v6.0.19 - Wake from tray with FSE results in hung black screen

[IncredibleHat]

Background:

Back with v5.x I always had a problem with trying to send Sage to tray when I had FSE enabled. Upon opening it from tray (to resume/maximize/return to full screen exclusive) it would promptly crash and dissappear. Requiring me to load it up again with the '-startup' flag.

Because of that, I had always had to 'quit' Sage in order to jump over to Zoomplayer. My remote buttons were setup to do this process in one button so I didn't have to fish out my keyboard.

This was a non-optimal solution, and I had heard that "the bug is fixed in version 6". I wasn't wanting to dive into the betas of 6 at that time, as I wanted a working machine... the WAF problem... etc etc. However, it worked, and was mostly non-confusing.

Now:

Well, I upgraded to v6 yesterday. First thing I tried, was setting sage to sleep to tray on quit (instead of exiting sage).
Setup -> Detailed Setup -> General -> Screensaver: "Disabled"
Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Customize -> Action to take when SageTV Window is closed: "Sleep SageTV"
Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Advanced -> Use Full Screen Exclusive Mode: "Yes"

Ok, so when I pressed the "PC" button on my MCE remote (which is programmed to ALT-F4 sagetv, thus close sage window), it promptly went to the Tray and the desktop was in view. Great!

So, I then pressed the "Big Green" button on my MCE remote (which is programmed to launch/bring forth sage), it promptly brought up a black screen with a mouse cursor floating aimlessly in the void. No screensaver logo bouncing. No menu. No video playback (which no video WAS playing at the time I slept sage). No anything.

I tried pressing remote buttons, the main menu button, the up/down/left/right... channel numbers. Stop. Play... nothing did anything. I moved the mouse around and the cursor moved. So I clicked the mouse button. Nothing! I used the keyboard... NOTHING! After some much banging on keys (even alt-f4 wasnt responding), I managed to get sage re-trayed (dont know how I did it), and then got to the task manager to kill the process, because the tray icon wasn't even responding to "Exit SageTV" option either.

BAH!

I thought this bug was fixed?

Not sure what to try to fix this. I MUST use FSE mode... playback is horrible without it. Other than those few settings, I am not seeing much else in the way of settings relating to this.

Before it would bomb out completely. Now it just hangs with blackness... at least I guess that is a step in the right direction, except when it bombed, it was easier to start it back up again

[IncredibleHat]

I tried this again after getting more familiar with the changes in Sage6. Still occurs.

Does anyone have any ideas, or thoughts on this? Something maybe I could try doing?

[kricker]

Did you ever find a fix for this?

[IncredibleHat]

No, I didn't.

What I do now, is my "DVD Menu" button while in Sage, tells Sage to QUIT (completely). Then clicking the "DVD Menu" button while on desktop will launch ZoomPlayer.

Then when I am done with ZoomePlayer, I hit the green button and it quits ZoomPlayer, to desktop. Then while on desktop I hit the green button again and it launches Sage.

Since I run Sage Service in the background, no shows are ever missed while I am in zoomplayer. Sage still records.

This just means I have to wait 30 seconds for sage to reload after I was in zoomplayer. Its annoying, but its the only STABLE AND SURE way I can get sage to behave with zoomplayer.

Then again, I am still using Sage 6.0.19 (despite the app says its 6.0.13).

I will be upgrading this week to ... whatever is new (yeah, I'm flaunting danger). I so hate upgrades with stuff like this, because the way it was working, tends to change, and stuff doesnt work right, or some glitch is replaced by some other glitch.

[kricker]

Well the newest beta releases FSE properly when Sage is minimized to the tray, so you might wanna give that a shot.

[IncredibleHat]

I just noticed ... 6.3.5 !!! ??? EEEEEEEEEEk...

Looks like I will have to allocate ALL of friday, saturday, and prolly sunday on this update, as I know, no doubt a lot has changed or been adjusted, that my UI file won't work with, and I'll have to remake all my changes from ground up again.

Hmm... now if I can only recall all that I have adjusted lol

But hey, if it fixes sleep (or releasing control to another app that pops in front), then wonderful. Also if it fixes a 'stuttering' playback issue I get randomly after skipping forward through commercials (fixable by skipping back one then back forward again).

Grr. I love updates, but then I hate them too. You know?

