Any suggestions before I stop using SageTV?

[SWKerr]

You seem to have one of those needle in a haystack issues. I would agree with the consensus that this is a hardware problem. I don't think I have ever heard of playback alone causing the file to corrupt.

I would start with moving the movies that seem to be corrupting to another machine and sharing them back to the current SageTV server. That would be easier than moving the whole SageTV server and setup. If you don't have enough extra space then I would just move a drive.

[jayman]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

If you have an nvidia graphics card you can't do better than the LAV CUVID decoder. I've been using it for a while and it works great.

Agreed!

[atyrus28]

So I took the HD200 out of my son's room and am using it downstairs for now. Turns out my z-680's can handle the bluray audio via optical out (I knew it could decode DTS and Dolby just didn't think they would handle the newer stuff). This eliminates the problem of playing back the bluray rips via extender. I even have the added bonus to use optical as needs and HDMI for stereo to the TV. (the PC has to be manually switched via windows obviously. This is a big plus as stereo sound from play sounds terrible via surround sound.)

I did find one thing thing today. While trying to use playon for some thing the sage service suddenly had a fit and locked up using over 1.5gigs of memory and constant 25% CPU usage (quadcore though so probably a 100% on one of them). Killing the service and restarting the client fixed it and has been fine the rest the day now.

If you happen to read this fuzzy, any idea why your plugin to play blurays externally blocks the extenders from reading dvd and bluray folders? Even if I have "use external" set to no, the extenders can't playback the rips. As soon as I uninstall the plugin they work again?

It will now take same time to figure out the rest. Thanks for all the suggestions thus far.

[Fuzzy]

The external playback plugin shouldn't even install on the extender's, as I thought I had them flagged as desktop only, and as such, shouldn't affect the extenders at all. Can you check again to see that they are even there from the extender (Plugins -> Installed Plugins -> UI Mod).

[atyrus28]

It doesn't show up in the HD200's, it was installed on the PC running sage. When I uninstalled it off of the PC client the extenders worked again. The sage service and PC client run on the same machine, if that matters. I didn't think it would.

I'm not complaining about the plugin, just curious. If it is a bug, I would like to help out.

[Fuzzy]

I'm thinking that it somehow got set up in the default sageclient.properties files somehow, and when the HD200 was connected the first time, it grabbed that one. You should be able to re-install it on the sageclient, and it shouldn't affect the extender in any way (being a UI Mod, it only works within the same UI Context).

[atyrus28]

So this is odd. Was told today that file:C:\SageTV\SageTV\jetty\webapps\nielm_sagewebserver\webapp\WEB-INF\classes\net\sf\sageplugins\webserver\EpgListServlet.class.

Was a virus and needed to be removed. Caused a bunch of problems after it removed it. I have everything running again and I have since uninstalled the BMT web tools and sage web interface.

The java memory issues seem to somewhat sane now. Still testing out the other issues.

[panteragstk]

With all of the weird things happening on your system you are better off starting over than wasting massive amounts of time tracking it down. Take it from those of us that have gone through this same thing time and time again. There are just too many things going on here to try and figure out a root cause. At some point you just have to start over. I did. I'm glad for it as I don't have problems any more.

[davephan]

When you start over, make sure to take periodic images during the rebuild process, and periodically after the rebuild is over. You might discover what is causing the problem during the rebuild, and you won't have to start from scratch again.

Dave

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by davephan

When you start over, make sure to take periodic images during the rebuild process, and periodically after the rebuild is over. You might discover what is causing the problem during the rebuild, and you won't have to start from scratch again.

Dave

This method has saved me a few times. Well worth the effort.

[atyrus28]

I'm tired of starting over, this build is only a month old. If there was a way to reuse the favorites list and likes/dislikes it wouldn't be as bad. If I need to start over then sage will just need to be tossed in the bad software bin. If this was mythtv or xmbc it would be understandable but this is paid software. It should not hardly be this difficult.

