MVP can be crashed 'on demand' ...

[JParedis]

I'm running SageTV v6.1.9, and do use SageMC v6.3.2c (but it's not to my knowlege a SageMC issue, I have the same problems when running the default GUI - hence me putting this question in this area).

My MVP reboots several times a day. I can 'force' it to reboot just by starting to play with a media file (ff, fbw, play, pause, ...). It is like too many commands in a row make it stop. One indication/warning I often get is that the progress bar freezes, than I know a reboot is going to happen. This happens with video, photo and music files.

I have re-installed SageTV, but still same issue. I did make debug files (enclosed), but not being the expert I can only read it seems to indicate on a network and/or Java issue .. Would appreciate some help in understanding what could go wrong

Jan

[bcjenkins]

Hi Jan,

Have you emailed this as well to Sage support?

B

[JParedis]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Hi Jan,

Have you emailed this as well to Sage support?

B

Not yet as I'm also for the first time running VISTA so I'm not sure if it's a VISTA or SageTV issue. Am looking for some initial indications before hitting the support team with this (had at a certain time a support team reporting into me, and always wished people reporting issues took first some time to investigate if it was a real issue, and if so caused by our software ).

Jan

[CollinR]

Mine are pretty solid, they lock up on occasion but it's rare.

Sometimes I get a delay but it eventually catches up.

[JParedis]

Originally Posted by CollinR

Mine are pretty solid, they lock up on occasion but it's rare.

Sometimes I get a delay but it eventually catches up.

Are you running VISTA?

[unkyjoe]

JP,

Mine was crashing every 5-10 minutes until I reserved an IP address for it on my DHCP server. I dont know if this is related to your problems but it is a place to start.

Also disable any customizations and try to crash it again.

Hope this is of some help to you.

P.S. Also what version of Java?

[bcjenkins]

Jan,

Have you tried this with the default stv? Also, I think there is additional logging which could be turned on for SageMC. I am running Vista for a client, not the server though..

B

[JParedis]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Jan,

Have you tried this with the default stv? Also, I think there is additional logging which could be turned on for SageMC. I am running Vista for a client, not the server though..

B

Yes, the default stv has identical issue (but I did not have it reboot with logging enabled).

As I only use the MVP to watch Sage, it's kind of a killer. I'll try this evening if my daughter's client on her PC (seldom used) has the same issue. If so, it's most likely a server issue.
If that's the case, I'll try to re-install an older version. If that resolved the issue, than it must be an issue introduced with latest Sage version.

I'm running VISTA on my HTPC, and soon I'll be upgrading my daughter's PC to VISTA.

Jan

[bcjenkins]

When I looked at your log, the crash happened after rendering icons. Do you have any java error logs in your sagetv directory or in the app data directory?

I do use the client on a vista box. I am not having any issues with crashing, etc. I don't have a server running on Vista though, so I can't replicate the MVP portion. One thing to check. Make sure all JAR files are in c:\program files\sagetv\sagetv\jars and not in the appdata pathing.

B

[riekl]

This is a common issue with Vista . For stable MVP you need to take your server back to WinXP.

I am sure I will be flamed by all the Sage is Vista compatable people, but it is not.

[JParedis]

Originally Posted by riekl

This is a common issue with Vista . For stable MVP you need to take your server back to WinXP.

I am sure I will be flamed by all the Sage is Vista compatable people, but it is not.

That would be a bummer.

I agree SageTV is not really ready for VISTA, based on the way SageTV handles the properties and the db files. In VISTA, if I correctly understand, no file that a 'standard user' would update (e.g., properties) should reside under 'program files'. This is an UAC protected area in VISTA.

A 'standard' install will result in these files to be put under "C:\Users\'user name'\AppData\Local\VirualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV". Although I did not test this, my feeling is this will be an issue if more than one user works on the HTPC (all different version of those files). Microsoft does state that pgm's should have these files in another location. I guess SageTV needs to update their pgm to store these files under "C:\Users\All Users\AppData\Local\VirualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV".

However, unless above also impacts the service running, I have seen nothing indicating that this service should be rewritten for other reasons. Naturally, if I'm not the only VISTA HTPC user having this problem, than indeed SageTV will have to perform a more thorough review/rewrite.
Maybe they should remove, or at least put a warning, in their spec's. On the site is says it runs under VISTA ...