[kricker]

You'll need the beta 6.3.8.

[IncredibleHat]

Buh..buh..buh..beta? I'm always afraid of betas more than release patches LOL!!!

I'll try it. Not like it really matters if all hell breaks lose, because nothing seems to be airing at all this year. Stupid writers. When they start coming up with something better than reality BS... THEN they can have the right to strike.

[IncredibleHat]

Well, I've been beating my head against this whole "Switching from Zoom to Sage to Zoom to..." biz. What a dang nightmare.

I either get a solid black screen where only a mouse floats on it, and I have to ctrl-alt-delete so I get the start-bar, so I can double click the green tray icon for sagetv to get it back.

Or, I get a solid white screen, where no matter what I do, I cant get out of it, or get any application to show up so I can do anything. At that point I have to reboot the machine flat out.

Guess I am going to have to STILL do it the old way of "quit sage" with the remote button, then "launch zoom" with the other button... then do the reverse to get back into sage. There isn't any way I can simply flip back and forth between these two apps running at the same time with a remote button.

Edit:

The main problem is just trying to have HIP launch one app or the other WHILE the other app is up front. It just causes some sort of glitch in sagetv that blacks/whites out the screen. Eh...

At least sending sage to tray (instead of outright QUIT), appears to be working now. I can leave sage in tray, so that when I quit zoom, and hit the button to "load sage", it just opens right now instead of loading up all over again. So... thats one plus. Still not where I want it, but its getting there. Haha.

[kricker]

If Sage is in FSE then you will not be able to have it running in 'the background' with any other app. Same with Zoomplayer or any other app that is set to FSE. If running and not in the tray, then each one is fighting for FSE. You will have to place Sage and Zoomplayer in the tray for them to release FSE. I know 6.38 of Sage releases FSE properly now when placed in the tray, I do not know if Zoomplayer releases FSE properly when minimized to the tray.

If I were you I'd do the following:
Run Sage in FSE. Have it minimize to tray when you 'exit'. Then set it up so when Zoomplayer is launched from Sage, Sage 1st exits to the tray. It will have to go to the tray before Zoomplayer opens though. Then do the reverse when going from Zoomplayer to Sage. You should be able to setup HIP to do this for you, if not, you might want to look into Eventghost.

[IncredibleHat]

Hmmm... good information.

YES, Sage 6.3.8 appears to be handling going to tray a LOT better. It comes back and regains control so that its not running in overlay or windowed, or whatever it is that causes playback to stutter/block up.

YES, release and minimize seems to be the trouble.

When I try to have a button immediately open zoom (or launch), sage isn't being sent to tray automatically. For some reason I was thinking it would/should. You know how you can alt-tab between games or apps that are FSE... the prior one minimizes and allows the next to take control? I sort of thought Sage would be doing the same thing.

ZoomPlayer Pro (the version I run), allows sage to pop up in front and it releases FSE. Zoom never minimizes, I either quit it, or leave it in the background. It was just the Sage portion of the switch that would go bonkers.

You're right, HIP isn't actually telling sage to first minimize (or HIP isnt doing the actual alt-tab type code, which confuses sage).

I may switch to a new program. HIP is very crude... very very crude. Has some issues, but its worked for the most part (see sagedvd note below).

Why don't I just use Sage for DVDs? Eh... still not up to par with Zoom. Plus I still lose remote control in the Sage DVD menu/controller windows for some reason. Havn't figured it out, it just doesn't like to respond to the remote buttons that are setup for all other SageTV control. And since HIP won't let me change the buttons while in the DVD part of SageTV... HIP is no good

Maybe I'll read about that other app... I fear change


Would you know how to get sage to "minimize to tray on standby/alt-f4" AND still "go to screensaver at 5 minutes idle"? I seem to be only able to get it to do one or the other. If it goes to tray on standby, it never sleeps in 5 to screensaver. If it goes to screensaver on standby, then the sleep timer works too... however I cant alt-f4 to get it to minimze to tray! Haha. Hmm.

[kricker]

You would have to set Sage to minimize to tray instead of exit. Then set SageMC (if you are using that) or some other add-in to use an external player as the DVD player. Use that to launch a batch file that minimizes Sage (using sendmessage.exe) and passes the correct parameters to Zoom Player. I think using Nielm's dynamic menus you can do all this as well.

