Fresh install gone horribly wrong

[Stephmon]

I started with Sage v4 back in 2005. It wasn't without its problems (occasional zero length recordings, hanging or crashing if you watched a show to the very end, stuttering video, full screen mode didn't work) but it was OK. Back in February, I upgraded to v6. There were some improvements, but some of the old problems were still there (occasional zero length recordings, hanging or crashing if you watched a show to the very end (though enabling the "prompt to delete at the end of a program" saved the day sometimes), stuttering video, full screen mode didn't work.

Yesterday, I began the process of wiping the HD and re-installing Windows XP. After several hours of installing drivers, endless restarts and tweaks, I was ready to run SageTV. At first everything looked very promising. The program loaded with blazing speed, full screen mode worked, the setup was pretty quick and painless (once I remembered that teaching the USBUIRT requires that you hold the remote within 1/4 inch of the module).

Then, for some reason, things went horribly wrong. I don't believe teaching the USBUIRT caused the problems, but before I went through that, the video playback on the TV was working beautifully. After, I would get strands of graphics across a black screen and moments of moving, or frozen video, when the graphics animated, or when I ffwd/rev/etc.

So, I thought I might have some setting wrong. I tried many combinations in the setup menus, tested the video (it generally worked, though usually with some electronic garbage at the very top of the image) but playback always looked like I described above and sometimes, would go to the SageTV "green screen of death", slow down horribly, or even hang.

I thought perhaps if I reverted to my previous settings, things might turn around. So, I dropped the Wiz.bin and Sage.properties files into the Sage folder, replacing the existing ones. I restarted the computer, waited for Sage to load, clicked "Watch Live TV" and Sage immediately exited. I rebooted my computer and again, click "Watch Live TV" and the program immediately vanishes.

Now, I thought something must have corrupted when I brought those files in. So, I went to Add/Remove Programs, uninstalled SageTV, re-installed SageTV...

Same blasted thing. I click "Watch Live TV" and Sage instantly exits.

Help.

How do I do a complete/clean uninstall of Sage? What files is Windows uninstall missing? Am I faced with wiping the partition and re-installing Windows XP?

Windows XP Service Pack 2
AMD Athlon XP 2100+
1.74GHz 512 MB Ram
Hauppauge PVR 150
GEForce FX 5500

[Opus4]

Are DirectX, Java, and the video card drivers up to date?

As for how to reinstall clean, see this FAQ: My SageTV installation isn't working correctly and it has been suggested that I reinstall SageTV. How can I reset SageTV's configuration settings without losing my recordings, favorites, etc.? The biggest thing you need to get rid of for a new configuration is sage.properties and its .autobackup file.

- Andy

[Stephmon]

DirectX 10, direct from M$'s download site. Java 6 updates 4&5. Same video drivers I used the past four years (after these problems started, I did try downloading the latest drivers, but for some reason (that I'm waiting for that forum to answer) that resulted in black & white video)...

I've followed the complete uninstall. Things are a step better, but now I'm running into other issues. I'm seeing live video, but it's static and the USBUIRT is not being recognized. I'll keep poking and report back...

[Stephmon]

Hmmmm, It seems as though there is a repeatable bug in the software... I did another complete uninstall. This time, I didn't drop the Wiz.bin or Sage.properties files into the folder (I suspect they're both corrupt somehow) and did a complete reconfiguration. Everything was working great... Except, that when I taught the USBUIRT, I skipped a row and 4 5 6 were mapped to 7 8 9. I went back to re-teach it and when I was done, the program was fouled again. Black screen, with audio, scrambled bits of graphics in lines across the screen, sluggish response in any of the playback functions.

I tried repeating the receiver selection part of the complete configuration, but no dice.

Looks like I'll have to re-install one more time and be extremely careful teaching the USBUIRT...

One question I still have in all of this... After the complete uninstall, Sage doesn't ask for my password again, so something (registry key?) doesn't get removed. Could there be something corrupt left behind after the so-called "complete uninstall"?

[Stephmon]

I guess I missed the "Frey Technologies" folder...

Re-re-re-re-re-re-installing...

[Stephmon]

OK, I've reconfigured without goofing up the remote programming and everything seems to be working fine.

One really annoying thing about the way the complete setup wizard is arranged... Why is the overscan adjustment so early in the setup? It seems like a silly mistake, to put an adjustment for the TV screen ahead of the parts where you setup the TV card to send a picture there...

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Stephmon

One really annoying thing about the way the complete setup wizard is arranged... Why is the overscan adjustment so early in the setup? It seems like a silly mistake, to put an adjustment for the TV screen ahead of the parts where you setup the TV card to send a picture there...

The overscan adjustment is only for the GUI text that is displayed and has nothing to do with the video that is played back. That is controlled by the drivers for your video card and your TV not by Sage.

[Stephmon]

I understand it's for the GUI. I should have said "signal" instead of "picture".

My point however is that when you're installing the software, it prompts you to setup the overscan settings, while the system is not yet setup to send anything to the TV (those settings are a few steps later). So, a user's first experience with the software is that he has to skip one of the very first setup steps (worse, because the symptom (blank screen) looks like a problem) and come back to it later.

A few more software related peeves...

-The channel lineup setup should be a higher level menu. It takes quite a few visits to refine the desired channel list (mostly removing annoying channels, that weren't immediately identifiable from their name) and accessing the setup requires skipping through several pages of TV/Video settings (which I'm now nervous about, because of my experience with the USBUIRT problem noted earlier).

-Does the product key need to be tens of times more secure than the one that protects WindowsXP itself? I have an upgrade copy of SageTV, which means I have to enter an obscenely long string of characters (all the more difficult, because my monitor is a TV screen), then do it all over again.

-Once you've run the complete setup wizard at install, running the "complete" setup wizard leaves out some of the steps, which leaves you hunting for menus. At times, I spent 10's of minutes, searching in circles for a specific menu, even going to the web to try to find the trail.

-The Setup menus could be layed out a lot better. I understand they're working with the restriction of being controllable from an IR remote, but it would benefit from some rethinking/restructuring/streamlining. It would be wonderful, if the "Detailed Setup" allowed access to all of the menus (including those in the setup wizard). Arrays of buttons, one or two levels deep is much better than threads that have to be accessed serially (for much the same reasons that disk drives are superior to tape drives).

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Stephmon

I understand it's for the GUI. I should have said "signal" instead of "picture".

My point however is that when you're installing the software, it prompts you to setup the overscan settings, while the system is not yet setup to send anything to the TV (those settings are a few steps later). So, a user's first experience with the software is that he has to skip one of the very first setup steps (worse, because the symptom (blank screen) looks like a problem) and come back to it later.

Just making sure you didn't think it was for the actual video playback as that has come up before. I would send a suggestion to SageTV to change it if you don't like the order of the setup menus. They may or may/not see the posts on the forum but a request sent directly to them will be seen - they may not act on it but at least you are assured that it will get read.

Edit: Oh and I've always wondered the reason for the order myself but I don't remember having any problems like this where I needed it in a different order. But support has always been good resource for me for problems - even those that are purely my errors.