SageTV Rebuild Problems FYI

[BraveSirRobbin]

Like many other forum members here I use SageTV (no longer supported as it was purchased by Google) and recently had a hard drive failure on my server.

The good news, I had an Acronis backup image of the main drive. The bad news, it was over a year old.

I managed to restore the disk and found about 200 Windows updates were needed. I performed these updates as well as an update to Java's latest version seven.

Here are were the problems began.

I had to reinstall the SageTV software (I have the exe files backed up as you can't get those anymore) but could not get the service started. Turns out a couple of problems existed with the Java update.

One: It did not install correctly from the update notification icon. I had to uninstall the current version, then manually download the update from Java's site (java.com).

Second: After scouring the SageTV forum I found that the MSVCR100.dll file located in the c:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin directory had to be manually copied into the c:\Windows directory!

I thought I would post this as an FYI in hopes it would save someone rebuilding their SageTV server from some frustrating time trying to figure out why their service would not start.

I also had to perform this file copy on the PC clients.

Another note is that Microsoft stopped supporting updates to their XP software (I believe anything without the second service pack), so make sure you have a backup image of at least your hard drive containing your operating system! I would recommend updating your software if running XP now, then creating an image of that drive.

I believe you can download service packs on the Internet if your current XP system needs them.

Another strategy would be just to backup what you currently have working and just leave it at that.

 

[drvnbysound]

Any idea if the Java update would cause any issues with a fully up-to-date Sage install on W7 x64?

I am just starting to get my feet wet with Sage, and between this post and my computer telling me there is a Java update... I've been hesitant to choose to update it

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Sorry, don't know that answer. You could make sure you have a full image backup of the disk though before upgrading in case of any issues.

 

[Waynedb]

Any idea if the Java update would cause any issues with a fully up-to-date Sage install on W7 x64?
I am just starting to get my feet wet with Sage, and between this post and my computer telling me there is a Java update... I've been hesitant to choose to update it

I have had problems in the past with Java updates so I only update If I have to.
Here is a link to a Java related post on the Sage forum. http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58666

 

[drvnbysound]

I copied a few more of our DVD's over to my Sage server tonight, and got the Java update message again. I finally decided to give it a shot... bad idea

I too was not able to get the service to start... however, the files mentioned above were in the correct locations. I attempted to do a Windows System restore. It did not work. I attempted to restore to various previous restore points - again, no joy.

Finally, I deleted the Java installation, went to Java.com and downloaded the latest installation files (running W7 x64, so I downloaded both the x64 and x86 versions). Installed both of them, and the Sage service was again able to be restarted. However, I am not yet 100% convinced that everything is running quite a well as before... it seems that Sage seems to lag a bit more now than I recall before (when opening the SageTVServiceControl.exe as well as opening the Sage application). I am going to attempt to restore back to the latest restore point prior to attempting the Java update, remove Java again, and re-install and see if that works any better.

Basically, wanted to do as BSR did and warn anyone issues that may arise from performing a Java update...

Edit: I wanted to add what may be a key piece of information (posted by jmonier on the SageTV forum): "The Java updates used to work fine if you did them with Sage running. That is apparently no longer true. You need to close Sage and turn the Sage SERVICE OFF (via SageTVServiceControl). Then do the Java update and restart the Sage Service (if used)."

 

[electron]

Considering this site is all about automation, I was hoping you guys would have automated your backups by now Highly recommend you take weekly image backups of the system, and file based backups of the important directories (onto a different drive or network location of course!). Has saved my butt many times.

That said, SageTV should be an appliance, don't update unless something stopped working. If you use the SageTV server as a system to browse the internet, then you are dealing with bigger issues anyways.

 

[drvnbysound]

Considering this site is all about automation, I was hoping you guys would have automated your backups by now Highly recommend you take weekly image backups of the system, and file based backups of the important directories (onto a different drive or network location of course!). Has saved my butt many times.

That said, SageTV should be an appliance, don't update unless something stopped working. If you use the SageTV server as a system to browse the internet, then you are dealing with bigger issues anyways.

YouTube has stopped working 2x since I got STV running a few months back. Both times I believe it has been due to something that YouTube has changed on their end and new STV software updates have had to be released to fix the issue(s). That said, my STV server is connected to the 'Internet' so that I can access web-based data (e.g. weather) and media content. Based on that alone, I leave Windows updates and Symantec turned on so that security vulnerabilities are updated as well. If it were stand-alone and only on LAN to the extenders, then I probably wouldn't worry about updates...

I don't yet have any automated backup set. There is nothing special installed on my STV server other than HDHR software and the STV software. All of which I have backed up in other locations, and if needed I could re-build all of it in an hour or so. I'm not all that concerned with it right now as I have yet to fully implement it in my home; it's currently on (2) of my (3) TV's, but not yet the one we primarily use - slowly trying to convert my wife...

 

[sic0048]

While the main SageTV site isn't helpful, the SageTV installers are still available on the Sage forums. http://forums.sagetv...ead.php?t=56137. I'm not sure if that is helpful to anyone, but I just wanted to make sure that people knew they could still access those files.

That being said, this might be a good time to download the last versions and keep them safely backed up on a machine in case the forum ever does go dark.

 

[drvnbysound]

While the main SageTV site isn't helpful, the SageTV installers are still available on the Sage forums. http://forums.sagetv...ead.php?t=56137. I'm not sure if that is helpful to anyone, but I just wanted to make sure that people knew they could still access those files.

That being said, this might be a good time to download the last versions and keep them safely backed up on a machine in case the forum ever does go dark.

That's exactly what I've done. I've got them in a couple of places

 

[unoparker]

I copied a few more of our DVD's over to my Sage server tonight, and got the Java update message again. I finally decided to give it a shot... bad idea

I too was not able to get the service to start... however, the files mentioned above were in the correct locations. I attempted to do a Windows System restore. It did not work. I attempted to restore to various previous restore points - again, no joy.

Finally, I deleted the Java installation, went to Java.com and downloaded the latest installation files (running W7 x64, so I downloaded both the x64 and x86 versions). Installed both of them, and the Sage service was again able to be restarted. However, I am not yet 100% convinced that everything is running quite a well as before... it seems that Sage seems to lag a bit more now than I recall before (when opening the SageTVServiceControl.exe as well as opening the Sage application). I am going to attempt to restore back to the latest restore point prior to attempting the Java update, remove Java again, and re-install and see if that works any better.

Basically, wanted to do as BSR did and warn anyone issues that may arise from performing a Java update...

Edit: I wanted to add what may be a key piece of information (posted by jmonier on the SageTV forum): "The Java updates used to work fine if you did them with Sage running. That is apparently no longer true. You need to close Sage and turn the Sage SERVICE OFF (via SageTVServiceControl). Then do the Java update and restart the Sage Service (if used)."

I'm having the same problem with you but luckily I saw this thread before bumping into another issue on updating. Can anyone help us on this? I think the Java updates are having incompatibility issues and this causes the huge trouble. I have performed my backup to ensure that everything is safe.

 

[drvnbysound]

Apparently the key is to stop the STV service before performing the update. If you tried to install the update while STV is running, the best fix that I came across was to stop the service, uninstall Java (restart if necessary), and re-install the new version (again, making sure the STV service is stopped).