Sage tunes correctly once but not again until reboot

[JeffHaas]

I have an older Sage TV setup - Win 7 with a Hauppage Colossus 2. It's been running fine for years (obviously!) but recently it's started tuning problems.

The first channel after a fresh boot is turned properly. After that, it doesn't seem to change the channel and records what was on the previous channel, saving it as the second recording.

I've updated everything I can think of (Hauppage drivers, Sage, Sage plugins) and have run out of ideas. The brute force method would be to have a utility wake up the computer and restart it, but even finding that is an issue!

Any ideas what I should look at next?

[VCRUser]

I assume you checked setup so that "always tune channel" is set to "yes"? On my system (using default UI, it's under Setup, Detailed Setup, Customize. It's near the middle of the list. If that's set correctly, I don't know what else to suggest.

[wayner]

What are you using as a tuning method? Are you using the IR tuner on the Colossus card or another tuning method, like a USB-UIRT or something else?

[JustFred]

Originally Posted by JeffHaas

I have an older Sage TV setup - Win 7 with a Hauppage Colossus 2. It's been running fine for years (obviously!) but recently it's started tuning problems.

The first channel after a fresh boot is turned properly. After that, it doesn't seem to change the channel and records what was on the previous channel, saving it as the second recording.

Any ideas what I should look at next?

Exactly which version of Sage are you running? Old versions of Sage had a bug that caused IR tuning to hang if attempting to tune a channel # with a dash in it (e.g. 1-13 would hang). Channel #s via an IR blaster needed to be numeric only. I recall fixing that bug back in 2019, but not sure which exact version has the fix. v9.2.2 and following are OK.

[JeffHaas]

Thanks for all the help!

- "Always tune channel" is set to YES (and has been for a long time). I remember having to set it to fix something years ago, but darned if I can remember what.

- Tuning method is the IR blaster from the Colossus 2. The blaster is stuck right in front of the cable box.

- I'm using Sage 9.2.6.976, 32-bit version, on the most recent version of Windows 7. This PC is old enough I don't want to update to a newer version of Windows on it. If I have to I'll get a new motherboard for this Antec HTPC case.

[JustFred]

Does tuning work using Hauppauge's software? Try their IrBlast, Ir32 and WinTv programs.

[JeffHaas]

I finally got around to checking this thoroughly...

WinTV 8.5 tuned everything fine, but I noticed that I'd missed an update to it. So I've installed that and it seems to tune the channels a bit faster.

I don't have the separate IR Blaster software with the Colossus 2.

Now to give it a few days and see how it goes.

[JeffHaas]

Well, after a few days, I can confirm that the update to WinTV didn't fix anything.

What diagnostics can I provide that can help find the problem?

[JustFred]

Using the Hauppauge IR blaster can be a real headache if there's more than one Hauppauge IR-capable device connected to the computer. There seems to be no consistency about which one of the multiple capture devices are actually being used to drive the blaster. Adding/removing Hauppauge capture devices can suddenly cause the blaster to stop working. Example: plugging/unplugging an IR-capable Hauppauge USB capture device. Or adding/removing a Hauppauge capture card.

One debug tool: The presence of a UU_LOG.ENABLE file in the SageTv\SageTv folder will cause Sage to log tuning information to uuirtlog.txt. The file must be present at the time Sage is launched. It can be an empty file. Each time Sage sends IR tuning commands, debug info is logged to the uuirtlog.txt file. This will at least confirm that Sage itself isn't choked. Remove UU_LOG.ENABLE and restart Sage when testing is complete. I'm not positive this works with Hauppauge devices; it does work for USB-UIRT.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by JeffHaas

I have an older Sage TV setup - Win 7 with a Hauppage Colossus 2. It's been running fine for years (obviously!) but recently it's started tuning problems.

The first channel after a fresh boot is turned properly. After that, it doesn't seem to change the channel and records what was on the previous channel, saving it as the second recording.

I've updated everything I can think of (Hauppage drivers, Sage, Sage plugins) and have run out of ideas. The brute force method would be to have a utility wake up the computer and restart it, but even finding that is an issue!

Any ideas what I should look at next?

I too have started having this problem with my Colossus 1 and a satellite receiver using the same IR transmitter I’ve been using since 2005.
Something recent, either a plug-in update, or a Windows update, likely messed it up. What I’m going to try is going backwards with the Colossus drivers. I’ll let you know how that works out.
My Hauppauge HDPVR via USB-UIRT is working fine with channel changes.

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by JustFred

One debug tool: The presence of a UU_LOG.ENABLE file in the SageTv\SageTv folder will cause Sage to log tuning information to uuirtlog.txt. The file must be present at the time Sage is launched. It can be an empty file. Each time Sage sends IR tuning commands, debug info is logged to the uuirtlog.txt file. This will at least confirm that Sage itself isn't choked. Remove UU_LOG.ENABLE and restart Sage when testing is complete. I'm not positive this works with Hauppauge devices; it does work for USB-UIRT.

Yeah, that's only for USB-UIRT. There doesn't seem to be any logging for the Hauppage. The code for the tuning is in https://github.com/google/sagetv/blo...nerStubDLL.cpp

Jeff, this is on a 32-bit installation, correct?

Also, this looks like this isn't your first rodeo with this issue: https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66031

[JeffHaas]

Wow, I had totally forgotten about that happening previously. Looks like I might need to downgrade Sage.

It's the same computer, no upgrades have been done since 2019.

[wayner]

Look into getting a USB-UIRT. Maybe someone is willing to sell you one.

[jt4242]

Why not just order one from Jon - http://www.usbuirt.com/

I got a new one in December, no problem.

Originally Posted by wayner

Look into getting a USB-UIRT. Maybe someone is willing to sell you one.

[wayner]

Or that - I didn't know that Jon was still making new ones. But there may be former SageTV users that don't need them anymore and will sell one cheaply.

[JeffHaas]

Finally got back to this - I tried looking on GitHub for 9.1.9 but it's not there in the list of releases. ??

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by JeffHaas

Finally got back to this - I tried looking on GitHub for 9.1.9 but it's not there in the list of releases. ??

Older versions died with Bintray. I have 9.1.2 and Jusjoken has 9.1.1 and 9.1.5 if they are of any help. There were quite a few bug fixes/improvements up to 9.1.9 though.

[jusjoken]

I have 9.1.9 if you need it just let me know where I can drop it.

k

[JeffHaas]

If you can put it in a Dropbox or a Google Drive folder, that would be great.

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by JeffHaas

If you can put it in a Dropbox or a Google Drive folder, that would be great.

PM sent with link.

k