SageTV 2.1 RC4 - High CPU Utilization

[chrysek]

I've installed it yesterday and somehow had tons of problems. I finally got it working but I am pretty unhappy. Ok, when I start SageTV service, it starts, but when I do start SageTV gui it then starts too but it uses all the CPU, I can set it up to only one CPU thread to max that one out so the other CPU in my P4 HT can do some more work. High CPU does not want to go away, its constantly high, did I do anything wrong? What could be the reason for such high CPU usage by running SageTV GUI?

Any ideas?

Chris

[chrysek]

I cant even watch any recordings because of this high CPU utilization, it does not want to go away. I did upgrade rather than start fresh by going from v2.0.20 to v2.1 RC4. I think that is the case. I will reinstall my sage tomorrow and most likely problem will go away.

[stanger89]

Just curious, but how long do you wait after starting the service/SageTV?

[jptaz]

I had similar issues and decided to backup the frey directory to a zip and then uninstall and remove the whole driectory structure and then do a fresh install and setup things fresh...no old properties or wiz.bin files. After I was able to get things stable with just the tuners / decoders - playback, I exited everything. Make sure to stop the SageTV Service. Then I manually added back my import directories and other important settings to the sage.properties file and copied the wiz.bin and wiz.bak into the SageTV directories.

John

[chrysek]

yes, such will resolve the issue but I wanted to keep all my info in sage, I did not want to reinstall and then go trough hours of configurations and adding all my favorites, it will also remove all my viewing habits which it learned over past few months.

[chrysek]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Just curious, but how long do you wait after starting the service/SageTV?

Well it can be 1 minute after service is statred or it could ne next day, the result is exactly the same... Constant high CPU usitlization... it must be something in the old config that is causing this kind of behavior, but it is not for the service that is having high utilization but for the GUI only.

[chrysek]

Originally Posted by chrysek

Well it can be 1 minute after service is statred or it could ne next day, the result is exactly the same... Constant high CPU usitlization... it must be something in the old config that is causing this kind of behavior, but it is not for the service that is having high utilization but for the GUI only.

Ok, actually it was not true what I've said, 14 hours after my computer restarted and SageTV GUI was down I started it up and it did open up without high CPU utilization. SageTV Service was running for quite sometime. I was able to watch TV on my SateTV gui. I resarted my computer, SageService started along with GUI and it was unusable because of that high CPU utilization...

[jptaz]

I think you missed the last part of what I did.

I did not have to lose any of my favorites or recordings, history etc, and the whole thing took less than an hour...and really it could have taken less if I had not taken a few wrong turns.

I basically did a complete reinstall and played with the basic configuration until it was stable. After it was stable and started correctly I exited SageTV and SageTVService and copied my original wiz.bin and wiz.bak files, which contain the recordings, ir likes and learning. Then I added the Video Directories and Import directories and other settings to the sage.properties file. Also it might be better to not start as a service until you have made sure it is configured properly as an application. Once it is stable turn on the system service.

NOTE: I did not point SageTV at my real video Directories or Import Directories until it worked correctly for LiveTV and recordings with the default video directory.

Also in the end I decided to use SageTV as an Application instead of a system service. I did not have high CPU when it was a system service except after waking from standby or hibernate and that has to do with my actisys IR blaster. Jeff has already confirmed that he will be fixing the Actisys issue so I will be able to use it as a system service on the next release candidate...Cross Fingers...but for now I am still using SageWake to handle power management since I need to restart SageTV after a resume.

John

[changer]

I had a similar problem-- everything was crashing or not working at all and the CPU usage was 95-100% (On A 2.4GHz).
So I started windows task manager, dragged it to the side of the screen and started tweeking.
The CPU usage remained pegged until I did the following:
1) Disabled PVR-Out for PVR 350
2) Disabled UI-Out on PVR 350
3) Disabled Hardware Decoding only.
4) Shut Off SageTV
5) Curse
6) Restart Sage TV
7) Enable all those things previously disabled.
Viola-- the CPU utilization dropped from 90-100% to... 2%.
---I think the cursing was especially important.
Take it or leave it, but I am happy now.

[chrysek]

I am constantly having problems with wiz.bin files. I am not sure what is happening but since I've upgraded to 2.1 final I am having those problems constantly.

Lets say I am runing sage, then wiz.bin gets this problem my sage tv gui gets 100% cpu utilization. Because I do make frequent bckups of my wiz.bin I can recover to the last good version. Sometimes it is as easy as wenaming wiz.bak but sometimes I have to go to older version. It does hapen few times a day, sometimes it does not happen for few days... I have no ideal what it is related to but it does drive me nuts.

Chris

[m1abrams]

I have a question for you?

Are you using a USB-UIRT?

If so are you using it to both control external tuner(s) and as a remote reciever?

If so, I ran into the EXACT same problem you are. And what I have found is that because when running Sage as a service you have two seperate processes trying to access the USB-UIRT and for some reason this screws up the client. USB-UIRT website states it can be a shared device but their is an obvious bug with Sage since it will not work this way.

I found in testing that the only time I get High CPU usage is when I am using the USB-UIRT for IR blaster and IR reciever in service mode. If I take off either blaster control (IE do not use the USB-UIRT to control a tuner) or do not use the usb-uirt to handle commands, everything works fine. Or do not use SageTV in service mode, which is how I have to run my setup now.

See my thread here about my issue.
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...ead.php?t=8714

Course if that is not the case, just ignore my post

[jptaz]

m1abrams

You should pass this information along to support. It might help them to solve the problem. Email it to Support at support@freytechnologies.com. I have a USB UIRT and only use it for sending and do not have any problems. Now my Actisys is another story.

John

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by jptaz

m1abrams

You should pass this information along to support. It might help them to solve the problem. Email it to Support at support@freytechnologies.com. I have a USB UIRT and only use it for sending and do not have any problems. Now my Actisys is another story.

John

Did that yesterday still waiting to hear back from them.

[heffe2001]

I wasn't getting this problem before I changed my server layout (moved storage & tuners to a seperate machine running SageTV, using client on my 3 other TV's). Since then, the Sage service stays at 95% usage.

I just tried starting the service with no clients online, and after all initialization, it drops to 0-2%. When I fire off each client, utilization goes to 98% until the client has started and finished coming up.

If ANY clients are online when I start service, it stays at 95-98%, but after doing the above, it seems to have stablized at 0% most of the time...