updating epg from Sage Client

[zz5]

I have SageTV 2 set up in the living room. This computer is just used for TV. There's no access to the Internet there. In another room, I have my main general-use computer where I have a dial-up Internet connection. I have Sage Client installed on this computer, and the two computers are connected.

If my Internet connection is active on the SageTV computer and 24 hours have passed since the last EPG update, Sage will immediately begin downloading new listings when I launch SageTV. When I launch Sage Client on my other computer, the listings will not update. No matter how long I leave Sage Client running, the listings will never start to update.

Should the listings update when Client is lauched? Or do I need to have an Internet connection active on the computer in the living room? I think I should be able to use Internet Connection Sharing to allow SageTV to update the listings, but I really don't need the Internet for any other purpose on this computer, and I'd prefer that Sage just update the listings right when I start Client (if 24 hours has passed). I don't how long it would take for Sage on the living room computer to realize it has an active Internet connection, and by then I might be using the Internet for something else (email, web browsing, etc.) and it would slow that down. If I can get Sage to update the listings immediately from the client, it would be a lot less of a hassle.

[zz5]

Here's a summary of the setup I'm trying to get to work:

2 PC-network connected with wired ethernet:
1. SageTV on the server with no Internet connection.
2. SageClient on the computer with a dial-up Internet connection.

Will this setup allow me to update the listings? The problem could be something with my wiz.bin file (I imported from Sage 1), or it could be something with how I have the network set up, so I'm trying to figure out if this configuration is supposed to work.

[fidget]

The SageTV Client is just that, a client to the SageTV server. The main SageTV application is the one that does all of the work (scheduling, recording, updating the EPG, etc.). Have you tried sharing the internet connection on the client PC with the server PC? I know XP has this ability, and I thought it was pretty standars since 98SE (I believe that it was called Internet Connection Sharing, even on the older OSes).

[zz5]

To get the listings to update on the SageTV server, I dial in to the Internet, close Sage, then restart Sage. The listings begin downloading at that point if 24 hours have passed since the last update. If I just dial in while Sage is running (and 24 hours have passed), Sage will not update the listings. I've left the connection active for a couple hours, and the updating does not start.

If I use Internet Connection sharing, I'd have the same problem. I would have to stay dialed in all the time on the client pc, just waiting for Sage to update, which I don't want to do. I've read about the way to force an update - you delete, then add a channel - but I haven't gotten that to work. I don't know if that still is supposed to work. I couldn't get it to work in SageTV 1. The first version of SageTV I used was the last version 1 build. Maybe that trick no longer is supposed to work.

If that trick is supposed to work, it looks like it could be done in Client because Client has most of the settings that SageTV does, including the ability to add/delete channels. The settings would be made to the SageTV server. In this case, I wouldn't really need to share the Internet connection.

Anyway, is it clear what I'm trying to do? I want to somehow trigger the SageTV server to update the epg by using the client computer. I'm not talking about importing Client's settings to SageTV or anything like that (Client doesn't store the epg or other information), I just want to figure out some way to tell SageTV it's time to update the listings when the Internet connection is active (whether by using ICS or not).

[Opus4]

Yes, that manually-forced way to update the EPG works, but when you do that, does the server have any access to the internet? If not, then it can't update, as I believe it is a job the server does, not the client. You can force the update from the Client by doing the channel toggle trick, but it is the server that still does the update. (Like I said: as far as I know.) I think that is what fidget meant: use ICS to connect the server through the internet via the client & then force the update using the client. You wouldn't need to leave it connected all the time.

- Andy

[fidget]

Yes. Have the client computer use ICS to provide a gateway to the internet for the SageTV server. Have the server auto-connect when it needs to download the new listings. When the server wants to download the new listings, it should try to access the internet via the client PC which should cause it to auto-dial. Once it is done downloading, the client should disconnect. You should be able to configure the timeout for ICS.

I should state that I haven't use ICS, but I have used SyGate in the past (a wonderful tool).

[zz5]

Thanks very much for the help. That's good news. It sounds like I will be able to get this working eventually since it's apparently just some problem with my set up.

Since the manual update is still possible in Sage, I'm thinking that my configuration files are corrupt. I was kind of thinking this might be the problem before. Originally, when I first began using Sage, the last update time listed in system information would report the last time that an update occurred. If I hadn't updated in a week, the last update time would be reported as 7 days ago. At least that's what I think it used to do. It hasn't done it that way for a long time, since the first few weeks I had been using Sage. But now, Sage reports that the last update occurred even when I haven't had an update. For example, it's currently reporting that the last update occurred this morning when I actually haven't updated for a couple days. Whenever I restart Sage, it lists the current time as the last update time. Yet it still lists that the next update will occur in 0 minutes. I'm guessing something is just corrupt in wiz.bin. I will eventually test things out with fresh partitions. Before I reinstall Sage and lose the EPG data for my recorded shows, I will see if tech support knows how to fix it.