Recordings gone - Merry Xmas!

[Franc]

Not a nice way to start Christmas day, I have to say

Just looked at my recordings and everything is gone!
Also the schedule is empty, all my series settings seem to be gone too.
The recorded files are still there so it's not like I deleted them

When I look in the Sage directory I see a Wiz.bin, Wiz.bak and Wiz.bin.corrupt0
Bin and Bak are dated today, the corrupt0 is from 3 days ago. They're all different in size. Bin is 5MB, Bak is 10MB, corrupt is 6MB
I haven't really checked my recordings the last couple of days, so was this when it went wrong?

Now, what is the best way to restore my database? I know its pretty messed up now, so there's not much to loose, but if there's a way to restore everything, that would be nice!

Merry Christmas everyone.

[flavius]

You could try the following. Should down Sage server. Copy all the wiz* to some location. In the Sage directory then delete wiz.bin and rename wiz.bak to wiz.bin.

Merry Christmas to you, too.

[ke6guj]

Basically you need to shut down Sage completely and copy in a good wiz.bin file. If you have a known good backup I'd use that. If not, you can try to backup your existing wiz.* files, delete/rename wiz.bin to something else and then rename wiz.bak to wiz.bin. Restart Sage and see what you get.

If that doesn't work, since its probably a backup of the new wiz.bin, not the corrupted wiz.bin, maybe try reusing hte corrupt0 bin and see what happens.

When was the last time you updated sage? Did you backup the entire directory before hand so that you can steal the wiz.bin from? Sage does make a backup of the old wiz.bin from before the update and names it something like Wiz.bin.SageTV V6.3.3.157 . DO you have one of those? Make a copy of it and name it wiz.bin and see what happens.

[Franc]

Thanks guys!

No luck yet, both the .bak and the .corrupt file give me empty on the recordings.

I found a backup of the Sage folder from over a year ago, which is of course worthless, but I am trying to use it, see what happens.

I guess I am out of options now, huh?

Is there someway to have Sage scan the recording folder to import the files somehow, or will they show up as Video files instead of recordings...?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Franc

I guess I am out of options now, huh?

WIthout any sort of backup, I'd guess so.

Is there someway to have Sage scan the recording folder to import the files somehow, or will they show up as Video files instead of recordings...?

If you don't have a large number of recordings to deal with, you could use nielm's webserver plugin to add recording info so that those orphaned recordings would appear in the recordings menu.

I haven't had wiz.bin problems, but I keep a 10-day rotating backup of my wiz.bin, wiz.bak, and my *.properties files on 2 separate computers. I also use nielm's XML generator that creates an xml file with all the recording's pertinant data so that they could be re-intergrated into a new wiz.bin if disaster struck.


edit: so, you haven't done any SageTV upgrades in the last year that would have made a pre-upgrade wiz.bin backup?

[mayamaniac]

I would go with tech support on this. Send them all the wiz* files, maybe they can repair it for you.

It's really easy to setup a backup procedure. I have one method in my signature.

[Franc]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

edit: so, you haven't done any SageTV upgrades in the last year that would have made a pre-upgrade wiz.bin backup?

Yes I have actually! Somewhere in October I did an upgrade and found the backed up wiz.bin!
That saves me a lot of work. I'll have to check my Series settings, but most of it is there

Thanks guys!

I'll make sure to put a backup procedure in place.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Franc

Yes I have actually! Somewhere in October I did an upgrade and found the backed up wiz.bin!
That saves me a lot of work. I'll have to check my Series settings, but most of it is there

good for you. Any series setting from the date of that backup should be there. Some recent recordings may not show up in the recording menu, but in the import videos menu, but that is better than it was.

I'm not sure, but keep an eye on the data in your Guide. Make sure you don't get a lot of No Data in the Guide. IIRC, you may have to do some editing of the sage.properties if that happens.

I'll make sure to put a backup procedure in place.

Yup, setting up a backup procedure is time well-spent. As important as wiz.bin is, I'm suprised Sage doesn't have a built-in backup system for it, more than just wiz.bak and the pre-update backup. There should be something more advanced than that.

[unkyjoe]

Mayamaniac

Good info on the backup, encouraged me to set mine up a few minutes ago.

Merry Christmas to all!