Idea regarding crashes...

[karreba]

I have an interesting idea regarding the random crashes/circle of death we experience occasionally...

It seems to coincide quite often when we lose our internet connection. We use a USB 3G Modem on a Netgear 3G Broadband Wireless Router. Every so often, approx. 1-3 times a day, we lose our internet connection (not sure why, am still trying to work that out). More often than not, we then experience problems with SageTV. I wouldn't think the internet connection would cause problems, but.....

What do you think?

Rob

[paulbeers]

The only reason I could see that causing any problems with Sage is if that is the exact time that Sage is reaching out to Zap2it to grab your program guide information. Even then, I have had issues where my broadband connection was out for days (thanks Mediacom), and Sage never had any issues (just meant I didn't have my usual 2 weeks of guide data). I have also taken down our router/cable modem for maintenance and our Sage setup continued to work as expected.

[robogeek]

Can you tell if your Internet connection issue is due to the modem losing connection or if it's the wireless router becoming disconnected? I had an odd problem with my extenders rebooting a couple years ago that was caused by an overheating Linksys wireless router. It was a second wireless router on the network so the DHCP and routing features weren't being used on it, so the only symptom I had was random intermittent connection loss on that segment of the network. If your wireless router is acting as the DHCP server for your network, if it is overheating or a failing capacitor inside is causing it to reboot itselft periodically, then that would cause intermittent Internet outages and possibly cause IP issues with the SageTV server and connected extenders and PC clients. While that may be enough to crash extenders and cause spinning wheel of death on PC clients, I wouldn't think that would be enough to actually crash SageTV unless the crash is being caused by a 3rd party plugin. I'd suggest enabling the Debug Logging and check the end of the log file after a crash to see if it gives you any info that might point you in the right direction. If you are running the latest version of SageTV, debug logging can be enabled from Setup->Detailed Setup->Advanced->Debug Logging and then enable debug logging on the server if the server is crashing. You can do the same thing for PC clients, enable client debug logging if the client is crashing. And I believe you'll have to restart SageTV after enabling the debug logging. Once you've had a crash, look in the Program Files\SageTV\SageTV folder for a file like sagetv_0.txt or something like that.

[davephan]

My Internet connection was intermittently dropping out for short time periods about six months ago. I also recall seeing the spinning circle quite a bit at that time, but I did not connect the two events. I solved the problem by replacing the router. The spinning circles seemed to go away after I replaced the router. I'm on my third router in the past ten years. The routers are less than $100, but they only last about 3 - 4 years before they need to be replaced.

Dave

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by davephan

My Internet connection was intermittently dropping out for short time periods about six months ago. I also recall seeing the spinning circle quite a bit at that time, but I did not connect the two events. I solved the problem by replacing the router. The spinning circles seemed to go away after I replaced the router. I'm on my third router in the past ten years. The routers are less than $100, but they only last about 3 - 4 years before they need to be replaced.

Dave

Just to be clear here though, it isn't that the internet connection is dropping out that is the issue, it is that the router was failing. The internet connection being dropped was a side affect of the router failing.

I just want be sure those who read this for future reference do not misunderstand what is being said!

[davephan]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Just to be clear here though, it isn't that the internet connection is dropping out that is the issue, it is that the router was failing. The internet connection being dropped was a side affect of the router failing.

I just want be sure those who read this for future reference do not misunderstand what is being said!

Right. That is why I was having trouble with anything going through the router, SageTV to the extenders and the Internet to my web browsing computer, where I could watch the network icon intermittently indicate no connectivity.

Replacing the router may fix Rob's problem.

Dave