Crash goes the extender(s)

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by wnjj

Do they respond to ping? Are you trying to use telnet in the command prompt? Are you sure you have the right IP address? I confirm by looking in the sagetv_0.txt file after using the extender. You can find a line in there with the IP of the server and the client.

I'll have to do some investigation. I was looking for the Extender to show up in File Explorer. I know that in the past it did show up there under Network, and I have the Network name set up the same in the extender as all my machines are using.

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

I'll have to do some investigation. I was looking for the Extender to show up in File Explorer. I know that in the past it did show up there under Network, and I have the Network name set up the same in the extender as all my machines are using.

I think mine stopped showing up in Networking when Microsoft turned off the SMB1 protocol by default.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by SteveW

I think mine stopped showing up in Networking when Microsoft turned off the SMB1 protocol by default.

Yes, that it what it was. I didn't have Telnet on my machine so when I went into Windows features to add Telnet, just before that in the list was SMB1, so I added that as well.
Now the HD300 shows up in the Windows File Browser under network devices.
Sure made it a TON easier to get that SageTV0.txt file.

I'll attach it here, but really doubt it will be of any use. Much like a recurring problem I had back in Windows Home Server with lockups where the lockup wasn't in the event viewer there isn't anything in the SageTV0.txt file when the extender locks up.

I hope someone can figure out what's going on because today while I was scrolling through the Premiers, Finales, Specials menu to find new shows there were probably a half dozen that caused the problem now.
While not all new shows have this problem, all of those exhibiting the problem are new at least within the last month or two.

The attached file is a zip with the SageTV0.txt inside.

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

Yes, that it what it was. I didn't have Telnet on my machine so when I went into Windows features to add Telnet, just before that in the list was SMB1, so I added that as well.
Now the HD300 shows up in the Windows File Browser under network devices.
Sure made it a TON easier to get that SageTV0.txt file.

I'll attach it here, but really doubt it will be of any use. Much like a recurring problem I had back in Windows Home Server with lockups where the lockup wasn't in the event viewer there isn't anything in the SageTV0.txt file when the extender locks up.

I hope someone can figure out what's going on because today while I was scrolling through the Premiers, Finales, Specials menu to find new shows there were probably a half dozen that caused the problem now.
While not all new shows have this problem, all of those exhibiting the problem are new at least within the last month or two.

The attached file is a zip with the SageTV0.txt inside.

From what I read, sagetv_0.txt from the extender is only from standalone mode. There is supposed to be a "messages" log file which contains network transaction info. Though I do see today's date in that log file. I assume you created the crash there?

[Narflex]

I did see something in the log file about the raw image cache size getting exceeded, but that should only happen if you don't have the standard image loading configuration....I don't really remember anymore all of those settings, but it's something about optimized image loading or native image loading being disabled which causes the raw image cache to be used (and images are much bigger now than back when that was written, so it's blowing the size too easily...the show art for Game of Talents is a 4K image). I'd suggest reverting those settings to their defaults and see how it goes. Those would be in Sage.properties.

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by Narflex

I did see something in the log file about the raw image cache size getting exceeded, but that should only happen if you don't have the standard image loading configuration....I don't really remember anymore all of those settings, but it's something about optimized image loading or native image loading being disabled which causes the raw image cache to be used (and images are much bigger now than back when that was written, so it's blowing the size too easily...the show art for Game of Talents is a 4K image). I'd suggest reverting those settings to their defaults and see how it goes. Those would be in Sage.properties.

Earlier in the thread I suggested setting ui/disable_native_image_loader=true only because it was something the changed image loading and the server log suggested that was the last thing that happened before the crash. I assume it was either not in there or previously false but good for the OP to confirm.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by wnjj

From what I read, sagetv_0.txt from the extender is only from standalone mode. There is supposed to be a "messages" log file which contains network transaction info. Though I do see today's date in that log file. I assume you created the crash there?

Yes, it was from the extender. Each time I rebooted the extender (pull power, wait a few seconds and add power back) a new SageTV0.txt file was created.
I monitored the SageTV0.txt file (refresh file explorer and re-open the file) but nothing got added to the file when the extender would lock up. Hence why I thought the log file wouldn't be of much use.
Glad you guys saw something in there. I'll have to do some more testing.

I notice on the extenders there is an "Optimized Image Loader" enable/disable in detailed setup/advanced. Is that what I should be looking for, or is it something on the server side? I use SageTV service so I very rarely fire up the full SageTV on the servers.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by Narflex

I did see something in the log file about the raw image cache size getting exceeded, but that should only happen if you don't have the standard image loading configuration....I don't really remember anymore all of those settings, but it's something about optimized image loading or native image loading being disabled which causes the raw image cache to be used (and images are much bigger now than back when that was written, so it's blowing the size too easily...the show art for Game of Talents is a 4K image). I'd suggest reverting those settings to their defaults and see how it goes. Those would be in Sage.properties.

Thanks Narflex. Good to know you are still looking around on the forums.

"reverting those settings to their default" might be tough. My .properties are dating back over a decade (barring any conversions when new SageTV versions came out) so I'll probably have to maybe see if the default settings are shown in the SageTV manual PDF.

[waynedunham]

Well, that was a quick test with no success. Disabled Optimized_Image_Loader in the settings for the extender and no change, it still crashes the extender. Tried a cold boot (remove power/wait/add power) of the extender and checked to make sure OIL was still disabled. Again, no change, it still crashes the extender when you try to look at anything from one of those shows. i.e. EPG, of doing a search for the program name and viewing the results.

