What improved functionality is there in V9 vs V7?

[wayner]

I have a V9 server running on Windows 10 that is a backup to my main V7 server which is running on Win7.

What are the functional enhancements in V9 over V7? The biggest that I am aware of is the 64 bit JVM but that is only available on Linux, at least for now. What else is there in V9 that is an improvement over V7?

[Fuzzy]

Better database code, providing for a lot less blocking (spinning circles). Schedules Direct EPG service. No licensing restrictions. And a multitude of other little changes that have been made by the community over the last year or so.

[wayner]

Thanks Fuzzy. Is there any reason to switch to Schedules Direct if you have licenses and everything is working fine with the old guide?

[wayner]

Now that I think about it, my experience is that I got just as many spinning circles on my V9 server as I do on my V7 server, despite a lower load in terms of connected mini clients. And my V9 server has a way faster CPU as it was built to be my Oculus VR machine.

[Fuzzy]

I've found that about the only time I'm getting spinning circles these days are if there's a mediafile that has something screwy in the database. I'll notice it always happens when scrolling down through a list when it goes to advance to the next one, it stalls a bit while it sorts out what to do with the errant entry it's trying to bring up.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by wayner

Thanks Fuzzy. Is there any reason to switch to Schedules Direct if you have licenses and everything is working fine with the old guide?

Not really. Data availability seems a bit better from schedules direct than from the sage server. The data is ultimately from the same source, but the way the sage server's cache it seems to lose a day or two of availability. Schedules Direct seems to pretty reliably have 14 days of data for most channels. I've switched my server over, but that's more so I can help support others who are doing so than for any sort of technical reason. And of course, if you are outside USA/Canada, then schedules direct is a very great thing, because it's available in a great many countries, so no more messing with XMLTV sources and wonky importing.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I've found that about the only time I'm getting spinning circles these days are if there's a mediafile that has something screwy in the database. I'll notice it always happens when scrolling down through a list when it goes to advance to the next one, it stalls a bit while it sorts out what to do with the errant entry it's trying to bring up.

I get that delay often. I also get a delay between pressing Play and seeing video.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by wayner

Now that I think about it, my experience is that I got just as many spinning circles on my V9 server as I do on my V7 server, despite a lower load in terms of connected mini clients. And my V9 server has a way faster CPU as it was built to be my Oculus VR machine.

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I get that delay often. I also get a delay between pressing Play and seeing video.

Spinning circles, in my experience, generally have less to do with CPU and more to do with IO. So, in the cases where I've seen it... it's been...
1. MediaFile that sagetv has issues with
2. Fanart (if not pre-built/pre-cached -- sometimes can take a second or so to generate the scaled images, etc)
3. Multiple comskips running (ie, comskip running plus recording other shows)
4. Faulty network port
5. Faulty drive

In most cases, sagetv is not that cpu intensive (unless you are transcoding), so spinning circles are generally a sign of IO issues (disk or network). if you are seeing it quite often, I'd check the items in the list. I've experienced all of these... In one case sagetv was my "early warning detector" for a failing hard-drive that I failed recognize, and eventually lost everything (which was what prompted me to move to unRAID for better data monitoring and better tolerance for drive failures).

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I've switched my server over, but that's more so I can help support others who are doing so than for any sort of technical reason.

Do you still need a paid Schedules Direct subscription?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

Do you still need a paid Schedules Direct subscription?

You do. I run Schedules Direct too for support reasons and also because I get anywhere between 20-23 days of guide data per channel. Even though the guide data that far in the future often changes a lot, it's nice to be able to add a new favorite that doesn't air until 3 weeks from the current date. I feel that the subscription fee is worth it.

I also am considered to be "the developer" for Schedules Direct in regards to SageTV, so my account has effectively unlimited adds/removes and I can add more lineups that usual to my account. This makes testing many different scenarios much easier.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Spinning circles, in my experience, generally have less to do with CPU and more to do with IO. So, in the cases where I've seen it... it's been...

In my experience the biggest issue causing spinning circles in this area is the SageTV server process getting stressed by too many extenders. That is why I want to get to a 64 bit JVM to alleviate or eliminate this problem.

