HDHomerun Prime not connecting after V7 to V9 update

[Russ377]

Hello,

Generally I'm a believer that if something's not broken, don't try and fix it. Our current configuration has happily and fairly flawlessly (aside from HDD failures) been working for many years.

However, with the shutdown of the EPG service, it's become necessary to do some updates.

I did the V9 update using the v9 Windows Installer over top of the existing V7 files. Everything during install went without any errors or indications of trouble.

However, when starting up the new V9, it now indicates that "No Video Capture Devices were found".

After reading a bit on the forum here, I am under the impression that the V9 update should have retained the prior source settings. Maybe this is not correct?

I'm also thinking that maybe our setup needs some additional updates to work correctly. I'd appreciate any hints on where I should be looking to get things working again.

The working setup we had was:

Windows 7 Home Premium, SP1, 64bit

Sage V7, running as a Service

Clients are HD200's - rarely Placeshifter use.

Storage is all local HDDs, no network storage.

Capture Device is a HDHomerun Prime tuner (HDHR3-CC, V20140604) tuning a FiOS Cablecard.

Running SageDCT 2.5.0.0 - this service still appears to be running OK, can issue and respond with manual test queries (like version or no-op's) to the tuner.

We're running a default / stock setup, no extra plugins or UI features.

Before the V9 update was run, the entire V7 install directory was copied and backed up.

Thanks for any and all help!

[Tiki]

Are you sure you installed v9 to the same directory as v7?

The new installer doesn't check for old installations first - it just installs to the default location, so if you had previously installed somewhere else, you could end up with two copies in different spots.

When you run the installer you have to look for the Options button and click that before clicking Install. Then you will get an option to choose the installation location.

The information about tuners is stored in Sage.properties. I'm guessing it didn't find your old Sage.properties and created a new one from scratch.

[Russ377]

Thanks for the "Sage" advice!

Before starting the install, I had read a few other posts on the V7 to V9 process. There were several comments to check the Options settings to make sure the install would go to the correct location, so that is what was done.

I'm also going to say it's verifiable that the correct directory was used as there is now an additional "MPEGDecoder" directory in the SageTV folder that wasn't there before.

I'll also mention that I'm sure it must have seen some of the prior settings as it has retained the recording directory/drive paths and weather location values from the V7 instance.

[Russ377]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I'm guessing it didn't find your old Sage.properties and created a new one from scratch.

Hi Tiki,

Took a look at the Sage.properties file, and I don't think it created one from scratch as it still references the correct V7 epg_data_sources and seeker/last_channel/SageDCT-HDHomeRun\ Prime\ Tuner\ 1314C801-0 values.

Maybe time to think of a fresh V9 install or somehow reverting back to V7? We have many years (~12TB) of recordings and I'm not sure how well those could be retained with a fresh V9 install.

Thanks again for your help - still not sure where I'm going wrong, but getting desperate enough to try just about anything as the WAF plummets.

[JustFred]

Originally Posted by Russ377

Hi Tiki,
Maybe time to think of a fresh V9 install or somehow reverting back to V7? We have many years (~12TB) of recordings and I'm not sure how well those could be retained with a fresh V9 install.

Don't worry. Since you backed up the V7 wiz.bin and sage.properties files, odds are very good that your recording history and settings aren't lost.

Try this:
1) stop the Sage service.
2) copy the 2 V7 files (above) into the V9 installation
3) verify that the SageDCT service is running
4) restart Sage.

Everything should be working now.

If not, report back with a few more details, including any other changes that have taken place along with the v9 upgrade.

I've done several v7 -> v9 upgrades without issue. Still successfully using SageDCT on one of those systems. Didn't have to jump thru any hoops.

[Russ377]

Hi JustFred,

Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions!

Followed your instructions and stopped the SageTV service, copied the wiz.bin and sage.properties files from the V7 backup into the V9 update.

Verified that SageDCT was still running and responding to test commands.

Restarted the SageTV service - waited a little bit and then ran the client.

Unfortunately, it's still reporting that no video capture devices are available.

So, I stopped the SageTV service, then the SageDCT service. Uninstalled the 2.5 version of SageDCT and updated it to the later 2.6 version thinking maybe it would reset something or help in some way.

Restarted SageDCT 2.6 and it seems to be OK - same as before, sees the HDHomerun Prime tuners and responds to test commands.