Fired up SageTV program on the server and disabled OIL in the settings there. Still no change. Restarted SageTV and did a cold boot of the extender, it still crashes the extender.

Watched SageTV0.txt on the extender and it would grow as the extender did things. However looking at a refreshed version of STV0 and then causing the crash nothing new shows up in STV0 which stays the same until I restart (either via power button on the remote or cold boot) where it will create a fresh STV0.txt.

Is there anything else I should look for in .properties that isn't on the deatiled setup menu within the extender of SageTV?

Can anyone else reproduce the extender crash trying to look at one of the programs mentioned. The one I've been using for these tests today is a new animated series about to start called "The Barbarian and the Troll" which is on Nickelodeon.

I hope it isn't the extender firmware version. The latest released version was causing the "where the **^(*&^ did my extender go" in the network. So I'm using 20110506-0 beta firmware which fixed the incredible disappearing extenders problem.

[wayner]

I tried again with Game of Talents and I got a crash on my HD300 extender. FYI - I never would have noticed this issue as I don't browse shows in the guide. I also generally set recordings using the web UI. I very rarely use the guide through the SageTV UI.

[wnjj]

I found ui/enable_hardware_scaling_cache with a default of false in the code. Try that one with true if it’s not in the server properties file already.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by wnjj

I found ui/enable_hardware_scaling_cache with a default of false in the code. Try that one with true if it’s not in the server properties file already.

That's not it. It did cause some mild issues with menus where some icons weren't all there like the right triangle/arrow on each menu selection. The very bottom of the triangle was missing.
At any rate, calling up a couple different programs that have this issue still caused an almost immediate crash of the extender.

[KeithAbbott]

Adding another datapoint, selecting Game of Talents on my HD300 (20110124-2) crashes the extender, but selecting the same show on my Fire TV Stick 4K running miniclient seems to work just fine.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Adding another datapoint, selecting Game of Talents on my HD300 (20110124-2) crashes the extender, but selecting the same show on my Fire TV Stick 4K running miniclient seems to work just fine.

So it appears that this crashes extenders but not the AndroidTV or PlaceShifter miniclients.

[JustFred]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Adding another datapoint, selecting Game of Talents on my HD300 (20110124-2) crashes the extender, but selecting the same show on my Fire TV Stick 4K running miniclient seems to work just fine.

Might be worth updating to newer extender firmware, v20110217-2: https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...7&postcount=15

My notes say to avoid the last version, v20110506-0, which had an issue with broken DTS-MA audio.

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by JustFred

Might be worth updating to newer extender firmware, v20110217-2: https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...7&postcount=15

Certainly worth trying. The release notes for v20110217-2 says "Updated system driver", any idea what functionality the system driver is responsible for? Any chance that might have fixed the ethernet connection problem after a cold boot?

[trk2]

Originally Posted by JustFred

Might be worth updating to newer extender firmware, v20110217-2: https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...7&postcount=15

My notes say to avoid the last version, v20110506-0, which had an issue with broken DTS-MA audio.

DTS-MA is broken in firmwares 20110217-2 and later. However, if there is no need to bitstream HD audio than it certainly would be worth a try.

[peternm22]

I was curious about this as well so I tried to view the EPG for this program on my HD300 as well, and sure enough we have a crash.

I've attached my sagetv_0 log. Hopefully the log will be able to help out. Quite a few exceptions and errors in the log.

[Narflex]

I fixed this now and uploaded the fix to GitHub.

There's also another change I did which will help reduce the size of the database a little bit (and have a minor effect on Intelligent Recording, which I think will bother nobody).

HOWEVER, if you REALLY want to reduce your database usage there's another thing you can do. Mine was getting way too large (I have the oldest database as you'd expect, it's over 18 years old...has data from December 2002 in it when I first wrote SageTV)...my RAM usage was generally about 1GB, and I've almost cut it in half now.

If you set this in Sage.properties:
wizard/retain_airings_from_completed_recordings=false
wizard/last_maintenance=0

and you have a really old DB, that'll clean out LOTS of things. But you'll then want to put that first one back to true after it loads it and does the daily maintenance (which it'll do right after startup...but it may take awhile to complete). What that'll do is remove all the Airings from the database that were for recordings you made at one point in time but it no longer has....normally, those are useful if you move files around so SageTV won't delete the metadata for those files if they aren't in the right place or other things went wrong. But after years, it'll just be storing tons of data it doesn't really need at all.

My 50% reduction was based on the new JAR with the Wasted cleanup change along with setting the above property once. My system has limited RAM and I didn't feel like building a new one, so this was an easy way to make it fast again w/out losing my 18 years of history.

[graywolf]

If you set this in Sage.properties:
wizard/retain_airings_from_completed_recordings=false
wizard/last_maintenance=0

and you have a really old DB, that'll clean out LOTS of things. But you'll then want to put that first one back to true after it loads it and does the daily maintenance (which it'll do right after startup...but it may take awhile to complete). What that'll do is remove all the Airings from the database that were for recordings you made at one point in time but it no longer has....normally, those are useful if you move files around so SageTV won't delete the metadata for those files if they aren't in the right place or other things went wrong. But after years, it'll just be storing tons of data it doesn't really need at all.

My 50% reduction was based on the new JAR with the Wasted cleanup change along with setting the above property once. My system has limited RAM and I didn't feel like building a new one, so this was an easy way to make it fast again w/out losing my 18 years of history.

What version has the Wasted cleanup (and what does that do?)

I might have to try to to see if I'll get the same reduction. My wiz.bins are 150MB & 141MB currently