I recently did an auto upgrade from R4V4 to R5A15.1, and I have one minor problem that I fixed, and one major problem that has stumped me.

When I upgraded, my pvr-250s changed device numbers..

before:
/dev/video0 is the s-video connection to digital cable box
/dev/video1 is the tuner connection to the analog cable
/dev/video2 is the s-video connection to FTA sat receiver

now:
/dev/video0 is the same
/dev/video1 is the FTA sat rcvr
/dev/video2 is the analog cable via tuner

Easy enough to fix after the restore of the db.. changed the default inputs on the cards in mythtv-setup, then changed the input connections to match the sources, and filled in the external change channel commands appropriately.

But..

When I go into livetv, I can change sources via 'Y', no problem.. but when I try to change channels on any of the three cards, from two different remote frontends, the video / audio stops. If I hit escape twice, I can get back to the myth menu, so the box isn't locked up.

While the video / audio is frozen, I can see the ringbuffer increasing in size, and when I hit escape twice, it gets deleted. (so I din't think it's a permissions issue with the livetv buffer).

If I go back to that source, I see that the channel actually did change. (both the external channel change command worked for source 1 & 2, and the tuner on source 3).

There's nothing out of the ordinary in either the frontend or backend logs.

Any ideas?

P.S. Noticed a segfault on two remote frontends with mythfrontend -v all or -v playback

Thanks,
-Ash

fyi, here's the FE/BE logs..

frontend log...

2005-05-10 21:44:04.866 Using protocol version 15
2005-05-10 21:44:04.904 Using protocol version 15
adding pes stream at pid 0x12c with type 2
adding pes stream at pid 0x12d with type 3
2005-05-10 21:44:07.138 Opening audio device '/dev/dsp'.
2005-05-10 21:44:07.138 Opening OSS audio device '/dev/dsp'.
Using XvMC version: 1.0
XvMC found and using VLD surface
2005-05-10 21:44:07.180 Using XV port 64
2005-05-10 21:44:07.638 Realtime priority would require SUID as root.
2005-05-10 21:44:07.647 Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV
2005-05-10 21:44:07.798 Video timing method: DRM
av_remove_stream 0x12d
2005-05-10 21:44:37.762 Changing from WatchingLiveTV to None
2005-05-10 21:44:37.767 Changing from None to None


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

backend log


2005-05-10 22:44:02.391 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2005-05-10 22:44:02.394 adding: mythgnomer as a client (events: 0)
2005-05-10 22:44:02.417 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2005-05-10 22:44:02.419 adding: mythgnomer as a client (events: 1)
2005-05-10 22:44:02.429 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2005-05-10 22:44:02.431 adding: mythgnomer as a client (events: 0)
2005-05-10 22:44:02.449 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2005-05-10 22:44:02.451 adding: mythgnomer as a client (events: 0)
2005-05-10 22:44:02.459 adding: mythgnomer as a remote ringbuffer
2005-05-10 22:44:02.470 Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV
2005-05-10 22:44:20.997 ret_pid(0) child(22713) status(0x0)
2005-05-10 22:44:22.003 ret_pid(0) child(22713) status(0x0)
2005-05-10 22:44:23.007 ret_pid(0) child(22713) status(0x0)
121
2005-05-10 22:44:23.617 ret_pid(-1) child(22713) status(0x0)
2005-05-10 22:44:23.619 External Tuning program exited with no error
2005-05-10 22:44:35.169 Changing from WatchingLiveTV to None

Try disabling XvMC.

Nope, didn't do a thing.. it's happenning on the third FE that I upgraded, too.

-Scott

I've tried re-running setup and answering 'yes' to both questions, and setting things up again.. didn't help.

*sigh*

Ya know I used to have this issue with .16 and my first install of .17

Oddly enough though I would only get it after power had went out or the box was cold booted. If I just did a warm reboot of the machine it would correct itself until next time it was shut fully down or power loss. Then a quick warm reboot again.

Never did find the reason and my newest install doesn't suffer from this problem.

well, I have info that I hope will cause an 'AHA!' moment for someone.. If I watch livetv from the backend itself, I can change channels without problem.

What's different about the frontend on the backend? it's a new FE, so it got the default FE settings, whereas the other FE's had settings upgraded via knoppmyth's backup / restore. So it's got the blue theme, unlike the othera that use G.A.N.T. It's the backend, so it also has local access to the ringbuffer.

What's next on troubleshooting? I guess I'll delete one of the frontends' settings from the settings table and let it set up the default, then if that doesn't work, maybe NFS mount the /cache/cache dir on the FE, see if that changes anything.

Any other ideas?

-Ash

I also deleted all the settings for one of my frontends from the settings table and grabbed the default.. no joy.

This is really frustrating. My wife gets back from the hospital in a couple of days and I know she's going to complain. heh.

-Ash

If you boot off the CD, can you use that as a frontend?

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

Tried running the FE from CD, no joy. Same behavior.

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

Well, as a last resort, I dropped the mythconverg database and recreated it from one of my frontends that waa also running R5A15.1, but this proved to be problematic as well.

I was able to drop mythconverg, and then recreate the base db via:

mysql -u root < /usr/share/mythtv/sql/mc.sql

then import the base db via an export from another machine

mysql -u root < /root/newdbdump.sql

Then I re-ran mythtv-setup and added each of the PVR-250's and sources one at a time, running mythfilldatabase betweem each one.

Even with just once source, and one card, the problem still persisted.

Additionally, when I was running mythfilldatabase for the third time, mysql locked up _hard_- I let it run for over an hour hoping it would finish, and it did creep along, but eventually it stopped (had to kill -9 the mysqld process). After that, the mythconverg was so corrupted that mysqlcheck -r mythconverg could not fix it.

A couple of drops / recreates / setup / mythfilldatabases later, and it happenned _again_. *sigh*

I ended up having to redo the box from scratch. After that, the original problem disappeared. I can't recommend this as a solution for this problem, unless you have no other choice.

-Ash