Sage is locking up! (pull me back from the brink)

[Bear]

I recently had to rebuild my OS/Apps drive from bare metal (clean XP reformat/install) due to a corruption in XP caused by the graphics card/driver. After installing Sage fresh, viewing Live TV no longer works. Sage spikes the CPU to 100% and basically locks up to a force quit. If it is left in the system tray, then it will record just fine, but no files can be played on using Sage.

To try to resolve this, I have:
- Wiped Sage and reinstalled (got rid of properties and wiz files)
- Wiped miscellaneous files that have had issues in the past (e.g. Nero 6), and reinstalled Sage clean
- Updated the Hauppauge drivers with the new ones from Frey, and performed a clean install
- Upgraded JVMs, clean install, uninstall new JVM, clean install
- I have not tried '.20 since it seems to be just for Roslyn cards, which I do not have.

My rig:
- Hardware: A64/2800+ (35w mobile), NF3 mobo, Revo 7.1, 2xPVR-250-16, LSI MegaRAID (Raid 5, 1 TB effective), ATi RemoteWonder 2
- Software: WinXP Pro SP2, FWMM 4.0 (licensed)

Any further thoughts? The HD Tivo gets here on Friday or Monday, and I would like to get this fixed before I abandon Sage for good. I am now as frustrated as my wife with my HTPC not working, and since I got a deal on the new HD Tivo for $699, I am a hair's breadth away from ditching the HTPC in favor of CE equipment (I won't dicker over whether or not a Tivo is really a custom-built HTPC).

Later,
Bill

[Bear]

The truly sad part: The wife asked me whether we could just "go back" to like it was back in February and March, back when it "just seemed to work". I really could not begin to guess what alignment of the stars had caused it to work, but my WAF is definitely hitting rock bottom and asking for a pick...

Later,
Bill

[mlbdude]

What audio and video decoders have you tried? Make sure you are NOT using the NVDVD audio decoder for sure.

[flashbacck]

I agree. Try different decoders.

[Bear]

I've got WinDVD5 lying around here somewhere, so I'll give it a shot. However, I'd like to ask why not FWMM4? I've been using v3 since December, and now v4 since before Sage started acting up.

Later,
Bill

[mlbdude]

The important part is to not use the NVDVD audio decoder. It is really bad and tends to hand all the time. I just got TT 2.0 and it came with a 4.x version. With the NVDVD audio decoder enabled Sage crashes as soon as I start to play some MPEG2.

Before installing something try chaning your Audio Decoder to "MPEG Audio Decoder".

There are posts all over this forum on how bad the NVDVD audio decoder is and all the problems it causes.

[Bear]

mlbdude - I have tried the "default" decoders in one of these iterations, so I can give it a shot. I also know that there are lots of posts on the forum about these decoders, but until very recently, there were very few of us who actually had them legitimately.

Thanks!

Bill

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Bear

mlbdude - I have tried the "default" decoders in one of these iterations, so I can give it a shot.

Important thing to remember

Default, is not some magical decoder that comes with Sage, it is whatever MPEG decoder has the highest merit on your system. It could be anything. It's always a bad idea to pick "Default" for your decoder since you normaly don't know what it is.

This seems to be something that confuses a lot of people, they think Default is some specialy decoder Sage always uses (as if Sage shipped with it's own), however in reality it's more of a random thing, it's kind of like a box of chocolates, so to speak

[kny3twalker]

yeah I was going to say
go ahead and download radlight filter manager

and make nvDVD video decoder have the highest merit and then do someother audio decoder like intervideo or sonic audio decoder have the highest merit

and use them in SageTV

the nvidia audio decoder is truely carppy


as try using overlay render for video rather than default VMR7
or VMR9

[Bear]

Stanger89/kny3twalker - Thanks for the help! When I say "default", it was whatever filter was on the computer that wasn't FWMM (probably Sasem, or the InterActual filter), but it is good for the reminder about filter management (it's been almost a year sinceI've actively had more than one...).

For this evening's festivities, pre-Frontline, I tried just getting into the guide data, and even that is causing a lock-up (still on FWMM4). I then deprecated FWMM to the 3.0 filters, which were very stable for a long time. However, even these are no longer working. Is there any consensus between PowerDVD XP and WinDVD 5 as to which is better/more stable?

My current list of suspects:
- Whatever was in NVE that caused issues the last time Sage gave me this much trouble has made its way to the base package, rendering Nero useless in my HTPC
- Filters (PowerDVD XP and WinDVD 5 ready to go)
- Something in SP2 that broke something in the JVM (low probability on that one)

If it is the filters, though, I'm curious as to why it will let me configure the app or schedule a recording without a problem, but trying to activate the "Sage TV Recordings" menu or the "LiveTV Guide" causes the lock-up every time.

Thanks and keep the sugggestions coming!