Jan

EDIT: I think I'll now send this issue to Sage support to get their view/input

[carlgar]

Have you looked at the log files? I am also running on vista and seeing problems with the MVP. My MVP wants to restart for no apparent reason. I found the following lines in the log file that matches the time of the problems. I sent this to support yesterday.

Sat 5/5 19:10:30.004 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@12ff28b] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!
Sat 5/5 19:21:35.020 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@ed097d] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!
Sat 5/5 20:02:30.021 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@3e8f6e] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!
Sat 5/5 20:20:47.124 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@480328] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!
Sat 5/5 20:38:30.022 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@12658f5] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!
Sat 5/5 22:38:30.031 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@135e5d8] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!

[JParedis]

Originally Posted by carlgar

Have you looked at the log files? I am also running on vista and seeing problems with the MVP. My MVP wants to restart for no apparent reason. I found the following lines in the log file that matches the time of the problems. I sent this to support yesterday.

Sat 5/5 19:10:30.004 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@12ff28b] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!
Sat 5/5 19:21:35.020 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@ed097d] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!
Sat 5/5 20:02:30.021 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@3e8f6e] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!
Sat 5/5 20:20:47.124 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@480328] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!
Sat 5/5 20:38:30.022 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@12658f5] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!
Sat 5/5 22:38:30.031 [FinalRender-000dfe00a0cd@135e5d8] ERROR: MiniUIClient receiver timed out waiting for response from the MiniClient!

My log files are in the first message of this thread, and no they do not contain that error. I did also send a message to sage suppor yesterday. I did notice in the sagetvclient log following:

Wed 5/2 21:07:17.757 Connection lost from: Socket[addr=/127.0.0.1,port=42024,localport=51203] by:java.io.EOFException
Wed 5/2 21:07:17.757 Error communicating with server:java.io.EOFException
Wed 5/2 21:07:17.758 Cleaning up c/s connection
Wed 5/2 21:07:17.758 Cleaning up c/s connection
Wed 5/2 21:07:17.759 NetworkManager CommunicationFailure : /127.0.0.1:42024 type=2
(it does continue to give errors for a while).

It seems to be also a communication error, as you have.

My MVP does not reboot out of the blue, it is always when I do some actions on it. E.g., if I FF a video to skip some publicity, it's a 1 out of 3 reboot of the MVP.

Have you let UAC enabled? If yes, did you install SageTV in it's default location (under Program Files) and have the properties etc. files located under c:\users\'user name'\... ?

How have you started the sage service (under which user does it run)? I initially got an error when starting via the Sage service UI (something about local admin not linked).

After my first VISTA install, when I did pause a video playing on the MVP for a while, it would not restart. As if the service was not running (a sleep?). I did change in VISTA that the computer does not go fully a sleep anymore, that did resolve the issue. Did you experience here any issues?

A last item, after some reboots my MVP at times seems to have become slow. When I than disconnect power, reconnect - forcing the MVP to cold boot (so redownload the bin file), it is going again at normal speed. Did you have identical experience?

Thanks in advance for the feedback, I intend to reinstall VISTA from scratch - applying what I learned in mean time. If any hints/tips, do let me know, I'll try them out.

Jan

[carlgar]

I do have the skip related issues, I don't even attempt to skip currently. I had some problems with it when using XP, but thought it was related to .ts files from the HDHR. I see a lot more with VISTA.

I run with UAC off. During my testing I saw lots of strange problems with Sage and concuded that it was related to UAC. I also got tired of verifing everything I wanted to do. The first problem I saw was that there were no property files where I expected them.

Sage is located in the the standard location. No, I do not currently use UNC path names. I use the standard letter drives.

I do not run in service mode, I manually start sage.

I don't think I've seen the slowness that you saw. I see strange events when the extender is in the process of restarting itself. Sometimes I see a black screen before the Home screen appears. I only did one cold reboot and that was to insure I had a current software in the extender in case something changed due to VISTA.

One problem I have seen on the server side that I don't think you mentioned is the longer the Sage server runs the more CPU it uses. I have to restart Sage about twice a day to keep the CPU useage decent. Right now I see SageTV using 60% of my CPU.

[JParedis]

Originally Posted by carlgar

I do have the skip related issues, I don't even attempt to skip currently. I had some problems with it when using XP, but thought it was related to .ts files from the HDHR. I see a lot more with VISTA.

