Loses setup after power outage

[Wakecrash]

I have .10 beta and had a couple of power outages this week. Each time the server lost it's setup. I had to go through the setup screens including adding the video drives, tuners etc to get the server funtional again.

Actually, I was out of town driving through some back roads in Maine walking the wife through it.

Anyone else?

[Opus4]

If the system just crashes when the power goes out, you can end up with who-knows-what files being corrupted. I'm guessing that's what happened to the properties files, causing the need to reconfigure. You could mention it to SageTV to see if there is any way they could handle the files in such a case, but such crashes can affect many things on your system even if SageTV is able to handle it better. The best thing to do would be to buy a UPS that can tell your system when there isn't much power remaining so that it can do an orderly shutdown.

- Andy

[cybrmage]

There isn't anything that software alone can do to protect from power failures!

A UPS is the best investment you can make to protect your SageTV system!

You can get a small capacity UPS for under $50USD (IE: APC BE350R @ BestBuy for $39.99)... They won't run your system for very long (about 6 - 10 minutes with average Athlon64/P4 computer), but with the included shutdown software, they will allow your system to properly shutdown if the power fails for more than a few minutes.

[ben_gb]

Andy,

Is it possible that something has changed in recent beta versions to make Sage more prone to losing its setup?

One of my servers is in an area which experiences lots of powercuts (can be several a week, but usually at least 2 or 3 a month). Earlier versions did seem to be more robust, as until recently the system has always survived the frequent outages. However, since beta 9 or 10, it has lost it's configuration on just about every power failure.

Also, shouldn't the .autobackup file be automatically used if there is a problem with the main properties file?

Ben

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by ben_gb

Is it possible that something has changed in recent beta versions to make Sage more prone to losing its setup?

Not that I know of, but I tend not to unplug my PC to test such stuff... and if I unplug my UPS, I just hear alarms.

One of my servers is in an area which experiences lots of powercuts (can be several a week, but usually at least 2 or 3 a month). Earlier versions did seem to be more robust, as until recently the system has always survived the frequent outages. However, since beta 9 or 10, it has lost it's configuration on just about every power failure.

Again... a UPS is fairly inexpensive compared to the cost of the PC itself, all the data you have on it, and the time it would take to repair a burned out PC.

Also, shouldn't the .autobackup file be automatically used if there is a problem with the main properties file?

Maybe the properties file is cleared of any useful settings, but it doesn't look invalid? I don't know exactly how that autobackup comes into play.

- Andy

[ben_95sl1]

My view on this is, because sagetv is a 24/7 application, it should include a very robust backup/recovery system for the important stuff, much like a set top box would deal with it I imagine....losing the wiz.bin file would be a major loss for me. That being said, I automatically backup properties and wiz.bin every few days on both an extra internal drive and an external drive....plus I have a UPS which will go about 15-20min without power.

[JUC]

i also had a power failure last weekend cause my setup to get hosed--i actually 'lost' a tuner for a while. I had to reinstall the recent beta for it to get recognized again...we have a lot of power outages where i am and usually i just start up the PC with no probs--this was the first time this happened and it was with the newest build.
JUC

[Narflex]

D'oh! We tracked this one down today. It's fixed for the next build (which'll be 4.1.13).

It had to do with the OS keeping the file's content in a buffer and not flushing it to the hard disk so it would get lost when there was a hard crash. So it had the working copy AND the backup copy both in that buffer and lost both of them during the hard crash.

SageTV (as of 4.1.13) now flushes them out of that buffer when it saves them so this won't happen anymore. (the Wiz.bin/bak files were already being flushed correctly in case you were wondering)

[ben_gb]

Originally Posted by Narflex

D'oh! We tracked this one down today. It's fixed for the next build (which'll be 4.1.13).

Great news! Thank you!

Yes, although a UPS would be the ideal solution, this isn't possible at the moment for the setup in question, because of difficulties getting it shipped (outside the US).

Cheers,
Ben

[pciccone]

Originally Posted by Narflex

SageTV (as of 4.1.13) now flushes them out of that buffer when it saves them so this won't happen anymore. (the Wiz.bin/bak files were already being flushed correctly in case you were wondering)

Narflex, just wanted to mention also make sure that you check the client directories MVP files for the same problem. It is common for it to happen to all of the .properties files including the MVPs/placeshifters.

The visual result of this is the MVPs loading with a flashing SageTV bootup screen and windows appearing on the console with the MAC address as the window title and a setup screen appearing.

FYI

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by pciccone

Narflex, just wanted to mention also make sure that you check the client directories MVP files for the same problem. It is common for it to happen to all of the .properties files including the MVPs/placeshifters.

The visual result of this is the MVPs loading with a flashing SageTV bootup screen and windows appearing on the console with the MAC address as the window title and a setup screen appearing.

FYI

This is fixed too. The bug was in a custom class reused for all SageTV properties files. (so anything using it got fixed)