a way to kill a hung SageTv.exe process (win7)

[Gustovier]

All,

I've seen this posted around here before but not a solution. Every once in a blue moon sagetv process I'll get hung. And I haven't been able to identify anything that lets me kill it besides a reboot in windows 7. I've seen this now when running sage as a service and just standalone. I've tried all the command line options,force kills, 3rd party tools. Nothing seems to work besides a reboot. Had anybody been able to identify a way to kill this hung SageTv.exe (the main proc not the nanny one ) process?

[trallyus]

Have you tried putting your mouse on an empty part of the start bar and right clicking it and choose start task manager and click the processes tab and and kill the sagetv.exe files that way as that is how I usally kill processes.

You can also start task manager by pressing ctrl+alt+del keys until a screen pops up that lets you choose task manager.

[Gustovier]

Yes task manager is useless in this situation. It will not kill the process. I think I really blame this on windows 7. It's like it took 2 steps backward in process mgmt. But I wonder if sage needs to do something different in the code to allow task manager to truly kill the pid in these situations.

[panteragstk]

This is a way better process manager. It works better than task manager and gives you 10 times the information.

[Gustovier]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

This is a way better process manager. It works better than task manager and gives you 10 times the information.

Tried it didn't work either

[robogeek]

Just wanted to say that you're not alone. Since installing SageTV v7.15 when it was released, I've had this happen twice. Both times it happened shortly after SageTV started spitting out Out of Memory errors in the debug log and my extenders (MVP's) started acting wierd before hanging. I think when SageTV runs out of memory, the JVM eventually pukes and it isn't able to recover, causing it to become totally unresponsive. Attempting to stop or restart the service results in the service status listed as Stopping in the Windows Service Control Panel and then you can't do anything else with it from there. Once it hangs, no amount of selecting End Task in the Task Manager will kill the hung SageTVService.exe process. The only way out is a reboot.

As a work-around, restarting the SageTV Service a couple of times a week and restarting after installing plugins (including UI plugins that don't require a restart) seems to be working for me.

[Thomas Wischgol]

I use pskill for that. It is especially convenient in my case as it is command line based. So I can log into the server (or my client) via ssh (I have a cygwin sshd running) and just kill it using pskill.

Thomas

[sleonard]

Do you have a Colossus? I have seen this only twice, both times after installing a Colossus and both times Sage support was able to pin it on the Colossus drivers hanging and bringing down the entire Sage service with it.

S

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by sleonard

Do you have a Colossus? I have seen this only twice, both times after installing a Colossus and both times Sage support was able to pin it on the Colossus drivers hanging and bringing down the entire Sage service with it.

S

No Colossus for me. I'm fairly certain my issue is plugin related. I'm leaning towards it being something fanart related. Something causing high memory usage and unused objects not getting unallocated fast enough to free up memory. Maybe a Java garbage collection issue in my case? I think garbage collection routines were changed in one of the recent betas, if I remember the release notes correctly.

[Skirge01]

I use EventGhost to launch Taskkill when a command to SageTV fails on my client PC. The parameters I use are "/F /IM SageTVClient.exe". Not sure how well it will work for SageTV.exe, though.

[CanadianEh]

What version of HD-PVR drivers are you using? I kept randomly experiencing this issue until I downgraded to the 1.5.0.301 driver set. I have been running for about 2 months without this issue occuring since that change.

Additionally, I have a dual HD-PVR setup and have only experienced one episode of "halt detected in recording" since going back to these drivers. I was using 1.5.6 and 1.5.7.

[Gustovier]

I've tried taskkill as well. It still won't kill SageTv when the process gets hung like this. As stated most times I can kill sage but once in a while it will get so fubar'ed that nothing can kill it besides a reboot.

[peternm22]

I've had this happen with Firefox last year on Windows 7. Absolutely no way to end the process when it hanged except to restart the computer. No idea why Windows 7 can't do this when Windows XP never had a problem killing a process. Worse that Windows 98, which could take a while to actually kill the process but eventually did do it.

I've seen other people online with the same problem, and no one seems to have a solution unfortunately.

[Gustovier]

Originally Posted by peternm22

I've had this happen with Firefox last year on Windows 7. Absolutely no way to end the process when it hanged except to restart the computer. No idea why Windows 7 can't do this when Windows XP never had a problem killing a process. Worse that Windows 98, which could take a while to actually kill the process but eventually did do it.

I've seen other people online with the same problem, and no one seems to have a solution unfortunately.

I seem to be seeing the same stuff across the web as well. It looks like windows 7 has taken a step backwards in process management. If it wasn't for sage(even though there is a Linux version) and commercial skipping I think I would move to Linux

[Savage1701]

I don't have a solution, but it's good to know this is not unique to my system. I run my Server on XP and can kill at will, not that I hardly ever need to.

But not on Win 7 64-bit when its Sage Client hangs. I've tried the same things - different process killers, Task Manager from the taksbar, etc. Hope someone finds a workaround.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

Hope someone finds a workaround.

This could be wrong but i think i am remembering it correctly. If you enable the console window you should be able kill the sage client by closing the console window even with OoM errors on win7. The console window is a dos window that shows the running debug log if you have debugging enabled. I use it on my dev machine (win7 x64). During stvi development i had a bug that gave me a OoM error in the java jvm... iirc i was able to kill the process with the console window. You enable the console window in the registry... If you use babgvant's registry tool it should be pretty easy to enable it.

[Gustovier]

This is truly a windows 7 process management problem. Since starting the thread I've seen numerous topics and threads on other forums that date back almost 2 years about the issue with no resolution. Basically it's a microsoft fail..

[aflat]

Use process explorere, and the default tree view. Make sure you right click on procexp and "Run as administrator". Then right click on sage.exe, and click "kill process tree" It could be something in the java that is hanging, not the exe itself. So killing it won't help, you need to kill the appropriate java.exe(or is it javaw.exe, I forget which)

I haven't had it hang, and I've never tried this myself, but I have found that WIn7 kills processes much better then all the previous version, as long as you kill the correct process.

[sdsean]

Does anyone have a valid link to information about Win 7 having an issue where task manager end process is not working?

I have win7 64bit ultimate, and have never ever ever experienced this problem.
(not saying its not real, i'm just saying I want to make sure to look out for it. . .)

Are you sure you are viewing all processes from all users?
Are you sure you are killing the right SageTV process (since there are 2, one just being a shell).
Have you tried using End Process Tree?

[Gustovier]

Originally Posted by sdsean

Does anyone have a valid link to information about Win 7 having an issue where task manager end process is not working?

I have win7 64bit ultimate, and have never ever ever experienced this problem.
(not saying its not real, i'm just saying I want to make sure to look out for it. . .)

Are you sure you are viewing all processes from all users?
Are you sure you are killing the right SageTV process (since there are 2, one just being a shell).
Have you tried using End Process Tree?

This thread has been going for a couple of years and gets pretty passionate. Interesting read.. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...-5fa53dc62661/