DigiCasa EPG Plug-in + SageTV + firewall?

[Dr Squish]

Back on Apr 17 2005 I posted the following message to the digicasa forum but never got a reply back so I thought I would try this forum. Not sure if the problem exists with Sage or the EPG plug in or elsewhere. Here's a brief description of the problem I am experiencing, hopefully somebody here has seen this before and knows the solution.

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Besides the Windows XP SP2 firewall, are there any firewalls compatible with this plug-in? I have seen from a previous post that Norton's does not seem to work and I know that Agnitum's Outpost does not work either. Similar to Norton's, I gave full access to Sagetv.exe and SageTVService.exe but still no go with the guide. I have to exit and shutdown outpost before the guide will be updated. The same for setting up a new source and downloading its guide data.

Windows XP SP2 firewall does work when I fully trust those same Sage exe so there is something else that the XP firewall is passing through by default that I am not permitting with Outpost. (Tells you something about the XP firewall doesn't it? But let's leave that topic for another discussion...)

So the million dollar question is, what else do I need to add to my firewall exclusion list to make the guide download work? What DLL or exe and what ports or protocols?

Thus far the tally is:
N - Nortons
N - Outpost
Y - Windows XP SP2

If you have a compatible firewall or know what rules I need to add, then please post a reply to this message. Thx.

[plawlor]

I am having the same problem with ISA Server. My Sage box is a PC on my network and I am Natting its address through Microsoft ISA Server 2004. No go thus far. I thought the EPG was based on http web services and just required Port 80, but I guess not...

I'm going to do some troubleshooting. I'll let you know how I make out.

Peter L.

[Dr Squish]

Thx. I'm surpirised that it took 68 views before I got a response. What's everybody else doing? No firewalls or just using the XP SP2 firewall?

[plawlor]

Dr. Squish,

I just resolved my issue. Turns out that the zap2it web services didn't like the fact that my Sage box was being proxied for http traffic by my ISA Server. Once I unbound http from the Proxy, letting my Sage box go direct, I had no troubles. Here is the article I found:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;838708

Perhaps the Firewall you are using has a Proxy Service as well? Try disabling proxy, if you can and see what happens.

[Dr Squish]

Thanks but that's not it for me. I am going direct (from behind a NAT based router), i.e. no proxies in my PC's config. I am using Agnitum's Outpost Pro firewall which I've upgraded to the latest version and still no luck. I've given SageTV and its service fully trusted access to the Internet but that's not enough. Guess I'll need to try another round of testing this weekend to see if I can probe what SageTV and the EPG are doing.

Oh well, thanks anyway...

[davey_fl]

who is your provider? I know for a fact that it doesn't work on any direcway networks due to the way the firewall/proxy http requests...

[Dr Squish]

Shaw Cable. It's not an issue with my Internet connection since I can make it work if I totally disable the Outpost firewall software altogether and use nothing or use XP SP2 firewall. I've even installed Sage on another PC, fresh XP install with latest patches, etc. and no other software.

Installing SageTV on it without any software firewalls = OK.

Remove SageTV, enable XP SP2 firewall with exceptions for SageTV and install SageTV = OK.

Disable XP SP2 firewall and remove SageTV, install Outpost firewall, install SageTV and set rules in Outpost to fully trust SageTV, = NO GUIDE.

This is where I am stuck. I am setting the firewall rules in both XP SP2 and Outpost the same but Outpost does not let the guide data work.

[Sambo555]

I use Sygate Personal Firewall (free for personal use) and have no problems with downloads of epg. I also used XP SP2 Firewall. Again no issue with MS firewall except with using the Sage client on another computer to connect. I think the MS firewall only protects I/B, not outbound traffic so that would maybe suggest that your problem would lie in outbound being blocked (if firewall is the issue).

As far as my firewall is concerned, I installed Sygate with the default settings. It will ask everytime a service/applications wants to get inbound or outbound access to your computer. Reply yes to allow. You can also check the checkbox to remember your answer for that service/app. I've allowed SageTVService.exe and SageTV. There are also a few Windows services that require access as well. A couple I can think of off-hand are svchost.exe and ntoskrnl.exe

Other than that, proxy or directory permissions would be other potential blockages. Is your sage service running under the local System account? If so, does that account have access to the download directory? Is proxy disabled in IE settings?

I have SageTV v 2.2.8, Sygate Firewall and use Shaw cable with no IE proxy settings enabled.

Hope this helps.........

[davey_fl]

there are some good troubleshooting tools I have used available at the labs.zap2it.com forums. They will allow you to manually initiate a connection for epg download, and you can watch your logs to see what's going on. There aren't any special ports it's trying to use, it's a simple http request. I'm on shaw also and download a couple of lineups. I'm using BSD for my firewall, but I install these for a living so setup is easy. You are correct, WinXP Firewall is...err... not a firewall. Outpost is pretty good though. You should be able to look through Outpost's logs and see what's going on...

hth....

davey

[Dr Squish]

Thx. I'll give that a try later on today if I get a chance. Actually I use 2 levels of firewall: an older laptop running IPCop for my home LAN and each PC is running its own software firewall like Outpost. Since I bought a family license for Outpost, I'd like to use it on my HTPC too so any info I can get to make that work is appreciated.