Sage Server Time

[bjterry62]

I prefer to set my time manually instead of use the Daylight Savings Time MS Patch. I have the box unchecked to keep Windoze from changing the time and I had Sage set to update the system time when it does the daily PG update. However, since Sunday, my system time has been changing each day after the program guide updates in Sage. Has the time already changed on the Sage Server? I have disabled the Time Sync feature as of just now, but my program guide is now out of sync. Programs are listed an hour earlier than they come on. I suppose the program guide will straighten itself out at the next update, but I'm a bit annoyed since I thought I had things set to where this would not happen.

Just curious,

BT

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by bjterry62

I prefer to set my time manually instead of use the Daylight Savings Time MS Patch.

Just curious; why?

However, my system time has been changing each day after the program guide updates in Sage. Has the time already changed on the Sage Server? I have disabled the Time Sync feature as of just now, but my program guide is now out of sync. Programs are listed an hour earlier than they come on. I suppose the program guide will straighten itself out at the next update.

This whole time issue is a big cluster%#$$%#, and it's not really Sage's fault, but they, like most othe Java applications, are relying on Java, which is somehow relying on Windows to have the correct time. Unless you implement all of the DST patches, you're probably out of luck until Sunday.

This is why I think we ought to go the extra step and ban time zones as well; everybody ought to be on UTC time.

[bjterry62]

I prefer to stay away from ANY MS updates with my HTPC. I don't need unexpected problems. Or perhaps I should say didn't. :-) For my desktops, it's no big deal, but the recordings need to happen without flaw. Like the latest anomoly where everyones PCs randomly reboot with no warning. Anyway, I looked around in the forums for any sign that there was a problem with Sage updates and didn't see anything, so I THOUGHT I was okay till the 4th. Wrong again I see.

I just wonder if congress saved as much energy as we've all wasted from this little boondoggle.

BT

[Opus4]

If you are unwilling to install the Windows patch that resolves this issue, then you might as well wait until Sunday when your time issue will be over. Of course, you will run into it again next spring, next fall, etc., because I doubt this is something for this year only.

- Andy

[Fastrack]

Originally Posted by bjterry62

I prefer to stay away from ANY MS updates with my HTPC. I don't need unexpected problems. Or perhaps I should say didn't. :-) For my desktops, it's no big deal, but the recordings need to happen without flaw. Like the latest anomoly where everyones PCs randomly reboot with no warning. Anyway, I looked around in the forums for any sign that there was a problem with Sage updates and didn't see anything, so I THOUGHT I was okay till the 4th. Wrong again I see.

I just wonder if congress saved as much energy as we've all wasted from this little boondoggle.

BT

Okay well if you want it to work with unexpected problems you have to patch it!!!... Microsoft has been changing for DST since who knows when; I know Windows 95 had it!... So what is the big deal. I work at a large PC company and we patched all the JVM's and MS patches in the spring, I'm with others... if your unwilling to patch it, then do not expect stuff to behave properly.

[kevine]

I think what has to be noted here is applying the critical updates. You need to do this if you want the system to work properly and keep it secured. I personally have it update critical automatically but you can say prompt for it when it is downloaded. This way you can run the critical update, then test Sage to make sure it did not affect your recording/playback.

[bjterry62]

Originally Posted by Fastrack

Okay well if you want it to work with unexpected problems you have to patch it!!!... Microsoft has been changing for DST since who knows when; I know Windows 95 had it!... So what is the big deal. I work at a large PC company and we patched all the JVM's and MS patches in the spring, I'm with others... if your unwilling to patch it, then do not expect stuff to behave properly.

Yes I'm well aware that MS has been handling DST since who knows when. And when congress decided to screw with DST last year and all the issues started cropping up, patches or no patches, I decided to put myself in charge of changing the time just like I do everything else in my world (it ain't that big of a deal). I don't want my system automatically changing the time. I can do that myself while I'm changing all the other clocks in the house. So, I had the DST feature in Windows DISABLED. But, I had the sytem clock sync feature enabled in Sage. I understood that this feature would sync my HTPCs clock with the clock on the Sage Server when the EPG updates, just in case it gets off by a few minutes (if I'm wrong, please enlighten me). However, I didn't expect the Sage server to have time issues. Figured it would be patched out the wazoo!! Yet, here we are.

Anyway, I will continue to keep these 2 features disabled indeffinately and trust myself to take care of time issues when necessary. Now, to the really silly stuff.

