Switched from local to UNC paths

[Enormous]

A while back I decided to figure out why commercial skipping wouldn't work on my clients. After doing some research, I found that it was because I had been using local file paths instead of UNC paths. So I did the necessary changes, and commercial skipping started to work on my clients.

One day whilst browsing around, I noticed that a ton of the shows I had recorded with SageTV were showing up in both the "Recorded TV" list, and also in the "Imported Videos" list. After doing some more digging, I realized that shows that were showing up in the Imported list were ones that were recorded prior to my switch to UNC paths.

After trying the suggestions at the bottom of this post, all of the recordings still listed in the database as being on a local drive were now in the imported list! I then rolled back to my pre-test wiz.bin, and am back to where I was in the 2nd paragraph. Has anyone had any luck switching a path for files in the database?

Thanks.

[mayamaniac]

I made a similar post before I switched to UNC paths a while back, and for the same reason, which is comskip.

I followed the instruction ToxMox posted (post #10) on this thread and it worked perfectly.

Also, read on that thread about network issues with UNC paths and the latest fix in v6 that I just posted.

[Enormous]

Thank you for the link! I did quite a few searches through the forum, and must have completely missed your earlier post. I'll give it a try after the shows are done recording tonight.

[stevech]

would all of this get easier and be transparent to Sage if we all used XP Pro's "mount" capability? It's like Unix's mount, where you create a folder name on, say, the C: drive. Then you tell Win XP to place a drive such as G: under the C: folder. This is done with the Sys Admin Disk Management stuff.

So the path name seen by Sage would be, say, C:\SomeDrive no matter the drive letter. Again, like Unix does.

Is there a flaw in this strategy?

[ke6guj]

Here is a thread where a couple of us played with mounted drives. How does Sage handle mounted drives? You may want to read that one to see how far we got, it was SageV5, so there may have been some improvements in V6, but I don't recall seeing anything specifically mentioning it.

[Enormous]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I followed the instruction ToxMox posted (post #10) on this thread and it worked perfectly.

Well, things didn't work out so well for me. After following ToxMox's steps, I got the same results as before (all of the shows originally recorded to local paths are purged from the wiz.bin, leaving them to show up only in the Imported Videos. Would it matter that I'm doing this after the fact, and not as soon as I did the switch to UNC paths?

EDIT: After reviewing your referenced thread, you guys are just talking about where the file appears to be in the View Recording Detail screen. I did notice that the paths changed, but in doing so I lost all of my show info (as well as it appearing as a SageTV recorded file.)

[Enormous]

Well, tried one more thing, with zero success:

This time I created a new folder, added as a Recording Directory, shut down Sage, moved all of the files into the new folder, and restarted Sage. From looking at the logs, things seemed to be going well (at first). Sage would recognize the new files and parse them, and then see that the old files weren't there and remove the reference to them. But once everything had finished, I was still left with a majority of my videos showing up as imports, with no data in the wiz.bin for them. I did have one tiny bit of success, when as I mentioned above, but for only one file. Does Sage get caught up when there are multiple files involved?

[ToxMox]

Enormous:
What version of SageTV are you running and could you please outline in detail every single step you took.

[Enormous]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

What version of SageTV are you running

As of this test, the latest (6.0.12) beta; Java 1.6 w/ latest binaries (from Oct. 11).

could you please outline in detail every single step you took.

Currently, I have 3 recording directories set from within SageTV: \\HTPC\video; \\HTPC \video2; \\HTPC \video3. They are shares of the following local directories (in the same order) D:\Video; G:\Video; F:\Video.

These are the steps I took to try and update the file paths (without losing show data). The first was my “successful” test, and the second is the unsuccessful one.

Successful
1.)Shut down SageTVService
2.)Backed up wiz.bin
3.)Started service
4.)Created new directory in Windows Explorer: “D:\VideoD”
5.)Shared “D:\VideoD” as \\HTPC\VideoD
6.)From within a SageTV Client: Added new recording directory \\HTPC\VideoD
7.)Closed client, shut down service
8.)Moved one episode of “Good Eats” from D:\Video to D:\VideoD
9.)Restarted service
10.)Confirmed from within a SageTV Client that the show’s location had changed (and it was still listed in the SageTV Recordings list)

After this successful attempt, I figured that if it worked for one, it would work for a bunch. So on the next iteration, I changed the following steps:

Unsuccessful
4.) Created new directories in Windows Explorer: “D:\VideoD”; “F:\VideoF”; “G:\VideoG”
5.) Shared “D:\VideoD” as \\HTPC\VideoD; “F:\VideoF” as \\HTPC\VideoF; “G:\VideoG” as \\HTPC\VideoG.
6.) From within a SageTV Client: Added new recording directories \\HTPC\VideoD; \\HTPC\VideoF; \\HTPC\VideoG.
8.) Moved ALL files from [driveLetter]:\Video –to- [driveLetter]:\Video[driveLetter]

After starting the service for this attempt, all files that were originally stored with a local path were removed from the wiz.bin, and only showed within the Imported Videos list.

Thanks for all of the help everyone!

[ToxMox]

You really need to move the files while the service is OFF then don't delete the original empty folders as Sage needs to see them as empty. Once the service is off then move all the files into their UNC equivalents and then turn the service on. This is assuming that you've already added the empty UNC folder paths to Sage before doing all of this.

