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 Post subject: R5.5 Hints
PostPosted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 12:50 pm 
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location: Arlington, MA
Don't Panic! :-P The Hitchhiker's Guide to KnoppMyth R5.5

This is a very long post which covers everything from pre through post install issues and fix ups. Do not let this frighten you off. It's long because I tried to write it at a "drunken monkey" level of detail, with the intent that you can cut & paste the example commands shown directly from this posting into a shell window on your KnoppMyth box. Please scroll down and look at the bold headings to get a feel for what it covers... If you're looking for something specific please use your browsers page search feature. Also, please read through the "Known Changes" and "Known Issues" sections, for various potential "gotchas" before you install or upgrade. They often point you to steps that you need to do to avoid problems.

These posts were originally an upgrade guide, and that is still the main focus, but most of the setup hints and the information under "Known Issues" and "Known Changes" still apply for a fresh install.

This is also intended to be a supplement to Cecil's Pamphlet and change list rather than a replacement. As a result it tends to skip issues they cover, so don't forget to review those before you start.

Finally, a note on the color coding and numbering used here, red is used for file system objects (files, directories, ...), green is used for commands and configuration, indigo is used for GUI menu paths, and text in blue is a link to another posting/thread or web page. Please follow these links where indicated. The outline numbering and hierarchy is also meaningful, if you are told to see Known Issues 2.3, you need to look at everything down to where 2.4 starts, and Known Issues 2.3.1 doesn't end until you see 2.3.2.

ALL THE COMMANDS SHOWN HERE MUST BE RUN AS ROOT! - See this wiki page for instructions on how to BecomeRoot.

Known Changes

The following are changes from R5F27 which may bite you on an upgrade, or which affect old documentation. For changes between R5F27 and older versions please see the R5F27 Hints thread.

    1) Install/Upgrade changes:

      1.1) Backup and Restore changes:

      Please see the updated "Taking advantage of the enhanced backup and restore scripts" posting for detailed information about the current version of the backup and restore scripts. The important changes are:

        1.1.1) Old style (pre-R5C7) backups are no longer supported. If you are upgrading from an older version you must follow the manual conversion process described below under Phase 0, step 1.

        1.1.2) There are certain things which should be removed from your custom /myth/backup/restore.list before upgrading. These can replace modern versions with out of date versions:
        Code:
        ./etc/webmin/miniserver.conf
        ./etc/lvm/lvm.conf

        Any files and directories which are in the standard restore list or restore blacklist (and anything under them) should also be removed from your personal list. See the "Taking advantage of ..." post listed above for details.

        Please note that the /myth/backup/backup.list and /myth/backup/restore.list files are optional and don't exist unless you created them. If you don't have them, you don't need to worry about this.

        1.1.3) There is now also a blacklist which keeps mythrestore from restoring certain files and directories which are known to cause problems. See the "Taking advantage of ..." post listed above for details.

        1.1.4) Restore leaves MythWelcome locked to keep it from shutting down the system in the middle of an upgrade or post upgrade setup. If you are using MythWelcome you must unlock it to allow automatic shutdown when the system is idle:
        Code:
        /usr/bin/mythshutdown --unlock

      1.2) The Tweaker:

      One of the major enhancements in R5.5 is the new "tweaker" automated configuration scripts. These scripts do some fairly clever hardware capability checking and configuration parameter tuning during installs or upgrades. This includes automated capture device setup, video and sound card setup, performance tuning, selecting a default playback profile, ...

        1.2.1) When upgrading Tweaker may change some of your old settings based on the detected hardware. These changes are intended to help you upgrade from R5F27 to R5.5 with minimal manual work and get the most out of your hardware, but may cause certain things to work a bit differently.

        1.2.2) For fresh installs Tweaker reserves the first 64 slots of many numerically-indexed tables so that we can tell whether something was configured by Tweaker or by the user. Among other things this applies to the capture card ids.

        1.2.3) The tweaker is also fairly aggressive about turning on OpenGL rendering options. This may be an issue if you're installing with a video card and monitor but intend to switch to a PVR-350 later, or if your card is misidentified. If you get blank menus, or the front end bombs out when you do anything, try turning off all of the OpenGL options. The tweaker makes this pretty easy:
        Code:
        twk_graphics.pl --implement low


        1.2.4) The developers are still looking for feedback on the appropriate default settings for certain tuner/capture hardware. Human has started a thread for this here: Tweaker Tuner Feedback Thread

        1.2.5) More feedback on good digital audio settings is also being sought. Some cards work better one way, some work better another, more data points are needed to determine the larger pattern. I have started a thread for this here: Tweaker Digital Audio Feedback Thread

    2) Kernel and driver changes:

      2.1) R5.5 uses kernel 2.6.23-chw-4 which is a much more recent version than the one used in R5F27.

      2.2) R5.5 uses version 1.2.0 of the ivtv driver.

