Exe Tuner Plugin doesn't seem to work

[Beelzebub]

Ok
I did the following

* Extracted exetunerplugin.dll to the frey technologies\common directory

* Added the registry setting (for test purposes I changed the command to notepad.exe %channel%.)

* In sagetv, and set the tuner to constant, then selected the Exe Tuner plugin option.


When I change channels nothing happens, I would thing notepad would coming saying it can't open 232.txt or whatever channel I try to goto.

I did notice something strange in this line
mmc/sfir_dev_name=C\:\\Program Files\\Frey Technologies\\Common\\EXETunerPlugin.dll

Should there be a \ before the : in the path.

Oh yeah I'm using SageTV beta 1.48

[Narflex]

Double check you registry settings to make sure they're right.

Also, try selecting a different input (like composite or s-video) instead of constant channel, it should work either way, but it'd be good to rule out that as the problem.

[Beelzebub]

Yeah the reg setting are right and it doesn't work with s-vid, or composite

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sage\EXETunerPlugin]
"command"="notepad.exe %CHANNEL%"

I also tried c:\\windows\\notepad.exe %CHANNEL%
and
echo %CHANNEL% > sagechan.txt

nothing

[salsbst]

What about trying the absolute path to notepad.exe but not doubling up on the backslashes?

[Narflex]

Beelzebub, Post your Sage.properties file please.

[Beelzebub]

I upgraded to 1.4.10, and It works perfectly

Now I need to figure out how to get this to work with 2 boxs.

Maybe if you just put a letter in front channel stored in the %CHANNEL% var.

Something Like A237 for Source1 and B237 for source2. Then have a option in the advanced menu to turn it on and off.

[Narflex]

I wrote this awhile back. It should still work fine. It's similar to the standard EXETuner plugin, with 2 differences.

1. It uses this registry location:
HKLM\Software\Frey Technologies\Common\EXEMultiTunerPlugin

2. In the command value stored at the above location, any %DEVICE% strings will be replaced with the corresponding device_name property as specified in the Sage.properties file. device_name is configurable for each input for each card.

This should get you going.

If you want the source for the EXE(Multi)unerPlugin let me know. I freely give it out.

Thanks.

[snowman]

I have been using this (EXEMultiTunerPlugin) successfully for some time now with 2 dish sat boxes. In fact it is the only thing that has worked 100%. But in trying 2.1, it no longer calls any command placed in the registry. Since I cannot really use sageTv without tuning, I am back to 2.0.20. I just wanted to know if custom external tuning is being abandoned in favour of sage prefered tuner interfaces such as the usb-uirt, etc. I have checked the sage.properties file, and noted the changes, but can't imagine what I should change to make it work. It looks good the way it is. Any news on this is appreciated.

Originally Posted by Narflex

I wrote this awhile back. It should still work fine. It's similar to the standard EXETuner plugin, with 2 differences.

1. It uses this registry location:
HKLM\Software\Frey Technologies\Common\EXEMultiTunerPlugin

2. In the command value stored at the above location, any %DEVICE% strings will be replaced with the corresponding device_name property as specified in the Sage.properties file. device_name is configurable for each input for each card.

This should get you going.

If you want the source for the EXE(Multi)unerPlugin let me know. I freely give it out.

Thanks.

[snowman]

Just got news from another user saying that this still works! That's all I needed to know. I'll play around with it on a fresh install in a new partition for testing. The WAF has reached dangerously low levels lately and I fear a 'hammer incident' is close to occurring. The problem I have now is...will the machine get it, or will I...

[pengdahl]

exetunerplugin and multitunerplugin only work in 2.1 if you disable Sage running as a service. I've submitted a bug report about this - hopefully it'll get fixed.

[salsbst]

pengdahl has someone from Frey confirmed this? I would think that there are some things you can do in order to get it to work.

a) if not already, use a real user account with admin privileges
b) set "allow service to interact with desktop" in the services control panel
c) (if all else fails) play around with granting privileges to this user in the local security policy

Have you done all that?

[snowman]

Thanks for the replys.

I managed to get it working...well sort of working, by disabling sage as a service. I however got held up with the wifes' 'is it broken again?' barage and pulled the plug on 2.1 for now

After all I can't watch tv from the hospital (due to unexplained injuries inflicted during sleep )


But seriously...our baby is due this week and tv is not on anyones mind at the moment

When things settle down, i'll take another stab at it.

Thanks again everyone!

keith

[pengdahl]

Originally Posted by salsbst

pengdahl has someone from Frey confirmed this? I would think that there are some things you can do in order to get it to work.

No, I haven't gotten confirmation.

a) if not already, use a real user account with admin privileges

I did try this, but it didn't work.

b) set "allow service to interact with desktop" in the services control panel

Tried this too.

c) (if all else fails) play around with granting privileges to this user in the local security policy

Haven't tried this, as I stopped experimenting once I figured out how to make it work by turning off the service.

I ran into some other problems too when experimenting with running Sage as a service, such as needing to manually set the password in the services control panel before it would even run under a username, and the fact that it's unclear which configuration file is used when. I also had Sage behave very badly when I tried to get it to work with the USB-UIRT (it would slow down and take about 30 seconds to respond to the mouse or keyboard). I could try to replicate this behavior, but since I'm back to using the tuner plugin and girder to control my system, I moved on to other things.

[pengdahl]

ExeMultiTuner is now working with version 2.1 running as a service - after checking "Allow service to interact with desktop" in the services control panel.

[fullofnrg]

I want to use the exe turner plugin, and to run sage as a service. Which is fine, but the problem comes when I try to use UNC paths as well (because I have a network encoder).
Basically my problem occurs because I cannot enable 'Allow service to interact with the desktop' unless I use the 'Local System Account', but I cannot use the local system account because it cannot access UNC paths :-(.

I suspect the answer is that I can't run Sage as a service, but I was wondering if others had found a solution?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by fullofnrg

I want to use the exe turner plugin, and to run sage as a service. Which is fine, but the problem comes when I try to use UNC paths as well (because I have a network encoder).
Basically my problem occurs because I cannot enable 'Allow service to interact with the desktop' unless I use the 'Local System Account', but I cannot use the local system account because it cannot access UNC paths :-(.

I suspect the answer is that I can't run Sage as a service, but I was wondering if others had found a solution?

Don't know if this will work for you but what I did was create a special administrative account on my PC and changed SageTV service manager to use that account as it's logon account. Then I could use UNC paths.

BobP.

[fullofnrg]

Hi Bob,
Thanks for that. If I use a standard user, I can't use the 'interact with the desktop' option which is required for the USBUIRT and the exe tuner plugin to change the channel on my sky box. This option is only available for the local system account.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by fullofnrg

Hi Bob,
Thanks for that. If I use a standard user, I can't use the 'interact with the desktop' option which is required for the USBUIRT and the exe tuner plugin to change the channel on my sky box. This option is only available for the local system account.

Sorry have no other suggestions except maybe a support request to Frey is in order.

BobP.

[mostlyfodder]

dear frey,
*please* make it easier for us to set up the exetuner plugin. i've done it multiple times and here i am STILL screwing around with it, not able to get it to work, searching the forums for ancient threads. please make a wizard or something, many people are using this plugin i think. it's really frustrating.

[Wheemer]

I am using the EXETuner plugin together with HERemote, and I'm running Sage as a service. I have already checked the box to allow sage service to interact with the desktop.

However I get an exception error when trying to tune. Heremote apparently crashes and it want to send info to microsoft. I think this is because of the service mode, because I had it working fine without service.

Has this been resolved yet? Is there a fix anyone can recommend?

Thank You!