SageTV won't share a Network Recorder

[Phydeaux]

Hi folks,

I've got an STB with a Nextcom R5000 HD board installed and it's been working with SageTV 7 for 5+ years under Windows. If you're familiar with this hardware you'll know it has an applet through which SageTV sends record stop/start commands.

Well I have another app which also would like to use the R5000 via the same process (it acts like a SageTV server) and it works fine. However when it's using the R5000 it only works for a few minutes then loses contact. I've narrowed down the issue to SageTV sending regular pings or "hey, you still there?" messages to the R5000. If I disable the SageTV service, the other app has no issues and controls the R5000 without issue.

Again, if you're familiar with the R5000 app, you'll have noted that when you start it and start SageTV, after a few minutes you'll see "Ping from SageTV Client" pop up on it's status bar. The other app doesn't seem to perform any of testing to see if the R5000 is still there, so it can co-exist with SageTV IF... I can get SageTV to stop sending out these regular pings.

Is there a setting somewhere in SageTV to make it play nice and share this device?

Cheers,
RLW

[Fuzzy]

No, Sage depends on those periodic NOOP checks to verify the network encoder is still functioning. That way it can schedule around it if it is offline. There's no method of disabling those messages. What other program are you using, and is it connecting to the R5000HD directly? or to the R5000HD app? Trying to figure out what you are trying to accomplish.

[Phydeaux]

Thanks Fuzzy.

I'm also using NextPVR on the same headless server that SageTV is on. NPVR uses the R5000's applet in the same way that SageTV does, using port 6969.

I dabbled in NPVR usage as a replacement for SageTV because NPVR has a PVR addon for Kodi, which is where I do all our viewing of static and recorded media. The SageTV addon for Kodi is partially functional but it doesn't use Kodi's built-in TV schedule facility, whereas the NPVR addon integrates reasonably well. However, nothing... *NOTHING* compares to SageTV in terms of intelligent and flexible scheduled recordings.

So here's the use case:
The only things I have SageTV recording anymore are late night talk shows, SNL and a couple of irregular PBS series. And for that it excels.
The only time we watch live TV is the 6pm or 10pm local news or occasionally on a special news report or event. And NPVR works well for this - nice guide, flawless live implementation.
Our live TV viewing will never conflict when SageTV is recording because the recording schedule is always past our bedtime...

Cheers,
RLW

[Fuzzy]

Sounds like if all you are using sage for is recording stuff from OTA channels, you relaly shouldn't need to use an R5000HD at all, and picking up a used HDHR may be way more applicable. Then your R5000HD can be dedicated to you NPVR recordings.

[Phydeaux]

Not sure where you got OTA recording from, as we have somewhere close to zero availability where I'm located and exactly zero cable TV options, lol... But you're absolutely right in that adding a second recording device like an Hauppage HDPVR with an additional STB for scheduled recordings would likely be best. And the truth is that the satellite service here is steadily being reduced for the existing STB in favor of MPEG4, requiring a new STB and of course, R5000s are no longer available.

Ok, well that's pretty well that for plan A... onto plan B...

Couple quick, slightly off original topic questions:
Are the Hauppage HDPVR and HDPVR 2 equally supported under SageTV? If so, is it still possible to break HDCP between an STB and a HDPVR with a readily available HDMI splitter or are they like finding hens teeth these days? And last, but entirely off topic... If I delete SageTV recordings outside of using SageTV, for instance from a computer file manager, do bad things happen to SageTV over time? Corrupt database or anything?

Cheers and thanks for your help,
Robert

[Monedeath]

So long as you are just deleting recordings, and not whole directories, SageTV will detect the recording being deleted at some point(almost immediately if it's running on the same computer that is hosting the file) and will remove it from the listing of available recordings.

No issues should develop from that.

Now if you dropped an entire directory before it registered it as being empty, it might decide it is an "offline drive" instead, and will continue to remember those recordings until such time that the directory path is removed. You might still have the occasional artifact from that until/unless that path is either recreated and verified as empty by SageTV, or you alternately go play with some settings in the properties file for one launch of SageTV which would cause it to purge anything it couldn't locate during startup.

[Phydeaux]

Thanks Monedeath. Yes, just deleting a recorded file, not a recording directory. I knew it doesn't make SageTV throw a fit or anything, just wasn't sure if doing this regularly as a standard practice would cause long term issues with SageTV due to corruption in it's database. Probably a pointless concern.

This way I don't need the SageTV add-on for KODI at all. I just add Sage's recording directory to KODI as a video source and can view then delete from KODI.

Cheers,
RLW

[Tiki]

Actually you can delete the folder too. Sage just needs to be able to see the drive or share. So, if you had E:\Videos\My Movie\movie.mkv, you could delete the whole path and as long as Sage could still see E:\, it would know that you deleted movie.mkv. But if it couldn't see E:\ at all, Sage would think that the E drive might just be temporarily off-line, so it would keep info on movie.mkv in its database, in case you reconnect the E drive later.

UNC paths or shares work pretty much the same way. If the root is visible, but the file is not, Sage assumes it was deleted. Otherwise it assumes that the share is just offline and may come back later.

[Phydeaux]

Thanks Tiki... the more that you know...

Cheers,
RLW

[Monedeath]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Actually you can delete the folder too. Sage just needs to be able to see the drive or share. So, if you had E:\Videos\My Movie\movie.mkv, you could delete the whole path and as long as Sage could still see E:\, it would know that you deleted movie.mkv. But if it couldn't see E:\ at all, Sage would think that the E drive might just be temporarily off-line, so it would keep info on movie.mkv in its database, in case you reconnect the E drive later.

UNC paths or shares work pretty much the same way. If the root is visible, but the file is not, Sage assumes it was deleted. Otherwise it assumes that the share is just offline and may come back later.

That depends on if a folder "is just a folder" or a drive that was mounted as a folder. At least on Windows, Sage is evidently smart enough to realize when a folder is a NTFS mount point for another drive.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by Monedeath

That depends on if a folder "is just a folder" or a drive that was mounted as a folder. At least on Windows, Sage is evidently smart enough to realize when a folder is a NTFS mount point for another drive.

Right, which is why I said it worked the same for shares or UNC paths if the root was visible.