Sage service at 100% CPU, huh?

[silkshadow]

I've seen the 100% CPU problem posted often in this forum but I was blessed to never have suffered it (though I did have the 'Sage turtle' effect which, I discovered, was related to hard drive space). All of a sudden I am getting this problem. Ironically on a brand new install on brand new hardware. Specs:

AMD64 3500+
1gig corsair XMS ram
MSI 6600 card
400gb of storage dedicated to Sage (2 HDs 64k blocks) of which only 210gb have been used (non-raid direct connect to mobo's ATA channel)
Windows 2003
Sage 2.2.8
Cayars 18E

So I spent an hour searching this board. Turns out all the 100% CPU problem threads are about Sagetv.exe. I am actually having this problem with the Sagetv service.exe. Mostly the problems were related to video/decoder issues which shouldn't effect the Sage service in any way, right? This new machine is a screamer. It comskips in 1/4 the time it used to, does Nero recodes in about half the time my desktop takes, etc.

SageTV service.exe is showing around a 1000 handles and around 48 threads (this fluctuates a bit) when it hits the 94-100% utilization. I've never had to take a close look at that before, is that normal? I have my system performance set to "optimize for background services" which, I was thinking, should mean the Sage service should get higher CPU priority. Now I am wondering if thats a bad thing? I can launch programs on the box but they take a bit to open. The SageTV gui however takes forever to open then comes up with a message that says "Connection to the SageTV service has failed...". Any idea whats going on here? This has happend twice now since yesterday. Nothing really has changed on the system. I've been spending my free time configuring Meedio and its taking awhile (so many new widgets to play with ). Besides installing Meedio plugins, nothing else has changed. I enabled the service as of 3 days ago (was using Sage in sleep mode before). Thanks for any help as I can't come up with anything.

[Opus4]

Perhaps check to see if there are any recent recordings or import files that are corrupt (perhaps 0 length, or at least very small files). If there are any, either delete them or move them to a dir that isn't visible to SageTV to see if it helps.

- Andy

[silkshadow]

Thanks Opus4. I'll check it ASAP. I find the only way to break the 100% CPU utilization is to reboot but that takes a long time (closing each open process takes forever when Sage service hits 100%). So, as soon as this reboot is complete I'll report back. BTW, I frogot to mention my encoders. I have 4 right now a PVR500, pvr-USB2 and a PVR-250.

Edit: I found three 0-byte text/log files which I deleted and one MPG file that was 78 megs (is that considered a very small file?) which I also deleted. I guess its a wait-and-see if the problem comes up again. BTW after reboot, Sage service is showing 2% CPU usage and its recording 3 shows right now. Its showing 836 handles and 41 threads for anyone's reference.

[silkshadow]

Ok, its happening again :cry:. Anyone have any other suggestions? It seems to be happening only in the evening (though I don't know for sure as I am not here during the day). Event viewer shows nothing. This time I haven't even touched the Sage server all day. Just came home, fliped on my desktop (not the box with Sage on it that one was running all day) and turned on the TV. The Sage gui took forever to launch so I checked the task manager and, bam, 100% CPU use by SageTV service.exe. This time a reboot is going to cost me a recording I wanted to see .

[gplasky]

How are you having the service log in? As a local service or did you create a user and a password? I would suggest using user and password. I would make sure the user has admin rights as a test. I have always run the service since it was available. I'm using the user and password method and don't have the 100% cpu issue.

Gerry

[Opus4]

Check w/tech support too -- they may be able to help track down what is causing that 100% cpu usage.

- Andy

[silkshadow]

Thanks gplasky, but yeah, the service is logging in as 'administrator' actually. I record to my sage drives via UNC so I had to give it an account with admin rights.