I run with UAC off. During my testing I saw lots of strange problems with Sage and concuded that it was related to UAC. I also got tired of verifing everything I wanted to do. The first problem I saw was that there were no property files where I expected them.

Sage is located in the the standard location. No, I do not currently use UNC path names. I use the standard letter drives.

I do not run in service mode, I manually start sage.

I don't think I've seen the slowness that you saw. I see strange events when the extender is in the process of restarting itself. Sometimes I see a black screen before the Home screen appears. I only did one cold reboot and that was to insure I had a current software in the extender in case something changed due to VISTA.

One problem I have seen on the server side that I don't think you mentioned is the longer the Sage server runs the more CPU it uses. I have to restart Sage about twice a day to keep the CPU useage decent. Right now I see SageTV using 60% of my CPU.

Oeps, you seem to have more issues than I have.

- I did not have any issue with XP SP2, actually I had a dream of a stable system. The only reason I moved to VISTA was that I have a new PC and got OEM VISTA with it. And I regard this at the moment a battle between me and VISTA, so not yet giving up and reverting to XP .

- I have UAC enabled. There are basically 2 methods I identified to install Sage with it:

Method 1: Install SageTV under its standard directory "C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV". UAC will store files SageTV will manipulate - e.g., Wiz.bin and sage.properties - under "C:\Users\'user name'\AppData\Local\VirualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV". This would normally not be a problem for the programs, as UAC handles this.

Method 2: Install SageTV under a different directory, as "c:\SageTV". Than all files will be in this directory (as it was with W2K or WXP), UAC does 'protect' the "Program Files" directory, not a directory you create.

UAC will block you of using "SageTVServiceControl.exe", you'll have to each time when you start it, run it as administrator. This is very simple, right click and select 'Run as administrator' - only than you can manipulate services.

A more permanent solution is to configure "SageTVServiceControl.exe" to run always as an administrator. You can do this by right clicking on the exe, selecting "Compatibility", activating administrator under "Privelege Level".

- Just to be sure, if you manually start SageTV, you do not start the service and than the UI, but you only start the UI which you than keep running (else MVP wouldn't work)?
I'm running the service, and besides that I had some issues to get it initially running, I now run it under the Local System Account (which surprises me a bit, as I thought that would not work with VISTA).

- I did not see the 'strange' reboot behaviour of the MVP, it just reboots in a 'normal' manner (but man, at times I get frustrated when it reboots again ).

- I do not have the CPU issue on my HTPC, I bearly see any CPU being used at the moment. When I run Sage on my HTPC, it remains under 15% when playing a video.


Well, I'm certainly going for a clean VISTA install - have been testing so much I'm not sure anymore on all the settings it has now. Just a matter of finding the time

Will post a thread once I got a working version, descriving my settings. But no idea when that will be (hope that SageTV will come back soon with some feedback on my MVP issue).

Jan

FYI: I can not even get a .bat file scheduled to run each night (to download my EPGdata.xml). Yep, VISTA takes a while to adjust to.

[lektrikpuke]

I, too, have issues with SageTV, media extender (MVP), and Vista Home Premium. The system worked just fine on XP Pro, but now I can cause it to crash by pushing buttons on my remote control (to the MVP), or I can just wait and it'll happen by itself. It seems using the remote just speeds things along (which would suggest a communication issue). I, unfortunately, cannot go back to XP.

Is there any support on the horizon?

If it weren't for the fact that I already bought the software (SageTV), and the fact that Vista only supports the xbox as a media extender (as far as I know), I'd just use Vista's Media Center.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by lektrikpuke

Is there any support on the horizon?

Contact SageTV tech support.

- Andy

[lektrikpuke]

I would contact support if I had the patience. However, having had personal experience with support in the recent past , I'm hoping to avoid that.

I'll wait to see what happens here.

[JParedis]

Originally Posted by lektrikpuke

I would contact support if I had the patience. However, having had personal experience with support in the recent past , I'm hoping to avoid that.

I'll wait to see what happens here.

I have this weekend contacted the support team on this issue, will let you know as soon as I get feedback.

Must say that my MVP very seldom reboots without me having used some remote control button.

I'm considering to try Virtual PC 2007 (MS Freeware) and run XP in it, just to see if that can get it stable. Could be a solution while waiting for a solution in VISTA.
(Could be interesting, Virtual PC running the service - VISTA running a client)

Jan

[bcjenkins]

I don't think you can get the tuners to work in a VM

B