I don't know exactly why, but I wanted to point out some issue that cropped up with the latest release(s) of MythTV.

When installing, mythfilldatabase used to create the channel table automagically when running it. It seems that now, channels need to be manually entered in step 5 of "mythtv-setup". Alternatively, you can have an external script do it, but mythfilldatabase doesn't do it for you.

This causes a slew of error messages, and confusion across MythTV users, mostly because it used to happen with no user intervention. People who upgrade also don't have a problem, because the channels table was already there and just gets modified.

Thought I would post this. Any comments? I am not sure this is really what happens, but my deduction from available errors and the solution to fix them.

From memory:

I seem to have to run a second, manual, mythfilldatabase after running mythtv-setup.

After installing, rebooting, typing the root password, and running mythtv-setup the first time, it seems to launch a mythfilldatabase process, which seems to complete correctly. Then mythfrontend automatically runs, but there are no channels.

[I usually quit mythfrontend, then get an xterm, su, and shutdown -r now. Why? I do this because once after a fresh install, with no reboots after the initial setup, I reset the machine and my boot volume was corrupted and unusable (surprising!). So, for luck, I've been giving it at least one purposeful clean shutdown after the first HD boot before mucking about. Then reboot and wait and...]

Quit mythfrontend, start an xterm and run mythfilldatabase again, wait for it to complete, then run mythfrontend.

Suddenly I have channels.

*shrug*

Note that I am in the US, so my data source (zap2it) is different.

-brendan