MVP stuck on "Loading SageTV Media Centre, Please Wait..."

[sjgore]

Hello,

Today I downloaded the trial of SageTV 6 (6.0.19), with the intention of trying it with my new Hauppauge MediaMVP (Rev 2.05).

Having installed SageTV, enabled the SageTV service and started it, I switched my MediaMVP on (which had been unplugged for over an hour) and it booted to a screen with a very large SageTV logo on it, with the words "Loading SageTV Media Centre, Please Wait...". But it didn't get any further than that, even when left for over 30 mins. Tried it again at least 6 or 7 times, tried re-booting both my PC and the MediaMVP, and it still gets stuck at exactly the same point.

The MediaMVP works fine with the Hauppauge software, so I know it's not a connection issue.

Any suggestions? Any help would be appreciated.

Steve.

[Alfiegerner]

Hi Steve, welcome to Sage.

First think I 'd check is firewall and network settings. Have you tried turning off all relevant firewalls temporarily to see if it works okay then?

[rtengvad]

Hi steve

You also have to make sure that your old hauppauge software is disabled

rtengvad

[mdnttoker]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

Hi steve

You also have to make sure that your old hauppauge software is disabled

rtengvad

Just to expand on that...right click on My Computer, click Manage, click Services, and disable & stop the Hauppauge MediaMVP services.

And as above, turn off the windows xp software firewall while debugging.

[sjgore]

Hi,

Thanks for all your replies!

Since trying the supplied Hauppauge MediaMVP software, I've done a clean re-format, and Sage TV is the only MVP-related software currently on my reinstalled system.

On the advice of the first reply, I tried temporarily switching off my firewall (after disconnecting my wireless router from the internet), and it still didn't make any difference. Still stuck in the same place.

Any more suggestions?

Steve.

[rtengvad]

Hi Steve

Don't give up. Try to see if Sage generate a log file in the sage folder. Its called sagetv_0.txt.

If you can find it post it here for the forum experts to have a look. If you cant find it set

debug_logging=TRUE

in the sage.properties file

rtengvad

[joe123]

I get that a lot and have noticed that it only happens when my PVR (PC) is busy.

If my PVR is mosltly idle doing nothing, both of my MVP's boot up ok. However, if I am running ShowAnalyzer and I power on my MVP's (one or both), they either take forever to get past the green "SageTV is Booting uP" screen, or the MVP's never get past that green screen.

I am running SagetTV 6.0.19 on a AMD semptron system.

[rtengvad]

Originally Posted by joe123

I get that a lot and have noticed that it only happens when my PVR (PC) is busy.

If my PVR is mosltly idle doing nothing, both of my MVP's boot up ok. However, if I am running ShowAnalyzer and I power on my MVP's (one or both), they either take forever to get past the green "SageTV is Booting uP" screen, or the MVP's never get past that green screen.

I am running SagetTV 6.0.19 on a AMD semptron system.

I have the very same problem when Showanalyzer is running

rtengvad

[sjgore]

Thanks again for the replies!

I finally got it to work last night. Well... sort of.

Basically, my MVP will boot properly when SageTV is sleeping in the system tray (just showing as an icon).

Now laugh at me if you want to, but I had assumed that having the SageTV service running was sufficient, I hadn't realised that SageTV itself needed to be running too. Or maybe it doesn't... but it seems to work anyway! (I could have sworn I'd already tried this rather obvious step, but anyway...)

So I can now successfully get to the initial SageTV menu screen on my MVP (it still seems to take a good couple of minutes to load, though).

But I'm afraid this is where my next problem starts!

The GUI is extremely slow. Without exaggerating, it takes well over 5 seconds for the SageTV menu to respond to a signal from the remote. When I finally navigated to the imported video screen and tried to play a video, it played in bursts... a few frames and a bit of sound every few seconds, and then a long pause.

SageTV works perfectly on my PC (including the same video file mentioned above), and is very fast and responsive, it's just on my MVP that I have the problem. I desperately want to get it working on my MVP, because I like the software!

My network is definitely running at 802.11g, there's nothing else connected that could be causing it to run slower, and it worked fine with the supplied Haupauge software (same video clip again). There is also nothing else running on my PC, no notable hard disk activity etc. that could be causing the slowdown.

My system is an Athlon 64 X2 4400 with 2GB of RAM, so that shouldn't be slowing it down either.

Any suggestions? Should I start a new thread for my new problem?

Steve.

-EDIT- Forgot to mention that the strength of the signal between my router and my MVP shows as 3 out of 5 bars, so this should be sufficient?

[Alfiegerner]

This could be a wireless network issue. I've heard many people have issues with using an MVP wirelessly, hopefully someone who has experience with this will chime in as I only use an MVP wired. Can you try using your MVP hard wired to see if this is the problem? If it is, you could try using powerline ethernet over a/c technology to rig it up without having a massive ethernet cable.