A lot of these problems are nothing new either. So what is the point of starting over only to have the same problems rear their ugly heads. Snapshots are sort of useless now as I have already done this before and they don't seem to solve anything. After the points everything works, then randomly a few days or weeks later random things start to happen. Reverting would be like starting over again and missing many changes since. It runs off of java, so it's never going to be reliable. I can't purchase anymore extenders and now that google owns it, it will never be the same anyway.

[Skybolt]

I didn't notice in any of the post's, but did you try disabling the virus software for a day or so and see if your problem goes away. Other than that I have to agree with Fuzzy, hard drive issues for sure.

JMHO
-Skybolt

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

I didn't notice in any of the post's, but did you try disabling the virus software for a day or so and see if your problem goes away. Other than that I have to agree with Fuzzy, hard drive issues for sure.

JMHO
-Skybolt

Or HDD cable. They can present just like bad drives....

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Or HDD cable. They can present just like bad drives....

I've had this happen with old IDE cables. Pretty annoying. I always forget to start simple.

[atyrus28]

They're all SATA cables, and I think I may have one now that is not new.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by atyrus28

They're all SATA cables, and I think I may have one now that is not new.

New doesn't mean it's functioning properly. Since things work perfectly then suddenly (or gradually) go bad there is something wrong with your hardware. If it works perfectly it should stay that way if there are no windows updates, java or any additional software that is installed after. In other words if nothing has changed and you suddenly have issues it isn't the software it is the hardware. The software can't just suddenly break for no reason. Not without there being a change in the software somewhere.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

New doesn't mean it's functioning properly. Since things work perfectly then suddenly (or gradually) go bad there is something wrong with your hardware. If it works perfectly it should stay that way if there are no windows updates, java or any additional software that is installed after. In other words if nothing has changed and you suddenly have issues it isn't the software it is the hardware. The software can't just suddenly break for no reason. Not without there being a change in the software somewhere.

I've actually had more sata cables go south on me than IDE's and I've been in the computer game a loooong time. I agree with pantera, you've got a hardware problem and it seems to be a data corruption problem. That points to CPU/memory subsystem, data storage subsystem, or power.

To test CPU/memory run memtest for at least 24 hours. Run a multi-threaded version of prime95 for at least 24 hours. If you pass both of those, odds are it's not a memory/cpu problem. Note I don't consider a new system (or change in OC settings) stable until memtested and prime95'd for at least 72 hours each. Overkill? probably, but that's my standard. I have found cpu problems at > 48 hours.

To test storage, the easiest thing is to just replace parts. There are HDD tests out there but I've never found one I've been happy with. The culprits are usually a drive or a cable, but I have seen cases where it was the controller--built or expansion card, I've seen both go tango-uniform.

For power, again just swap in a known good component. Known good in 2 aspects here:
1. proven in a stable system
2. not a cheap, pos power supply. I put a cheap pos on an oscilloscope once and was absolutely horrified at the waveform and the noise. Wish I would have taken screenshots

[davephan]

You might be tired of starting over. If you look around the forum, you will find many people that find SageTV is reliable. The problem is determining why your system is not reliable. Either it is something in the build or the hardware. If you had another computer, you could try rebuilding on that computer and swap components to isolate the hardware. If it is the hardware, there's no way your going to solve the problem by re-installing on the same hardware. Other PVR software may also be unreliable too. If it is something with your build process, you need to try to isolate that too. That is why imaging is so important. Imaging can reverse software changes and can isolate software or hardware problems.

Once you have a reliable system, and the system develops problems, then you can recover to the image. If the image recovery does not fix the problem, then it is probably hardware. Sometimes it takes two computers to get one computer working. Components from the questionable computer are swapped with the known good computer till you can better isolate the problem.

SageTV can be very reliable. It's just not reliable for you (yet).


Dave

[atyrus28]

You guys are kind of funny. You must have some sort of super faith in software and sage in particular. Are you all devs or something?

