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garyan2

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#141

Post by garyan2 » Wed Sep 02, 2020 2:16 pm

I set the next dbgc run in the registry. Just change the date there to be greater than 5 days ago, or delete it, and the next time the update task runs it will trigger a garbage collection.

[HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Epg]
"dbgc:next run time"

Thanks!
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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dopdahl

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#142

Post by dopdahl » Fri Sep 04, 2020 5:58 pm

Ok, ran 2 tests... first, no garbage collection about a 10 hour delay due to recordnings... Worked fine.
Then about another 10 hour delay with garbage collection. Also worked fine... At least there were no issues immediately after EPG123 completed the import.

I'll just let this latest run and we'll see what happens... This may have done the trick.

Thx!

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#143

Post by KarterJK » Sun Sep 13, 2020 5:11 pm

garyan2 wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 4:42 pm Windows is going to do that because my files are not signed, so Win10 (being helpful) is telling you I can't be trusted because I haven't purchased a certificate.
Curious about certificates?

how costly are they
do they need renewed, if so how often

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#144

Post by garyan2 » Sun Sep 13, 2020 5:43 pm

It's been a while since I researched that, but if I remember correctly you could get one for a little over $100USD and it was only good for a year. Things may have changed since then, so maybe some other folks can chime in on that.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

KarterJK

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#145

Post by KarterJK » Mon Sep 14, 2020 10:03 pm

Thanks

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garyan2

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#146

Post by garyan2 » Sat Sep 19, 2020 5:18 pm

Just a heads up. I found a source for signing my files... really getting tired of the problems with AV software. This little conversation made me look at it again and I found K Software for $84/year. Hopefully it will be a short time for my "reputation" score to increase to avoid these issues once I get the certificate.

Next release should be signed if I don't run into any roadblocks.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#147

Post by NOYB » Mon Sep 21, 2020 6:46 pm

garyan2 wrote: Sat Aug 01, 2020 6:58 pm The [Get Latest Guide Listings] button will only work for Win10 unless the Win7/Win8 machine has not been updated since 08/2019. Security updates are fine, just not the other updates.
If it is known which updates, some are removable.
Anyone know which updates?

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#148

Post by dopdahl » Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:49 pm

So, it's interesting... No failures where the Database was obliterated since August 31st...

Today, it happened again. No long running task this time... Everything executed fine in about 2.5 minutes and was watching tv this morning...

Then, according to the trace log, for the very first time since August 31st, this executed:

[10/20/2020 12:13:06 PM] [ INFO] **** Intercepted "mcupdate.exe -uf -nogc" call. Ignored. ****

And Boom. It was gone when I first fired up the tv at about 1:30PM. Recovered fine when I set the EPGInstance down a notch.

Clearly though, WMC is having trouble on my system with this intercept. I'm pretty positive at this point that this causes the condition. What are my options? Any idea why WMC didn't attempt to execute the update for almost 2 months?

Thanks!

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dopdahl

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#149

Post by dopdahl » Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:00 pm

I'm wondering. Instead of completely ignoring the call, perhaps you could actually invoke mcupdate without the forced download and allow it to do the garbage cleanup only.

I get this would be a change to EPG123. I guess I could write something myself to see what happens. Let me know.

I'm curious if you have any knowledge that the garbage collection causes any issues or not. I'm assuming you're intercepting this primarily to skip the force download of guide data.

Thanks!
Dave

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dopdahl

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#150

Post by dopdahl » Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:12 pm

Got this event from MCE a second after mcupdate executed.... Looks like it detected some issue and uped the EPGinstance and DB... I don't understand it all...

But it did something... obviously the "instance 4' of the db it created was missing stuff...

Event from EventViewer below... It was a warning not an error...


System

- Provider

[ Name] mcstore

- EventID 1

[ Qualifiers] 0

Level 3

Task 0

Keywords 0x80000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2020-10-20T16:13:07.000000000Z

EventRecordID 18823

Channel Media Center

Computer HTPC

Security


- EventData

Recovery of guide listings and recording schedule is complete.
00002A0043003A005C00500072006F006700720061006D0044006100740061005C004D006900630072006F0073006F00660074005C00650048006F006D0065005C006D00630065007000670032002D0033002E00640062002A0063003A005C00700072006F006700720061006D0064006100740061005C006D006900630072006F0073006F00660074005C00650068006F006D0065005C006D00630065007000670032002D0034002E0064006200


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary data:


In Words

0000: 002A0000 003A0043 0050005C 006F0072
0008: 00720067 006D0061 00610044 00610074
0010: 004D005C 00630069 006F0072 006F0073
0018: 00740066 0065005C 006F0048 0065006D
0020: 006D005C 00650063 00670070 002D0032
0028: 002E0033 00620064 0063002A 005C003A
0030: 00720070 0067006F 00610072 0064006D
0038: 00740061 005C0061 0069006D 00720063
0040: 0073006F 0066006F 005C0074 00680065
0048: 006D006F 005C0065 0063006D 00700065
0050: 00320067 0034002D 0064002E 0062


