SageTVTranscoder.exe

[jgsouthard]

What is the sagetvtranscoder.exe process?

Does anyone know why -- starting in 6.0.15 -- it starts running continuously while consuming 100% of the CPU, bringing my system to its knees? The only way to recover is to kill the sagetvtranscoder.exe process using Task Manager.

I never noticed this in previous SageTV versions, including the 6.0.11 beta which I just replaced with 6.0.15.

I can't figure out what is triggering it to run at all. I use an MVP Media Extender, but all of my media is either MPEG-2 recorded by SageTV or MP3 music files.

I've turned in a bug report on this, but I'm looking for education and hints in case there's something I'm doing that's causing it.

Jim

[Patilan]

Originally Posted by jgsouthard

What is the sagetvtranscoder.exe process? Does anyone know why it starts running...

Aren't you trying to convert a recording what's starting that sagetvtranscoder.exe?

...consuming 100% of the CPU, bringing my system to its knees? The only way to recover is to kill the sagetvtranscoder...

Put this in your sage.properties file:
xcode_process_priority=idle
xcode_reduce_process_priority=true
This way you won't even notice that sagetvtranscoder is running.

[jgsouthard]

Originally Posted by Patilan

Aren't you trying to convert a recording what's starting that sagetvtranscoder.exe?

No, that's the puzzling part. I'm not trying to convert a recording, but somehow sagetvtranscoder.exe gets started anyway. It seems to be happening about once per day, but I can't figure out what's triggering it to start.

Originally Posted by Patilan

Put this in your sage.properties file:
xcode_process_priority=idle
xcode_reduce_process_priority=true
This way you won't even notice that sagetvtranscoder is running.

Thanks. I might try this if I can't find any other solution, but I'd prefer to find out what's triggering it to run and resolve that instead.

[Patilan]

Poltergeist.

[AngelofDeth]

Doesn't the transcoder run to generate thumbnail graphics for recordings? That doesn't explain why its taking up so many resources though.

[Patilan]

Originally Posted by jgsouthard

I'd prefer to find out what's triggering it to run and resolve that instead.

I think it's a good idea using those settings not instead, but along with finding what that problem is. Having the transcoder run in low priority will still get it 100% of the cpu, but only when the cpu has absolutely nothing else to do, which is most of the time, and you'll never experience any slowdown of your machine.

AngelofDeth made an interesting suggestion. But it's still puzzling why you would have such a problem. For me, it seems like the thumbnails get generated only when my mouse hovers over a recording that doesn't have a thumbnail yet. I may be wrong though.

[salsbst]

I just upgraded to v6, and I think I'm having the same problem. sagetvtranscoder.exe seems to bring down my system. I looked and found it had generated a few thumbnails, but not many. Whatever it is doing, it doesn't appear to be making files. I'm going to try setting its priority to low according to the properties file setting to see if I can at least use SageTV 6...

[jgsouthard]

I was the OP, but mine hasn't done it again in the last week. I posted a bug report and the SageTV guys would like to find a log file (sagetv_0.txt, sagetv_1.txt, etc.) that shows the activity leading up to the loop condition. I didn't look for the log files until a couple of days later, and by that point the logs from before the error occurred had been purged. Once the error started, I was left with log files filled with ONE line repeated thousands of times, with the only difference being the time code:

Fri 11/24 23:10:10.667 Mpeg2Reader seeking to pos=0

If you see a similar repeated line in your log files, and your system seems 100% consumed by sagetvtranscoder.exe, see if you can find the log file that shows the START of this sequence and get it to the tech support folks.

Jim

[Goodspike]

My guess is it's searching drives for files to convert, for I had this issue at first too, but it just went away.

[jgsouthard]

Originally Posted by Goodspike

My guess is it's searching drives for files to convert, for I had this issue at first too, but it just went away.

Huh... Could be -- That would explain it. If so, then it would only occur for the first few minutes/hours after upgrading. In my case, I have thousands of music files on a separate file server, so it could have been tied up for a long time trying to find thumbnails. Thanks, good theory.

[tmiranda]

Yes, When you first upgrade to v6 Sage does a lot of work generating thumbnails and such. On a system with many recordings, pictures, audio files it takes a while to generate them all. After that things should calm down.

I hope Sage warns about this in the official install documentation or they will be getting a lot of bug reports!

