SageTV forgets settings after crash - how can I sae/restore them?

[hjalmar]

The computer with SageTV crashes about once a week. Sometimes the issue is SageTV itself, and sometimes it's other software. I can kind of live with the crashes themselves, but a lot of the time they leave me with a big problem afterwards: SageTV has forgotten all it's settings. :-(

At the first start after a crash, SageTV starts the guided setup process. I have to go through all the setup steps, although for most of them the default values are what I used before, and not out-of-the-box defaults. As an example, Stockholm is the default city in the weather settings.

But the two most important settings are completely lost; channel settings and Media import directories.

For channel settings I need to spend fifteen minutes or so to scan and rearrange channels.

But when SageTV loses the Media import directories, it also forgets all the "Watched" settings, which is a HUGE pain.

I will worry about the crashes and why they are happening later, but meanwhile, is there anything that can be done to stop SageTV from forgetting? If not, can I back up some files/databases and restore them after a crash?

SageTV version is the latest, with latest default STV:s. Operating system is XP SP3, latest patched applied. SageTV is started as a service at boot-time. Media directories are at a mapped network drive.

[davephan]

It sounds like you have some serious problems if your system crashes once a week! A SageTV system can run stable for years. It helps if you use a headless computer. If you had taken images of your SageTV system at different points in time in the past, you could easily restore your system to a time when your system was working perfectly. To restore a system from an image takes a few minutes to start the restoration process, then you walk away for 20 - 30 minutes, and it is done.

I'm guessing that you don't have an image of your system when it was working perfectly, so you might need to manually rebuild the system, and try to isolate what is causing the instability. I recommend taking images during the build process, and periodically, at least every other month. There are products where you can take differential or incremental images every day. Save the images to a hard drive, do not use DVDs. The image will capture all the configuration settings. If you have WHS, then you can't use imaging.

You did not mention your hardware setup or additional software loaded on the system. If you post more details about your system and what you are doing just before the problem occurs might help someone suggest a solution.

Dave

[wrems]

This can help by at least saving your wiz.bin and properties files on a regular basis. I agree that you should not be having so many crashes...

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ghlight=backup

[hjalmar]

Originally Posted by davephan

It sounds like you have some serious problems if your system crashes once a week! A SageTV system can run stable for years. It helps if you use a headless computer. If you had taken images of your SageTV system at different points in time in the past, you could easily restore your system to a time when your system was working perfectly. To restore a system from an image takes a few minutes to start the restoration process, then you walk away for 20 - 30 minutes, and it is done.

I'm guessing that you don't have an image of your system when it was working perfectly, so you might need to manually rebuild the system, and try to isolate what is causing the instability. I recommend taking images during the build process, and periodically, at least every other month. There are products where you can take differential or incremental images every day. Save the images to a hard drive, do not use DVDs. The image will capture all the configuration settings. If you have WHS, then you can't use imaging.

You did not mention your hardware setup or additional software loaded on the system. If you post more details about your system and what you are doing just before the problem occurs might help someone suggest a solution.

Dave

davephan, like I said, I don't really want to try and find the problem right now. Last I had the problem it was caused by a memory-leak in the Soundblaster (curse them to hell!) drivers, and I have since been forced to run a beta version. I would not be surprised if it's Soundblaster acting up again, but I don't really have any time to try and figure this out or reinstall again now.

And I DO know about imaging - the problem is to know which image to go back to (issues often take a while to show up). And to decide if it's worth to bite the bullet and loose all the other useful modifications (including that WATCHED movies list!!) done since the last "perfect" image.

Headless is not really an option either because...well I'm watching TV on it. :-)

Let's focus on how to stop SageTV to forget it's settings instead. Because crashes WILL happen, if nothing else when I'm gaming on the machine...

Hardwarewise it's a bog-standard C2D Lenovo (yeah, I know, but I work for IBM so get them cheap...) with a Firewire FloppyDTV tuner. Lot's of other software installed (and even more remnants of old removed software), which I'm sure contributes to the crash, but then, let's not focus on the crash itself now. What makes SageTV decide setup is necessary? Is it a missing file, or what? I've seen other talk about the issue, but only on Win7 (Vista?), and this is XP (in admin mode I should add).

- Peter

[hjalmar]

Originally Posted by wrems

This can help by at least saving your wiz.bin and properties files on a regular basis. I agree that you should not be having so many crashes...

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ghlight=backup

wrems, thank you, that looks very useful! I will definitely try the backup scripts.

The only drawback I can think of is that doing a restore would restore my Favorites (SageTV recording Favorites that is, not IE Favs :-)) to an "old" version, i.e. newly added Favorites would not be included. And since those have never disappeared for me I guess I would not like to have them restored.

What files are the Favorites stored in? What files are the Recording status stored in (not the recordings themselves, but the info about them), because they are always remembered as well? Maybe there's even documented which files store which information?

Or put another way - which files contains the settings from the setup wizard (incl channels), and which contains the Media info (incl Watched flag), since those seems to be the only ones I want to restore.

- Peter

[wrems]

The properties file contains what you are specifically asking about. The wiz.bin saves your favorites and recording history and such. Regardless, you want to back both up on a regular basis. That way you can always restore to the last known working condition. Even with a fresh install.

I’ve had crashes before but I can definitely say that I have never experienced these issues……. Something is weird.

[hjalmar]

Originally Posted by wrems

The properties file contains what you are specifically asking about. The wiz.bin saves your favorites and recording history and such. Regardless, you want to back both up on a regular basis. That way you can always restore to the last known working condition. Even with a fresh install.

I’ve had crashes before but I can definitely say that I have never experienced these issues……. Something is weird.

So, are you saying that wiz.bin contains both favorites and recording info, as well as the media database? If so, I'm screwed because I want to restore media database info, but NOT favorites. Or maybe I could just restore the media directory list before starting the app - then it should not rescan the directories maybe? Are the media directory list in .sageproperties file?

Why don't I want to restore favorites? Well let's say I make a backup at 5 pm, my wife adds a new fav at 6 pm, and I play a game that crashes everything at 8 pm. Then I restore to the 5 pm version, and the system will not record her new fav. WAF <0 I would say! :-(

It seems like the folks with the Win7/Vista issues was related to the service/interactive application mode, so maybe switching from service mode to application mode instead could stop the settings loss?

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by hjalmar

SageTV is started as a service at boot-time. Media directories are at a mapped network drive.

I'm curious how you got this to work, since normally the service can't see mapped drives. The rule is to use UNC paths when running as a service.

It sounds to me like you have a permissions problem that's preventing Sage from writing settings info back to disk. Normally this happens transparently whenever settings change, so you shouldn't lose anything even in the event of a crash.