Suddenly, "No Valid Sources Defined"

[roddym4]

After purchasing and using Sage for a couple of months, suddently, live TV and recording is dead. When trying to watch live TV, I get, "No Valid Sources Defined."

Rerunning Setup Wizard yields no results.

Deleting and readding my source has no effect

Restarting Sage and the PC has no effect.

Hauppauge PVR 250
Actisys controlling Mot DCT 2000
S Video In.

Hauppage WinTV 2000 works perfectly. I can the cable signal without problem.

This is a Sage issue.


Help is appreciated. I'm pretty annoyed right now.

[roddym4]

OK, things have gone completely downhill.

All recordings gone.

All Favorites gone.

If anyone can help, that would be great.

[roddym4]

After searching around, I see that I'm not the only person this has happened to.

I tried restoring the wiz.bin file with no affect.

All of my recorded videos files are actually in my c:\program files\frey tech...\sage tv\videos directory, but Sage does not see them.

For Sage to delete one's entire library, favorites, video libraries and provide no means for recovery in unbelievable.

I cannot believe that Sage could die like this, after all the complements people have to say about stability.

[mlbdude]

I think the reason you are not getting any replies is because no one knows how to troubleshoot your problem (since it has not occurred to them).

If you are completely stuck I would delete my .bin files and start from scratch. You can re-import your recorded shows as library files.

For the long term, I would look into what may be causing this. Check your memory and HD for errors. Something is definitely going wrong.

[roddym4]

Hey, I appreciate the ideas. I'm not the only person this has happened to, though, so I'm a bit surprised that the experienced community does not have any ideas.

My system is brand new, and there are no other problems to report... it has exhibited no unusual behavrior of any kind, and has routinely been up and operational for weeks without hiccup. It's an AMD XP 2200 based system with 256MB RAM, PVR-250, NVidia Geoforce MX4400 -- I put it together based on all the advice I got on this board.

The ONLY thing that I can can think of is that I had to reboot a few times yesterday due to a failure of my system to read a DVD, which causes Windows to lock up.

Even though m win.biz file is 8+megs and contains the listings for my entire recordings, library, and favorites (I checked using Wordpad), Sage is clearly ignoring all that information.

Also, if the properties and "win.biz" files are so critical, they should actually work when restored, yes?

Thanks again for trying. Let's hope others don't have to reboot their systems more than a couple of times for any reason, because Sage gets utter amnesia that it cannot recover from.

[mlbdude]

A good tip to help troubleshooting, post links to the threads where similar problems have occurred. It won't hurt.

[dkardatzke]

What happens when you uninstall SageTV, then reinstall and try to run SageTV again?

If you still can't see the PVR-250 in the setup wizard it's probably because one of the crashes caused SageTV to consider an unstable encoder. To fix, open up the sage.properties file while SageTV is not running and find the line: mmc/ignore_encoders. If the PVR-PCI device is listed, delete it, then resave the file and restart SageTV.

[roddym4]

After removing the existing (correct) PVR-250 source 3 times, Sage finally accepted it, and I can watch and record again.

However, what is really hard to understand is how the win.biz file became corrupted and unusuable -- no favorites, videos, recorded shows, schedule etc. Opening this file in wordpad, I can see all my listings for scheduled and recorded hows, library files, etc. It's all in there, but Sage is ignoring this data. The file is over 8 megs. I can FTP it to you if you want to see it.

A few system crashes that causes Sage to believe that there is serious problem with a capture device, and therefore setting a preference in the properties file to ignore it makes some sense. However, three reboots that corrupts the FAR more important win.biz file makes no sense. Again, my information is there, just trappped and ignored.

My recommendation is that Sage better protect the win.biz file, perhaps by using a MS "scanreg"-like utility that would allow a user to restore a previously stored win.biz file. Like MS, Sage should regularly save 3-5 of these with date stamps so that users can troubleshoot problems and truly restore the data that is most important. Win.biz is like a registry file and it should be protected and backed up in way commensurate with its significance to user/system preferences.

Changing a line in the properties file to have sage remember a source takes 10 seconds. Restoring all my favorites with options for recording quality, time start adjustments, keep at most, etc., stored recordings and library files, can take someone days. Not providing a means to recover that is a serious weakness in Sage TV. If it happens again, Sage won't get another chance with me. Sorry to say that, but if bad RAM or power outage can wipe out the part of Sage that took me the most time for me to create, that makes one thing twice about making the investment at all.

Lastly, if all my recorded shows are still on my pc in my c:\program files\frey technologies\sage tv\videos file, why in the world would you INTENTIONALLY program Sage to ignore all of that on start up after a crash like this. It boggles the mind that my videos directory is full of all of my previously recorded shows, and Sage TV is purposefully ignoring them. So what if it can't give you "detailed" info or set "watched" parameters, etc. It should still list them as "Recorded Shows." But it doesn't, so I have to physically move them to another folder and then reimport them as videos.

Could you please send a message to my wife and explain to her why (after I finally got her to figure it out), that her shows are now in the "Library" under "Videos" instead of under "Guide" and "Sage Recordings?" If she throws up her hands because it gets too confusing and says, let's just get the Comcast DVR or Tivo, I will be forced to do just that. Sage has to play to the masses, not just the bleeding edge technical end.

In two months Comcast roles out their Mot 6208 DVRs that record HD and analog at only $5 more than regular digitial service. I originally no intention of going that route, but after having Sage crash so badly, I will have to reconsider.

If you can help me recover my favorites, recorded shows, etc., that's what I really need now, and I do appreciate the help. Again, I'd be happy to FTP my win.biz file.