I am having issues with Live TV randomly freezing, without any error messages in the log file.

I can still get out of X11 using "CTRL ALT F1", but in order to get the tv wokring again, I have to completely restart the system. I am running on a pretty low-end system and I suspect that maybe the problem:

Celeron 733
VIA ApolloPro 133 Chipset
768 MB RAM
ATI Rage128 Video Card
Haupauge PVR-250
80GB Hard Drive

I saw the note about VIA chipsets in the mythtv faq, but it doesnt mention this older chipset specifically. Does anyone else have a similar problem with the same chipset?

Hi.

Take a look at http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=127
It seems probably the same?!

steps

when you say nothing in the log file which log file are you talking about? /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log or /var/log/messages ?
If you haven't checked /var/log/messages I would look at that and see what happened when it crashed. I'm betting on the DMA bug with the ivtv drivers, but I could be wrong.

I checked both logs right after a freeze here are the last few lines:

mythbackend.log:


The crash happened at about 23:10 so there arent any log entries regarding that.

this is the /var/messages:




only log entry i can find at that approximate time was in /var/log/syslog:

I just added a 18G scsi drive to my mythtv box.

PIII - 650, GeForce2, PVR-250, 30G IDE, adaptec 2940UW (I think... box is at home).

I moved the live tv cache to the scsi drive and added LVM support. I now get this problem including the "-- MARK --" in the log. top say >25% free CPU. Prior to this the box was fine. I could move the cache back, but would rather solve the problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

-- Spike

Has anyone found a solution to the LiveTV freezing?
I am having similar problems myself, LiveTV will freeze after a random amount of time and I have to <ctrl>,<alt>,<F1> and stop/start the mythtv-backend.

After the mythtv-backend is restarted I can go back to the Mythtv interface and back out of the LiveTV and go back into it. It gives me a error that the Backend has gone missing and I just go to LiveTV again and its off and running again, until it crashes again.

I have tried changing the size of the liveTV cache (from 2 GB to 20 GB) and no change, still crashes at random moments (anywhere from 30min to 4 hours). I am still suspecting something with the cache though as if I change channels it seems to reset the crash timer, it will only go down if i have been watching the same channel for a while.

Any Ideas?


Spud

This may be a driver issue with ivtv. My boxen has froze but only about 3 times. I'll update to the latest ivtv in the next day or two(December is probably going to get a busy month for me so if it doesn't happened please be patient) and post instructions on doing so.

cesman

I think you are probably getting hit with the dma problem. I know I was using a kt133 chipset and dma bit me hard. lockups just like you are experiancing.

Oh and inreference to the --mark-- in the log files that is completely normal. Debian insterts that like every 20 min or so to let you know syslog is still working.

[quote="Xsecrets"]I think you are probably getting hit with the dma problem. I know I was using a kt133 chipset and dma bit me hard. lockups just like you are experiancing.
[/quote]

How can I avoid this "dma problem"?

-- Spike

well I switched to an nforce based motherboard. I've heard some kt400 boards have dma problems some don't, and all of the kt133/266 supposedly have them. I have heard the rare exception, but for the most part it's a no go. I don't know if there's been any improvements in the new drivers or not.

Everything in this stream is exactly the same things I've been experiencing. My chipset is KT266A. My lock ups always seem to occur after network traffic ie a time check or if I'm sftping a file over. The other aspect I need to check with my freeze up is one of my hard drives is a 5400 RPM drive, is it possible the drive is causing problems?

Ok After searching the Myth forums I found this thread, http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/ma ... gine#89924, which convinced me that I need to disable local APIC. I am using an nforce2 board and some boards are known to have problems.

Two options have been suggested but I don't know which is best for me.
1. recompile (I am new to linux and this option scares me)
2. Modify Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt in you kernel
source tree.

I believe option two is only available in kernel 2.4.22 and later.
What version of the kernel is included in the KnoppMyth distro?

Please advise.
BTW, I love my mythbox and have put time into getting the configuration to the point that I am happy. My goal is not to make my mythbox into a brick.

Thanks,
Mike G.

Well you misread the thread. they file from the kernel source was just to look at and find the disable options to put into lilo/grub, but those options do not exist for 2.4 kernels which is what knoppmyth runs, therefore the only way to diable local APIC is to recompile the kernel.

And just for the record knoppmyth v4 uses kernel 2.4.21

The boot option to disable local APIC is only available in kernel 2.6 which is still in development, and not released as a stable kernel yet.

Ok, I tried to recompile the kernel with APIC disable and I have a brick.

I did the following:
make dep
make clean
make bzImage

copied bzImage to boot directory and modified lilo.

next I did the following:
make modules
make modules_install

rebooted and ... brick.
if I boot the original configuration I hang @ after calculating module dependencies.

if I boot the new kernel I get a kernel panic.

Any advice before I reistall.
Thanks,
Mike G.

reinstalling