Comskip Monitor: Announcement

[kevpriest]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Try this. Spaces don't matter. It's the angle of the dangle.

file.directories=\\\\Freenas\\tv\\SageTV, \\\\Frontroom\\data (f)\\SageTV

Gerry

Nope, still getting the same message. All the other locations in csm.properties have the left-right slash (ie, comskip.location=../comskip79_62/comskip.exe). It's odd that this one property would be different.

I also tried enclosing it in quotes, but that just causes it to be read as C:\Program Files\ComskipMonitor\"\Mediaserver\sage files" (but this shows that Gerry was right about the slash direction, despite the other entries in csm.properties).

I'll keep messing around with it. Thanks, guys.

KevPriest

[tmiranda]

FWIW - I always get that error message but CSM processes the files on the networked drives anyway. I just ignore them... Not ideal, but they files do get processed.

Tom

[hemicuda]

Originally Posted by kevpriest

I also tried enclosing it in quotes, but that just causes it to be read as C:\Program Files\ComskipMonitor\"\Mediaserver\sage files" (but this shows that Gerry was right about the slash direction, despite the other entries in csm.properties).

I'll keep messing around with it. Thanks, guys.

KevPriest

Did you enclose the entire path in "" or just what you typed above? should be the entire path, but if gplasky is correct it shouldn't matter about spaces. all my LAN shares have been on linux machines so I stay away from spaces as much as possible. I can never remember to do the '/' part of

cd \mnt\dir\file /name

Edit: finally got VNC to connect and I checked my .properties for CSM. I don't have any paths enclosed in quotes, even ones with spaces.

[hemicuda]

kevpriest...

ok, I don't think this has idea has been posted since you started on your problem....

go into Services from Control Panel. Find the Comskip process and see what account its running under. My last guess on this problem is that it's running as a system service. I remembered that I had this issue when I added a recording drive to my n*x server. Had the UNC stuff correct (direct edit of the .properties to get it in the list). However, I had to change the CSM service to run under a regular(or admin or whatever) user account that had +rw permissions on the remote system for it to work.

Edit: if this fixes it for you then you'll need to do that every time you re-run the .bat file to change a CSM setting. The script is only set up to load the java wrapper as a system service. Maybe it will have an option to specify a user account in a future release?

[kevpriest]

Hemi,

Thanks! Changing the service user seems to have done the trick. While it hasn't finished processing anything yet, I can see that the service is actually running, so I'm hopeful.

Thanks, again.

KevPriest

[Soleil]

Many Thanks to Steep for ComskipMonitor.

Can someone confirm that the Download link work's for them, I always get

"The connection has timed out" when I try to download it.

Thanks
Soleil

[delgrego]

Same problem here downloading comskip monitor; seems the link is dead. anyone have any ideas or a mirror download?

[grauchy]

Try dirmon2 + ShowAnalyzer instead. They work the same only more flexible setup.

[delgrego]

yeah, i'm running dirmon2 + showanalyzer now on a trial. just trying different options as a comparison. i figured i might find some positive endorsement for comskip monitor in a thread called "comskip monitor". go figure.

[Steep]

The link has been fixed.

I've been hosting the download on my home PC for the last several months because I originally had trouble uploading the file to the forums.

Since that time, the file upload management for this forum seems to have improved greatly.

It is now being hosted directly on the SageTV forums server, so there shouldn't be any more problems downloading.

I had a power outage late last week and my home PC is having some serious issues. It's a 6 year old E-Machines box that is on its last leg.

=======================

Anyhow. Some news. I actually spent a great deal of time working on getting network configuration working easier with the CSM config tool. I was trying to use some Java SAMBA classes so that users could browse their networks. The code worked in 90% of the cases, but had trouble resolving names on some types of networks. Since I don't like programs that don't "just work" for every configuration, I stopped worrying about that front.

I haven't been able to do any development since then. My -real- job has been very busy for the past 6 months, and looks to remain so until the project I'm working on winds down in about 7 months.

=================

I've noticed that CSM works better -for me- when I enable the option for files to be processed by Comskip before they are finished. I'd rather Comskip take 10% of my cpu load for 2 hours, rather than 100% of my cpu load for 5-10 minutes.

Other than that, the system has been working very well. I'd estimate that 3 out of 4 shows are Comskipped perfectly. Of the one that isn't perfect, about 9 of 10 of those are near-perfect, and I have the occasional recording that just seems all over the place.

