SageTV incompatible with anti-virus

[cte]

SageTV appears to be incompatible with GData. Some items:

1) A few minutes into a program, the program jumps to the beginning with the time (0 secs), but continues with the program video wise (although it skips a little bit of the program video).

2) Sometimes the fast forward moves very slowly, even though at the x256 rate.

3) Sometimes when fast forwarding, it becomes stuck ... just sits there without moving.

4) Often, when first turning on the TV and using the remote, the response time is very slow before SageTV starts reacting. Sometimes, when stopping in the middle of a program and hitting the Back/Exit button, it may take 15 to 30 secs before SageTV responds.

Things used to be worse, but adding some of the SageTV.exe programs to the "ignore" list of GData has helped. It appears that there are some background thread running by SageTV or by the Hauppauge card driver that GData thinks may be viruses.

Configuration: Computer running SageTV is in one room. It is connected to an extender in another room with the TV.

[davephan]

You might try switching to a different anti virus product. I don't have any SageTV problems using the McAfee Security Suite, which is free if you have Comcast Internet service.

Dave

[cte]

From the reviews I've read, GData is an excellent anti-virus program. That is why I purchased it for a couple of my computers.

[SomeWhatLost]

just my take on this, but why even run anti virus? my sage server is just a black box in the basement... it never gets to go out anywhere fun where it could catch a virus...

[briands]

Originally Posted by cte

From the reviews I've read, GData is an excellent anti-virus program. That is why I purchased it for a couple of my computers.

If you have purchased it, perhaps GData can offer support as well. It seems this is more of a problem with the Anti virus than Sage...

[davephan]

You could run without anti virus if you did not have an Internet connection. Although you need an Internet connection for the program guide updates. Maybe the Internet could be limited to only the program guide update site and the ports that are used to update the program guide to reduce the risk of infection.

SageTV does work with AV software. If the anti-virus and software firewall software loads down the computer too much, or causes other problems. Then those types of problems can be fixed by switching to a different AV product, or increasing the performance capacity of the computer.

The anti virus and software firewall is the last line of defense for a Windows computer. It would be a shame to loose that protection, even if the system is running 'headless' in the basement.

Dave

[doc]

Originally Posted by cte

Things used to be worse, but adding some of the SageTV.exe programs to the "ignore" list of GData has helped. It appears that there are some background thread running by SageTV or by the Hauppauge card driver that GData thinks may be viruses.

There are a few threads about AV software and SageTV.

The first things I'd do is tell the AV to exclude the c:\program files\SageTV folder and the recording folders and see how you get on after that.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by davephan

You could run without anti virus if you did not have an Internet connection. Although you need an Internet connection for the program guide updates. Maybe the Internet could be limited to only the program guide update site and the ports that are used to update the program guide to reduce the risk of infection.

Rather a harsh outlook to think that simply being connected to the internet is what causes viruses to spread.

[cte]

GData is doing a great job finding programs that could be viruses.

doc, I've already excluded the subdir where SageTV stores the recordings. I've also excluded SageTV.exe, SageTVServiceControl.exe, SageTVService.exe, SageTVPlayer.exe, and SageTVTranscoder.exe. Are there other specific thread names of which I should be aware?

[cte]

Hmmmmm. It is interesting that no one seems to know how to fix this.

[gplasky]

Is it just the Antivirus product or is it the Internet Security or Total Care product? Did the Antivirus product also install its own firewall? If so start looking at the ports that Sage uses and unblock them or remove the firewall portion of the software.

Gerry

[cte]

GData provides a variety of features including firewall protection and virus checking. My test last night disabled only the virus monitor ... left everything else enabled ... it appeared to be working fine ... although the testing was not thorough. I'll try that again tonight.

How do I determine which ports Sage uses?

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by cte

How do I determine which ports Sage uses?

they're all in the manual

[davephan]

Originally Posted by cte

Hmmmmm. It is interesting that no one seems to know how to fix this.

I did offer a solution. If GData is incompatiable with SageTV, disable or uninstall GData, or recover to an image before GData was installed. If SageTV works OK, then install another AV product. You can use imaging to quickly backup your system with GData before removing GData, then try some other AV product. You can easily recover back to an image with GData on it if you want to go back. You can always install GData on some other computer in your household, if you have multiple computers.

Or, you can continue to try to get GData with SageTV. I've never heard of GData before, so it probably isn't very common. Therefore, you might have a tough time finding a person who uses both GData and SageTV. This might make it harder to find support, when your on the edge.

Malware spreads via the Internet, not sneeker net. So, if you need to expose the Windows computer to the Internet, you really need to have some protection, unless you are willing to accept additional risk of your system being compromised. I use the McAfee suite because it is free with Comcast, and it works fine with SageTV.


