Switching Users with SageTV running

[KeAuraPete]

I think I saw this posted earlier, but I cannot find the thread, so I'll ask (sorry if this is a rehash)...

I set up a "Watch TV" user for my XP Home edition computer that's got SageTV running on it.

Trouble is, I'd like to switch over to my own account sometimes (and my partner would like to use his account, too). However, if I forget to turn off SageTV before switching over to another account, I get a number of error dialogs. Then I'm not sure what condition SageTV is in at that point.

What's the best practice for this? Simply exit SageTV and re-start it when you go to the other account?

What's the future plans for this sort of behavior?

Finally, how about running SageTV as a service so it doesn't need to have an account logged in? Or at least make it an option.

Thanks.

[dkardatzke]

The best practice would be to put SageTV in "Sleep" mode before switching to the other account. Let us know if that works for you.

[KeAuraPete]

I just got home to try your suggestion. Here's what happens:

1. I log in as me. Start SageTV. Verify it is running.
2. Go to the menu and pick Sleep.
3. Do Start->Logout and then Switch User
4. Log into another account.

As the desktop is coming up, I get these messages:
a. Uable to open IR Transmitter device in C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\...\as_ir200l.dll on port 1

b. Unable to detect MPEG-II video capture card.

c. Java NullPointerException

I believe I've seen your reply to these errors, so now that I have actual error message text, I search and see what I can find.

[dkardatzke]

Go into SageTV, Setup > Detailed Setup > Advanced and select Do not load SageTV at Startup. Then put SageTV to sleep. Now login as the other user. Do you still get the error messages?

It looks like SageTV is trying to start up again when you switch users and since it's already running, you are getting the error messages.

Let me know.
Dan

[mlar]

Sounds like you have SageTV startup automatically when you login, regardless of which account. You probably want to make sure that only the "Watch TV" user is starting up SageTV.

OTOH, it would be nice if SageTV could check wether or not it is already running before trying to start. My guess is that SageTV only checks for processes being run by the current user, when it should be checking for processes for all users.

In any case, you should be able to check the "Do not load at startup" option under the Advanced tab, and just put sagetv in the startup folder for your Watch TV user.

[Narflex]

Thanks mlar. It already does check if its running; I didn't know about the Global-Local mutex differentiation in XP yet, thanks, I'll fix that for the next build.

You've got a PM too you might want to check.

[KeAuraPete]

OK, I checked off Do Not Load At Startup. I switched users and yes, I did not get the errors.

However, since that also doesn't allow the system tray icon, there's no way to use SageTV from any account other than the one that started it.

This will be fine for now. If I'm using that computer as me and I wanted to watch TV, I'll switch over to the other account. Not a big deal.

You may want to think about this for the future tho: can you run SageTV in the background and connect the UI to it from any account? I can imagine people using it on their one and only computer with Mom & Dad and the kids all having their own accounts. But then they may do what I'm doing: set up a special account for it.

Thanks for the speedy replies.
--peter

[dervari]

I would absolutely love to see the recorder be able to run as a native 2k/XP service w/o any icons in the system tray (switchable, of course).