Plugin: Sage Job Queue (SJQ)

[voidpt]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Under the QueueLoader menu it tells you when it last ran and when it's scheduled to run next. Set it to run after each recording, manually run it, wait 2-3 minutes then look at the that menu again. What time is it telling you it'll run next? I've never had any problems with the trigger code for the QueueLoader so I'd be surprised if it's not running for some reason (though I'm not silly enough to say it's impossible).

Your correct. Was pretty tired last evning, so probably missed some logic. I think I've got it working fine now. What I failed to realise was the if one adds a manual recording that will finish before 'Next Run' of QueueLoader, it will not be processed 'After end', because QueueLoader do not know to wake for this manual recording. I guess the logic is that each time QueueLoader is run it finds out the earliest time it needs to wake next time, and kicks in then. If something is done inbetween it cannot know about it (or should there be a 'hook' against SageTV for events like this in SJQ). Guess that is what the maxtime between runs eventually solves. Correct me if I'm wrong in some of my assumptions. Thanks for a great tool btw

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by voidpt

Your correct. Was pretty tired last evning, so probably missed some logic. I think I've got it working fine now. What I failed to realise was the if one adds a manual recording that will finish before 'Next Run' of QueueLoader, it will not be processed 'After end', because QueueLoader do not know to wake for this manual recording. I guess the logic is that each time QueueLoader is run it finds out the earliest time it needs to wake next time, and kicks in then. If something is done inbetween it cannot know about it (or should there be a 'hook' against SageTV for events like this in SJQ). Guess that is what the maxtime between runs eventually solves. Correct me if I'm wrong in some of my assumptions. Thanks for a great tool btw

You've got it exactly right. There is no way to listen for Sage events in Java, but I really wish there was. Since I can't listen for Sage events then if you do add manual recordings then the QueueLoader has no way to run in between (as implemented - I could periodically pole the recording schedule and adjust the queue loader, but I don't see the point).

[wayner]

When my server comes back up after a reboot I get several dialog box messages saying "Comskip has encountered a problem and needs to close". I am not 100% sure but I am assuming that this is coming from some SJQ jobs that got stuck in the queue or failed and are trying to start upon SageService & SJQ starting. Otherwise why would comskip even by started? But this happens before I start SJQ Client which I start manually rather than as a service.

Has anyone else seen this? Or would this have nothing to do with SJQ?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by wayner

When my server comes back up after a reboot I get several dialog box messages saying "Comskip has encountered a problem and needs to close". I am not 100% sure but I am assuming that this is coming from some SJQ jobs that got stuck in the queue or failed and are trying to start upon SageService & SJQ starting. Otherwise why would comskip even by started? But this happens before I start SJQ Client which I start manually rather than as a service.

Has anyone else seen this? Or would this have nothing to do with SJQ?

I don't believe it has anything to do with SJQ, I get those as well and it's a result of comskip crashing while processing HD-PVR recordings. I can reproduce the same results by rerunning comskip against the same HD-PVR recording outside of SJQ.

[wayner]

That makes sense - thanks Slugger.

[wayner]

I have set up an additional task in SJQ to call MediaScraper to download Fanart for any Movies that I record on TV. Just one more use for a great tool!

[personalt]

What does everyone use SJQ for? Right now I only use it for comskip.

I am under the impression I can use to resize some videos so that I can copy for my phone to play on the bus but what else should I be thinking about?

[wayner]

I use it for Comskip (separate task for HD and SD although there isn't much reason to do so), running Mediascrape to download Fanart for Recorded Movies and Transcoding SD TV shows to Divx format and archiving (I convert to MPEG-4 Godd quality deinterlaced and move the file to \Videos\Kids Shows\Dora, etc.)

[PLUCKYHD]

So are you able to set this up running more than one process at once on livetv?

I am currently using dirmon and it works great but only process one show at a time and my wife always seems to pick the recording it is not working on.

It would be even greater if I could assign it to multi proccessor having a quad core that would give me that ability to scan up to 4 at a time each using it's own thread.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

So are you able to set this up running more than one process at once on livetv?

I am currently using dirmon and it works great but only process one show at a time and my wife always seems to pick the recording it is not working on.

It would be even greater if I could assign it to multi proccessor having a quad core that would give me that ability to scan up to 4 at a time each using it's own thread.

You can configure multiple clients to work on tasks and each client can be configured to do multiple tasks in parallel. In my own setup, I have a quad core and have configured my SJQ client to do up to 4 instances of comskip at once. So if the server queues 4 comskip tasks then my client will pull them all down at once and do them in parallel.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Slugger

You can configure multiple clients to work on tasks and each client can be configured to do multiple tasks in parallel. In my own setup, I have a quad core and have configured my SJQ client to do up to 4 instances of comskip at once. So if the server queues 4 comskip tasks then my client will pull them all down at once and do them in parallel.

That sounds great I may hit you up with a pm tonight to help me out if I can't on my own.

It does still work on livetv as well correct?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

That sounds great I may hit you up with a pm tonight to help me out if I can't on my own.

It does still work on livetv as well correct?

