SageTV 6.1.9 new build instability

[FJC]

Hi, after running version 4 (and earlier) for years on a very stable SageTV system, last week I built a new system to handle HDTV.

This past Saturday I got it all configured and working - playback is smooth as silk, and all was well with the world...

...until Sunday morning, when I discovered that SageTV just wasn't running. Computer was up and seemed fine, but Sage just wasn't running. It had recorded a show at 2am. Looking at the log files, there was one from 6:52am (an hs_err_pidXXXX.log) that showed a Java out-of-memory error. I rebooted the computer and left for the day.

Last night, we got home late to find that once again SageTV had just stopped running. My wife is not amused, given that it missed recording both the 7th Heaven and Survivor season finales...

Same error, at 7:02pm, here's a snippet from the top of the hs_err_pid file:

#
# An unexpected error has been detected by Java Runtime Environment:
#
# java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: requested 1024000 bytes for GrET in C:\BUILD_AREA\jdk6_01\hotspot\src\share\vm\utilities\growableArray.cpp. Out of swap space?
#
# Internal Error (414C4C4F434154494F4E0E494E4C494E450E4850500017), pid=10568, tid=10496
#
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (1.6.0_01-b06 mixed mode, sharing)
# If you would like to submit a bug report, please visit:
# http://java.sun.com/webapps/bugreport/crash.jsp
#


I did a little research and went into RegEdit and upped the SageTV entry for the Java max heap size to 512mb. Rebooted the system.

Now this morning at 6:30am, I discovered that SageTV was still up and running, BUT CPU was pegged at 95+ and menus basically wouldn't respond. I'd click and just get the spinning circle icon. Finally had to kill SageTV via Task Manager.

Help! Any suggestions on what to do to make SageTV stable?

Some system specs:
CPU: Core 2 Duo 2.0ghz
Memory: 1GB DDR2 800
Hard drives: 80gb OS, and a 500gb video - both SATA 3.0gb drives
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2
SageTV version: 6.1.9.135
Java version: 1.6.0.01

Java Heap size as reported by SageTV: 69mb/99mb (shortly after a fresh reboot).
System has a swap file set to be 1500-3000MB.
Tuners: An HDHomeRun and a pair of PVC-250's.
SageTV running as an application, starting in Full Screen Exclusive mode on my main TV.
Multiple SageTV clients
MediaMVP box in another room

[Muchacho]

I have also been having similar problems. Recently my system crashed and I did a fresh install of everything. Since then, I have had near daily crashes where the CPU spikes to 99% on the SageTV (not the transcoder) and the system becomes unresponsive. After I end SageTV, all is well.

It seems to happen after periods of inactivity. I never had this issue until I did the re-install. Before the re-install I had 1G RAM, but now I only have 512 because one of the sticks got fried during the crash. I wonder if that would have anything to do with it. I think that the 512 should be enough b/c nothing else is running beside sage.

[bug1124]

I was having all of the same troubles you guys are talking about. I ended up just going back to 6.0.19 until this all gets sorted out.

[Opus4]

Send the contents of the debug log to SageTV.

- Andy

[FJC]

Just went to enable logging and saw that SageTV was still running, but was back to where it had pegged the CPU at 95-98%, even though nothing was going on (no recording, no playback).

I ended up just going back to 6.0.19 until this all gets sorted out.

Is there a download location for older versions?

[bug1124]

I don't know if there is a public download, but I could upload it somewhere if you want.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by FJC

Just went to enable logging and saw that SageTV was still running, but was back to where it had pegged the CPU at 95-98%, even though nothing was going on (no recording, no playback).




Is there a download location for older versions?

Try here:
http://www.sage.tv/postDL.php?tmpFil..._0_19Setup.exe

[FJC]

Thanks, I'll have to grab that when I get home tonight.

I may have narrowed the problem down. The new server was stable for a day, then seemed to get flakey on me after I plugged the MediaMVP box back in. I unplugged that yesterday, and SageTV 6.1.9 has been running fine for nearly 24 hours now. Hardly a conclusive test, but maybe this is all related to the MediaMVP.

I figure I'll watch it for another day or so...then if SageTV still seems stable, I'll plug the MediaMVP back in and see if it gets flakey again.

[Muchacho]

There is a related thread about this with the MVP. I think my problem was solved by using sageTV in service mode. I have not had a problem since.

[bq2]

I am having a similar issue. Sometime during the night, the sage serveer software just shuts down. The machine is fine, just no sage server running. This was happening at least once a day for 3 or 4 days.

My setup is very similar to FJC's, except i am using the Hauppauge HVR-1600 for HD capture. I have a sage client running, an mvp running and the server running as an application. I have not captured a log file.

Now, i have disabled the digital tuner on the HVR-1600 so i am only using the svideo to capture dish network output and the analog tuner. I did this about a week ago and the sage server has not had a problem since. At least in my case, it seems to have something to do with the digital tuner.

[owilsky]

Yepp, same experiences here. Service seems to be stable, but UI crashes. I see only the Windows Desktop on my TV and have to plug in an USB mouse to restart the UI....