My system runs a daily backup between 2-3 AM and I've noticed that the Sage recordings themselves (re-runs) don't even seem to record properly while this is occurring. I dream one day of purchasing a new PC with a RAID 1(0? the one that insures integrity, not performance) so that I don't have to run daily backups. However, once you have a fatal hard drive crash and lose a year's worth of digital photos.. data integrity becomes the most important aspect of home computing.

=================

Thanks to all the people who have helped others with issues. I've never been much of a forum dweller, but everyone is welcome to send me email or instant message for a quick response.

[roxy99]

Originally Posted by Steep

Thanks for the PM. I've posted in the Comskip Monitor thread here: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=170

Updated the packaged Comskip to the latest version.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

No problem Steep. While I've got your attention, I was wondering if a future update could have a service tray icon with the ability to temporarily pause the application.
Obviously I set up thel schedule of when to process comskip (ie- when to run normal, when to run slow and when not to run)
but I would like to be able to pause your java aplet from time to time without actually having to resort to killing it by brute force in the task manager.

[hemicuda]

You can start/stop the CSM service from Services under Control Panel\Admin Tools.

Steep: I figured out how to edit the properties file directly to include UNC paths. After that, my one UNC path does show up when I run the config batch.

[Steep]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

I figured out how to edit the properties file directly to include UNC paths. After that, my one UNC path does show up when I run the config batch.

Groovy.

Originally Posted by roxy99

I was wondering if a future update could have a service tray icon with the ability to temporarily pause the application.

This is a good idea. I too have been wanting a more convenient way of doing this. I used to have a start.bat, stop.bat, and setup.bat, but removed start.bat since setup could start the service as well. I'll re-add the start.bat, so you (I) can just setup q shortcut icon on your desktop/quicklinks to shut down and start the monitor without having to go to the services panel or setup wizard.

P.S. The monitor is a Java program. Systray icon functionality is a feature of version 1.6 of the Java Runtime Environment. Sage doesn't require a version of the JRE that high, and I wouldn't want this utility to have a higher version requirement than sage itself.

[hemicuda]

Java 1.6 has its pros/cons. It greatly speeds up the UI in Sage, but breaks Limewire. Of course since I don't use that P2P app I run jre1.6 at home.

Oh, to add UNC paths to the CSM properties file format it thus:

\\\\computer(or IP)\\path\\to\\share

Just edit the file w/ notepad appending the path to the list. I can't remember if I restarted the service, but it couldn't hurt.

Edit (delete): realized I was being redundant from an earlier post.

[clayfree]

First let me say Comskip Monitor is great! The setup process could not be easier. My question may pertain more to Comskip but hopefully someone here can help me.

I have CSM/Comskip working but I have read that using .edl files are more accurate than .txt files. I found where to enable .edl in Comskip and I set it to value=1.

What I would like to know is should I disable the .txt output and how do I do that, I can't seem to find a setting for it? Also, how do I know my client is utilizing the .edl during playback?(I'm using SageMC)?

I just installed Sage 1 week ago today so I am making good progress but I'm still too new to keep from getting myself into trouble.

Thanks for any help,
Clay

[vhurst]

Originally Posted by clayfree

First let me say Comskip Monitor is great! The setup process could not be easier. My question may pertain more to Comskip but hopefully someone here can help me.

I have CSM/Comskip working but I have read that using .edl files are more accurate than .txt files. I found where to enable .edl in Comskip and I set it to value=1.

What I would like to know is should I disable the .txt output and how do I do that, I can't seem to find a setting for it? Also, how do I know my client is utilizing the .edl during playback?(I'm using SageMC)?

I just installed Sage 1 week ago today so I am making good progress but I'm still too new to keep from getting myself into trouble.

Thanks for any help,
Clay

I had the same question, and had it answered here:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...379#post194379

[clayfree]

Thanks vhurst! that's what I have been searching for.

[rickgillyon]

Anyone have a COMSKIP.INI file that work well in the UK for Freeview? And Virgin Media or Sky? Thanks!

[vividweb]

I have had CSM setup and running for a while now and like it a lot. I moved the service to a separate box to help take the load off my current server and everything worked great, but now it has stopped processing files on my server HDD and will only process the files on my secondary storage. When I view the log file it lists all the shows on the all the drives, but won't process them. It seems like the process can read the files but won't write anything to the drive. I double checked all my permissions and everything should be fine.

Is there an error log that tells me exactly what CSM is doing?

[hemicuda]

after you ran the setup.bat for CSM did you go into control panel.. services and set it to run as a user that has r/w access on the server? also, it won't work with mapped drives. have to use UNC paths. there's a post further up in this thread about how to do that by editing csm.properties.