Yes, sort of. The QueueLoader thread (the thread that queues up the tasks to run) can run after the start of each scheduled recording, after the end of each scheduled recording or on a constant interval.

If you want to comskip actual live tv recordings (selecting "Watch Live TV") while you watch them then you're going to have to run SJQ on a constant interval. If you mean you want to comskip scheduled recordings while they're recording then that's no problem at all - just tell SJQ to run after the start of each recording.

Currently, SageTV doesn't support event listeners from external Java plugins so SJQ has no way to know when you're starting to watch live tv and therefore when it should run the QueueLoader - that's why I added the constant interval setting, though it's not the most efficient way to run SJQ.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Yes, sort of. The QueueLoader thread (the thread that queues up the tasks to run) can run after the start of each scheduled recording, after the end of each scheduled recording or on a constant interval.

If you want to comskip actual live tv recordings (selecting "Watch Live TV") while you watch them then you're going to have to run SJQ on a constant interval. If you mean you want to comskip scheduled recordings while they're recording then that's no problem at all - just tell SJQ to run after the start of each recording.

Currently, SageTV doesn't support event listeners from external Java plugins so SJQ has no way to know when you're starting to watch live tv and therefore when it should run the QueueLoader - that's why I added the constant interval setting, though it's not the most efficient way to run SJQ.

Okay question why doesn't it just look for the creation of the mpeg filelike diremon does? It works on livetv as it just scanns the recorded folder very 4 minutes (what I have mine set at.)

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Okay question why doesn't it just look for the creation of the mpeg filelike diremon does? It works on livetv as it just scanns the recorded folder very 4 minutes (what I have mine set at.)

That's what the constant interval setting will do - it will scan your media on a constant interval. Instead of scanning the physical file system, it queries the SageTV wiz.bin for the data.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Slugger

That's what the constant interval setting will do - it will scan your media on a constant interval. Instead of scanning the physical file system, it queries the SageTV wiz.bin for the data.

got it thanks I will try this out. Only problem is I have problem with comskip working accurately and I use show analyzer don't know if it can run concurrent (more than 1) but if not I am a paid beta comskip customer as ]well and I am sure with some tweaking I could get it better.

Thanks again

[Slugger]

[See project home page for more details, access to the downloads, etc.]

Official v2.1.2 Builds Released

10 Mar 2009: The official server and task client builds for SJQ v2.1.2 are now available for download in the project downloads section.

The v2.1.2 release is a bug fix release that addresses various issues with the server and task client packages:

Server Fixes

* Fix error in ruleset parser where a test block could start with a conditional operator and not report a syntax error
* Use JDBC SQL batch processing when writing or purging log entries
* Fix Logger buffering to ensure that log buffering is working as expected
* Increase performance of log purging thread
* Rewrite GUI to use vanilla GWT components; 3rd party libs (gwt-ext, etc.) always cause quirks that break basic functionality
* Issue 50 : Fix inability to load settings panel on Safari, Opera and Chrome browsers
* Issue 52 : Add media debugger; replaces massive dump of data when debug mode is turned on; debug mode is much quieter and more useful now
* Issue 54 : Ensure default settings are properly initialized on a fresh installation
* Add ability to ignore task client logs for processes (task client messages are still always logged)
* Fix ruleset parser bug where subject data could have unbalanced double quotes and not report a syntax error, which then lead to null pointer problems later on in the QueueLoader run
* Add separate package that forces all GUI actions to protected (SSL) port of Jetty installation; non-ssl package also supports SSL connections, but does not force non-SSL requests to the SSL port
* Allow denial of task clients by IP address (using CIDR notation)

Task Client Fixes

* Connect to server by hostname instead of IP address; some SSL connections will be denied if attempted by IP address instead of hostname (if the IP address isn't listed as an alternate name for the SSL certificate)

NOTE: Both the SSL and non-SSL server packages contain the exact same application code. The only difference between them is that the ssl zip file will force all GUI traffic to the secured (SSL) port on your Jetty installation. Since SJQ requests an id/pwd on each GUI session, it is recommended that the connection be secured. If you do not have Jetty configured for SSL access then do not use the ssl package as SJQ will not work properly. The non-SSL zip package will also work over the secured port, but does not force the connection away from the non-SSL port.

[Peter_h]

Can I install this on top of 2.1.1 or do I need to uninstall?

The new gui looks nice.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

Can I install this on top of 2.1.1 or do I need to uninstall?

The new gui looks nice.

Yeah, you shouldn't need to even stop SageTV to update the server. Upgrade details are in the installation wiki.

[Peter_h]

So I tried installing it and I am getting an error when I try to extract the package.

"C:\sjqc\sjq-2.1.2.343.zip Cannot create jetty\webapps\sjq.war"
"The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process."

So I guess I should stop the sage service and try again?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

So I tried installing it and I am getting an error when I try to extract the package.

"C:\sjqc\sjq-2.1.2.343.zip Cannot create jetty\webapps\sjq.war"
"The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process."

So I guess I should stop the sage service and try again?

Yeah, if you get errors about files being locked when trying a hot deploy then simply stop Sage, unzip, restart Sage.