Sage now crashing on launch (XP-SP2 issue?)

[Bear]

I tried installing the Fusion 3 QAM card in the last iteration of my HTPC, and it ended up corrupting all of my MPEG filters (Win2K-SP4, btw). I gutted my HTPC, and put in an Athlon64, added some hard drives, and installed WinXP-SP2 (clean install). Sage now crashes on launch!!

The other piece of hardware that is new is a Sasem USB-HDTV tuner that also has an analog section with a hardware MPEG encoder. Sage sees this tuner without any heroic measures, and can add it to its set-up.

The really odd bit is that Sage "crashes" but still functions quite normally. In so long as I do not click "close" on the dialog box from Microsoft, I can use Sage no problem (e.g. tune, record, watch a movie, etc.). Thus, I am not convinced its the USB-HDTV box, because Sage "crashes" before I ever get it set-up.

This is truly bizarre. Any thoughts?

Later (and thanks in advance),
Bill

[stanger89]

If it's a fresh install (filters/drivers/java/etc) I would try deleting your properties file and/or your wiz.bin file, especially if you saved them from before. There could be something wonky in them causing problems.

You should be able to delete the properties file w/o loosing your program info (but back it up just in case).

[Bear]

Stanger89 - Thanks for jumping in! I did completely wipe out Sage twice in order to determine whether mucking around with which cards were in which PCI slots caused an issue (completely clean re-install #1), and to eliminate the last vestiges of Fusion from this build (re-install #2). I have not tried uninstalling the Sasem box yet, though (it's the only SDTV feed to my projector I have right now!). I'm hoping it's an XP-SP2 issue, and not an incompatibility with the Sasem box...

Later,
Bill

[brntspawn]

Just thought I would chime in with a problem I had recently. I did a clean install a couple of weeks and had a problem with sage crashing immediatly upon launch. It was as you described, it would work ok as long as I did not close out of the error box.
This was pre-SP2, and uninstalling Nero has resolved this issue. I used nero with a working setup, but had just updated to the most recent version at the time when the problem began. Hope this helps.

[Bear]

That did the trick! Apparently Neor Vision Express was doing something that prevented Sage from working properly. A quick uninstall and a follow-up pass with RegCleaner, and I'm good to go. No uninstallation of Nero proper required.

Thanks brntspawn!

Later,
Bill

[perfessor101]

I never had a problem with Nero Vision Express when I installed it before, but I guess with the latest Windows updates it drove me to almost throwing all my computers off the roof. When I uninstalled Nero Vision Express I was still having problems with SageTV, so I installed ZoomPlayer which was still stuttering and chunking out after restarting the system. Then I went into the configuration settings and lowered all the MERIT values of the Nero codecs to just above Don't Use and then my system started working almost seemlessly.

I might try reinstalling Nero Vision Express again and see if Sage TV continues to work with lowered Merit values for the Nero Codecs.

Thanks for your time,
Bobby


ps- just in case it helps someone else with stuttering and chunking issues that may or may not arise from the same issues