Suspend and resume with SageTV

[Alex0230]

I currently have this kind of setup to get my system sucessfully preforming all sleep states, previously I could only sometimes get Standby to work:

In my startup folder I have:

Shortcut to SageWake.exe and Shortcut to StarSage.bat

SageWake.exe --noir --leadtime=120 --terminate="SageApp" --execute="F:\StartSage.bat,F:\restartRemote.bat"

In my 'StartSage.Bat' file, I am dumping all my sage program files in to a ram disk, Z: and running Sage from that ram disk. Everything, but the VIDEO folder is dumped in to there. It required a 32mb ramdisk for this, but was the only way I could get the system to standby/hibernate on its own.

For more information on the ramdisk, check out this thread...
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...hlight=ramdisk

I followed Nielm's advice and set up my own file (StartSage.bat) that does this:
Copies the program files to the ram disk
Starts sage and waits for sage to finish
Copies the changed files on the ram disk back to the hard drive

What SageWake will do for me in the --terminate is kill SageTv so that my startSage batch file finishes and cleans up the differences from the ram disk and hard drive right before going to sleep. Then when SageWake wakes the computer up for recordings, it starts a new instance of StartSage.bat (--execute) up and runs everything from the ram disk again.

A problem I have is that I need to reboot my machine once a day because the Hauppage 350 apparrently doesn't like power management too much. Every 5-6 wake ups, my system will crash and SageWake will not be able to wake it up....power management isn't supposed to be supported by the 350 from my understanding.

I would follow mwhitlock's advice about the drivers, get all your latest drivers and bioses....even when you have new parts out of the box, it's still likely that your installation cd has old drivers.

Now if I could only figure out how to get SageTv to start up in sleep mode correctly, I'd be set...it seems to ignore my "Startup in Taskbar" setting. : )

[mwhitlock]

Originally posted by Alex0230
Now if I could only figure out how to get SageTv to start up in sleep mode correctly, I'd be set...it seems to ignore my "Startup in Taskbar" setting. : )

Just invoke SageTV.exe from your batch file like this:

C:\Path\to\SageTV.exe -startup

That'll start it up in your system tray.

[mwhitlock]

Just curious.. has anyone else who is using SageWake (that's like, what, 4 people? LoL) had it crash on you? I just came back to my computer today and SageWake had crashed. I went into the debugger and traced it down to a bad length variable on the show name string, and I cannot figure out how that happened. Perhaps this is just an isolated incident? I would have a hard time believing that. So, has anyone else had ANY problems whatsoever?

[Alex0230]

I've had it crash and was unable to restart it without it crashing....after a reboot I was able to run it again. This was about a week ago....

Is anyone having a problem where the system locks up when going in to standby/hibernate or coming out of it? I think the crash is when it goes in to the sleep states, but I'm never there to see it when it happens...

[Scriber]

Originally posted by mwhitlock
So, has anyone else had ANY problems whatsoever?

I'm in the middle of a slow HW switch so I've not been using SW regularly but the only issue I've had (mentioned previously) with SW is that it does not permit the computer to go back to sleep. I'm not in from of my sage box now, but as I recall in viewing the SW log it sets the value for permitting the system to return to sleep to "no" (false?) even after the recording that SW awoke it for was recorded. To me it seemed like SW was misreading the schedule.txt file. Still appreciate your work - rather it stay awake than fail to wake and miss a recording.

[mwhitlock]

What version of SageWake are you using? As of 1.2.1, SageWake will attempt to put your system back to sleep after SageTV has finished all recordings as long as you haven't touched your computer since SageWake woke it up.

[Scriber]

Hmmmm.... IIRC 1.2.2.2.

I thought I would post an xml snippet when I'm back up and running normally showing the incorrect value. It was clear from the SW log that SW thought it should prevent sleep.

Of course, there's always the possibility that the problem may just go away too.................. right?

[MooRogue]

Hey mwhitlock, just wanted to let you know that I've been using SageWake 1.2.2.2 for the last two weeks, ever since I got SageTV

It's been working perfectly for me once I got it configured right, bringing the system out of standby, letting the system sleep after 15 minutes of idle time, responding to my manual standby command, and more importantly, not letting me put the system into standby when SageTV is actually recording something.

In fact, I haven't rebooted my SageTV box at all for the last two weeks. SageWake has been dutifully waking the system up in the middle of the day to record shows.

Many thanks for making SageWake! If not for this little app, I think I wouldn't be using SageTV as much as I am now! I just have one little feature request that I hope you could pull off... would it be possible to add a parameter to SageWake so that it would not wake the system up during certain times? ie: Late night/early morning?

Thanks again!

[mwhitlock]

Moo,

You mean like if you're using Intelligent Recording, but you'd rather it not wake up to record these things during certain times of the day? Perhaps I could add an optional value to the noir, nomanual, and nofavorites command line arguments. Something like this:

SageWake --noir=23-6

So noir would only be in effect from 11pm to 6am. Of course, omitting the time range would mean that the argument is effective 24 hours a day, duplicating the present behavior.

What does everyone think of this?

[MooRogue]

Ooo! Now that functionality would be perfect! I'd be able to block off the system from turning on at all during sleeping hours, and better yet, I'd be able to restrict Intelligent Recording to only wake the system up for shows during specific times of the day, yet still let Favorites or manual recordings wake the system up... I like it!

[Alex0230]

I like that idea...thanks for offering to add that in mwhitlock..

[mwhitlock]

• Added options to specify time ranges for nomanual, noir, and nofavorite

Pay careful attention to how the time ranges are specified. The initial bound of the range is inclusive and the terminal bound of the range is exclusive. This is probably best demonstrated with examples.