So basically your steps from above would be this:

4.) Created new directories in Windows Explorer: “D:\VideoD”; “F:\VideoF”; “G:\VideoG”
5.) Shared “D:\VideoD” as \\HTPC\VideoD; “F:\VideoF” as \\HTPC\VideoF; “G:\VideoG” as \\HTPC\VideoG.
6.) From within a SageTV Client: Added new recording directories \\HTPC\VideoD; \\HTPC\VideoF; \\HTPC\VideoG.
7.) Close SageTV and stop the service
8.) Moved ALL files from [driveLetter]:\Video –to- [driveLetter]:\Video[driveLetter]
9.) Start the service and Sage

EDIT: sorry I just read that you purposely left those steps out...not sure what is going wrong other than maybe you deleted the empty old folders which you didn't mention but I figure maybe you did.

[ToxMox]

The only other longshot I can think of which you probably didn't do but figure I'd mention is perhaps you created import dirs instead of recording dirs?

[Enormous]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

maybe you deleted the empty old folders which you didn't mention but I figure maybe you did.

perhaps you created import dirs instead of recording dirs?

Nope, and nope. I left both sets of directories around during the entire test, and I'm positive I was setting up Recording Dirs, and not Import Dirs. What really confuses me is the fact that it worked for the single file!

I'll try to post the relevant parts of the log tonight (unless I deleted them!).

[mayamaniac]

First of all, I would suggest disabling the SageTV service to do this switch to UNC paths, just to eliminate any possible problems there. Once you successfully switched, then enable the service.

Second, on the "Unsuccessful" attempt, did you start over from the scratch again? Meaning, did you move that one file from the "Successful" attemp back to where it was and restoring the original wiz.bin?

[Enormous]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

First of all, I would suggest disabling the SageTV service to do this switch to UNC paths, just to eliminate any possible problems there. Once you successfully switched, then enable the service.

I'll give that a go on my next attempt.

Second, on the "Unsuccessful" attempt, did you start over from the scratch again? Meaning, did you move that one file from the "Successful" attempt back to where it was and restoring the original wiz.bin?

Yes, for each test I've done, I always revert back to my original state by:
1.) Removing new Recording Directories created during the test;
2.) Putting all files back to where they were originally;
3.) Restoring my pre-test wiz.bin.

[ToxMox]

Perhaps try one folder at a time instead of doing them all at once.

[Enormous]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

Perhaps try one folder at a time instead of doing them all at once.

Yes, I'll give that a go. I might even try working my way up from 1 file (5, then 10, then... etc.). I think I've got about 200 recordings still referencing the local paths, so it might be a lengthy process (if I can get it to work)!

[Enormous]

Well, after trying just two shows this time, it failed once again. I've attached what I found in the log that pertains to these files. I think it also bears being repeated that the for shows that are currently showing as local, they appear in both the SageTV Recordings list, as well as the Imported Videos list. Does that give anyone a clue as to why they're deleted from the wiz.bin when they're moved?

[ToxMox]

It just occurred to me that perhaps the airing IDs aren't matching anymore which can happen when Sage compacts its database. If you have Nielm's webserver installed you can use it to compare the airing ID of the airing with the ID number in the file name. As I understand it Sage uses the ID number in the file name to match it to an item in the wiz.bin so if the ID has changed internally then it won't match up to anything anymore. If that is the case I imagine you could rename each file to have the correct ID in it when moving the file.

[Enormous]

Thank you ToxMox. Excellent suggestion. I'll check it out after the "important" recordings finish for the evening.

EDIT: After doing even more testing, I give up.

Because ToxMox, YOU ARE THE MAN!
I tested two files. One which had the same airing ID in the file name as in the DB, and one which I had to change the file name to match the DB. Both imported perfectly, kept their info in the wiz.bin, and were removed from the Imported files list!! Thank you again for your help.

Now for the bad news: I've got to rename all of those files! But I'll take that over the alternative any day!

[wheelrandolph]

Originally Posted by Enormous

As of this test, the latest (6.0.12) beta; Java 1.6 w/ latest binaries (from Oct. 11).Currently, I have 3 recording directories set from within SageTV: \\HTPC\video; \\HTPC \video2; \\HTPC \video3. They are shares of the following local directories (in the same order) D:\Video; G:\Video; F:\Video.

These are the steps I took to try and update the file paths (without losing show data). The first was my “successful” test, and the second is the unsuccessful one.

Successful
1.)Shut down SageTVService
2.)Backed up wiz.bin
3.)Started service
4.)Created new directory in Windows Explorer: “D:\VideoD”
5.)Shared “D:\VideoD” as \\HTPC\VideoD
6.)From within a SageTV Client: Added new recording directory \\HTPC\VideoD
7.)Closed client, shut down service
8.)Moved one episode of “Good Eats” from D:\Video to D:\VideoD
9.)Restarted service
10.)Confirmed from within a SageTV Client that the show’s location had changed (and it was still listed in the SageTV Recordings list)

After this successful attempt, I figured that if it worked for one, it would work for a bunch. So on the next iteration, I changed the following steps:

Unsuccessful
4.) Created new directories in Windows Explorer: “D:\VideoD”; “F:\VideoF”; “G:\VideoG”
5.) Shared “D:\VideoD” as \\HTPC\VideoD; “F:\VideoF” as \\HTPC\VideoF; “G:\VideoG” as \\HTPC\VideoG.
6.) From within a SageTV Client: Added new recording directories \\HTPC\VideoD; \\HTPC\VideoF; \\HTPC\VideoG.
8.) Moved ALL files from [driveLetter]:\Video –to- [driveLetter]:\Video[driveLetter]

After starting the service for this attempt, all files that were originally stored with a local path were removed from the wiz.bin, and only showed within the Imported Videos list.

Thanks for all of the help everyone!

Thanks Enormous and Mayamaniac for the excellent discussion and DETAILED discription of setting up UNC paths. I could never get this working in Client pc until now--wasn't setting UNC correctly.

Randy