I test client/server software everyday. Software is the LEAST reliable part of a computer and yes sometimes software certainly does just flake out and stop working. I have been building PCs for myself and clients for over 10 years. I am no newb when it comes to hardware or software. If you read my earlier posts you would see I have run those tests and some more as well. I have already swapped out CPUs, memory, HDs, cables, PSUs ( I never buy junk PSUs ), sata cables, video cards and a motherboard. So I have rebuilt the whole machine... several times. The only consistent problem has been Sage. Windows is not malfunctioning nor any other software on the machine.

Are their updates, of course there are, who in their right mind would leave a machine connected to the net and not update it's software. If you trust NAT and your router "firewall" that's your business. I have an untangle machine in front of my entire network. Still don't trust that to be enough. There are far too many ways to get a problem. If you think not, that's your right. Just because it never happened to you, doesn't make it impossible. HP shipped digital photo frames with a virus on them. Sony shipped CDs with a rootkit on them.....

Regardless, I do appreciate the help but the "it works for me" is not a valid answer to problems. I have built two identical machines at the same time, one works with the same software and the other doesn't. Linux systems can be just as bad if not worse. My wife's laptop runs ubuntu just fine with few issues, my Pastor's ubuntu machine has random issues and my sisters system has been without issue for a couple of years. My clients barely have any issues at all (not good for business but oh well). You could even use a sys image and find that. The same VM snapshot works fine today, tomorrow it doesn't. Software is not reliable at all. Hardware is not perfect either but is much more reliable than software.

When the sage service gets hung up with java memory problems only sage takes a dump, the rest of the system is fine. When sage can't play video files or folders other software is just fine. The corruption of the video files, I lean toward the HD which has been swapped already. Corruption of sage files on two different HDs and on different controllers with multiple sata cables, not the hardware. If it were, one would expect the rest of the system to be having issues too. All video is on separate drives from sage and the OS. The capture device is an HD Homerun so not even local.

As I have said, the only consistent problem has been sagetv.

If there are no other answers and no more ideas, so be it. Sage will be dumped in the, great idea with lots of potential, but never really worked out.

Proprietary systems are just not worth the money in the long run.

[davephan]

You did mention that SageTV does work for recording and playing back TV and mentioned extreme firewalling. Its pretty obvious that you have either a hardware or software configuration problem since you are having so much difficulty. SageTV does work for many people for many years. If SageTV was totally flaky and unreliable software, you would see more posts from people sounding like you.

How much firewalling do you have on your local area network? You sound might be firewalling everything. Maybe that is the source of the problems.

SageTV software isn't perfect. No software is perfect. You'll see many bugs posted that were fixed from version to version. SageTV is much better than it was back in version 1.4.

I use SageTV mainly for recording TV programs and watching ripped DVDs. I also use Netflix streaming. I've had the most trouble with Netflix streaming due to problems with Playon and Silverlight. Those problems were resolved by switching to Windows 7 and Playon's bug fixes.

I use mpeg2, AVI, TS, and VOB formats and do not have problems with any of them. Perhaps you could try using those formats instead.

You could also try the alternative PVR software to SageTV. I think you'll find that the competition varies from a big step down to a leap off a cliff.

I've been reading the forum for many years. I've seen a lot of problems. I've had various problems over the years too. Normally the problems can be resolved with some effort and patience. Or, you could simple say that the software is junk and move on. But remember, many people are running SageTV successfully for many years. You should be able to run SageTV software successfully too.

If you decide to rebuild, then I recommend building it slowly. Get parts of SageTV working successfully (TV recordings, ripped DVDs, Netflix streaming), then take 'checkpoint' images. Slowly add codec, plugins, or accessory programs with 'checkpoint' images as you build. I don't hear you talking about disk imaging at all. Disk imaging is an absolute must for PVR software since it quickly becomes a critical computer system. In business, disk imaging is an absolute must along with other back methods for disaster recovery.

You can try some other PVR software. Or, maybe you could just get a Tivo or cable/satellite DVR and a set top box that will playback ripped DVDs.

People are here to help you. We don't make any money helping you, but we are willing to help. SageTV is very good PVR software, the best I've seen. SageTV software isn't for everyone. The decision is up to you.


Dave