Bill

[mlbdude]

If it is the filters, though, I'm curious as to why it will let me configure the app or schedule a recording without a problem, but trying to activate the "Sage TV Recordings" menu or the "LiveTV Guide" causes the lock-up every time.

What are you settings for either video in the background or most probably video preview? If you have it set to ALways when you go to either of those menus ot tries to play video.

Since you are using the Hauppauge 250 I would recommend the Hauppauge Intervideo decoders first for troubleshooting. If all goes well there you know that the problem was and can move on to finding other decoders.

Again, simply chaging your audio decoder to "MPEG Audio Decoder" (Not the Default) may just solve your problem and you can continue using the NVDVD decoders.

[dadams]

Bear,

Just thought I would mention this...I had a lot of lockups a few months ago and tracked it down to a bad recording in my video directory folder. Once it was gone Sage no longer locked up. My lockup only happened when I referenced the recordings.

Dennis

[Bear]

mlbdude - I only have a windowed preview "on demand" (I forget what the setting is). To add a new twist, I tried adding a favorite (not just navigating), and Sage found the program in the show list, and when I clicked to select the show, it locked up again. This one is also repeatable. I'll play with filters some more tonight.

Dennis - I'll archive everything off of my video drive and onto the RAID array and see if that helps (of course, moving 150+ GB is not going to be fast...).

Thanks!

Bill

[Guinness]

My Sage installation is also locking up these days, to the point that Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't even do anything... I have never had a problem with Sage if I am recording or watching a TV show... The problem I am seeing is if I put SageTV to sleep and then come back the next evening Sage is completely frozen with the SageTV logo stuck in one spot. Hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't even pop-up the task list... Any ideas what could be going on there??


Also, when navagating the menus, SageTVs resonse is slow at times... Is this due to my computer only having 256MB of memory?? Is the Athlon Pro 3000A+ not a fast enough processor? Or does everyone see this problem?

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WinXP Pro, SageTV v2, AMD Athlon Pro 3000A+, 256 DDR333 PC2700 Non-ECC Elixir, VIA KM266 motherboard, 160GB Seagate harddrive, 20GB Maxtor harddrive, ATI RADEON 7500LE 128Mb SDR TV-Out , Hauppauge! WinTV-PVR 250 Personal Video Recorder (model 980).
Edit/Delete Message

[stanger89]

RAM should be OK, although I'd recommend 512, 256 is probably bare minimum these days. CPU is plenty, it's more than mind (P4 2.4B), but the motherboard worries me, I've never had a good relationship with VIA boards, especially when it comes to A/V stuff.

[Purple]

Originally Posted by Bear

The truly sad part: The wife asked me whether we could just "go back" to like it was back in February and March, back when it "just seemed to work". I really could not begin to guess what alignment of the stars had caused it to work, but my WAF is definitely hitting rock bottom and asking for a pick...

Later,
Bill

I feel your pain. You are not alone

And i have to agree with our wives. New technology is nice but if it doesn't work then it isn't an improvement...

I get lock ups all the time and trying to debug them just takes too much darn time and emotional energy. Is it Sage? Is it a driver? Is it windows? argh!!!

I use a windows 2000 HTPC and find that i just have to reboot the machine every few days and things are ok. Super annoying but the path of least resistance.

[mls]

Originally Posted by Bear

- I have not tried '.20 since it seems to be just for Roslyn cards, which I do not have.

2.0.20 is not just for Roslyn cards and fixed several bugs that were in 2.0.19.

I'm suprised nobody else mentioned this earlier in this thread.

[Bear]

I'll give it a shot, as well. With the Baseball playoffs on, I have not really spent any time after hours tweaking the set-up. Mostly I've just been getting frustrated at the Astros bullpen.

Later,
Bill

[matterw]

Same here -- I am getting a lot of lockups as well... The strage thing is that SageTV will also get very slow and pause for some time (maybe it's garbage collecting?!?!?) and then pick up all of a sudden and then slow down again -- in a cycle. Also, I have noticed that when I am getting low on disk space SageTV starts choking and starts to lock up a lot more often...

Is there some way that we can get a debug file with some meaningful information to see where Sage TV is hanging or choking?!? I really like this product, but this is a real pain when it comes to just relaxing or the wife factor...

Thanx.

[Bear]

So, I pulled all of the filters off of my HTPC, installed TheaterTek 1,5 (Sonic Cinemaster codec), and it still spikes to 100% CPU when I try to get into the program guide, and it hangs completely when I try to view the "Sage Recordings" menu. Since I have a dual tuner box, WinTV is pretty much useless for debugging, AFAIK. However, the new S*tstream 3.5 seems to work okay (dual tuners and all; but oh, does it have some new, really obnoxious "quirks - like hanging TheaterTek!).

I have tried this on both the default JRE and the new 1.5 (Java 5) JRE to the same results.

Next up on my list is the new 2.1 beta version.

Later,
Bill