same problem you guys have with the same simple fix.)

I had same problem - deleting the videos did not do it either. I deleted my Favorites - found that my wife had inadvertently setup the system to record all Children and Anime. Once I deleted these, CPU utilization went to normal. I think it must have been looking for all of these shows to record and it was too much for it.

[mkanet]

If I remember right, the way mine happened was when I had way, way too many conflicting schedules and favorites. I'm not sure if this still happens in version 3.0 or not.