[cejota3]

I'm not sure if this is the same issue that everyone else is having, but ever since I upgraded to 6.1.9.135, Sage is randoming locking up on me. Let's just say my wife is none to pleased with me right now. (I'm sure many of you have also heard the, "Why can't we just have a normal TV?" question in these situations!)

My most common behavior, and it has gotten to be nearly once a day, is that my entire machine locks-up. No ctrl+alt+del to get task manager, nothing. This has happened both during playback and while Sage has just been sitting idle (in "standby") overnight.

And oh yes, I've encountered the "Sage has just stopped running" and all I've got is my desktop effect also.

I know this behavior often indicates a hardware problem, but I doubt it since everything had been running fine when I had 6.0.19, and I'm 99% sure nothing else has changed. (Although, I think a recent Windows update may have sneaked in there.)

I'd love to help out on this one, but for the sake of not having my wife go balastic, I'm going to role back to 6.0.19 tonight. I'll check in with you all in a couple of days to let you know if it makes a difference.

My Java edition is: "Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (1.4.2_11-b06 mixed mode)". I know that is old, but my understanding is that it is the most stable version to use with Sage.

C.J.

[FJC]

Just as a followup, after shutting down the MediaMVP box, my SageTV 6.1.9.135 server has run perfectly fine for nearly 48 hours now. Before, it would either crash to desktop or go CPU-crazy within 12 hours.

I think I'll plug the MVP box back in later and see if the problems return.

[cejota3]

Well, the rollback to 6.0.19 didn't go as smoothly as planned. No matter what I tried, I lost all my recorded programs info. So for now, I'm back to 6.1.19 and keeping my fingers crossed. I'll turn debug on tonight, and keep you all informed as additional crashes happen.

This is really frustrating as everything seemed to be rock solid before I made the upgrade to 6.1.19.

Any additional thoughts or info would be appreciated.

[FidgetyRat]

bleh, that doesn't sound fun at all.

I can personally attest to the service mode working flawless. My machine has been up since it was released without a single glitch. Even with MVPs

[camus]

FWIW,
Now this may be a bit extreme but worked great for me. Sage was getting rather sluggish, using lots of CPU, spinning wheel thingy, freezing, service was using 200MB of ram and sage was using 250MB. Both were taking an eternity to start.

It didn't happen immediately after upgrading to to 6.1, but things got progressively worse until after about 1 week of use Sage was utterly unreliable for playback, recording was fine, but the UI was worthless.

I ended just doing a clean install of Sage 6.1, saving only my wiz.bin file.

Benefits:

1. Wiz.bin went from 54 MB to 17 MB, don't really know if that is good or bad, but all my recording info, favorites etc are intact.

2. Service uses 100 MB ram, Sage about 10MB.

3. Back to normal CPU usage, much more responsive.

4. Everything starts quickly, much more quickly.

It sounds like a PITA, but really if you back your stuff up, it is a relatively quick and painless if it works, I just hate having to reset my channel lineup for satellite.

[bug1124]

Originally Posted by cjwhelan

Well, the rollback to 6.0.19 didn't go as smoothly as planned. No matter what I tried, I lost all my recorded programs info. So for now, I'm back to 6.1.19 and keeping my fingers crossed. I'll turn debug on tonight, and keep you all informed as additional crashes happen.

This is really frustrating as everything seemed to be rock solid before I made the upgrade to 6.1.19.

Any additional thoughts or info would be appreciated.

I did loose all of my program info except that which is also in the .my files. If you don't already you may want to use that import to help prevent the total loss of show info if there was ever a problem with the wiz.bin file. Now all of those shows are in the imported videos section (which I knew would happen), but at least my wife still has a description of all the her Oprah episodes.

It seems that people are solving this problem by running sage in service mode, but personally I don't want to use it that way. This is definitely a problem with 6.1.19 not the previous versions (though I had different issues with many of those) I hope 6.1.20 comes soon with a fix for this...I miss the new logo.

[cejota3]

Well all, it has been nearly a week, and I think the culprit, as some other people have noted, is not being in service mode. (In other words, being in service mode has made my system MUCH more stable.)

The strange thing was that I generally had always run my Sage setup in service mode, but I think I forgot to do that when I did the last upgrade to 6.1.19, hence why my instability seemed to be linked to when I did that upgrade.

I also seemed to have some hardware problems, flaky RAM, but I was able to isolate that separately from the service mode issue.

It was not fun getting to the bottom of this.

Also, did anyone else miss American Idol naming this year's winner because they ran long with the show. ARGH! Dispite having it setup as a favorite with a few minutes of ending padding, we still missed Jordon being named the winner.

[dynamix]

I have to say, Sage2 through Sage5 were very stable for me (as long as I wasn't using the PVR-350) but Sage6.1 has been very unstable. Both my SageTV client and server love to crash randomly during playback. I can't wait for a new version to come and potentionally fix this flawed version.

I'm going to try switching to service mode right now, and see if that helps clear up my issues.

-d

[FJC]

I'm not running in service mode...but mine has now been 100% reliable since shutting off the MediaMVP box. I've run it for as long as a full week non-stop without a reboot/restart of SageTV (and only did one reboot for a non-SageTV related reason).

I keep meaning to plug the MediaMVP box back in to see if the problems start up again, to verify that in my case it is that causing the issues...but haven't had a chance to do so yet.