Sage UI disappears during playback

[Keith]

At seemingly random times while watching recordings, the UI will close. Sage then forgets where it left off when I restart the recording. I have the latest beta, 4.1.4 but it was doing it before I upgraded to the latest one.

This started happening when I installed the Winamp visualization plugin. But I completely uninstalled Sage and the plugin and re-installed from scratch, saving only my wiz.bin file and I still have the problem.

I had been runing Nvidia Foreceware drivers 81.85 so I updated to the latest but that didn't help. It doesn't seem to matter which mpeg-2 codec I use.

I have the latest Java, and all the MS updates for XP Pro. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I'm about to wipe the hard drive...

[Keith]

So nobody else is having this problem?

Yesterday I wiped the hard drive, re-installed XP, SP2, and all the 40 or so MS updates/patches, + Sage 4.1.4 and tonight the UI just vanished in the middle of trying to watch a recorded show again.

The system has been really stable otherwise. Only Sage is giving me problems.

I'm out of ideas. Any suggestions would be appreciated...

[Opus4]

Try setting the debug_logging=TRUE property (as shown here, including CAPS) & restarting SageTV. That will create a log file that might contain info to help figure it out. Also, look for other recently created log files that might have come from java when the program closed.

- Andy

[Keith]

Thanks. I can't find any Java error logs but I did get this this morning in the Sage log :

Wed 1/4 5:10:54.109 Error communicating with server:java.lang.NullPointerException
Wed 1/4 5:10:54.110 Cleaning up c/s connection
Wed 1/4 5:10:54.110 NetworkManager CommunicationFailure : /127.0.0.1:1713 type=1
Wed 1/4 5:10:54.111 MsgSend thread terminating for /127.0.0.1:1713


Could that be why the UI closes? How do you recommend I go about troubleshooting it?

Could this be related to a Java bug? Is Sage known to be 100% reliable with JRE 5.0 update #6? I'll try downgrading my system to the older JRE (update #4). Hopefully that'll be the end of this mess.

I checked dxdiag and it found no errors. Any other logs or system info files that would be helpful?

[Keith]

Andy - it's been several days since I downgraded the JRE on the machine I use for the Sage server and do 99% of my viewing on.

I'd say it seems pretty definite that there's a huge compatibility issue with the latest JRE and Sage.

[InTheFlow]

Originally Posted by Keith

At seemingly random times while watching recordings, the UI will close. Sage then forgets where it left off when I restart the recording.

I had been runing Nvidia Foreceware drivers 81.85 so I updated to the latest but that didn't help. It doesn't seem to matter which mpeg-2 codec I use.

Hi Keith,

I was having a similar problem recently except more severe. I could start playblack on a show and provided I had just rebooted my system, It would actually play the file without issue.

However when I pressed the Play button and the UI came up...it would be all black where you would normally see the "show length bar". In a few seconds it would go away like normal and I could keep watching the show.

But, if I paused the show, the UI portion of the screen would come back up as all black again. If I stoped the show or pressed "back" go go back to the full screen menu, I got an entire black screen. The only way out was to Ctrl-Alt-Del and shut it down with task manager.

The only thing I had changed on my system was my Nvidia drivers from 77 to the 81.85 ones. So I uninstalled the new drivers, ran "Detonator R. I. P." to clean up anything that was still left & re-installed the 77 version drivers.

After that, Sage's UI worked properly again.

I'm curious if your issue would go away if you reverted back to the old drivers using the same process I followed?

One thing I did not do when initially upgrading the drivers was to use the Detonator RIP program. This afternoon I'm going to try upgrading the drivers again using the above process to see if it will then work with the newer drivers. If not, I'll go back to the 77 drivers until a fix is discovered.

I hope this helps.

[Keith]

I'm using the latest Nvidia driver - for me the fix was to downgrade the Java JRE version.

[InTheFlow]

Originally Posted by Keith

I'm using the latest Nvidia driver - for me the fix was to downgrade the Java JRE version.

What version are you using Keith?

Thanks.

[emok]

I've been using the 81.98 nvidia drivers for a while and sage seems to be running fine for me. Been using Sage running as a service. Playback seems ok, too.

