Server Locks Up Watching Live TV

[phantomii]

When I try to Watch Live TV on the SageTV Server, quite often this PC Locks up. I do not however have this problem if I watch Live TV from a SageTV client PC or if I watch Live TV through the HD-200 Theater I purchased. The Server will lock up to the point the mouse will not move, the keyboard will not respond etc. I have not noticed this issue with imported video's or DVD files though I will not say with confidence that there isn't a problem with these. The lock up also kills the server that other clients can not attach and use the server. Other than this, the server runs fine......

I suspect this may have something to do with the PC or Video Card I am using, so I am just testing the water to see what other issues folks have had similar to this and what they did to fix their issues??? This is an AthlonXP machine which I did a new install of XP on to use with SageTV about two weeks ago. The Tuner is a Hauppauge 1600. The Video card is an Older nVidia Geforce (I think its a Ti 3200??) Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[ractar28]

I assume "lock up" means that you have to cold boot the machine to get back up and running, correct?

Does your Windows Application or System event log show anything (yeah I assume everyone runs windows, sorry about that)?

[phantomii]

Yes, this is a windows (XP Home) machine. I am not really up on where to review most of these logs so I will have to look at how to do so. My general assumption though is since Live TV works on another machine (looking at the server) that it is not som much an issue with the sage software and is most likely my PC. Thanks for the suggestion, but I will have to look into how to do this.

[scott2020]

I experience the same thing. Most often, if I am watching a Live TV channel for any duration longer than a few hours, such as if we leave the TV on a Live channel overnight, and we press the MENU button, it hard locks. Only pulling the power on the box can get it to restart. I can still PING the server but no apps run. I am trying to figure out if it has something to do with pressing the MENU button. I have started pressing STOP on Live TV first, then navigating to the top menu to see if that resolves anything.

[ractar28]

To view your application logs, start, run, eventvwr. Look at the time of the hard lock, for any events just prior or any errors on bootup. Anything yellow or red needs to be investigated.

I would suspect that you'd want to check for the latest video card drivers, java (shutdown sagetv (and services if running) first), and check to see which codecs are used for playback.

[phantomii]

I looked in the logs and there is nothing to see at the times when the lockup occured. Also as a side note, only a hard reset and the resulting re-boot of the machine will again allow me to access anything. Also, as the machine reboots I get no errors or indications that is had locked up. The Machine does not report a serious error, it does not ask about booting up in safe mode, it simply reboots normally......

I did also confirm that the issue does not occur when watching recorded DVD or even recorded TV Shows. Only the watching of Live TV on the server causes the hard crash.

Any other suggestions????????????

[scott2020]

This is EXACTLY what happens to me quite often, always with Live TV. Logs show nothing, but most of the time watching live TV and pressing MENU locks it up hard. I have to hard power off the box and let it restart. SageTV Debug logs don't indicate anything, neither do the XP logs.

I am using K-World 115 tuners and NVidia graphics card. I have tried several settings in the rendering, sound, etc. I have SageMC also.

I know this doesn't help much, but at least I'm not alone on this one like I am on the HD-200 not playing Hulu anymore!

[phantomii]

I am using a Hauppauge 1600 Card and an older nVidia video card. I am considering upgrading to a better ATI Video Card as I have a gut feeling (can't really say why) that this is related to the card or it's drivers. If I do I will let you know what I find out. Thanks for the answer. To your point, it may not resolve anything, but I know it is something other folks are dealing with!

Anybody else want to offer any input??????????

[phantomii]

Well, I may have found my issue. After building the systems to use as a Sage TV server I installed a USB 2.0 I/O Card in one of the PCI Slots so I could use external storage. The Motherboard (a few years old) only supports USB 1.X so that would never do. After removing the USB 2.0 card the Freezes and lockups seem to have disappeared.

The problem now is that this motherboard does not support USB 2.0 or Firewire So I must look to alternative options for external hard drives or find a way to resolve the conflict between the I/O card and the Hauppauge card.

Any thoughts?????????

[scott2020]

My setup has only standard internal controllers on the mother board, with of course the TV tuner cards in PCI slots. Internal SATA controllers, etc. What I tried is downgrading the NVidia drivers to 165(?) I believe. I was running 174(?) or something like that. I also changed my PC to run Sage as a service but still use the same machine to run Sage as a client too. We were out of town for nearly 2 weeks and I had shut down the client but left Sage service running. Everything recorded great, and it never locked up. I started using again as a client on the same machine and in 2 days I had a hard lock up where I had to power it off.

I am convinced the best setup is to have a dedicated server with Sage running as a service, and use extenders on the PC's. That seems to be the most stable. I use an HD-200 in the living room and it is great.

Scott

[phantomii]

Though I can not Gaurantee it, I would look to see what other devices are sharing IRQ with the video tuner card and if possible, disable these in the BIOS and see if this helps to resolve the problem. Obviously, not all devices should be disabled, so use some thought, but that is what I would do ( and is actually more or less what I did ) to identify any conflict that may be causing this.