"Okay well if you want it to work with unexpected problems you have to patch it!!!..."

I believe you meant "work WITHOUT unexpected problems", but I get your point. You don't actually believe that, do you? How many instances of problems after MS patching/updating have we all encoutered/heard about? Google it if you don't believe me. The current big MS issue is the phantom updates that have hit the world. Reboots happening with no warning whatsoever, Automatic Updates being reactivated on servers that have the feature disabled, changes taking place with no admin confirmation. MS says it can't be happening, yet it is. In MS opinion, it's the users fault. Excuse me? Reports show that system admins are reporting this stuff after setting up systems SPECIFICALLY to not update automatically. But still, MSs answer is user error. Give me a break!!! If my PC is not broken, then why do I need MS fixing it? I'll patch/update manually when I KNOW that it won't hose my system.

Thank you very much,

BT

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by bjterry62

However, I didn't expect the Sage server to have time issues. Figured it would be patched out the wazoo!! Yet, here we are.

No, here you are. The whole point is that the EPG server's time is correct; it is your system that has the issue.

If the EPG server's time were off, there would be a lot of people talking about it & it would have been fixed right away. BTW: I synced with the EPG server earlier this week to test it before this topic was ever started (as soon as I realized the old DST switch date was hit) & the time was correct.

- Andy

[bjterry62]

Originally Posted by Opus4

No, here you are. The whole point is that the EPG server's time is correct; it is your system that has the issue.

If the EPG server's time were off, there would be a lot of people talking about it & it would have been fixed right away. BTW: I synced with the EPG server earlier this week to test it before this topic was ever started (as soon as I realized the old DST switch date was hit) & the time was correct.

- Andy

10/31 PM - System and SageTV times were correct.
11/1 AM my system time was correct and the time in Sage was 1hr off. Windows DST feature was off and Sage Sync System clock feature was on. What exactly does the Sage feature - Sync System Clock with Sage Server do?

Thanks,

BT

[GKusnick]

When you say you prefer to manage the time change manually, how exactly are you doing that? By toggling the DST flag? Or by setting the time forward and backward by an hour? If it's the latter, then no wonder you're having problems. Windows keeps time internally in UTC (aka GMT) and uses the time zone and DST settings to control the human-readable display of time values. But the time values themselves are stored as UTC internally. So if you're setting the clock itself forward and backward by an hour, while leaving the DST flag turned off, the displayed times might look right to you but the internal clock will be wrong by an hour. If Sage then goes out and updates the time from a network server, that internal time will get corrected, and your displayed times will now be wrong.

For proper timekeeping you want to leave the internal clock alone (except for synchronization) and use the DST flag as it was meant to be used for DST changes. If you don't want the flag toggled automatically, then toggle it manually. But be aware that this is not the same as setting a mechanical clock back an hour.

[bjterry62]

But the time displayed in the task bar was correct. The time in Sage was off. However, this is probably the cause of the problem. I will use only the DST flag to control it in the future and see if that cures the issue.

Thanks,

BT

[Conejo]

System clock, Timezones and DST dates are the bane of time/calendar programmers everywhere.

This is a complicated issue. System Time is no longer derived simply by reading a clock chip (even if it's been synchronized to an atomic clock). SageTV users aren't the only ones hit by this exact issue. Cisco Systems had to send out a patch notification after users of their emergency responder voice products noticed their clocks were wrong. "The cause of this problem is that the Java virtual machine that Cisco Emergency Responder uses to determine current time is not updated with the new rules for DST changes in the United States." There are over 40 versions of Java runtime floating out there, each of them very usable in their own way until you come across an issue like this.

So here's the layer map:

Physical Clock Chip
OS Clock
OS TimeZone
OS DST Rules
Java RT Environment
JRT TimeZone
JRT DST Rules
JRT Application rules

At least eight layers where any one of them can bork your SageTV server or clients from using a correct time. (One person last used bjterry62's method, or non-method, and in trying to correct it created a 5-hour time differential with their XP system clock continually creeping out of alignment 2 hours for every one as the system tried to auto compensate).

This isn't a SageTV problem, unless you say that using JAVA was a mistake and we should never have climbed down from the trees in the first place.

So far the only way to deal with it is to keep updated (or patched).

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by Opus4

No, here you are. The whole point is that the EPG server's time is correct; it is your system that has the issue.

