Sage lost shows, now what?

[gateslinger]

Upgraded to 2.2.8 but noticed that I have lost a handful of shows up until the point I've upgraded. They are on the drive and the files appear to look okay (no corrupted names or splits, I can play them off of mediaplayer). The drive contains other shows that show up fine in the recorded menu. What is strange is that the shows show up in the imported video library. My wiz.bin is fine, not corrupted near as I can tell as there's no other files other than a wiz.bak in the directory. Shows recorded about that timeframe are fine, show up in the recorded menu nicely.

What's the deal? How can I get them back into the standard recorded menu? Don't have a wiz.bin to go back a month to see if that solves the issue. Some of the files I've recorded as long as 4-5 months ago, never deleted them, have the "keep at most all" setting. One show in particular I did a manual recording almost 6 months ago. Disk space has never been an issue where Sage would start removing files.

Lastly, noticed that one of the shows long name seems to have a major problem with the playlist menu in the video library. Recorded Into the West (file comes up as IntotheWestDreamsandSchemes-2347982-0.mpg), however this file somehow got lost and now only shows up in the video library area. I did a copy of the file into my library area the video library area shows 2 instances. I select it, but the next screen has no playlist menu and doesn't show me any info about the file, maybe the filename is too long to fit 2 items in the window? If I have one instance of this file in the main disk area and not in the library it's fine. As soon as I have a dupe in the library I can't view it. I had no issues doing this with another file that was lost as a test case.

[Kanati]

What's the deal? How can I get them back into the standard recorded menu?

You can't. The wiz.bin is a finicky and somewhat unstable beast. Sometimes it decides it's going to move things on you, other times it will refuse to delete items... But since it's a closed system you can't get in there and tinker with it to readd your items. Best bet is to have something do a nightly backup of wiz.bin and sage.properties so when it does go kablooey you can fall back to whatever it was 24 hours ago.

[JUC]

ALWAYS backup wiz.bin and sage.properties before upgrading. At least now that you know, it shouldn't happen again.

[MTuckman]

I guess I must be missing the point, but why is it we are just supposed to accept that WIZ.BIN is unstable?

I just lost all of my recorded shows and favorites, at a point where I really can't afford to spend time re-entering my favorites. My wife pretty much wants to know why we are bothering with software that has issues, and she is right.

I have been a software developer for more than 20 years, and I have yet to work for a company or have a client where they accept "finicky and unstable" and live with it.

Why is this still an issue after all of this time? And why is the general attitude that you just live with it, and hopefully put enough tricks together to survive the next time it gets corrupted?

If you sell a product, why not make sure it works properly?
If there is an issue with some functionality, why not fix it, or at least come up with a recovery scheme that does not involve punishing your customers/users?

I do a backup each night of the wiz.bin and wiz.bak files, and found that both the current copy and backup copies are useless. At work we have gotten rid of vendors and their software packages and or hardware when we find out they are unstable.

I just spent the better part of two weeks resolving a serious performance problem at work with our IBM Midrange system, only to find out it was caused by some damaged files. IBM's response was not that we should live with it, it was to resolve the problem and fix the software that caused the problem in the first place.

SageTV has one of the best recording engines I have seen next to Tivo, and yet I have a serious problem recommending this to my friends. They do not have the time, nor would I expect them to, to re-enter data because...???

Fix the issues with the WIZ.BIN file, change the format to not be so combersome and complicated, perhaps even open it up so that the community that has worked so hard can offer a hand.

[mdmint]

I've been running my Sage Server for about a year and a half with 3 or 4 version upgrades along the way. Hammering it constantly recording with 5 tuners. 60 or so favorites. If Sage is unstable I've not seen it. Have yet to have a problem with wiz or prop files going south. I do of course backup up the ENTIRE Frey directory before doing upgrades. But I haven't needed to use the backups yet.

[padre]

Originally Posted by MTuckman

I just spent the better part of two weeks resolving a serious performance problem at work with our IBM Midrange system, only to find out it was caused by some damaged files. IBM's response was not that we should live with it, it was to resolve the problem and fix the software that caused the problem in the first place.

Well, take this from another software developer with 28 years of experience in the field, you're expecting too much for your money. That IBM Midrange costs significantly more that what you've paid for Sage TV. Where does that money go? To hire tons of support people. And how much do you pay on an annual support contract to get that level of service? Thousands!