In addition, I've recently upgraded to the latest JRE 1.5_06 two days ago. So far, so good. Unless there's some problem that I haven't been noticing yet.

I know this doesn't really help with your problem, but just wanted to say that I've been using the latest forceware with the latest JRE and seems to be working so far for me.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by InTheFlow

What version are you using Keith?

Thanks.

Version of...?

I'm using version 1.5.04 of the JRE, it's been rock solid ever since I downgraded.

[InTheFlow]

Thanks for the info. I'll do some more testing myself and see if I find anything else out. If I do, I'll report back.

[Ctrl-Z]

I have the same issue with SageTV shutting down randomly (version 4.0.0.56 and Java 1.5.0_06). It only starting doing this a couple of days ago and I can think of no changes that I did to my system to cause it. It seems to help to do a reboot but within a few hours Sage will close by itself again.

[IPFighter]

I've been searching the forums for anything similar to the problems I have encountered just over the last few days.

I've been using Sage 4.1.4 fine since December, and before that 4.0 since November. Not sure what version of Java I was running. Then all of the sudden earlier today Sage started acting up. I would move around the UI and at various points (not consistently) it would pause, giving the swirling working symbol (what is that....Sage hourglass?). The entire screen fails to update and it take 2-5 minutes until it finally get to the next screen. For example, just moving into the Media Library, or into a folder in the library. Everything seems very sluggish.

Also, after watching TV for a bit, when I stop the playback it freezes (no Sage hourglass) and the screen goes black and I'm forced to shut it down. When I try to restart the program it will not start.

I have tried several things suggested in various posts. I uninstalled and reinstalled latest Java. Same problems. I then uninstalled both Java and Sage and then reinstalled latest Java and latest Sage 4.1.6. I thought things were better at first then same things started happening. It seems that virtually every UI movement--new screen, stopping playback, even moving between folders of stored media--sets off the Sage hourglass or freezes the program. When the program freezes and I shut down, I cannot restart Sage right away. BUT if I wait for a few minutes it then will start. Finally, my Hauppauge remote only works now some of the time and it will not let me reconfigure the keys.

HELP! I honestly did not change anything (I don't think) and now, even with a clean reinstall, I cannot fix my system. Is this a Java problem? If so, where do I find earlier versions of Java to try? Any ideas would be very much appreciated.

David

Athlon 64 3000+ 1Gig NVidia GeForce4 Ti4200

[Keith]

Originally Posted by IPFighter

HELP! I honestly did not change anything (I don't think) and now, even with a clean reinstall, I cannot fix my system. Is this a Java problem? If so, where do I find earlier versions of Java to try? Any ideas would be very much appreciated.

David

Try two things - first uninstall Java completely.

Back up your sage.properties, sage.client.properties and wiz.bin.

Un-install Sage.

Reboot.

Install Sage - sage should install a default Java. I haven't verefied this myself but that's what people claim so it's worth a try.

Restore the files you backed up earlier - before you try to launch Sage.

If indeed after installing Sage you now have a default Java installation, then open the XP Control Panel, find the Java applet, open it, and disable it's auto-updating function.

If for some reason you don't have Java after re-installing Sage, then you can download version 1.5.04 which seems to work fine for some people (it fixed my problems) from here :

http://javashoplm.sun.com/ECom/docs/...actionId=noreg

Good luck...

Also, file a bug report.

[IPFighter]

Keith,

Thanks for your suggestions. I tried the first option, uninstalling everything (after backing up Sage files), then reinstalling. Note that neither Sage version 4.1.4 or 4.1.6 installs a default Java; after installation I get a cannot find Java.dll or something. But I installed the Java 1.5.04 version as you suggested.

Still no luck. I tried both Sage versions. Still nothing. Now while I can start Sage everytime I move anywhere on in the UI (e.g., merely selecting Program Guide), the Sage hourglass comes up and it takes literally minutes until is gets to the next screen. And when I able to get a program on, the system froze; it would not let me change channels, stop playback or even forcible exit the program.

Any ideas? Is there some registry problem? What is sad is that I have been using Sage (various versions since 2.1) on this very same machine for months and this just started acting up yesterday. Could a hardware crash somewhere on my system cause this problem? Yet all other programs work fine on the system. Is there any way to look into an error log?

