Comskip Monitor - reboot loop when installed?

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I'm trying to get Comskip and Comskip Monitor running for the first time.

I installed Comskip version comskip80_007 into C:\Program Files\Comskip. (I'm using the H.264 version since I have an HD-PVR, but so far I am only testing with MPEG2 from OTA programs). I left the INI file unmodified for initial testing.

I installed Comskip_Playback_154.zip into the SageTV setup, and rebuilt the STVI plugins within the SageTV setup.

I ran Comskip.exe manually on a 1/2 hour show from a command window. (COMSKIP.EXE "D:\My Sage Video\MyMpegFile.mpg") After the run, the show was tagged with "CS" in SageTV, and the commercials were correctly skipped.

I then attempted to install ComSkip Monitor. I unzipped ComskipMonitor-v2.7.zip to C:\ComSkipMonitor. I ran Setup.bat, and ran the browser based configuration wizard. I changed the paths to comskip to point to my install directory at C:\Program Files\Comskip.

The Windows firewall wizard displayed a warning about unblocking Java. I selected unblock. The system froze and then rebooted. When it rebooted, during the startup process it rebooted itself again. After the loop proved to be permanent, I went into safe mode and ran the ComSkipMonitor uninstall.bat. After that the system was able to boot and not spontaneously reboot.

Just to make sure, I ran Setup.bat once again. I repeated the configuration wizard again. This time there was no warning about unblocking Java. I restarted the system, and it again went into a reboot loop on every startup until I started in Safe Mode and ran Uninstall.bat.

What did I do wrong? Has anyone else seen this problem with ComSkip Monitor?

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I opened CSM.properties in a text editor, and noticed that two of the paths were not updated from the configuration process. They were still set to the default:

comskip.config=../comskip79_76/comskip.ini
comskip.location=../comskip79_76/comskip.exe

Previously when running the configuration, I had changed these to C:\Program Files\Comskip, but it had not updated. I ran the Setup.bat again, and this time noticed that there was an error message displayed in Firefox when I used Browse to select C:\Program Files\Comskip\comskip.exe for the Comskip location. As soon as the configuration process completed, the computer started rebooting itself.

I don't understand why the path would not change to a new valid path, so I booted into Safe Mode, and copied the contents of my C:\Program Files\Comskip folder to C:\ComSkipMonitor\comskip79_76

After restarting back into regular windows, it did not reboot, and I saw Comskip.exe was running as a task. After a few minutes, I looked at C:\ComSkipMonitor\data\ComSkip.12-28-2008.log, and saw that shows were being processed.

So I'm not sure why CSM doesn't work with the Comskip version that came with it, but by replacing Comskip with the private beta version, at least the reboot loop problem is solved.

[Djc208]

CSM works fine with the stock version. I wonder if comskip monitor wasn't trying to run the older version on a h.264 file as it was set up, which is what was causing the problem.

Glad you figured it out. I wondered about the two versions you'd have installed that way but figured you had already pointed it at the right version. I guess the web setup still has a bug or two.