SageTV suddenly stops accepting keyboard commands

[dinki]

I'm using the trial version of SageTV. Today I decided that I would try running SageTV as a windows service. After setting it up, I was surprised that I had to go through the setup again (choose country, line up, etc). All of my previous entries were set so I just had to press enter a bunch of times.

After, I reloaded SageMC STV. Everything seemed to be working as usual but then after pressing a few buttons (not sure what they were, but I know I tried pressing guide, ff, stop, rew) I suddenly wasn't getting any response from SageTV. I could press the windows key and pull up the start menu and pressing ctrl-alt-delete allowed me to kill the SageTV process. Once I restarted the program the keyboard started functioning again, but would eventually stop working as I mentioned before.

The only other thing I did today that was different was installing comskip monitor.

Any ideas on what would be causing this? Is there any way I can get my old settings back? I'm trying to remove SageTV service and see if that was the cause.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

[Opus4]

The UI uses a different properties file when you are using service mode, so it isn't surprising to have to reconfigure the UI after switching to service mode. If, however, you ended up needing to configure the tuners again, then something might not be working properly.

How long have you been using trial mode?

You've mentioned use of multiple customizations. The first thing you need to do when you run into an issue is to get rid of all customizations -- return to the default STV w/o any customizations nor even the hidden extras. If the problem exists that way, then you can post in this forum or contact tech support.

If a default setup works, then try the customizations one by one to see which is causing a problem, then post about it in the customizations forum, not this forum section.

- Andy

[dinki]

Thanks for the reply. I've been using for probably two weeks (can't say for certain as the splash screen doesn't give a countdown to the end of trial).

Everything else seems well although I do get an occassional a/v hickup from time-to-time and have had the system crash to desktop once.

I've removed the the service and now everything is working as it was previously (ie keys never stop working).

I _really_ like SageTV and can see that I'd like to use it over my current pvr software (BTV) but the reliability issues I'm having will have to be sorted out.

[dinki]

Originally Posted by Opus4

You've mentioned use of multiple customizations. The first thing you need to do when you run into an issue is to get rid of all customizations -- return to the default STV w/o any customizations nor even the hidden extras. If the problem exists that way, then you can post in this forum or contact tech support.

If a default setup works, then try the customizations one by one to see which is causing a problem, then post about it in the customizations forum, not this forum section.

- Andy

I've gone back to the default STV without customizations.

Originally Posted by dinki

Everything else seems well although I do get an occassional a/v hickup from time-to-time and have had the system crash to desktop once.

I've removed the the service and now everything is working as it was previously (ie keys never stop working).

I haven't had any problems with the keyboard commands since removing the Sage Service.

The problem I am having now is with the a/v hickup. Every hour or two I experience a slight pause in the video and audio, a few seconds later the video will either freeze or have a great reduction in frame rate. The audio appears to continue but the video drops lots of frames and then eventually freezes. I can fix this by pressing fast forward or rewind and then things are good for a while.

Any ideas on how to fix this? Should I start a different thread for this problem?

[dinki]

Oh and I suppose I should give a little more info on my setup:

Pentium 2.something, 512 megs ram, ATI Radeon 9550 Svid Out,
Western Digital 120 gig 7200 rpm, Hauppauge 150MCE, Hauppauge 150 NonMCE, Windows XP Home

The problem only occurs when watching live tv. I'm also pretty sure that it only happens when watching without any type of buffer. I'm trying to say that I'm watching live tv as it happens if that makes sense. Not sure what the correct terminology is though.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[dinki]

Errrmm.. Anyone?

[Opus4]

I haven't commented because I don't know what is happening with your playback problem. Maybe it would help to re-post your question in a new topic so it gets separated from your input issue.

- Andy

[Polypro]

That type of behavior on Vista is ReadyBoost/SuperFetch related...no idea on XP. 512 RAM? Can you throw in a gig or two?

P

[dinki]

I ditched girder and am using my usb-uirt directly through Sage. Not exactly the approach I had wanted to go with but it works.

Whoa.. I guess I'm confusing myself with asking two questions in the same thread. Were you talking about the video problem? I'm contemplating reformatting my drive to use the bigger blocksize. I'm hoping that fixes the video problem.

Oh yeah, the machine actually has 1.5 gigs of ram.

[dinki]

Playback stutter appears to be because the default recording directory was on the OS partition. Moved to a different hard drive and things are great with respect to stuttering.