Verified the SageDCT 2.6 service was running and them restarted the SageTV service. Unfortunately, still no luck in getting it to see the tuners - still saying no video capture devices are available.

In thinking back on what else may have been modified, I can't see that anything has changed (yes, I know, famous last words!). LOL...

This machine runs with automatic updates turned off, and no Windows Firewall or AV software to get in the way either. The last manual updates happened several weeks ago and V7 ran without any issues afterwards.

Java has been asking to be updated for quite a while. Presently running Java SE 7, update 45.

As this machine is dedicated to running SageTv and some local services (Weather Station, Home Automation) I generally don't like to do updates as it tends to break things more often than not. It and the HD200's are isolated on it's own physical network (separate switch and LAN card on a pfSense based router/firewall) apart from the rest of the home network, so the risk of infection is low.

Not sure what other details might be helpful, but again, I appreciate the suggestions and your time.

Thanks!

[JustFred]

Originally Posted by Russ377

Unfortunately, it's still reporting that no video capture devices are available.

When you installed v9 over top of v7, did you install TWICE, choosing "Repair" during the 2nd installation? If not, you can get some pretty strange results.

Next step would be to verify that the IP address/ports that SageDCT uses for the tuners matches the IP address & port in the sage.properties file. If they don't match, that explains why Sage can't talk to DCT (which in turn talks to the tuners).

Or, you could just use SageDCT to recreate new assignments (in the Configure DCT app: Discovery tab -> Scan -> Generate Assignments -> Save). Stop the Sage service and edit the sage.properties file. Remove the old mmc/encoders lines which currently reference the DCT tuners. Then import the new assignments into Sage.properties (per the SageDCT instructions, as if doing a new install). This will ensure that SageDCT & SageTv are in agreement.

The only other thing that might prevent Sage from seeing the tuners is Windows firewall. Double-check the SageDCT installation notes for babvgant's instructions about this.

Wiz.bin is where the recording history is stored. Once the tuner issue is resolved, simply drop the old v7 wiz.bin into the v9 installation. It'll work just like you want it to.

Worst case: you can always do a full, clean install of v9 (not just an upgrade) and then drop the v7 wiz.bin into the new v9 install. But that seems like it'll be a lot more work (re-configuring Sage) than just resolving the tuner issue.

[LJSSageUser]

Originally Posted by Russ377

--SNIP--

However, when starting up the new V9, it now indicates that "No Video Capture Devices were found".

--SNIP--

Capture Device is a HDHomerun Prime tuner (HDHR3-CC, V20140604) tuning a FiOS Cablecard.

Running SageDCT 2.5.0.0 - this service still appears to be running OK, can issue and respond with manual test queries (like version or no-op's) to the tuner.

We're running a default / stock setup, no extra plugins or UI features.

Before the V9 update was run, the entire V7 install directory was copied and backed up.

Thanks for any and all help!

I have a similar setup, and I abandoned SageDCT in favor of OpenDCT when I upgraded. It took a little longer, but it worked out of the box. SageDCT is deprecated; you're much more likely to get support with OpenDCT.

[JustFred]

Switching from SageDCT to OpenDCT is certainly one option, but wasn't suggested because it would also require updating the Prime's firmware (OpenDCT won't work correctly with f/w V20140604). Given SiliconDust's recent issues with newer Prime f/w, going that route adds additional variables and potential problems.

On the other hand, SageDCT 2.5.x and Prime f/w V20140604 is known to work with Sage 9, since I'm currently running that combo on one of my systems.

[Russ377]

Hi JustFred & LJSSageUser,

Thanks for both your comments & advice!

It's a testament to the reliability of the SageTV software that it's uptime is so long (often well over a year, usually only shutdown and reboot for OS updates) and it's performance so trouble free that it's been easy to forget about the details on how it was originally set up.

For now the problem seems to be overcome by recreating new assignments in SageDCT and copying them back into the sage.properties file.

Had to re-do all the channel assignments, but that's merely tedious...

I may eventually wind up going the other route and doing a clean install of V9 and updating to OpenDCT if the present configuration isn't stable. My (limited) initial impression is that the V9 software isn't as bug-free and stable as V7 has been (seen several menu oddities and general sluggishness with the UI).

Hopefully, it won't be a problem as SageTv has been a great solution over the years, and quite economical too compared to what's charged for cable boxes.

Again, thanks for everyone's help!