How to gracefully exit sage when the spinning circle appears?

[btrcp2000]

Whenever I muck with a new import or something, I go through a period of crash and burns, where the circle comes up, and the only way to get out is to use the nuclear option. I have to go downstairs and hold the power button on my sage server and reboot the old fashioned way, and it always costs me a wiz or a properties file. I have backups, but why can't Ijust shutdown sage? Why does it have to be a train wreck?

It is just the UI, because the clients all still work, and if I hit the windows buttons on the keyboard, the start menu will briefly flash, but i can't do anything with it. I do run in full screen mode, because i get stuttering without it.

[Addict]

I've certainly had it happen to me as well on more than one occasion. Once in a while I get lucky enough for an Alt-Tab to work, or even the Windows button (to pop up the Start Menu or the task bar). Sometimes I'm lucky enough to be able to right-click the SageTV Client on the taskbar (assuming I get it to show up) and shut it down that way, but, many times I just have to shut it down hard.

For me, it's the client only. I run server on the same box right now, and it doesn't seem to blip much. Might lose a little of the "hang" consists of a high CPU...but...

Sorry, don't have any great answers for ya...maybe someone else has a gem?

[reggie14]

When it happens to me I can usually control-alt-delete and end task on the Sage process, even when the windows button doesn't work. But, I don't run my server in FSE mode. The Wiz.bin file should be being used by the service process (if you're running the service), so ending the Sage process shouldn't harm it, in theory at least.

[Addict]

Oh yeah, you could also do a remote shutdown from another PC that has credentials to do so:

shutdown -m \\pcname -r -f -t 0

-r = reboot
-f = force shutdown
-t 0 = 0 second delay

[btrcp2000]

Not running the service at the moment as it may have been causing some other issues. Can't recall what they were though, so maybe I'll use it again.

Addict, your solution could be perfect, but I've never understood much about remote desktop functions. can you give me some more details on the following:

I guess I save your text (after I put specifics in) as a bat file and then run it?
How do I set up the credentials on the other pc?
Can I set it to just kill sage but not reboot?
Or, could I set to do a full reboot, not just shutdown? EDIT: never mind, I see the reboot key. duh...
What's the purpose of the delay key


thanks a bunch, this might help me with some other things as well!

[Addict]

You can manually type it in a command prompt (Start -> Run -> CMD) if you wish, or create a batch file. Either one is fine.

If you're on a domain, you probably need to be logged in as an administrator of all systems. If not, simply create identical user accounts on both systems (client and remote) and give admin access to them. That should do the trick.

I don't know how to remotely kill a process...sorry.

The delay is only used if you're remotely shutting down systems that an actual user may be logged into. The delay gives them a warning time to start closing applications before their computer reboots. In this case, there's no end-user so I always give it zero seconds, so it starts the reboot immediately.

[GKusnick]

Running in service mode is a must if you're experimenting with unstable UI plugins. That way you can kill the UI without affecting the service or corrupting any files. Better yet, do your UI experimentation on a client and don't roll it out to the server until you've got the kinks out.

Also turn off FSE when doing UI experiments, so you can bring up things like the Start menu and Task Manager in front of Sage when it's stalled.

Apart from device driver issues, there shouldn't be a need to do a hard reboot just to kill a balky Sage process.

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Running in service mode is a must if you're experimenting with unstable UI plugins.

Let me help you with that.

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Running in service mode is a must ~snip~.

Much better now.

[thomaszoo]

I use the Ctrl-Shift-Esc shortcut to bring up the task manager. I then kill sagetv.exe (or sagetvservice.exe) under processes. This works in most of the cases.

[MarcP]

I use a software called Keyboard Launchpad to map the WinKey-1 combo to launch pskill.exe (from www.sysinternals.com). Basically, when I press WinKey-1, it kills SageTV.exe and WinKey-2 restarts it.

Gets me out of any troubles without having to reboot my HTPC. Although I haven't had the opportunity to use this a lot lately.

[btrcp2000]

awesome suggestions! i can't wait to try them, but then again maybe I can because that will mean it crashed again...

Happy Thanksgiving all!

[Nightrader_]

All I can say is EVENTGHOST

I have eventghost set up on all my units and the server has EG events setup to start/stop any service (sagetv) or any app I use on the server.

EG is very easy to setup and allows me to grab any of my remotes (1 X10 RF remote, 2 hauppauge 45 button remotes and a couple universal remotes), press play, boom video is playing

The Network Sender and Network Receiver plugins are great.
And when I'm bored, I can always tweak EG's config to add some new action

[sixdoubleo]

This is by no means "graceful" but it is what I use when all else fails (on my client. You can use a similar technique for your server)

I have a button on my remote called "Reset All" and it is a general purpose "just get me back to the main menu!!!" function, mostly meant for when others are using the system and somehow get stuck.

I bind the button (via girder) to a batch file called HTPCReset.bat which does the following:

@echo off
taskkill /im SagetTVClient.exe /f /t
taskkill /im "TheaterTek DVD.exe" /f /t
taskkill /im "Meedio.exe" /f /t
taskkill /im "Media Center.exe" /f /t
C:\Meedio\Meedio

Essentially it kills anything HTPC-related that one might be using on my system, and then launches Meedio (my main menu). Works nicely for getting out of a bind and not having to reach for the keyboard.

If you were looking for a similar way to gracefully kill Sage, a simple "taskkill" command will do the trick...maybe try it without the "/f (force)" for a more gracefull kill.

Also, if your server is locked up, and you can't get at a command prompt, you can run taskkill from another box with something like:

taskkill /s mysageserver /im sage* /f

[sixdoubleo]

Originally Posted by Nightrader_

All I can say is EVENTGHOST

I have eventghost set up on all my units and the server has EG events setup to start/stop any service (sagetv) or any app I use on the server.

EG is very easy to setup and allows me to grab any of my remotes (1 X10 RF remote, 2 hauppauge 45 button remotes and a couple universal remotes), press play, boom video is playing

The Network Sender and Network Receiver plugins are great.
And when I'm bored, I can always tweak EG's config to add some new action

Nightrader....how does Eventghost compare to Girder? I have used girder for years on my HTPC and it really works well. But with the latest versions, I feel they've gone in the wrong direction in attempt to curb the "learning curve" that people complained about. In the end it's become a bloated mess. So I still use the old 3.29b version which was the last version before they started dumbing it down. But I imagine I can't use this 3.29b version forever.

Have you ever compared the two?

[CollinR]

I have never compared EventGhost and Girder but many claim EventGhost is easier to use.

IIRC you can use EventGhost and Girder together using the network event sender/reciever functions. I think somone said they are completely compatible. This would make sence as the only payload is the event name.

[kevine]

EG is free.

[sixdoubleo]

Originally Posted by kevine

EG is free.

Girder 3.29b (which is what I use) is also free. After that it went pay.

Anyway, I'm building a new HTPC next week. Perhaps I'll check out EventGhost and see if it will replace what I've been doing in Girder.