Any further suggestions would be much appreciated.

David

[Keith]

Originally Posted by IPFighter

Any further suggestions would be much appreciated.

David

I think the best thing I can suggest at this point is to file a bug and or request tech support help.

[Opus4]

While I don't know what is going on, I can answer a couple questions...

Originally Posted by IPFighter

Note that neither Sage version 4.1.4 or 4.1.6 installs a default Java; after installation I get a cannot find Java.dll or something. But I installed the Java 1.5.04 version as you suggested.

If you get rid of all versions of java before installaing SageTV, it should install the version of java that it comes with.

If you do a reinstall, make a backup copy of the current install dir & then completely uninstall it, deleting the entire SageTV install dir afterwards. (that's why you made a copy first.) Let it start with new properties & wiz.bin files to see what happens. If that works, then you can close SageTV & restore the old wiz.bin, but stick with the new properties file.

Is there any way to look into an error log?

You can set the debug_logging=TRUE property (exactly as shown here) & that will turn on debug logging.

But, since this just suddenly happened I would look into possible hardware issues or Windows updates, if they are automatically installed.

- Andy

[InTheFlow]

Originally Posted by Opus4

If you get rid of all versions of java before installing SageTV, it should install the version of java that it comes with.

- Andy

I know its been a while since I posted on this thread but I've been troubleshooting this issue since about 4pm today and want to share.

I'll give you two versions...a short one and a very detailed one.

Short Version:

Andy, your idea helped get me here in a big way, so thank you!

It turned out that my problem was that my properties & client properties files had "issues".

So by removing Java & re-installing Sage* from scratch and ONLY copying the wiz.bin file back into the SageTV directory, Sage created those files fresh.I had to go through setup again but it was a pretty quick process.

After doing the above, I am now running the latest Nvida Forceware drivers, and the latest version of Java with NO issues with the UI whatsoever!


*=if you are having problems with that or getting the "can't find java dll" error see my detailed explanation further below for the fix.

Long Version:

So, since my last post I have been running my older video drivers (77.xx) to get around the UI blackout thing. Well, that started irking me because I wanted to use the newest Forceware Drivers (Currently 81.98) especially since I'll be going SLI shortly and will require them.

I upgraded my NF4 Chipset drivers and then installed the Forceware graphics drivers hoping that the problem was with the outdated chipset drivers from 2004.(I know, I know) I was wrong.

As soon as I rebooted I loaded Sage and started a file playing. Same exact thing as before, the video would play but the UI would be blacked out. Then when pressing "menu" or "stop" I got a black screen with no UI at all. If I minimized Sage and brought it back up the UI would be there again but it would do the same thing if I played a video after maximizing it.

Then I read the posts on this thread again to get some ideas...as usual, Andy had some great ones.
I downloaded the .04 version of Java thinking maybe there was an incompatibility between the new version, Sage & the video drivers. I installed it after the download and had the same problem.

I then decided to try uninstalling Java and Sage completely and then do a re-install to see if Sage would install its version of Java again. I uninstalled all three versions of Java that were on my box via add/remove programs. Uninstalled Sage & deleted it's directory on the hard drive as well. (As suggested, I backed up the whole directory on a different hard drive first.)

I re-installed Sage. At the end of the install it automatically started the Java version 1.4.2_06 installer. I let it install and afterwards copied my two properties files and wiz.bin file into the newly created SageTV directory. Then I tested Sage again. (Note, I did not start the Sage Service at this point...this will be important later.)

Sweet! It worked! No more UI issue! I was so happy that I could finally use the new video drivers and have full Sage TV functionality!
But then I got to thinking, what if I need the newer versions of Java for surfing the web or for Java web games?

So I started the Sage Service Control, enabled and started the service and checked the checkbox to restore the service if it is terminated. Then I installed the latest version of Java 1.5.0.06 and tried Sage again. Ahhh! The problem is back! Well, at least I know I can get it to work with the older version of Java that Sage installs. J

So I uninstalled the (now two) versions of Java on my box, uninstalled Sage, deleted the directory, rebooted the machine and ran the install for sage again. Then the darn thing wouldn't install Java at the end of its install like it had done before! I couldn't believe it...instead, it told me it couldn't find the java dll file or something along those lines. I thought to myself: "Sheesh maybe if you can't find it, you should install it!"