No software product, none, is ever bug free. Have never found one, doubt I'll ever see one in my lifetime.

I've been using Sage since versin 1.3 and have been quite impressed with the amount of functionity and features in each new release.

<soapbox off>

[src666]

I also think that the Wiz.bin "all the eggs in one basket" method is flawed. I wish they would just stop being so paranoid about the contents. If they are worried about guide info, then put that in a protected file and let us have access to everything else.

[mc2wheels]

Padre, I only have 10 years of experience as a developer, but you're wrong. This is a design flaw that could be remedied. Certainly, it would cost them something to change how they store this information. However, I actually think that Sage will incur costs both in terms of support calls, and in terms of lost sales for not fixing it. Since Sage does not really spend money on advertising, word of mouth will have a huge impact on sales. Losing all of your shows when sage hangs your machine (which has happened to me twice) does not generally make you want to speak highly of the product.
By contrast, you can unplug a tivo mid recording, and it will come back just fine after a few minutes of initialization.
I really like sage, but this is just a design flaw.

[padre]

I think you're failing to understand a key difference between a PC running Sage TV and a TIVO. A Tivo is a closed architecture, with limited hardware configuration. They control what goes into the box, what OS is running on the box with what level of code coexists. Not the same with ANY PC based system like Sage TV, SnapStream, etc. How many different hardware configurations, driver versions, OS builds, etc., do you think Sage would have to do QA testing on??

I definitely recommend Sage for those willing to work with the system, and the significant features it delivers. For those not technical enough, or who want a "plug and play" option - buy a Tivo.

[src666]

padre, even on a PC running Windows it is possible to write to files and not corrupt them during a catastrophic shutdown. That's what databases and transaction logging do all the time.

Granted, Sage isn't going to be using SQL Server to store their data, but it's NOT rocket science, and it's NOT an unreasonable expectation when the cost of failure is so high.

Think about the impact on Frey's sales should Mrs. Smiths Oprah collection get fried. Do you beleive that any of her husband's techie friends is going to be allowed to install SAGE in their house once the wives hear about that?

And yes, I know that's a cave-man mentality example, but it illustrates the point. As has been mentioned before, this is a word-of-mouth product. Enough people saying "I lost all my shows" is going to strongly impact it's spread.

[mc2wheels]

1) PCs do crash all the time -- sometimes sage assisted
2) When they crash, this file gets corrupted

Given points 1 and 2, how smart is it to design something that won't recover from these failures. I know at my house, the wife acceptance factor has gone way down -- especially the second time it happened. Tivo is a linux box. They planned for and recover from these type of problems.

It's been reported a lot. I actually have a script on the machine that periodically backs up this and the properties files, and I'm probably not the only one who has done this. I think this is totally lame that I had to.

At my company, we would say, "yep, it's a bug." And we would prioritize it with respect to other bugs. Maybe fixing the causes of the crash is more important, and maybe getting various DX9 display modes to work correctly is also more important. No doubt. But this makes them look bad. For that reason and that reason alone, they should fix it.

Unfortunately, it is one of those bugs that makes you (or more importantly, your wife) ignore the 5 months of error free operation before you lost all of your shows.

On a technical note, I personally think it is stupid to run with this file open 24/7. It' a small file. Read it once, keep it in memory, only write it back to file periodically, and when sage closes. It's not rocket science.

[Kanati]

I agree entirely on most points. Indeed the wiz.bin file handling is flawed. There are any number of ways to handle file access that isn't going to corrupt the file in such a way as to lose everything in it. Fault tolerance should be built into an app where data as important to it's operation as wiz.bin is to sage.

Personally I blame the craptacular java for some of the instability, but that's only my personal opinion and I'm not going to get into any language wars with java evangelists over it.

I continue to see tiny "glitches" creep into my sage install over time and it gets more irritating the longer it goes on. Now when I am watching something I hit the exit button on my remote and instead of going to the recordings menu where it has always gone before, it flashes that menu and goes back to playing the recording. I have to hit the button twice before it brings up the menu. Just little things like that that keep me on the lookout for something better. The software PVR market is growing fast. Every few months someone has something new out there and one day we're going to get fed up with the little glitches and decide that product X does the job better.

