We Really Need Some Warning Messages For Recording Problems!

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by cncb

Ugh! This happened again last night. Although no power interruptions this time. The HDHR was just not tuning anything for some reason but Sage just went on recording things as usual with no indication that there was a problem. Do others with the HDHR find that they have to power cycle them once in a while for no apparent reason?

Firmware issue

This was a firmware issue that is fixed with the latest release. 20090415.

This is the only time I can remember having an issue with the HDHR with production (non-beta) software/firmware.

Gerry

[appelm]

Originally Posted by cncb

Ugh! This happened again last night. Although no power interruptions this time. The HDHR was just not tuning anything for some reason but Sage just went on recording things as usual with no indication that there was a problem. Do others with the HDHR find that they have to power cycle them once in a while for no apparent reason?

I had this problem yesterday too! Its been a long time since it happened to me though. I can't remember the last time. Simply unplugging and re-plugging the HDHR fixed the problem.

[cncb]

Originally Posted by gplasky

This was a firmware issue that is fixed with the latest release. 20090415.

Thanks for this info. I thought I was going to have to replace my HDHRs with internal cards...

[QueOnda]

I had all my HDHR gone (lost on the network). Sagetv was recording away but creating 0 size file (as if recording), then of course no error msgs produced. If, I received a message stating HDHR TUNER # XXXXXXX failed to record "Name of Show", I would have caught this issue sooner.

[evilpenguin]

Same thing happened to me last night with my HDHR. I reset my server two nights ago and my HDHR's didn't reconnect but I had no idea until I went to watch "Lost" and it wasn't there for some reason.

[QueOnda]

That's exactly when I found out!!! I too restarted my computer and still didn't re-connect. I even used the HDHR setup did a rescan and no HDHR on the system. Went to each HDHR and unplugged and plugg-in and PRESTO!

Don't know what happened. Anyway, how to get sagetv to add some warning messages?

[Skirge01]

I decided to send a support request to Sage a minute ago, asking about potential plans about this, and I pointed them to this thread and it's current status. I don't know if multiple requests have any effect. If someone believes otherwise, let us know and I'm sure others will send a request in, as well.

[rswoods]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Same thing happened to me last night with my HDHR. I reset my server two nights ago and my HDHR's didn't reconnect but I had no idea until I went to watch "Lost" and it wasn't there for some reason.

Ditto for us.

I agree, it would be great to have error messages emailed out, assuming that Sage can detect that it isn't really recording anything.

I find it odd that everyone's HDHR failed at about the same time.

[Deacon Crusher]

exactly the same thing, same time, same show happened to me.

Very odd.

Guess I'll update the HDHR firmware and would be great to get email notification from Sage when it's having recording issues.

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Same thing happened to me last night with my HDHR. I reset my server two nights ago and my HDHR's didn't reconnect but I had no idea until I went to watch "Lost" and it wasn't there for some reason.

[jm9843]

Add me to the list. I missed favorite recordings of "Lost" last night and "Parks and Recreation" and "The Office" tonight.

Sage happily listed them all in the episode guide and indicated that they were to record but I got nothing. It seems that Sage for some reason isn't aware that the HDHR is having problems, but then doesn't include the 0-byte recording in the recordings list.

IMO, Sage should automatically detect that the HDHR is having problems and pickup the recording with a different available tuner; even if it means missing a minute or two of the show. At a minimum, it should display a message that there was a problem recording something and what tuner has issues.

Btw, power-cycling the HDHR brought it back to life. That is the first time that I've ever had to do that after a server shutdown.

[bialio]

I had a theory that something in the HDHR firmware got triggered by a time code thing - think Y2K. But I can't see anything significant about the epoch time of 8:00 CST on April 16 : 1239894000.

Seems like that is when most everyone had an issue - recording Lost probably on 80% of the cases

[71_Cuda]

I posted earlier in this thread, but I will chime in again since I, too, had failed recordings again yesterday. One of my HD-PVRs, which I thought were finally stable, locked-up again. Unlike most of my previous errors, where I just got a 0 byte recording that disappeared at the end of the airing time, this time I actually got the pop-up capture device error (and the funky blue light on the HD-PVR was stuck on). Luckily I caught it before the main primetime shows were due to record. But I lost several other recordings that should have occurred during the day.

My biggest complaint, odd as it is, is that I don't have any way of knowing what recordings were missed. I want to be able to go to a history log, as I could do in Media Center and see what recorded, what had been deleted, and what DIDN'T record and WHY. I know most people are iterested in getting notification of the error so they can fix it - and that would be fantastic - but I'd at least like to be able to assess the damage.

That being said, I agree with jm9843. Sage shouldn't have missed those recordings. It obviously detected the error with the capture device, as it notified me via pop-up. Why didn't it then record those shows on the other HD-PVR that was sitting there idle all day?