In Bytes

0000: 00 00 2A 00 43 00 3A 00 ..*.C.:.
0008: 5C 00 50 00 72 00 6F 00 \.P.r.o.
0010: 67 00 72 00 61 00 6D 00 g.r.a.m.
0018: 44 00 61 00 74 00 61 00 D.a.t.a.
0020: 5C 00 4D 00 69 00 63 00 \.M.i.c.
0028: 72 00 6F 00 73 00 6F 00 r.o.s.o.
0030: 66 00 74 00 5C 00 65 00 f.t.\.e.
0038: 48 00 6F 00 6D 00 65 00 H.o.m.e.
0040: 5C 00 6D 00 63 00 65 00 \.m.c.e.
0048: 70 00 67 00 32 00 2D 00 p.g.2.-.
0050: 33 00 2E 00 64 00 62 00 3...d.b.
0058: 2A 00 63 00 3A 00 5C 00 *.c.:.\.
0060: 70 00 72 00 6F 00 67 00 p.r.o.g.
0068: 72 00 61 00 6D 00 64 00 r.a.m.d.
0070: 61 00 74 00 61 00 5C 00 a.t.a.\.
0078: 6D 00 69 00 63 00 72 00 m.i.c.r.
0080: 6F 00 73 00 6F 00 66 00 o.s.o.f.
0088: 74 00 5C 00 65 00 68 00 t.\.e.h.
0090: 6F 00 6D 00 65 00 5C 00 o.m.e.\.
0098: 6D 00 63 00 65 00 70 00 m.c.e.p.
00a0: 67 00 32 00 2D 00 34 00 g.2.-.4.
00a8: 2E 00 64 00 62 00 ..d.b.

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garyan2

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#151

Post by garyan2 » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:27 pm

dopdahl wrote: Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:49 pm So, it's interesting... No failures where the Database was obliterated since August 31st...

Today, it happened again. No long running task this time... Everything executed fine in about 2.5 minutes and was watching tv this morning...

Then, according to the trace log, for the very first time since August 31st, this executed:

[10/20/2020 12:13:06 PM] [ INFO] **** Intercepted "mcupdate.exe -uf -nogc" call. Ignored. ****

And Boom. It was gone when I first fired up the tv at about 1:30PM. Recovered fine when I set the EPGInstance down a notch.

Clearly though, WMC is having trouble on my system with this intercept. I'm pretty positive at this point that this causes the condition. What are my options? Any idea why WMC didn't attempt to execute the update for almost 2 months?

Thanks!
I could go ahead and pass this through to mcupdate. The occurrence of the call is fairly random and my observations is that if it does happen, it is when you open WMC. There is also a 20 minute cool-down period between calls. I do know it will make that call if it detects there is no guide listings, but don't know what triggers it otherwise. I'm thinking this may be a symptom but not the cause.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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dopdahl

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#152

Post by dopdahl » Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:32 pm

Interesting. I have nothing else in the Event viewer for wmc before this occurs... hmmm...

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#153

Post by dopdahl » Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:38 pm

Yeah, an "MCUpdate" client maintainence was started at 3:41 AM and ended successfully at 4:30AM... but I was watching TV at that time. Everything was fine... Guide worked.

I have no indication in the event viewer that anything else happened before the mcstore entry. Weird. There were a couple of recording that occurred. But they were fine.

Meh.

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#154

Post by dopdahl » Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:41 pm

Are you aware of a specific exit code returned by mcupdate.exe? Perhaps when you consume it, WMC is looking for a result code from the task execution that it's not getting?

Just a guess.

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#155

Post by dopdahl » Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:42 pm

It's too much of a coincidence that I've had no issues since mcupdate last executed. Of course, it could be a cart before the horse issue as you've pointed out. But why? Hmmm...

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#156

Post by garyan2 » Tue Oct 20, 2020 10:03 pm

That's the thing. mcupdate did not run at that time, the epg123client intercepted the call and prevented it from executing. IT Troll has had some bad luck concerning the garbage cleanup as well and it looks like yours is similar/same.

So the progression, I think, is this...
1. Garbage cleanup run.
2. Something done during garbage cleanup may introduce an error
3. Upon opening WMC, it determines the database is bad and performs a recovery
4. Once recovery is done, guide is empty and WMC calls "mcupdate -uf -nogc" or "mcupdate -u -nogc"

Since I have no idea what in the database check by WMC when it opens is failing, I don't know where to look. I'll see if I can disable the recovery since as you have shown, you can just go back to the previous database and everything works fine. Now that would be interesting.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#157

Post by dopdahl » Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:56 pm

Some additional info and a question...

I have not had a corrupted database since I disabled WMC Optimization from within Tasks.

I happened to have that optimization scheduled for the exact same time as my EPG123 nightly task. I think this was causing the issue all along.

So the question is: What does the WMC optimization actually do? And do I need to re-enable it with a different start time?

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#158

Post by garyan2 » Wed Nov 18, 2020 12:17 am

I think optimization does some low-level SQL functions. The big thing is it notes that when optimization runs, you will not be able to use WMC or extenders so it locks down the database to do its thing. Trying to import an MXF file at that time would probably have consequences.

Like I've said before, I don't trust the optimization feature and don't use it. If I ever understand what it does, I may change my mind but when I have used it, I've not seen any "better" performance from WMC so don't think it is really necessary. That is also probably why this option is by default disabled.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#159

Post by dopdahl » Wed Dec 02, 2020 2:43 pm

Yeah, so I left WMC Optimization on to see... within a few days... Corrupted database.

That appears to be the issue at least on my system.

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