Sage's feature set is pretty well rounded. They need to spend the next six months shoring up stability now. Get on this board and get themselves a list of all these little irksome bugs that seem to be intermittent or creep in over time, and squash them. THEN they can look at more features (that are broken) like they introduced with 3.0.

As for wiz.bin... A closed file like that is irritating. And frankly, I don't buy the whole zap2it guide info protection thing for one second. Anyone can sign up for a zap2it account. I have 3 accounts right now myself. So what's so incredibly sensitive about it that they don't want people to have access to it? I think they just don't want people seeing how incredibly inefficient the file's architecture is.

[Opus4]

There were known issues with wiz.bin in v2.1 that were fixed in v2.2; any other issues brought up since then would be fixed in v3. If you are still having problems with wiz.bin, contact SageTV so that any remaining problems can be fixed.

- Andy

[SHS]

On a technical note, I personally think it is stupid to run with this file open 24/7. It' a small file. Read it once, keep it in memory, only write it back to file periodically, and when sage closes. It's not rocket science.

You know that funny I do belive sage all ready dose this why you think Sage eat up so much system memroy at less 55MB to start with hack all other PVR package use a lot memory to.

ALWAYS backup wiz.bin, wiz.bak and sage.properties before upgrading.
If something dose wrong then with new upgrade then close sage and re-copy over wiz.bin, wiz.bak only and restart sage nothing 100%.

1) PCs do crash all the time -- sometimes sage assisted
2) When they crash, this file gets corrupted

If you have this kind of problem then there something wrong with your hardware configuration, hardware drivers, some other software package or even OS configuration problem that your not seeing.
I have personal run sage on lowend Intel P2 233 with LX base motherboard ATI 2MB, REALagic NetStream 2000 and tested with Xcard, SB AWE64, PVR250 and Win9x OS start with 1.1.x up to 2.1 in tell I put the system in closet.
I been runing SageTV for very long time 2002 to today I very rarely had any major problem with date base upgrade sure there have been a few things didn't go well.

All I can say if you so much experience as a software developer then do something better by the all other have problem just as well.

[Kanati]

I have personal run sage on lowend Intel P2 233 with LX base motherboard ATI 2MB, REALagic NetStream 2000 and tested with Xcard, SB AWE64, PVR250 and Win9x OS start with 1.1.x up to 2.1 in tell I put the system in closet.

Glutton for punishment aren't you?

[mc2wheels]

I didn't say my machine crashes all the time. I said PCs crash all the time, and they do.

With two times in the last year plus that my machine crashed, one was from a power outage (and I don't have my HTPC on a UPS -- don't want the noise in my living room), and once was from a sage lock up.

If you are telling me that sage never locks up (or didn't ever in 2.1), then you are a liar. I really do have 10 years of experience as a developer. Rather than call that into question, why not respond to the issue.

Admittedly, I have not had sage lock up since going to 2.2.8, and I have not had any problems with my wiz.bin since then, but gateslinger did. And, having lost my shows twice, I do backup my files religiously now, and I feel his pain.

It's funny how it is seen as an end-user deficiency that they didn't know enough to back up their files. Stupid, customers! Why can't they just do the right thing? Great attitude.

I guess you too are missing the point it would make the product better if they didn't have to.

SHS, I'm really offended that you are calling me out like this. I am not a troll here. I am a sage user who really likes the product, and just wants to see it get better. Otherwise, I guess I am just waiting for something better to come along.

In the end, I really don't care. I only occasionally come back and read threads here to see what's going on. I was really only responding to Padre's "what do expect from cheap software" response to someones legitimate concern about what I see as a design flaw. Say what you want about my credibility or experience. There is a credibility issue here, but it's not mine. Where's studio?