[Skirge01]

@71_Cuda: I think you've just about nailed it as to what Sage needs to be able to do and I don't think anyone will argue that we need both of those.

Additionally, we need generic error message reporting capability, so that we know when something--anything--has errored out. Something as basic as an unreachable network share, all the way up to a hard crash of a Sage client. I also believe that the best method for this function is to write to the Windows event log. This allows us to use third party applications for email notification or any other type of data gathering, rather than Sage being asked to create something.

[joelinkup]

What we REALLY NEED is something that is RELIABLE... and STABLE... Starting... Re-Starting... Booting... Re-Booting... Service On... Service Off... Menu This... Menu That... Updating This to Prevent That... Updating That to Prevent This... Upstairs... Downstairs... WONDERING... Did it Work... Did it Fail... Will it stay working... How long will it stay working... What did it capture today... Did it GET It... or Didn't It... Round and round and round we go... Like Chipmunks in a Whirl Cage... I am a retired Engineer... I have been to MANY places in the world... I have been a basement experimenter since I was a little kid... All this STUFF has been my life and my love... But, I must say... This is a device that the WHOLE FAMILY uses... Not just me with my thick glasses in the basement probing aroung with a scope ... I understand the DEAL... But it sure can be DISAPPOINTING... and I am sadly running out of gas... Perhaps it is my age... I don't know... I had such BIG IDEAS for this stuff... Just letting out some thoughts here... I mean no harm... Wonderful Forum... Great People Here... Good Day...

[Opus4]

The HDHR discussion has been moved to the hardware forum's HDHomeRun freeze up on 4/15.

- Andy

[brb84]

I agree with all the others about really, really wanting a way to monitor/alert when something is wrong with recordings. The SageTray app is great and e-mails if there's a conflict or if the Sage service is unreachable for some reason, but it has no way of knowing if recordings have problems themselves.

If Sage records a show for an hour, then finds that after it's over, no signal was ever received into a file, it should realize something is wrong. Right now, it just acts like everything is fine while recording, then deletes the zero-byte file afterwards, removing any good trace that it even tried to record it.

It would be awesome if Sage could be smart enough to realize something is wrong after a few minutes, but it would still be nice for it to at least be smart enough to figure out that it tried to record a show but failed, and then have a user-friendly way to show us that.

It was a terrible feeling when my wife and I went to watch shows Saturday night only to discover there was nothing recorded after last Tuesday (April 14), and there was nothing telling us that anything was wrong or that LOST, The Office, etc. were even attempted to be recorded. Had I known after the first show was missed, I probably could have at least saved most of the others in time. :-(

[teststrips]

My antenna booster got unplugged the other day, and recordings failed several days in a row. Sage never made a peep to tell me something is wrong.... why isn't there either an error that pops up on the screen, email notifcation, or some sort of ! notification in the taskpad (by the clock in the taskbar).

am I missing an option somewhere or is there an add-on that notifies you when a recording failed?

I'm a recent convert from BTV + I always knew when there was a problem... right away. I missed several shows that my wife really likes - WAF really fell a bunch of points b/c sage was silent about missed recordings.

* merged *

[freedml]

Yup, that's right, no hint until you miss enough recordings to figure it out yourself.

[zoundz]

How about adding an everyday logging feature, perhaps with more than one level of verbosity. I would love to see a simple log file with entries such as:

<time stamp> Starting Record of Favorite "CSI" on KCBSDT
<time stamp> Deleting watched <recording name> to free space
<time stamp> Recording of Favorite "Monk" aborted due to excessive errors

etc. etc.

Not a full "debugging" log, just a day in, day out log of what SageTV thinks it's doing and to some extent why. It's very frustrating sometimes to find that something went wrong or wasn't recorded and have to try to divine what "must have" happened.

Don't get me wrong. SageTV does a wonderful job of managing a relatively complicated set of parameters with very few outright errors. OTOH, when something does seem to have been handled wrong or strangely, it's very tricky to sort out what might have or must have or possibly happened.

* merged *

[Skirge01]

Since I don't want to wait for Sage to implement something, I decided to try and create a solution myself. I know how resourceful people around here are, so I figured I'd float some ideas and maybe people will be able to improve upon them and/or recommend some tools I haven't found. Here's my thinking:

1. Keep debug on indefinitely
2. Use a log file monitor to... umm, monitor... the active log file for certain terms
3. Email the line containing said terms on some frequency
4. Use a batch job or SJQ to clean up old log files after some timeframe

I'm currently trying to locate a--preferably free--program to do the monitoring and emailing, but am having some difficulty finding something that does both. I'd prefer not to have one program create a secondary txt file with just the term and a second program to watch for that new txt file and email it when it exists.

Any suggestions/alternatives?