[IncredibleHat]

No, I don't use SageMC. Sage base, already has more stuff in it than I need/want... so I never wanted to look into an addon that adds lots more things. You know how featuritis goes with addons hehe.

I'll look into it though. Good idea to use a batch file to handle the switch.

[IncredibleHat]

I'm close!

Just wanted to report back in this thread, since it came up here about using a batch file to switch between apps.

Halfway there... while in SageTV I have HIP execute a .bat file when I press the DVD Menu button. The bat file does this:

START /wait /d"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV" SendMessage.exe -C SageApp -N SageWin -m 1258 -W 0 44
SLEEP 1
START /d"C:\Program Files\Zoom Player" zplayer.exe /DVD /MOUSEOFF /FORCEFS

HIP has a setting to hide the execution of a bat file, which is nice. HIP also will do a direct sendmessage for a button press... but since I need to do two, with a pause, that doesn't work well.

Now, when I am in SageTV, I press that one button, and sage blinks, fuzzes, and minimizes, and right at that moment ZoomPlayer launches up to its DVD fullscreen ready state.

Now, the problem is getting BACK. Apparently ZoomPlayer accepts sendmessage commands, however every combo I have tried from the lacking documentation I could find, has resulted in ZP not responding to the sendmessage of exit (which should be wcode 053?). So, ZP doesnt go away when sageTV comes up front (which I bet will be a big problem at some point).

Almost there. I have put in a request on the ZP forums about the proper terms/codes for that, because the docs simply failed to mention a few key points in that regard (like app class and window name). Ah, hopefully someone has an answer.

[kricker]

Eventghost can do multiple send messages with one button press. It can actually do any number of things per button press. It also has plugins for Zoomplayer, which allows that kind of control.

Using what you have you could just send the keyboard presses to kill zoomplayer.

[IncredibleHat]

Hmm. Looks like it supports MCE remotes and receivers (I use direct serial control so I dont care bout the blaster bits). Says it has SageTV and ZP controls too.

Looks like another weekend of fussing

I'm not sure about sending the keyboard keys to kill zoomplayer. Not with what I have, because I cannot figure out the right windowclass and windowname for zp to respond too on sendmessage.exe. Once I get those two keywords, my second batch file will be fully working:

@ECHO OFF
:: Quits Zoomplayer and Restores SageTV

:: Minimize ZoomPlayer first
:: 32817 = WM_APP + 49
:: 53 = exit
:: 39 = minimize

:: START /wait /d"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV" SendMessage.exe -C "Zoom Player?????" -N "TMainForm?????" -M 32817 -W 53 -L 0

:: Pause 1 second for the above to occur

SLEEP 1

:: Restore SageTV to front with optional location change
:: Guide = 18
:: LiveTV = 63
:: Recordings = 86

START /wait /d"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV" SendMessage.exe -C SageApp -N SageWin -M 1258 -W 0 -L 43
SLEEP 1

:: Branch to a sub menu if arg was passed

IF "%1"=="guide" GOTO GUIDE
IF "%1"=="livetv" GOTO LIVETV
IF "%1"=="recordings" GOTO RECORDINGS

GOTO :END

:GUIDE
START /wait /d"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV" SendMessage.exe -C SageApp -N SageWin -M 1258 -W 0 -L 18
GOTO :END

:LIVETV
START /wait /d"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV" SendMessage.exe -C SageApp -N SageWin -M 1258 -W 0 -L 63
GOTO :END

:RECORDINGS
START /wait /d"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV" SendMessage.exe -C SageApp -N SageWin -M 1258 -W 0 -L 86
GOTO :END

:END

When in ZP, I have 3 buttons that can go back to SageTV, and I set HIP to pass a different arg to the bat file for each button press. The above works pretty good... just it doesnt minimize zoom yet.

[IncredibleHat]

Got the final command figured out for ZP. This works for ZP to quit it before restoring sagetv:

START /wait /d"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV" SendMessage.exe -C "TMainForm" -N "Zoom Player" -M 32817 -W 53 -L 0

So now my two bat files are complete, and work perfectly with HIP and my MCE to switch back and forth between applications with only one button press. I will have to set my desktop to black, and hide the taskbar better (it floats up during transition), but other than that, its almost perfectly couch friendly

[kricker]

That's good news.