[teedublu]

There is absolutely no question that Sage should provide its own automated backup/recovery system. Certainly the software shouldn't corrupt its own database, but: power fails, hardware fails, stuff happens..... When it does, you should be able to simply select the recovery feature and pick a restore point, which there should be several for the last 24 hours, and at least one for each day for at least one week.
AND wouldn't it be nice if sage provided a mirror feature for the video directory(s). What would make it robust is a delayed delete feature. For ex, mirrored deletes are delayed for user specified hours -- space permitting. When space runs out, the oldest in the delete que go first.
(I know about RAID -- and have it, but it isn't a complete backup solution)

TW

[MTuckman]

Originally Posted by padre

Well, take this from another software developer with 28 years of experience in the field, you're expecting too much for your money. That IBM Midrange costs significantly more that what you've paid for Sage TV. Where does that money go? To hire tons of support people. And how much do you pay on an annual support contract to get that level of service? Thousands!

So then the logic is that if you are not paying huge amounts of money for your software, you should just settle for what you get?

Originally Posted by padre

No software product, none, is ever bug free. Have never found one, doubt I'll ever see one in my lifetime.

Who is looking for bug free? I am just looking for a solution to my problem - to my data loss - not that it never happens again. I KNOW that this kind of software, with all of the potential conflicts between the hardware and software, with the level of interaction necessary with the OS, if going to be prone to failures from time to time. It is the simple idea that ANY software company would find a complete loss of data to be acceptable, and ask it's customers to do the same.

Yes I know - Version 3.0 is going to fix this, and it is going to have Studio integrated (or available or not or ...), that it will provide new levels of functionality that we cannot even dream of - And at the same time is going to bring with it a whole new level of problems. Problems that this community are more than willing to deal with, work with, and help with. But that is only an option when you can actually do something - which is impossible as we cannot access the WIZ.BIN file, and you can do next to nothing within Sage without Studio.

Originally Posted by padre

I've been using Sage since versin 1.3 and have been quite impressed with the amount of functionity and features in each new release.

I would not be in this forum, looking for solutions, asking for help, if I didn't think that Sage offers more than any of the other products on the market. I would have just thrown my hands up and walked away, if I did not see the potential in this product and in what it already does.

I had about 20 friends over for dinner this evening, and after eating the conversation turned to Tivo and my HTPC. A friend asked if I would talk to her husband about what they should do - Upgrade their Tivo, get a second Tivo, or go the HTPC route like I had. They liked the ability to record 3 shows at the same time, that you could watch anything from DVD's to downloaded videos to recorded TV shows.

Before I could say anything, my wife joined in and said that she was completely unimpressed with the HTPC - that half of her shows that were recorded had no audio (the second tuner in a PVR-500), and that we lost all of our favorites, had to redo them by hand, and that we lost all of the recorded shows - more than 50 shows. I explained that they were still there, you just had to go to the Video Library. That really impressed her, and she really loved having no description for the shows.

I REALLY WANT to be able to recommend this to friends, to help them set these PC's up, but it is getting very frustrating. There is simply no way this level of quality would ever be accepted in my work.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by MTuckman

Who is looking for bug free? I am just looking for a solution to my problem - to my data loss - not that it never happens again. I KNOW that this kind of software, with all of the potential conflicts between the hardware and software, with the level of interaction necessary with the OS, if going to be prone to failures from time to time. It is the simple idea that ANY software company would find a complete loss of data to be acceptable, and ask it's customers to do the same.

What makes you think that? As Opus4 said above, there was a known issue in 2.1 that could lead to DB corruption, and it was fixed in 2.2. Is that to say it's not possible there's another one still, of course not.

Like it or not, this is not an official support forum, if you need help beyond what this forum can provide you must go to Sage directly. There have been outstanding issues in the past where some would complain each version that problem 'x' isn't fixed, well it turned out nobody had reported it.

But if you're having a problem file a bug report don't just bitch about it and hope it gets fixed! Don't assume someone else has reported it. And don't assume SageTV doesn't care about it.

[gateslinger]

Apparently, I'm screwed to get these shows back into the normal recorded list. It seems to me that a private databasing system that doesn't allow a user to at least get file recorded back into it seems somewhat limiting. Granted, I'm a hardware guy but I code enough to know this problem could be fixed with time & resources. At least the recorder didn't nuke the files, so I can always get back to them.

What I have noticed with the latest version is that if there are two+ copies of a file anywhere in a designated library or recording area, the imported video playback won't work. I see a folder representation saying "2 instances" but I cannot do anything with the recording from the menu. As soon as I eliminate one, then I can play it or delete it. That to me sounds like a bug from an unintended consequence.