Troubleshooting Sage's graph building

[hellsingfan]

Okay I noticed something, whenever the program changes then it freezes, either it comes back after few seconds or I HAVE to change the channel. The problem of "no encoders" has pretty much vanished for 1 week I haven't seen it I hope it never comes back.

So say that currently I'm watching CNN with the program "Situtation Room" and the next program is "Anderson Cooper 360". The channel will freeze when "situation room" ends and "andserson cooper 360" begins. And I think this is related to recording as when the name of program changes so does the recording and so a new file has to be created, the inability of the module/Sage to make the new file for which it waits as seen in the log file makes the channel picture freeze, NOT that it loses contact with SageTV.

So when the new program starts, the channel freezes and waits for the new file to be created, for which the picture freezes for a few seconds and then it comes back, BUT there is also when the file is created but the picture remains stuck and then I have to change the channel then it works which I attribute to SageTV not playing the stream received.

So basically I've identified the problem for my symptoms! I hope something can be done now that its narrowed down to this problem!

[jerryt]

I believe when Sage creates a new recording because the program name changed, you could expect to see the same delay as a normal channel change. Are you saying that it hangs and does not recover playing video?

Check these two entries in Sageproperty;
seeker/fast_mux_switch=false
videoframe/safe_fast_file_switching=false

I believe "false" in the above two lines means rebuild the playback graph, the first is for channel changes and the second is for file playback.

[hellsingfan]

Originally Posted by jerryt

I believe when Sage creates a new recording because the program name changed, you could expect to see the same delay as a normal channel change. Are you saying that it hangs and does not recover playing video?

Check these two entries in Sageproperty;
seeker/fast_mux_switch=false
videoframe/fast_file_switching=false

I believe "false" in the above two lines means rebuild the playback graph, the first is for channel changes and the second is for file playback.

Well you could say I'm facing the same delay a couple of seconds as a channel change, but are you facing this problem? That the video is stuck for that amount of time when a program changes?

Also yes sometimes it DOESN'T recover, that is why I have to change the channel and then come back.

I will we looking at those lines and play with them. Is there any property that can control if Sage should recreate a new file for each program? I think if the "same" file being used then I would not expect the video to freeze.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by hellsingfan

are you facing this problem?

I never watch Live TV. All my recordings work fine.

Often I tune a channel in liveTV some time before a scheduled recording to be sure there is not a channel change failure, and none of the recordings have failed. So I would say I have not seen this problem.

Originally Posted by hellsingfan

Is there any property that can control if Sage should recreate a new file for each program? I think if the "same" file being used then I would not expect the video to freeze.

Sage does this by design, I don't believe you can turn it off. Sage gives each file all the guide information. If you are not concerned with the guide information you could use players that except a stream like VLC or Media Player Classic and leave Sage out of the loop.

Originally Posted by hellsingfan

Also yes sometimes it DOESN'T recover, that is why I have to change the channel and then come back.

My guess is; "videoframe/safe_fast_file_switching=" is set where Sage does not rebuild the graph for a new file. and the graph is crashing. I would toogle what ever setting you have there first. I have "true".

[hellsingfan]

What SageTV are you using because I don't have exactly that in the sage.properties I have:

videoframe/safe_fast_file_switching=true

You don't have the "safe" part. I'm using SageTV 6.8

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by hellsingfan

What SageTV are you using because I don't have exactly that in the sage.properties I have:

videoframe/safe_fast_file_switching=true

You don't have the "safe" part. I'm using SageTV 6.8

You are correct "safe_fast" in 6.8.4, sorry I copied from my R5000 installation notes.

This is what I have;
SERVER
seeker/fast_mux_switch=false
videoframe/safe_fast_file_switching=true

CLIENT
seeker/fast_mux_switch=true
videoframe/safe_fast_file_switching=true

This would be a good question to email to Sage product support. Why Sage hangs for you when a new show starts?

[hellsingfan]

Okay I turned the safe_fast_file_switching to False and it has helped GREATLY. Now the channel is stuck then plays almost immediately, its like if it just stuttered. So its very quick, less then a second!!! But still it would be great to have it completely fixed, I'll try to see if anything else can be done in the sage.properties. Then If nothing else I'll contact Sage support. But for sure the problem is with Sage's settings not with the network encoder.

Thanks for the help so far, I'll do more testing and viewing and update if it remains working. Thanks alot!

[gplasky]

You're never going to completely get rid of that slight hesitation. Remember that Sage always records to the hard drive. So when you change the channel it stops recording to the current file on the hard drive and has to create a new file on the hard drive for the new recording. That is what you are seeing. It's the same thing when you are watching Live TV and leave it on one channel. When one show ends and another begins you will see that same hesitation.

Gerry

[hellsingfan]

Originally Posted by gplasky

You're never going to completely get rid of that slight hesitation. Remember that Sage always records to the hard drive. So when you change the channel it stops recording to the current file on the hard drive and has to create a new file on the hard drive for the new recording. That is what you are seeing. It's the same thing when you are watching Live TV and leave it on one channel. When one show ends and another begins you will see that same hesitation.

Gerry

Yes I'm sure that not everyone has this problem, otherwise people would be complaining, and if this happens to all Sage users then developers need a better design, because this sucks. Actually it is not a "hesitation", BEFORE I had a 4-10 sec freeze now it is close to a 1-2 seconds for most channels. With regards to viewing 1-2 seconds is ALOT of time, if it was in low milliseconds then you would call it "hesitation". Even then it should still be corrected so there is smooth playback.

[hellsingfan]

Okay I've FURTHER Identified the problem. The reason is that the picture freezes a few seconds BEFORE the program actually changes, sometimes its a few MINUTES that is why it remains "stuck". So basically SageTV is creating the new file (with new name) EARLY and sometimes VERY EARLY, and the picture is stuck UNTIL the new program starts!

Any way of fixing this?

[jerryt]

Verify that Sage's time is set correct. There is a setting for updating the time automatically from the web.

There is also a setting for how much buffer in minutes to use when capturing a recording. For example x number of minutes before and after the program scheduled for recording. I would verify what that is set to.