Let's say for simplicity's sake that there are only two shows in SageTV's upcoming schedule, one at 7:00 pm and one at 9:00 am. A range of 9-19 would include the show at 9 am but not the show at 7 pm. A range of 19-9 would include the show at 7 pm but not the one at 9 am. A range of 9-20 or 19-10 would include both shows. Also note that 19-9 includes midnight while 9-19 does not.

For those with a strong background in mathematics, a time range for SageWake of the form a-b would denote the interval [a,b).

I apologize if this is confusing. If anyone has questions regarding specific examples in their setup, I will gladly answer them.

EDIT: See below for latest version.

[mwhitlock]

It might be worth mentioning that the time ranges you set up are the times for which you want SageWake to IGNORE shows. That means that it will not wake up your computer to record shows of that type during the times you specify.

[Alex0230]

Originally posted by mwhitlock
Let's say for simplicity's sake that there are only two shows in SageTV's upcoming schedule, one at 7:00 pm and one at 9:00 am. A range of 9-19 would include the show at 9 am but not the show at 7 pm. A range of 19-9 would include the show at 7 pm but not the one at 9 am. A range of 9-20 or 19-10 would include both shows. Also note that 19-9 includes midnight while 9-19 does not.

So in your time range, the first number is when the sleep time begins. Any show starting after that time will not get recorded.

if (nextRecordTime > startSleepTime)
doNotWakeUp = true;

(not this: if (nextRecordTime >= startSleepTime))

The second number says when to start allowing shows, any show who's time is later than this number will be recorded.

if (nextRecordTime > endSleepTime)
doNotWakeUp = false;

(not this: if (nextRecordTime >= endSleepTime))

So if we wanted the 9am show not to be included, we should do 10-18, in this case the 7pm show would get recorded...if not recording during the day that is.

LOL....I totally understand how this can get confusing. I just wanted to make sure on your logic of greater than, versus greater than and equal.

Are times to be in whole hours only...or would 9:30 work?

Thanks again for doing this.....this program is great, it never misses.

[mwhitlock]

I think you may have it backwards. Remember that if a show time is "included" in a range, then it will NOT get recorded.

The first number in the range is inclusive, meaning any show starting AT OR AFTER that time will be INCLUDED in the range (and thus not recorded). The second number in the range is exclusive, meaning that a show starting exactly at that time will NOT be included in the range (and thus WILL be recorded).

Here is what this all looks like in code, in the form of my wants_to_record function:

PHP Code:

struct RANGE {
    USHORT low;
    USHORT high;
};

BOOL wants_to_record(CONST SYSTEMTIME &st, BOOL bManual, BOOL bFavorite)
{
    RANGE range;
    UINT_PTR i;

    if (bManual) {
        for (i = 0; i < _vecNoManual.count(); i++) {
            range = _vecNoManual[i];
            if (range.low > range.high) {
                if ((st.wHour >= range.low) || (st.wHour < range.high)) {
                    return FALSE;
                }
            }
            else {
                if ((st.wHour >= range.low) && (st.wHour < range.high)) {
                    return FALSE;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    if (bFavorite) {
        for (i = 0; i < _vecNoFavorite.count(); i++) {
            range = _vecNoFavorite[i];
            if (range.low > range.high) {
                if ((st.wHour >= range.low) || (st.wHour < range.high)) {
                    return FALSE;
                }
            }
            else {
                if ((st.wHour >= range.low) && (st.wHour < range.high)) {
                    return FALSE;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    if (!bManual && !bFavorite) {
        for (i = 0; i < _vecNoIR.count(); i++) {
            range = _vecNoIR[i];
            if (range.low > range.high) {
                if ((st.wHour >= range.low) || (st.wHour < range.high)) {
                    return FALSE;
                }
            }
            else {
                if ((st.wHour >= range.low) && (st.wHour < range.high)) {
                    return FALSE;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return TRUE;
} 


Note that "low" in the RANGE structure is always the first number of a range, and "high" is always the second number, and that low can actually be greater than high.

It currently doesn't take into account minutes, so the ranges can only be aligned to on-the-hour boundaries. I may change this if there is enough need expressed.

[Alex0230]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A range of 9-19 would include the show at 9 am but not the show at 7 pm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I see, I took this statement as 9am would get recorded and 7pm would not. Hence my logic on the if statements....

So when you meant is that 9am would be included in the list of shows not to be recorded and 7pm would not....meaning 7pm would get recorded.

[mwhitlock]

That's exactly right. The negative logic is kind of confusing. You're specifying what times to include in the range of times to NOT wake to record.

[MooRogue]

hey mwhitlock!

Just wanted to drop a note to say that the new SageWake works perfectly for me I intentionally let SageTV try to schedule a favorite recording at 3:30am, and told SageWake to exclude recordings from 1am - 10am, and my Sage box didn't wake up, and hence, i got a good night's sleep

It's working so well, that I am now able to turn Intelligent Recording back on during the day so that SageTV can catch interesting shows again!

Thanks again!

[mwhitlock]

Glad to hear it's working so well for you! Nothing is greater for a programmer than the praise of his users.

[mwhitlock]

• Fixed a fatal crash bug related to reading past end of schedule file

Yay! I think I fixed it! SageWake shouldn't crash anymore with this release. I was using strchr to find line breaks, which had the potential of reading past the end of the schedule file's memory mapping since the file buffer is not null-terminated. Fixed that with a forward-seeking loop that won't run past the end of the file.

I'd recommend that everyone upgrade to this release for stability/reliability reasons.

FIXED: (6-Jul-2004) A minor typo in the documentation.

EDIT: See below for latest version.