Errors and Crashing

[basketcase421]

Does anyone ever have any issues with errors and crashing? The program seems to get buggier the longer the PC is on. For instance, working great last night, but this morning when I went to watch TV, all I got was audio. I will also note that the OSD was slightly funny looking too, different colors, sort of flashing everyonce awhile.

Also, randomly, the program crashes every once and awhile when we change channels (or at least it seems linked to that).

Is there logs or anything I can upload that some experts can look at?

I still haven't figured out how to downmix 5.1 audio to 2.0, either. My other thread isn't getting any support, though.

System:
Athlon 64 x2 4000
2 Gigs Corsair XMS2
Hauppauge 1250 Tuner
ATI 5570 GPU (using HDMI out)
Windows XP

[chrishallowell]

What version are SageTV are you using? Do you use any plug ins? Are your video drivers up-to-date?

I just reinstalled XP 32bit and have no plug ins installed. I'm on the latest beta version and I got the circle of death twice in three days. When I try to manual stop the service, XP says that it can't stop it and I have to reboot. I'll have to turn debugging on. I think I'll try increasing the Java memory too. It's going to be hard to figure out what is causing it because it is so random. If I get real desperate I will start to reboot nightly to see if that helps.

So I guess you could try the same, turn on debugging, increase Java memory, and maybe try rebooting nightly to see if that helps.

Maybe we need to move to WHS:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51145

[basketcase421]

I am running the v6 free trial.

[basketcase421]

How do you turn on debugging and how do you increase the Java heap size?

[chrishallowell]

Here's a utility program that allows you to set the Java heap memory size:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/down...do=file&id=316

The debug setting is somewhere in the SageTV->Settings.... If I remember right it's the last option in one of those menus.

Upgrade to the latest Java version as well:
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

[basketcase421]

I will do those things and report back.

Last night, before bed, I was watching TV. The audio kept going out of sync with the video. Changing the channel back and forth helped at first. But eventually it just locked up and I had to hard shut down the PC. Anyone have any problems like that?

[chrishallowell]

I'm guessing you are using the 1250 to record SD. Is that correct? The 1250 uses software encoding(for SD) which might have problems keeping the video and audio in sync.

To see if the problem is your tuner or SageTV, you could try viewing the video with the video/audio problem with a different program like VLC and see if the same thing happens. If it does, then it's your tuner/encoding process. I'm not sure if the tuner encoding process uses DirectX or its own drivers. Maybe someone else can comment on that.

[basketcase421]

Yes, the 1250 is my only tuner and the channel was a SD channel. If indeed that is the problem, is that an issue of horsepower that is causing the problem or a software thing? I would expect that my CPU (even as old as it is) could via software playback an SD live channel.

I will tinker more with that and see if I can make it happen again.

[basketcase421]

Ok, another persisting problem.

I leave the PC on over night and by the time I get up in the morning, SageTV is very unresponsive. Sometimes I can navigate the menus but I get no live TV (screen just goes black) and then it locks up. Or like this morning, I couldn't even navigate the menu. I always leave it on the stand by screen and so far, I haven't had anything scheduled to record overnight, so it isn't even doing anything.

Anyone else have issues like this?

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by basketcase421

I would expect that my CPU (even as old as it is) could via software playback an SD live channel.

That's not the problem. Your CPU is having to ENCODE as well as decode at the same time. That's why it's called a software tuner, a hardware tuner is on that encodes on the tuner card itself.

[basketcase421]

Originally Posted by MattHelm

That's not the problem. Your CPU is having to ENCODE as well as decode at the same time. That's why it's called a software tuner, a hardware tuner is on that encodes on the tuner card itself.

I understand that, I still would expect that it could handle that - was what I meant. I am mistaken on that assumption?

[APillowOfClouds]

I would also run memtest and scan all your drives for errors just to eliminate easy issue. Also run a ping test to another machine on your network to make sure your network is running ok. I once had a built in NIC die on me where it still functioned but at a greatly decreased rate. No errors anywhere, just everything crawled.

[basketcase421]

I will do the mem and HD scan.

This isn't a networked PVR, would you expect that to still be an issue? It is using a wireless card for internet connection, but it isn't a server or client PVR.

[basketcase421]

Ok, it happened again, so I decided to check out the event log in Windows to see if anything happened overnight to bring the system to instability. And yes, I found some errors that happened - not related to SageTV. So, I am working to correct those issues. Unfortunately, it is some problems with the registry, and from what I have gathered online, it isn't an easy fix. I may just do a complete reinstall of Windows and start fresh.

I will post back with what I do and if I have anymore problems after that.