Imported Video Files -- 0 minutes duration

[dragon]

My HTPC is on a home network. When the hard drive space on the HTPC is running low, I move videos that I want to keep onto a different computer.

The other computer is sharing its Videos folder and SageTV is configured with that directory in its "Library Import Directories."

The problem is that, after copying (not deleting, yet) the file from the HTPC to the other computer, the duration of the Imported Video is "0 minutes". If I try to play it, it will play -- unless I try to advance or go back using the mouse or remote control. When that happens, the file either jumps to the end (if I tried to advance) or jumps to the beginning (if I tried to back up).

Fixing this for individual videos is possible -- I MOVE the file to a different directory, get SageTV to "Refresh Media Library" to remove it from the list. Then, I MOVE the file back and "Refresh Media Library" again. Now, the SageTV recognizes the duration properly and plays properly.

Anyone else having that problem? Anyone else moving files from the SageTV directory to a different directory/disk/computer? Any suggestions?

[Capt Dean]

I ran into the exact same problem the other day. Recorded Nero Wolfe (awesome series BTW) and moved it off to edit out commercials for later burn to DVD.

Moved it back so the wife and I can watch together and exactly what you described happened.

This has never happened before, and so far not again since. An isolated "quirk"? Apparently not if it's happening to others I would suspect.

[nielm]

It seems that if the file is unreadable or incomplete when Sage Scans the library, it cannot determine the duration, and assumes 0 minutes. I guess Sage might have done a library scan whilst you were copying...

Easier than moving: If you simply rename the file, Sage will delete the 'old' 0-min record, and see the renamed file as a new file, and so will re-read the file to check duration.

[mlbdude]

I can get that, but I just restart Sage these days after a large copy.

[dragon]

Restarting Sage didn't do it for me. Neither did just refreshing the media library without making any other changes -- as long as the file was still there, SageTV didn't update the time. I can see the rename working, since that would be a "different file" than SageTV saw before.

If I closed SageTV before I copied the files, all was well (except that I lose all that video's information in wiz.bin). The problem was if I copied the file while SageTV was open. I was not watching or otherwise accessing the file in SageTV at the time.

I think Nielm is right -- SageTV must be monitoring the video import directory. This happens too consistently to be a coincidental scan.

Now, if SageTV is monitoring the video Import directory, why can't it maintain, keep and use the wiz.bin information for the file. Instead of just dumping file information for past shows that are not in the "video directory" when starting, I'd like to see SageTV do this same scanning on the video import directories also.

Further, I'd like to see the obsoleted entries tagged for deletion in a couple days -- if they don't show up on a subsequent scan. This would solve the issue of losing video information when moving files to a different drive or different computer, or when restarting SageTV while the networked storage is offline.