Sage7 crash when jumping thru video

[GoAWest]

I regularly have Sage7 crash, but only if I'm jumping forwards or backwards (e.g. with remote or mouse, past commercials etc.) while watching a video; if I just let shows play I don't experience crashes. Most of the time it crashes "silently" leaving nothing in the Windows logs, but occasionally it crashes in a way that leaves behind a footprint in the logs. Allowing Windows to report this back to Microsoft and look up info reveals nothing.

Fortunately I'm running Sage in server/client mode on this PC, and it's only the client app that crashes; the server app keeps working so I never lose any recordings.

Running on a Win7 x32-bit system with 4G of RAM. Running an early version of Java7 but haven't been inclined to mess with that. I'm running SageTV v7.1.9.256 (only version I've ever installed on this PC) so the "6.0.x" and "6.1.x" versions in the log seem odd, but that's the version of the SageTV app.

======================================

Faulting application name: SageTV.exe, version: 6.0.13.1, time stamp:
0x4df93b2c
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.17725, time stamp:
0x4ec49b60
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00055eab
Faulting process id: 0xa10
Faulting application start time: 0x01cdfcf1cd84ff4a
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\SageTV.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: cc9a0d05-68fc-11e2-b1ed-1c6f6590af51

--------------------------------------

Fault bucket 2859542757, type 1
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: SageTV.exe
P2: 6.0.13.1
P3: 4df93b2c
P4: ntdll.dll
P5: 6.1.7601.17725
P6: 4ec49b60
P7: c0000005
P8: 00055eab
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\Temp\WERD8E1.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

These files may be available here:
C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\ AppCrash_SageTV.exe_cd499d72ca6366b7355a358655d093ccee7e18f0_263df1cd

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: cc9a0d05-68fc-11e2-b1ed-1c6f6590af51

[GoAWest]

I'm now thinking that Sage7 crashing as I'm jumping back & forth (30-sec or 7-sec fwd or backwards jump using a remote) is related to the MPEG2 CODEC it's using. I had been using the (default) SageTV MPEG Video Decoder but decided to see what would happen if I used a different one. So I switched to the ATI MPEG Video Decoder that was already on the system (Win7 x32 bit, ATI video chip).

Since making this MPEG2 CODEC change SageTV has never crashed when playing a video or jumping back & forth with the remote. Somethings the jump doesn't always work perfectly (e.g. sometimes it jumps ahead and the audio continues but the video is frozen) but I only need to short-jump forwards or backwards a bit to clear this and resume normal playback. It beats having the SageTV client suddenly quit so that I have to relaunch the app and find my place in the video.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by GoAWest

I'm now thinking that Sage7 crashing as I'm jumping back & forth (30-sec or 7-sec fwd or backwards jump using a remote) is related to the MPEG2 CODEC it's using. I had been using the (default) SageTV MPEG Video Decoder but decided to see what would happen if I used a different one. So I switched to the ATI MPEG Video Decoder that was already on the system (Win7 x32 bit, ATI video chip).

Since making this MPEG2 CODEC change SageTV has never crashed when playing a video or jumping back & forth with the remote. Somethings the jump doesn't always work perfectly (e.g. sometimes it jumps ahead and the audio continues but the video is frozen) but I only need to short-jump forwards or backwards a bit to clear this and resume normal playback. It beats having the SageTV client suddenly quit so that I have to relaunch the app and find my place in the video.

this happens to me as we'll, usually when fast forwarding using the 2:30 jump, but also the :10 jump. Blue screen is the result

[briankeys]

I've had that, it's the codec but not necessarily the video codec. I've monkied with a range of video and audio codecs as I play a wide range of files. I've had a ton of codecs installed, and learned how to clear them all off and start over with just a few.

Having SageTV crash while jumping through video was pretty common with many of the codecs until I replaced the AC3 audio codec. Not only did SageTV become stable, but the jumps also became instant with no annoying spinning circle.

My Windows drive has been failing since Christmas though so it could just be that I had a corrupt AC3 installation but figured I'd mention it if it helps.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by briankeys

I've had that, it's the codec but not necessarily the video codec. I've monkied with a range of video and audio codecs as I play a wide range of files. I've had a ton of codecs installed, and learned how to clear them all off and start over with just a few.

Having SageTV crash while jumping through video was pretty common with many of the codecs until I replaced the AC3 audio codec. Not only did SageTV become stable, but the jumps also became instant with no annoying spinning circle.

My Windows drive has been failing since Christmas though so it could just be that I had a corrupt AC3 installation but figured I'd mention it if it helps.

when you you say "replaced", did you replace it with a new version of the same codec, or some other way to deal with AC3?

[briankeys]

I used another of the audio codec options that I had available in detailed setup.
I'd gladly tell you which one but my SageTV server is temporarily dead due to a drive failure. I think it was the ffdshow audio but not sure right now.

For Video, I'm using CoreAVC for .mp4 and .mpv and the Microsoft decoder for mpg files including SageTV recordings. Just can't remember right now what I used for audio but will let you know when I'm back up and running.

But right now with a Zoltec ZBOX Nano AD10 mini computer running SageTV client with Windows7, I have flawless playback of almost everything I through at it including high bit rate 1080P.

Getting the SageTV recordings to run stably was actually more of a challenge than the 1080P .mpv files and it involved a lot of trial and error with codecs. Main thing I learned from recent experience is that for me at least, it was the audio codec that was causing my instability, not the video codec.

[briankeys]

Sorry I didn't get back on this sooner, had to spring clean my SageTV server after a Windows drive failure.

So, on my client which uses a mini computer with an ATI chipset, I'm using the ffdshow DXVA video decoder, and ffdshow audio decoder. I can jump around in recordings to my hearts content with no crashes and all the jumps are instant without the spinning circle. The latter was bugging me for over a year and changing the audio codec away from AC3 to ffdshow fixed it completely.

For my imported MKV files, I'm using CoreAVC which gives flawless 1080P video.

Hope this helps. Codecs and splitters etc. confuse the heck out of me but i'm getting lots of practice dinking around with them, especially since I got the mini computer to run as a client. They're neat but getting smooth video can be a challenge.

Thanks!