Dave

[JetreL]

Originally Posted by cte

Hmmmmm. It is interesting that no one seems to know how to fix this.

What was Gdata's response on how to fix this? I would imagine they would understand their product much better than this forum. I have never tried GData but am interested in what they would suggest if I ever have issues like this.

Some things that I would try are:

• What’s the CPU and Memory usage before and during Sage playback.
• Does Gdata have a firewall built in? If so have you added excludes to SageTV and any port it may use?
• Have you tried running sage without Gdata started to see the results. This can be accomplished by turning it off with msconfig.
• What is your setup? (Version of Windows, CPU, RAM, Video Card, Local Disks, Network Drives, Power Supply, etc) Could any of these be a bottle neck?
• While doing playback have you watched the application CPU and memory usage in Task Manager?


These are all the things I would look at first to see what the solution is. I hope this helps!

[cte]

1) For info on GData, check out http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/colle...ty_suites.html. I have no plans to remove a good program that helps protect my computer. I am using GData on a second computer.

2) GData Tech Support has tried to help isolate the problem ... unsuccessfully so far, since they don't know anything about SageTV. In my opinion, their product works like it should ... catch any program that tries to run in the background which could be a virus. It should be noted that when I added some SageTV*.exe's to the GData Exception list, SageTV worked better ... but still has some problems.

3) I will check the CPU and memory usage tonight.

4) GData has a lot of features including firewall and anti-virus.

5) When I shut down GData, SageTV works fine. SageTV and / or Hauppauge appear to be running some threads in the background that GData thinks might be a virus.

6) AMD Athlon 1.47 GHz, WinXP, Service Pack 3, 750 MB RAM ... don't think these are the problem.

7) I'll track the memory usage tonight.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by davephan

You could run without anti virus if you did not have an Internet connection. Although you need an Internet connection for the program guide updates. Maybe the Internet could be limited to only the program guide update site and the ports that are used to update the program guide to reduce the risk of infection.

SageTV does work with AV software. If the anti-virus and software firewall software loads down the computer too much, or causes other problems. Then those types of problems can be fixed by switching to a different AV product, or increasing the performance capacity of the computer.

The anti virus and software firewall is the last line of defense for a Windows computer. It would be a shame to loose that protection, even if the system is running 'headless' in the basement.

Dave

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Rather a harsh outlook to think that simply being connected to the internet is what causes viruses to spread.

They might also think you can catch cooties from girls

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by cte

5) When I shut down GData, SageTV works fine. SageTV and / or Hauppauge appear to be running some threads in the background that GData thinks might be a virus.

Based on this fact alone you need to get gData to work with their program to make sure it doesn't flag any of the threads or processes that Sage uses as a potential virus. Also again, consult the SageTV manual or this forum to understand all the ports that Sage needs to have open and make sure gData is not blocking them. At this point there is nothing you can do with the Sage program to fix your issues. It's all being caused by gData.

Gerry

[MitchSchaft]

Originally Posted by cte

6) AMD Athlon 1.47 GHz, WinXP, Service Pack 3, 750 MB RAM ... don't think these are the problem.

Ouch, that's cutting it close with the CPU and amount of memory.

Not to mention nobody's really heard of that program.

[JetreL]

Originally Posted by cte

1)I have no plans to remove a good program that helps protect my computer. I am using GData on a second computer.

3) I will check the CPU and memory usage tonight.

4) GData has a lot of features including firewall and anti-virus.

5) When I shut down GData, SageTV works fine. SageTV and / or Hauppauge appear to be running some threads in the background that GData thinks might be a virus.

6) AMD Athlon 1.47 GHz, WinXP, Service Pack 3, 750 MB RAM ... don't think these are the problem.

I am certainly not trying to discourage you from using this program. Just because I don't know anything about it doesn't mean it's not a quality program.

What I can tell you is the typical behavior that most virus scanners use is they act as an intermediary between the OS and applications.

Meaning that when an application such as SageTV or the OS goes to open a file it is scanned. With the hardware specs you are quoting I would say that is your bottleneck? You have more than enough ram but the processor I would think is just overstressed. Because most recordings are run several hundred MBs to Gigs and depending on when the Virus Scanner chooses to give up this could cause almost any CPU to run out of resources.

I ran into this similar problem running (4) Comskip jobs, with a virus scanner running, and having SageTV run and this on a Quad Core Processor. I also had the same problem being to overzealous with defrags

Sage's requirements are actually fairly sparse for what it does but that doesn't mean that if the Drive is IO bound or it's CPU starved it will not exhibit the behaviors that you are seeing.

I personally do not run a Virus Scanner and limit how many comskip jobs or defrags that can run during prime WAF watching times and it seems to work in my favor. We are all enthusiast here and some times it is trial and error. Let us know what you find about CPU and Memory but I think we just hit the nail on the head.

Best of luck!