Quirks and lock-ups with 6.5.6

[rcl]

I've been running 6.5.6 beta for the last few days and have encountered a number of random (but similar) bad quirks and lock-ups.

There is one sore point for me right now: even though I have many implied recordings to make via "Series", there are no "Upcoming recordings" queued up. This started happening last night, although once last night the recording list did randomly show up again and start to work. How does SageTV maintain its recording queue? I am a very technical developer so I can debug this given some guidance.

I also noticed these problems:

1) The "Stopped" menu will show up randomly while I am watching a show being recorded. This must have happened at least 2-3 times during one 30 minute sitting last night. I am using the Hauppauge MCE blaster + remote, and LM Remote software.

2) I'm not sure which screen I was in at the time, but while in that screen the entire program will lock up except that the small preview window will continue to playback fine (with audio + video). I have a feeling this only happens when a show is being recorded.

3) ** The oddest problem I've seen many times per day is that dealing with one channel will eventually cause the entire TV window to become blank when I come back to that channel again. I can't properly explain this yet. I believe it relates to me having recorded that channel just recently. The other day I had been viewing channel "54" and invoked some series of actions whereby coming back to that channel again showed it as completely blank. I have 2 cable box tuners set up via the LM Remote app. I also had a sense that SageTV "locked" channel 54 on one tuner such that coming back to channel 54 caused cable box # 2 to tune to channel 54 even though there should not have been a need for that. This is why I can't adequately explain this problem: it may be due to the 2 tuners, some mix-up between them, or some beta bug which manages multiple tuners and their live recordings. I've encountered this many times (4-6?) in the last 2 days. I have to restart SageTV to overcome this state problem.

I am running the Dec 31 2008 Hauppauge 2250 beta drivers (as any prior version was even more unstable with SageTV), SageTray and Sage server. Sometimes SageTray will show 4 red bars for shows being recorded (when in fact only 2 should be highlighted), and at other times it lists shows being recorded which the SageTV UI doesn't show any "In progress".

A small wish item: it would be nice to click on a preview window with the mouse to go back to full screen viewing. Right now you have to highlight the preview window then press the "Enter" key on a keyboard.

[Opus4]

I'm moving this to the SageMC forum because it sounds like you are using SageMC and your previous post made that comment.

If you are going to test a beta, please try a default setup before posting in the beta forum. A lot of things you mention sound like nothing in the default STV -- I'm not sure what you mean by a "stopped menu" and in the default STV you can click on the preview window when a video is playing & it will jump to the playback screen (you can't even highlight the preview window with the remote or keyboard).

- Andy

[tedson]

I can say for sure that #3 is caused by SageMC. The SageTV techs and I ran that one down and it never happens in the default STV.

[jmv]

SageMC is also not working for me. My configuration is 1 Server running WinXP Pro, 3 Clients WinXP Pro, 2 HD200's. All running 6.5.6 Beta, HD200's latest firmware. I am not seeing significant issues yet on the HD200's or the Server, but the one client I use most is locking up very frequently. See details below (all did not exist on my prior 6.5.3 Beta Server/6.4.8 Client setups):

1) Wait circle frequently pops up just in general moving through the UI
2) Client looses connection to server screen pops up (mostly locks up UI requiring Task kill)
3) Client UI freezes
4) When you try to do channel setup, UI chokes trying to go the the default STV to do the setup (the automatic switch SageMC does to the default UI to do setup). When I kill and then restart SageTV, the default STV is loaded.

Generally a very poor experience . In limited testing, the HD200's and the Server are not affected, at least not at the frequency of the client.

[rcl]

Originally Posted by rcl

2) I'm not sure which screen I was in at the time, but while in that screen the entire program will lock up except that the small preview window will continue to playback fine (with audio + video). I have a feeling this only happens when a show is being recorded.

Thanks Opus4 for moving my message over here. I wasn't sure where to place it. I'll be endeavouring to find more accurate explanations to my problems.

For issue #2 I believe I have found why the video + UI locks up. I can reproduce it every time now. The problem stems from my usage of the SageMC "Toolbar" plug-in:

1) View a recorded program.
2) Press the "back" button on the SageMC plug-in toolbar while in TV/video play-back full screen mode.
3) View new recorded program.
4) UI locks up. Video continues to play ok.

If I press Control-V to get back to the recorded TV menu then this lock-up does not occur. I've done this 3 times to confirm.

[jmv]

rcl...not sure what you are doing exactly, but I have the Sage MC touchscreen toolbar which is based on the SAgeMC tool bar...I'm not sure where you are selecting your video, but if I play back a video, call the touchscreen toolbar, use the back arrow, then I have to use the back arrow again to get to a listing of more pre-recorded stuff. I select something else and it still runs fine, no lockups...so I can't confirm your observation...but not sure if I am repeating what you are doing or not...also, I haven't had any issues on the server version of SageTV/SageMC only on client, and the toolbar is running on the Server...

[MeInMaui]

For anyone having these issues, please enable debug logging (see teh tips and tricks sticky for a link to instructions) and post your log files here after reproducing the problem. Also, if you have any imports installed, revert back to the base SageMC_169.xml STV file and try to reproduce the problem that way. Thanks.