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by wayner

In my experience the biggest issue causing spinning circles in this area is the SageTV server process getting stressed by too many extenders. That is why I want to get to a 64 bit JVM to alleviate or eliminate this problem.

Are you using the stock UI? When I was running Gemstone, I had a lot of spinning circles. I suspect a memory issue there. In normal usage (1-3 clients) I would get a spinning circle about once a month and reboot the server to fix. But I could reliably "crash" my server, (playback would still work but if I pressed stop on a client it would spin for a long time or indefinitely until I restarted the server), with 8 clients (Android, Placeshifter and HD300s). I would like a Windows 64-bit binary, but think there's something else going on in the UI space that would only prolong the issue...

[wayner]

I am running Gemstone so that could be causing the issues. But I can't really switch away from it without causing FAF issues so I will stick with it and hopefully Gemstone2 will be out soon, at least in beta format.

It is liveable now as I have my extenders spread across my V7 and V9 servers so one of them doesn't get overloaded. The only issue is that the V7 server gets most of the new shows as it has the tuners - the V9 server only has OTA tuner(s) so it doesn't have all the content until I copy it over.

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by wayner

The only issue is that the V7 server gets most of the new shows as it has the tuners - the V9 server only has OTA tuner(s) so it doesn't have all the content until I copy it over.

Why not have the V7 recording directories as import directories on the V9 server? That way you should be able to see the video as soon as the media scan runs.

[BobPhoenix]

I still get spinning circles in linux 64 bit while move up or down in menus like the one you get when you select a video - "Watch now", "Record options", "View Recording Details", etc.. I usually only get it there when Comskip is running and another recording is going on and then not all the time. But it happens more often than I want still. I also think some of my plugins could be affecting it. I would uninstall them but I just don't consider SageTV to to useful without them. But I may have to in order to determine which one or group is causing it.

[NetworkGuy]

I used to get spinning circles all the time when SageTV was recording shows. Since I switched from SageDCT to OpenDCT, the spinning circles have disappeared.

I think stuckless said it best:

Originally Posted by stuckless

Spinning circles, in my experience, generally have less to do with CPU and more to do with IO.

Also check what else is running on the server (i.e. backups).

[Fuzzy]

To clarify, anytime a UI component is waiting on the results of an API call for over a certian period of time, it will render the spinning circle. Of course, there are plenty of things that can cause a delay. It used to be that just about any single database function would prevent any other databse functions from happening - now it is more granular, and only the parts of the database currently being accessed are locked, instead of the whole thing. So background things accessing the database (like Carny processing, scheduling, etc) will no longer automatically slow down foreground things, like they used to. But, if you have memory and/or IO issues that are slowing down database access in general, or slowing down other NON-database API calls, then yes, you may still get spinning circles.

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

To clarify, anytime a UI component is waiting on the results of an API call for over a certian period of time, it will render the spinning circle.

So this isn't entirely true...it is for anything that's not related to images. But for images, there's lots of logic that tries to do background downloading of the images before they are rendered if not already cached. If an STV is not built properly, then this can end up being a blocking occurrence. I did everything I could to make it background stuff...but some cases can come up where image loading can still block things.

This is also why there's the setting for dumping the thread stacks if the UI is hung for too long. That allows the log file to contain all the thread states for when that hang is occurring, and *usually* allows pinpointing the problem much better. It can get difficult when it's something in the STV causing it...because the thread states don't reflect API position...but quite often they will signify which API call is causing it and then tracking down all usages of that in the STV can point to the problem.

If anyone wants to start a new thread about that, I'm more than happy to look at thread states to tell you where the spinning circle is coming from...I've done that far too many times before.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

Why not have the V7 recording directories as import directories on the V9 server? That way you should be able to see the video as soon as the media scan runs.

That's a good idea. One thing that may cause minor problems is that some of the recordings on the V7 server have been copied to drives on the V9 server. So that means that those recordings will show up twice.

The recordings for shows that I want to keep are also transcoded to mp4 and saved in other archive folders so technically they become imported videos. This happens automatically with kids shows that are recorded.