If the EPG server's time were off, there would be a lot of people talking about it & it would have been fixed right away. BTW: I synced with the EPG server earlier this week to test it before this topic was ever started (as soon as I realized the old DST switch date was hit) & the time was correct.

- Andy

Just for the record, I had all the latest patches installed and it still screwed all my recordings up. There may be more people having problems than you think. Not everyone posts every time they have a problem. Yet there are at least 10 pages of posts from people having similar problems. In my case I was out of town most of the week so I couldn't do much to troubleshoot the problem.

I was running Java 1.6.0_02. I tried upgrading to the latest Java (1.6.0_03) and I tried installing the DST patch from Microsoft (it wouldn't install, since it said it was already installed).

No matter what I do, Sage keeps getting 1 hour ahead of Windows. On Sunday, Windows had the correct time and Sage was off by an hour. Now I have found that when I update the Windows time by re-synching it to time.windows.com, it gets set an hour early and Sage gets the correct time. If I force an EPG update in Sage, it has no effect on either time. If I leave Sage set to Synchronize system time with the server, then some time overnight Windows time will advance to the correct time and Sage will be an hour ahead.

For now, I have set Sage not to sync the system clock with the sage server and leave Windows an hour early to get Sage to have the correct time. Hopefully, things will straighten out this weekend.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Just for the record, I had all the latest patches installed and it still screwed all my recordings up. There may be more people having problems than you think. Not everyone posts every time they have a problem. Yet there are at least 10 pages of posts from people having similar problems. In my case I was out of town most of the week so I couldn't do much to troubleshoot the problem.

Those 10 pages of posts are almost all from last spring when the issue first came up & there really were problems for lots of people.

BTW: the SageTV EPG server doesn't even use DST, so it can't send a different time to your system when the time switch occurs. It is up to your system to handle the time switch correctly.

I don't know how to double check whether Windows really is updated, but have you double checked whether there are multiple versions of Java installed on your system? Maybe there are newer ones installed, but an older version w/o the fix is still being used.

- Andy

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I don't know how to double check whether Windows really is updated, but have you double checked whether there are multiple versions of Java installed on your system? Maybe there are newer ones installed, but an older version w/o the fix is still being used.

- Andy

You can go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Change or Remove Programs. Make sure that Show Updates is checked, and look to see if KB93360 is installed. It was part of the August updates, so it would probably be listed around 8/31.

Stu

[nyplayer]

I had to set my Sage not to sync with SageTV server it was an hour off. Windows time sync fixed the problem.

[Taddeusz]

I don't understand your desire to micromanage time changes on your computer. For me it's just one last thing (actually five things) I don't have to worry about when the time changes. I have five clocks I have to manually change. That's half the work I put myself through had the other five not changed automatically.

I can kind of understand about the rest of the updates. But there's a lot of updates in there. You never know, there may be a fix in there somewhere for an issue you've been having. Plus all the security related stuff. Even for a server it's important to keep things up to date "just in case."

[bjterry62]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I don't understand your desire to micromanage time changes on your computer. For me it's just one last thing (actually five things) I don't have to worry about when the time changes. I have five clocks I have to manually change. That's half the work I put myself through had the other five not changed automatically.

I can kind of understand about the rest of the updates. But there's a lot of updates in there. You never know, there may be a fix in there somewhere for an issue you've been having. Plus all the security related stuff. Even for a server it's important to keep things up to date "just in case."

I "micromanage" the time on my computer because I want to. Simple as that. I've already explained it and a perfect reason is Tiki's post above. He had all the patches and updates and he still got hosed. My biggest mistake was not checking the time 10/28 AM like I should have. Had I done that, then all would be rosey.

End of story,

BT

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by bjterry62

.. a perfect reason is Tiki's post above. He had all the patches and updates and he still got hosed.

Just to reiterate for people reading this & wondering: I will still suggest that it wasn't completely patched because I've been told that the SageTV EPG server doesn't use DST at all, so it cannot even send a different time to anyone's system for any DST switch, whether the switch is on the right day or not. It is entirely up to the local PC to take the time & apply any adjustment to it.

- Andy

[BobPhoenix]

I haven't had a time problem since I patched mine last spring. It changed correctly this weekend just like it was suppose to. Caught me by surprise because I forgot it was last weekend and most of my clocks were wrong but the Sage server and other PC's along with the cable STB's were correct. I normally don't let Windows update my PC's automatically either but I did last spring for the Time changes and haven't had a problem since.