[nielm]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Yes, When you first upgrade to v6 Sage does a lot of work generating thumbnails and such. On a system with many recordings, pictures, audio files it takes a while to generate them all. After that things should calm down.

I hope Sage warns about this in the official install documentation or they will be getting a lot of bug reports!

SageTVTranscoder.exe is only used to generate thubnails from video files, not Audio or Picture files.

In any case, thumbs are only generated when they are first needed to be displayed, ie only when you higlight a recorded file and it's thumb needs to be displayed, or when you browse the vid lib. Thumbs are not pro-actively generated, nor does the transcoder process search for anything.

[teknubic]

Originally Posted by nielm

SageTVTranscoder.exe is only used to generate thubnails from video files, not Audio or Picture files.

That can't be right. I just installed 6.0.15 again and SageTVTranscoder.exe is popping in and out constantly. The only thing going on in the logs is audio importing. This is the first time I've ran SageTV since I installed the beta this time around.

[nielm]

What audio file formats do you have?

(in a minor correction to my previous msg, sagetvtranscoder is also used to convert video and possibly audio from one format to another, eg for MVP playback)

[teknubic]

I have tagged MP3 files. I think that maybe SageTVTranscoder also makes thumbnail images on pictures. All of the music in my library is tagged with cover art. Do you think --assuming sagetvtranscoder makes thumbnails-- that it could be making cover art thumbnails?

[nielm]

Originally Posted by teknubic

I have tagged MP3 files. I think that maybe SageTVTranscoder also makes thumbnail images on pictures. All of the music in my library is tagged with cover art. Do you think --assuming sagetvtranscoder makes thumbnails-- that it could be making cover art thumbnails?

I very much doubt it...

Sage could read both MP3 and JPG files natively and extract the thumbs itself before the transcoder was added to the distribution. In addition, these thumbs should only be generated when they are first required (although I have no image-tagged MP3s to test with...), not during a lib scan..

Check the contents of SageTV/GeneratedThumbnails, and have a look at the files with the most recent timestamps to see what they might be.

[Polypro]

I ran into this last night. It's happened before, but I only decided to investigate it last night. While watching a program live, and then bringing up the Guide (Video=When Active/Background), I noticed Sage was taking 3-4 seconds to navigate the Guide...arrow down/page down. I exited the Sage UI (Service Mode), and opened Task Manager...SageTranscoder.exe was consuming up to 60% CPU. I'll submit a bug report as soon as I get home and can find the log file.

P

Edit: 6.0.19 w/Java 1.4.2_13 VMR/FSE

[simonen]

I noticed this issue as well and found it linked to the recording quality. When setting the max quality at 5.9GB (if I remember correctly), the transcoder.exe no longer showed up as a process and the speed of the GUI was back to normal.

[SageMeToo]

I recently encountered this issue as well. I installed the SageTV trial about a week ago and have been trying to get it to stream HD content to an MVP via transcoding. (I don't seem to have enough horsepower - AMD 64 3000+, but that's for another thread) Until this morning, I had not noticed the transcoder process running unless I was actively streaming to the MVP.

However, this morning, I noticed the process "popping in and out" on taskmgr while consuming 20-80% of the CPU.

Now, the only thing I did this morning was add 250+ albums to the Media Center portion of Sage. Until now, I had nothing (no pictures, video, or music) "in" Sage.

After noting the transcoder process, I checked out the music section in Sage and noticed that album cover thumbnails were being added to all the albums. I believe Sage was using the transcoder to do it for two reasons:

1. This popping in and out had never happened before.

2. Now that all the albums have a thumbnail cover, transcode.exe is no longer running except when I'm streaming live HD. (I currently don't convert any recordings since I'm still evaluating Sage and my PC to see if I can do what I want to do.)

just my .02 cents.

[Polypro]

This thing is killing me! Even with the properties file entries set to "Idle", last night my HD light was solid. I brought up Task Manager and SageTranscoder.exe was running at ~15%...but Sage was locked up tight. The only thing new on the computer would have been some recordings from last night...no album art, etc... When I killed it, it would re-start. With the UI closed, it would re-start. If I killed the Service and then it, it would stay dead...re-starting the Service brought it back. Let's see what renaming it to SageTranscoder.xxe does

P