So, it happened again. I came home from dinner to find the Sage service at 100% . Not sure how long it was hanging there. Now I'm thinking this is going on during the day as well, I am just not here to see it. If thats the case then, eventhough the service is killing mu CPU, my shows are still getting recorded fine

Argg, I just got Sage configured so perfectly too *sigh*. All right, I guess I am going to have to do some troubleshooting. First question, is it possible this is a Sage 2.2.8 core issue? I mean, I can't find anyone else having this problem so can I rule that out? Because, if so, then it has to be one of the plugins, right? Originally, I discounted that since this is a service problem and not the GUI, but now I don't have any other place to look if I can rule out this being some 2.2.8 bug. I've installed so many plugins. Are there any ones in particular that would be called by the Sage service? Any plugins which I should tackle uninstalling first? Thanks!

Edit: Sorry posting at the same time, Yeah, I'll send a ticket Opus4, but if its a plugin problem I'll get one of those "we don't support that..."

[Opus4]

Which 'plugins' are you referring to? (Note that the service doesn't use an STV at all.)

If you suspect it is something that has been added, then back up your configurations and try a fresh setup. The service uses Sage.properties, so you would just have to save a copy of it & then remove any customizations form it.

- Andy

[BobPhoenix]

Just to let you know you are not the only one that has had this problem. I can't quite reproduce it at will but almost. It seems to happen to me when I press record on the remote to create a manual recording one after the other in quick succession. Once I get the 100% CPU usage I have to restore a backup of the WIZ.BIN before the 100% started - which is why I backup daily. Most of the time the recordings that I made that day still show up as IR recordings and I just press the record button while they are selected to change them from IR recording type to manual recording type. The favorites come back as favorites.

The behaviour above is only what seems to cause the 100% CPU on service mode and may not actually be the case because I have seen it when setting favorites as well. The only thing common between all of the occurances that I can determine is that I can replace the WIZ.BIN file with a working backup and it goes back to 0-4% like I expect. I try to pause between setting favorites and manual records to prevent this and seem to have had luck with it since I haven't had the problem in a couple of weeks. I watched the CPU % spike when setting the manual record or a favorite but it usually goes back down shortly. I think it must be recalculating the scheduled records whenever you set an manual record or a favorite and it gets lost in its calculations but I'm most likely wrong about that.

Don't know if anything I said will help but did want to let you know you are not the only one that has had the problem.

BobP.

[Opus4]

Make sure you report such things to SageTV... if there is a problem in the program, they can't fix what they haven't heard about.

- Andy

[carlgar]

I have encountered this 100% usage with SageTV 1.4. After running about 24 hours SageTV gave me an popup error message (which shutdown SageTV). I did report the message and 100% CPU useage to Support. After I restarted it took a long time (about 25 mins.) for SageTV to show the programs to be recorded. SageTV then ran at 100% for about another 11 hours before dropping back to normal usage. I have not seen the problem since. You should report the 100% usage to tech support so they are aware that it occurs in the current version. They asked to me to try to reproduce the problem with the current version but I was unwilling to try since it so rarely appears.

[Lester Jacobs]

Ditto for me. I just started having this problem this afternoon. Sage service hits 100% and then all of my Sage Clients start getting jerky video and eventually lose connection to the Sage server. No idea what's causing it. I don't have time to investigate at the moment. Hopefully someone can isolate the cause fairly quickly.

Regards
Lester

UPDATE: The problem might have been caused by a faulty port on my hub. I moved one of the network cables to a different port and so far everything seems to be okay again. I had tried just a reboot without changing anything else previously but that didn't seem to solve anything.

[TheThumper]

I am rebuilding my Sage system as we speak (posting on my laptop) because of this problem. Wife and kids were getting pretty tired of the "lock-ups" since when SageTV.exe hits 100% it starts jerking the video around and does lock up sometimes. I also had tons of problems with DVD playback. My system was complaining about low disk space and also I didn't format at 64k like I have seen recommended here so I figured it was time for a redo.

Wish me luck, I will report if it helps or not.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Make sure you report such things to SageTV... if there is a problem in the program, they can't fix what they haven't heard about.

- Andy

If I get it again I will certainly do that. Currently I don't have 100% CPU and an attempt last night to cause it produced nothing so still think it might just be me.