Aloha,
Mike

[jmv]

OK, here ya go...first a description of what was going on at the time...

first click to "My TV" paused with screen changes mid-way through phase out/in between the two screens...but continued.
went to "Movies" switched through "on now" to "on next" to "All upcoming"...started going down the list to pick a movie to record...paged down for a while...took a phone call...and when I turned back around..."The Connection to the SageTV Server has been lost. Attempting to restore the connection..." and the twirl of death waiting thing was twirling...let this sit for 5 min tried to close with Alt-F4 and the orange X...then killed the task.


had to .zip it since it was 772k v. limit of 750k ...looks like it froze "waiting for memory in GC to free up"

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by jmv

OK, here ya go...first a description of what was going on at the time...

first click to "My TV" paused with screen changes mid-way through phase out/in between the two screens...but continued.
went to "Movies" switched through "on now" to "on next" to "All upcoming"...started going down the list to pick a movie to record...paged down for a while...took a phone call...and when I turned back around..."The Connection to the SageTV Server has been lost. Attempting to restore the connection..." and the twirl of death waiting thing was twirling...let this sit for 5 min tried to close with Alt-F4 and the orange X...then killed the task.


had to .zip it since it was 772k v. limit of 750k ...looks like it froze "waiting for memory in GC to free up"

I see two things in your log. First there are a ton of Java errors due to entering the 'Library Import View' screen. This screen is exclusively for use with DVD Profiler data and will cause problems if you enter it without having a valid collection.xml (where DVD Profiler data is stored) file defined.

Second, it looks like you need to increase your Java heap size on your client (not sure if you need to do it on your server too). You have to edit a value in the registry to do this (See this post).

Let me know if you still have issues after taking care of both of these.

Aloha,
Mike

[jmv]

Mike,

I recently started using the DVD profiler and categorizing my imports by Genre...just a few days before migrating to 6.5.6...so it may not be a 6.5.6 issue, but maybe it is. I am not sure what you mean by a "valid collection.xml"...I have a collection.xml file defined using DVD profiler 3.5.1 and the DVDPro2Sage.class that is recommended if you are using 3.5.1...but maybe I've got that wrong. I am not sure if you think I have a corrupt collection.xml file, or if you are saying that I have to specify both the collection.xml file location (e.g. Meta Data XML Path AND DVD Profiler Path) I have the first specified, but didn't put anything in the 2nd (not sure which directory level to specify , so I left it blank...).

Also, I am using a network resource for the Meta Data XML...\\Goliath\Movies\Profiler DVD Data...is that ok, or do I need to use a mapped resource...also for the DVD Profiler data, how do I specify that...the structure is \\Goliath\Movies\Profiler DVD Data\Database\SageTV.

I'll adjust the heap and report back...FYI, I just confirmed Heap size entry was there but it was set to a value of 0!...I KNOW that I had changed that before after reading the Java heap size stuff...so I have no clue how it ended up at 0...I have set it to 200 (512MB) so we'll see how it goes...another thing that is strange...in SageMC settings information, it lists the JVM Heap Size (Used/Total): 104MB/130MB...why isn't this listing the 512MB I set in JVMMaxheapsize?)

Okay, this just gets more confusing...I also confirmed on my SageTV running on my Server...and it has the JVM heap size 200, but it lists under SageMC 116MB/129MB/533MB...and it also has Java version 1.6.0_11 (1.6.0_05 on client) and SageMC STV Version 6.3.8a (v. 6.3.8 on the Client)...should I change any of these things!?!

Last update...I went ahead and updated the Client to 6.3.8a and 1.6.0_11. I now see the 1xxMB/1yyMB/533MB...I am going to play around with this for a while and see what happens stability wise. I am still interested in how I should set up the Paths and the DVD profiler import...or just pointing me in the right direction...but we'll see if the other thing fixes the stability...I still have DVD profiler import xml path set on the server...

mv

[jmv]

Well, the JVM Heap size change made my SageMC stable again. I still have no idea how it got to a setting of 0 v. the 200...but some how it did. Good thing I wasn't too arrogant to check! Thanks Mike!

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by jmv

Well, the JVM Heap size change made my SageMC stable again. I still have no idea how it got to a setting of 0 v. the 200...but some how it did. Good thing I wasn't too arrogant to check! Thanks Mike!

For the DVD Profiler stuff, I'm not exactly sure what is going on since I haven't used DVD Profiler in quite a while (I really should dust it off). All I know is that in your log you entered the 'Library Import View' screen and it kicked out a ton of errors which is typical if it can't locate the collection.xml file (maybe the client doesn't have access to its folder?). I think that screen is just used for directly view/editing the metadata, so you shouldn't need to go into it on any regular basis.

Aloha,
Mike

[rcl]

Originally Posted by rcl

There is one sore point for me right now: even though I have many implied recordings to make via "Series", there are no "Upcoming recordings" queued up.

I finally narrowed this down and came to an obvious conclusion. I had originally gone into: Scheduling / Series / "New By Category", and added "Documentary" and "Science" which causes my "problem" to start.

If I delete "Documentary" and "Science" then my problem goes away: the "Upcoming recordings" list gets updated immediately upon starting the program. If I add "Documentary" and "Science" then the "Upcoming recordings" list does not get updated for a long time, say 30 minutes or more. If I keep just "Science"then the list gets updated within 1 minute or less upon program start-up.

So my revised question is: is the slow update to the "Upcoming recordings" list due to SageTV searching my listings for all science + documentary shows, or is there an internal parameter or heap size which is making this process super slow? I get the sense that it shouldn't take 30mins to do this search at start-up time to get the "Upcoming recordings" list populated.