Major database problems - please help!

[VCRUser]

I'm getting desperate for a solution and hope someone can help. I'll enter my current system specs at the end of this post, after I describe the problem and what I've been attempting to address it. Apologies for the length of the post, but if anyone who has a clue how to fix this could take a look, I'd be most grateful, because the issue is causing my a lot of time, trouble, frustration, etc.

Almost every day, or every few days, for the past 10 months or so and getting worse, from one to dozens of recordings get their metadata damaged in one of the following two ways:

1. The show's metadata gets changed to some random show occurring
   in the future
   
2. the show's metadata gets changed to "no data" and assigned random airing and original dates

My collection of recordings is multi-TB, and I've been using Sage since 2009, so my database is pretty old and likely very messy as a result.

My typical processes, provided in case they could be a cause of the issue:

I routinely convert my recordings to save space and remove any padding (using the internal conversion commands), so the resulting files don't contain the embedded metadata that I understand is included in .mpg files since (I think) Version 7. I updated from a V6 to V9 installation in 2017, and so far most of the affected shows are from before that time. A few, however, are more recent (from 2022).

When I convert files, until the past few days (to see if it makes a difference), I have used Windows Explorer, not Sage, to delete the original files after verifying that the converted files are ok. I just started doing the deletions within Sage to see if it helps (though whether it helps will most likely not be apparent for some time, given the nature of the behavior).

Typically, each event attacks files created around the same dates - currently it's zapping files from November 2015 and May 2011. Generally, the episode ID that appears in the filename is in the same numerical range, e.g. 4826613, 4825691 are recent examples (a full filename example is "CraftinAmerica-Music-4826613-0.avi." I take this to mean that something's happening when Sage checks & updates the program guide: it finds an upcoming show with ID e.g. 4826613, and assigns whatever existing show that has that ID (if any) the metadata belonging to the upcoming show.

Edit: I also found several versions of wiz.bin.corrupt (8 of them, to be exact), dating from 6/29/22 (which is, I think, when my current round of trouble with this started - I'd had it before updating to Sage 9, but not after that until around 6/29/22. The most recent is 5/11/23. They are all of similar sizes - 75Mb to 78mb. There are also two files named Wiz.bin.PRECOMPRESSED_IDS and Wiz.bin.PRECOMPRESSED_IDS1, dated 6/29/22 and 5/10/23, respectively.

In the last day or two, I found this post:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...6&postcount=24

and tried changing the following in .properties to see if they would help:

wizard/retain_airings_from_completed_recordings=false
wizard/last_maintenance=0

I don't understand exactly what they do, and the change probably didn't help as Sage just generated at least one new mis-meta-data recording (of type 1 above - marked as a future show). The same post I referenced had other .properties changes suggested, but I understood them even less and didn't make them for fear of causing more problems.

I've repaired the shows as they get damaged, but it's pretty time-consuming and painful. I gather that it would be less painful if I didn't run the conversions because the metadata (at least for shows recorded post 2017) would be embedded and likely picked up again in rescanning. Not converting is not very practical for my setup.

Here's a description of my current system:

Sage 9.2.2.904 64 bit
Java 1.8.0_191
OS: Windows 8.1.6.3
JVM Heap 815mb used/1241mb total/1241mb max
Wiz.bin is approx 75mb


Plugins (not listing dependencies, just full plugins)
Batch Metadata Tools - Web Interface 4.101.0
Change Channel to Record 1.1.2
Complementary Metadata Tools
Encoder Names 0.8.2
Google Weather 2.0.3 (though Weather doesn't work)
Jave Heap Monitor 1.21
Jetty Web Server 2.3. 0.17
Media Streaming Service 1.3.7.90
The Movie DB Library 4.1.0
Named Time Recording 1.36
Nielm's Sage Utilities 1.4.4
Nielm's Sage XML Info 1.4.1
OneTimeFavorite 1.02
Phoenix API 3.3.0
Phoenix Core Services 3.3.0
PlayOn for Sage TV 1.80
PushBullet notifications for Sage TV 1.2
Remove Padding on Back- to back manual recording conflicts 1.1.1
Resolve livetv conflict 1.0.0
restart sage from setup menu 1.0.3
sage for echo functions 0.05
sagetv 3 ui 9.0
SageTV Groovy Tools 1.0.4
SageTV Web Interface 3.3.1
sagex-api-Sage TV API Extensions 9.1.7.0
Sagex-services 9.1.7.0
Tuner Preroll 1.0.3
The TV DB Library 1.8.0
UPnP Browser for PlayOn 1.80
Weather Using NWS API 0.13

What I'm thinking of doing next - any idea if it will help?

• Doing some thorough backups of my current setup and updating to version 9.2.6, which appears to be the most recent. If I do this, what other precautions should I take beforehand, and what will I need to do afterward? For example, will my .properties and wiz.bin get overwritten so I'll need to recopy from the backups? Will anything else get messed with and have to be re-tweaked?
  
• Banging my head against the wall until I don't care any more.
  
• As a very last resort, I might try nuking my wiz.bin (after first backing it up multiply) but I suspect that would cause far more problems than I have currently given the size of my collected recordings.