If it is not a wireless network issue you may want to try using the Java 6 beta - have a search on the forum for a link. It makes a big improvement on MVP interface speed.

[sjgore]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Can you try using your MVP hard wired to see if this is the problem?

I'll try this tonight when I get home.

If it is, you could try using powerline ethernet over a/c technology to rig it up without having a massive ethernet cable.

I'd heard about this technology, but didn't know it was available for home use just yet! This would also mean I could put the security of my wireless network back up to WPA, after having had to lower it to 128-bit WEP just for the sake of my MediaMVP (the only bad thing about it, IMHO).

If it is not a wireless network issue you may want to try using the Java 6 bet

I'll try this tonight too.

Steve.

[sainswor99]

Another option might be to use a wireless bridge and hardwire your MVP to it. It means you just spent $50 on some pretty antennas on your MVP, but at least it will work.

[enthilzha]

I bought a wireless mvp about 5 months ago because running cat5e or cat6 cabling to my family room was going to be time consuming and I thought I could get a reliable wireless network signal without too much hassle. Bad idea...

A few notes on my setup: Initially I had both the SageTV server and the WirelessMVP on their own 802.11g network running 128 bit WEP. I had everything running on a channel that no one else was using within range of my AP so co-channel interference wasn't an issue. Due to the placement of my AP within my house the MVP was getting a signal of about ~60dbm and the SageTV server was getting ~70dbm. This setup failed miserably. Everything connected fine but video and remote response was horrible (3-5 seconds). I finally gave up and ran Cat5e into my family room and connected the MVP using the wired connection. This setup works great when I run the SageTV server without ANY encryption. Turning on WEP or WPA on the SageTV server causes the MVP to get stuck at the "Waiting for SageTV to boot up..." screen. I suspect that due to my Sage server not having a great wireless signal (~70dbm) that the MVP isn't tolerating the packet retransmissions and that problem will only get worse when encryption is enabled. I'm in the process of trying to either relocate my AP to improve my wireless coverage or run cat5e to my SageTV server. I'll try to post my results when I get a chance to complete things.


There are a few problems with the whole wireless mvp option in my opinion:

1. Until later versions of the Sage V6 beta the MVP wouldn't even boot properly due to a tftp timeout error in Sage's MVP implementation (to their credit Sage fixed this and if you're running the final version of V6 this should be resolved)

2. The wireless card included in the MVP is horrible. It doesn't support WPA which causes many folks to have to move their home WLAN back to WEP which can be cracked in minutes. Cheap options for APs that can run multiple SSIDs (dd-wrt for example) are still in beta at best. Also the integrated antenna gets poor reception and cannot be easily detached or replaced with a higher gain antenna.

3. What most people don't realize when doing wireless at home is that most applications (file sharing, email, web browsing) will work fine at a very poor signal level (>70dbm). You only notice the problems when you stress the connection with a delay sensitive application like streaming video (Sage), online gaming, or VoIP. I've found that having a single quality in the range of ~50dbm (at least with my setup) worked well for the MVP but anything worse than that would result in boot failures and/or choppy video.

My advice - either wire EVERYTHING (Sage server and MVP) or trying using a wireless bridge. Setting up a wireless bridge that has a directional antenna should great increase your signal strength. The problem is that a directional antenna usually kills the wife acceptance factor (at least in my case). Its possible that if you have amazing wireless reception (your AP, MVP, and Sage server are all in the same room or have a clear RF line-of-sight to each other) the MVP setup will work fine but for most people this probably isn't the case.

My 2 cents... hope that helps!

[flavius]

Here it works fine fine with Rev 2.05 and Sage 6.0.19 (DVD Standard Quality).

[sjgore]

Enthilzha, thanks for your lengthy reply. What you say makes perfect sense, considering the difficulties that I have had with my wireless MVP.

Yesterday, I bought myself a Belkin wireless-G access point, and last night I successfully set it up with my main Belkin wireless-G router. I have now hard-wired my MVP to the access point, and changed the connection setting on the MVP from wireless to wired. I ran out of time and have not had chance to test SageTV with this new setup, but I'll do that tonight and report back - hopefully with some good results.

Steve.

[sjgore]

Just installed Java 6 and tried SageTV with my new setup described in the post above, and it's a vast improvement! In fact, I'd say it's perfect.

My MVP now takes less than 10 seconds to boot to the main menu of SageTV, and the responsiveness is almost instant. My usual 'test' video clip plays perfectly.

I'm off to buy the 'SageTV Media Center with MediaMVP Client License Combo'.

Thanks for everyones help, see you around the forums!

Steve.

[FidgetyRat]

When I have this happen to my MVP, Stopping and restarting the sagetv service solves the problem.