[silkshadow]

Wow, so its not only me. That is at once a relief and worrisome . Are you all running 2.2.8 as well? Are all of you using any plugins or custom STVs? Because, if any of you is running Sage vanilla and getting this issue, then I can cancel out the plugins as the source of the problem.

In any event, I am going to pick through my sage.properties and disable all the plugins before I goto bed. Then we'll see if that does anything tomorrow. I noticed this morning that a show I recorded during the day yesterday has all kinds of skips in it. I checked my event viewer and saw that one of my scheduled events (task scheduler) failed at around that same time. So I am thinking that it was during one of those 100% sessions that this happened. Interesting to note that, I guess, it must've gone away on its own because a show that was recorded a few hours later had no skips in it. Not sure what that means. Anyway, I'll report back tomorrow or the day after (I might not be home tomorrow).

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

Wow, so its not only me. That is at once a relief and worrisome . Are you all running 2.2.8 as well? Are all of you using any plugins or custom STVs? Because, if any of you is running Sage vanilla and getting this issue, then I can cancel out the plugins as the source of the problem.

My setup is 2.2.8 with OriginalV2 only on the Server copy of SageTV. SageClient installed on the Server in a separate directory for MVP clients(2) using Cayars18E. Client on separate PC using Cayars18E soon to be increased to 2 more clients one with SageMCE16x9. I have found several instances that I can attribute to the Cayars18E for other problems so I figured it was that or something I was doing wrong when I got the 100% CPU. Specifically selecting a large number of manual recordings and then selecting them in quick succession seemed to cause the problem. Right now I can't reproduce it with my current WIZ.BIN but I might still have an old copy of the bad one that I can try when a open window occurs in my recording schedule. If it still causes 100% I think I will report it and see if Sage wants a copy of it for trouble shooting purposes.

[silkshadow]

Thanks BobPhoenix! Quick update, I went back to vanilla, rolling back to an earlier XMLTV plugin and disabled the service recovery (pretty much went back to basics). I haven't had the problem again. So now I'm going to put back things one by one and see what that does. Cayars is the first thing that goes back.

Oh, I also swicthed from ffdshow+powerDVD to the Sage decoder (which I never even noticed was there before ). The Sage decoder is pretty darned good and allows for slow motion playback without my Girder slow motion script. Not sure if that has anything to do with my 100% problem but I think I'll stay on it.

[davey_fl]

I had to stop using Cayars altogether. Way too many lockups, crashes, failed to render video. My conclusion: the STV, with all the wonderful features, seems too buggy for my setup. Stepped back and have had no problems since. In fact, my total Uptime now is 228 days without a reinstall - keeps everyone happy.

[silkshadow]

I got pretty busy and had to take a break from this. Anyhoo, I started tackling it again today. I think I have isolated this problem to the PVR-USB2. When I say I have isolated it, I mean that I can now reproduce it on demand. It happens everytime the USB2 stops recording something. Even If I use it for live TV and press stop, then it happens. I just updated the drivers and am still getting the same issue. Right now, I am going to uplug the thing and see if it still comes up. If it doesn't then I know I have found the culprit for sure. Will issue a bug report then.

Are any of you who are experiencing this problem using a PVR-USB2? Can other PVR-USB2 users let me know if they are getting the same issue? If not, are any of you using Cayars 18E? USB 2.0? MSI/nforce4 motherboards? What PVR-USB2 driver version are you using? Do you have any other tuners installed (notably a PVR-500 or 150)? Are there PVR-USB2 model revisions? Thanks!

[ToxMox]

OK I have a USB2. Running Cayars 18E. Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Nforce 4 Ultra I believe. Driver 2.2.73.22295 . Also running 2 PVR500s and a PVR250(15) (running all the drivers that came on the PVR500 CD) Running it in a USB 2.0 port. I can't test stopping the recording it is doing right now but I'm about 95% sure I have never experienced the 100% CPU problem.

Perhaps you should try a different USB port and also check if there are newer drivers for your USB chipset. The only other thing is maybe this is something weird happening with 2003 Server. I'm running XP SP2.