Ack!! gbpvr.mdb deleted after running config!

[wtg]

I upgraded to the latest release a couple days ago, and it seemed to go flawlessly. I've been in and out of the config app a couple of times, rebooted the machine a few times, and in and out of gbpvr without event.

Then tonight, I watch a movie, check the weather and then decide I'm not real fond of the new screensaver since I usually leave gbpvr open to the weather page so I can flip to it real quick when I've got the TV on. I didn't want to have to find the pvr remote to clear the screensaver after switching my TV input over to gbpvr. So, I exit gbpvr, run config, disable the screensaver, turn off autoskip, and change my decoder (I saw a new decoder in the list - thought I'd test it). I exit config, the recording service says it's restarting, and then I try to launch gbpvr. Double click, no response after a 30 seconds or so, double click again, still nothing, so I check the log. Ack!! It says can't find gbpvr.mdb!! And sure enough, I check the directory, it's gone. *sigh*

Ok, besides my letting you know there's a particularly nasty bug lurking about, now what do I do? I have a backup of gbpvr.mdb and config.xml prior to the upgrade. Can I restore the files and reinstall the new release again, or will it recognize it's already installed and not do convert my restored gbpvr.mdb to the new release format? Do I need to uninstall, reinstall the prior release, restore my database and then upgrade?

And what about MyDatabase.mdb? I didn't back it up prior to upgrade and there have been updates to it since then. Does it have hard references to items in gbpvr.mdb that will be out-of-synch now once I restore, or does it operate completely independent?

Thanks in advance for you help.

*wearily wanders off to bed*
Tim

[stefan]

GBPVR usually makes a backup of the gbpvr.mdb automatically once in a while. At least it used to do that. Don't you have one of those in your gbpvr directory?

[dneprrider]

Yesterday I made some changes using config, then I had to reboot the machine for some reason can't remember. After rebooting when trying to load GBPVR the windows installer started up. I canceled it and when trying to load GBPVR again, the gbpvr.mdb had disappered.

Earlier I had exported my recordings file so I deleted the gbpvr folder and reinstalled from scratch. Imported the recordings file and repopulated the channel listing from zap2it.

GBPVR responds much faster now, maybe due to smaller sized mdb as compared to one that contains many months of entries, also not running many plugins as yet.

[airberger]

I've had this happen a few times. I've found that if I rename "old.mdb" to "gbpvr.mdb" gb-pvr will start right up and everything will be restored. Give it a shot.

[linfor]

I had the same problem after I had changed something in config. I got a ton of window talking about exceptions and .NET problems. When I restarted the config it did a fresh install and totally wiped me out. No backups of anything in sight.

[stefan]

Maybe we should all add something like

Code:

xcopy c:\program files\devnz\gbpvr\*.mdb d:\backupdir\*.* /y /s /i

to postprocessing.bat... perhaps config file, too...

[wtg]

I've had this happen a few times. I've found that if I rename "old.mdb" to "gbpvr.mdb" gb-pvr will start right up and everything will be restored. Give it a shot.

Thanks for the tip Airberger... that did the trick for me. I noticed the old.mdb file before but didn't notice how recent the time was on it. I renamed it and it worked fine. I do however wonder what was 'old' about it. I presume the gbpvr.mdb file that got deleted was the 'new' one, so what did I lose restoring the 'old' one?

Sub, can you shed some light on this? I'm thankful that the system made a backup for me but I'm curious if I've lost anything by losing it.

Thanks,
Tim

[airberger]

Glad it worked, Tim.

I don't know, when I restore "old.mdb" it's pretty damn new, it seems like all recent changes have been incorporated into it when I restart. It's almost as if "gbpvr.mdb" gets renamed "old.mdb" for some reason, then when you go to restart "gbpvr.mdb" isn't found and the app won't start.

It happens in three different ways for me:
1) on reboot a windows installer window pops up, which I kill immediately, then gbpvr won't start;
2a) after closing the config app, gbpvr simply won't start; or
2b) after closing the config app, I try to start gbpvr, I get a weird .NET error and gbpvr won't start.

But the "old.mdb" rename trick seems to work every time.

[sub]

When you click the OK button, the app runs JETCOMP.exe to compact the database then renames a couple of files. Sometimes JETCOMP is failing and the files are renamed without the new file being created. I've corrected this in the next release.

old.mdb was the current mdb file to running JETCOMP

[cheval]

Is this a workable workaround until the next release comes?

I made a copy of a simple program that does nothing (dtvcmd.exe from http://www.dtvcontrol.com [used to change channels on your directv box but if you not using that then it does nothing]). copy it to the gbpvr directory. Rename JETCOMP.exe to JETCOMPBACK.exe. Then rename dtcmd.exe to JETCOMP.exe.

Now when JETCOMP is run nothing happens .