(I think the problem with the .dll error I had was due to having many different versions of Java on my system and not uninstalling the old one's before upgrading to the new one. This may have made it so certain registry setting couldn’t be removed.)

I checked Add/Remove programs to make sure Java was not installed and it wasn't. I was pissed by this point and decided to take a break. When I came back I looked inside my registry and used the search tool to find anything and everything with the word "java" in it. I then proceeded to manually delete each and every folder/value it showed up in. I thought maybe sage was being told by the registry that Java was already supposed to be somewhere and then couldn't find it. (If you do this, back up your registry first.)

After I went through the registry I deleted the entire Java folder in my Program Files directory & uninstalled Sage again just like before. Then I rebooted the system. THEN when I ran the Sage installation after the reboot it could not detect Java anywhere and began the install of Java afterwards!

Woohoo! I'm on the home stretch now...I'll have her up and running soon enough...forget the latest version of Java... So the install completed, I copied over my properties and wiz files, started the Sage Service Control, enabled the service as I did before, closed the window and started Sage again.

Then I went and played a video...the same FRACKIN thing happened! Wait! It can't be...this is using the old version of Java and I saw it work before with my own eyes! What is going on? So other than highly ticking me off (by this time I had been working on this for hours.), I figured out that it was in fact NOT the Java version causing the problem.

After another break I started thinking about what else it could be. I tried all kinds of things like uninstalling Java in special ways, re-installing Sage, rebooting...Reboot! That’s it, it only seems to give me the problem after I reboot! The sagetv service! Maybe that is the problem...I have it set to start automatically whenever windows starts. And right before I rebooted I would enable the service.

After the reboot, I started sage...the problem was still there. I then stopped the sagetv service from running by using task manager and killing the process. Started Sage again, and had the same problem. Hmmm, maybe its something else...then I decided to open the service configuration program and turn it off from there. (The checkbox here made it so when I disabled the service from task manager, it started again…which its supposed to do.)

I then opened sage again and played a video..it worked perfectly! How could the service be causing this? If it was the service then the version of Java I'm using shouldn't matter. That is when I decided to install the latest version of Java again. I enabled the service, ran Sage and played a video. Same problem. I turned off the service and the problem was gone! Everything was working...no more UI problems at all.

I tested the above many times and any time the service was running I had the problem and whenever I turned it off it was back. Well its great I figured it out and all but I need the service to be running AND I wanted a fully functioning UI! Ah, the demands of users!

So it was at this point many hours later that I decided to try Opus' idea and reinstall sage without copying over my two properties files. I only copied over my wiz.bin file.

I also had fully removed the SageTV directory and uninstalled Java again before running the install. I went through the configuration of Sage after it had re-installed Java and loaded up a video. The video played properly and the UI was working as well...now to test the service.

Ran the service control again turned on the service as before, re-ran Sage, played the video & damn if it didn't work! I rebooted and tested again, it still worked! Woohoo!

Now to test the newer version of Java. I uninstalled the 1.4 version of Java that Sage installed and then installed the newest version of Java.

The Sage service was still running and I started Sage again. It still worked! Even after a reboot! Woohoo! So now I have the latest Java, the latest Nvidia drivers, and the latest version of non-beta Sage (4.1.3.67) all working together! Zero issues! The UI works flawlessly now!

So after all that, it turns out it was something up with my properties files. Maybe there was a setting in there that needed to be adjusted or maybe they just got somewhat corrupted after upgrading from previous versions of sage. I really don't know for sure.

If anyone tried Opus' last idea before and it didn't work, make sure you delete your SageTV directory before re-installing Sage. If your Sage Directory is still there and you copy over the properties files that are still there from the last install, the next time Sage starts…it automatically overwrites it with the backed up version in the same directory.

Of course, the java uninstall may not be necessary since I found the Sage properties files to be causing my UI problem.

Hope this helps someone else too. That way, the almost 10 hours working on this will be more worth it!