      2.3) R5.5 uses version 1.0.16 of the ALSA drivers. If you are using AC3/DTS digital audio outputs, your mplayer configuration must include an explicit ALSA device reference to work correctly. This can be done either on the mplayer command line or in the -ao section of /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf file. The tweaker tries to take care of this automatically by editing mplayer.conf for you, but custom commands may need to be adjusted manually. This Gentoo wiki entry for mplayer and ALSA with digital sound contains the details: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dolby_Digital_and_DTS The following example mplayer commands may also be useful:
      Code:
      mplayer -ac hwac3,hwdts, -ao alsa:device=plughw=0.1

      mplayer -ac hwac3,hwdts, -ao alsa:device=spdif

      Also see this thread for some more SPDIF setup hints. MythMusic spdif not working (SOLVED!)

      2.4) R5.5 includes updated Nvidia video drivers for the current and legacy support branches. These are, current version - 173.14.09, legacy versions - 96.43.05 and 71.86.04.

      2.5) R5.5 includes updated video drivers for the Intel chipsets which include support for XvMC with the 810 and 815 chipsets. To use it you will need to manually configure MythTV to use XvMC in the playback settings screens and configure /etc/X11/XvMCConfig to point to the /usr/lib/libIntelXvMC.so.1 library.

      2.6) Since the stock 2.6.23 kernel didn't include the latest Intel and Realtek (8169) NIC module, Cecil removed the stale versions and provided the current ones as loadable modules. Unfortunately this means that you can't use a motherboard or NIC with these chipsets as a diskless frontend.

    3) MythTV changes:

    R5.5 is using the MythTV 0.21-fixes branch current through change set #17686. Please see the MythTV release notes for versions 0.21 and 0.21.1 for changes since the MythTV 0.20.2 version used in R5F27. Some things to be especially aware of:

      3.1) Playback profiles consist of a set of rules to select the appropriate decoder (ffmpeg, XvMC, ...) for various capture formats. It's a great idea but the standard profiles often only work for certain things. You can find this in the menus at: Main menu -> Utilities/Setup -> Setup -> TV Settings -> Playback -> Screen 3/9

      See this page on the MythTV wiki for the details of setting up your own custom profile: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Playback_profiles

      3.2) MythWeather setup has changed radically. The new stuff requires that you search for appropriate locations near you and what works for one thing (current conditions) often doesn't work for another (radar maps). Zipcodes/postal codes generally don't work. It's painful but in the US at least, a bit of simple research will provide the information needed:

        - For current condtions, 18 hour, 3 day and 6 day forecasts, look up your local airport code(s) here - http://www.airnav.com/airports/. (This is a good piece of general knowledge to have for any number of reasons.) For example in the Boston area KBOS (Logan Airport) and KBED (Hanscom Field) are obvious choices. Once you know that, you can use it to search.

        - For severe weather alerts the NWS generally does them by county. (Another piece of good general knowledge to have.) Here in the Boston west 'burbs it's "Middlesex" with "Essex", "Suffolk", and "Norfolk" adjacent. Look up your county along with the nearest adjacent counties and use those to search.

        - For the radar maps what's available is by major region. Northeast, North Central, Northwest, Southeast, South, Southwest, South Central, East Central, Central, West Central, so use one of these to search.

      Also, for the MythWeather web interface, nothing may show up until you visit the http://YOUR-HOST-OR-IP/mythweb/settings/weather page which initializes the cache.

    4) Other application changes:

      4.1) The screensaver - There is a new option during phase 2 install/upgrade setup to enable a screensaver. If you accept this you may find the screen going blank at inconvenient moments during normal operations, such as when listening to music (??? Does anybody know if this happens when watching TV?).

      4.2) The xvnc application is commented out by default after an install. To enable it you need to remove the leading '#' from the appropriate startup line in /home/mythtv/.fluxbox/apps and follow the directions on the wiki for setting the passwords and the like: http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=x11vncHowTo

      4.3) ACPI wake up changes - Please see this wiki page for details on setting this up - http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=MythWelcome

      4.4) Media Center (MCE) remote control setup has changed enormously. See the Media_Center_Edition_Remote_Control wiki page for details.

Known Issues

The following is a list of known issues which are either beyond the KnoppMyth developers control, could not be resolved before the release, or minor and cosmetic issues with low ROI.

    1) Install/Upgrade issues:

      1.1) On some systems the CD may not eject automatically before rebooting at the end of the phase 1 installation. If this happens on your hardware just press the eject button on the drive yourself.

      1.2) There is still a known false alarm with the restore scripts sanity checking when directories have been moved and replaced with symlinks. See this thread for more details. http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15246 The most common cause I've seen is the MythPhone symlink in the /home/mythtv/.mythtv directory.

      1.3) The tweaker tries to automatically identify and configure tuners during an install, however, it may occasionally misidentify the capture device due to overlapping patterns in the twk_tuners.pl script. If your card is misidentified please report it along with the lspci -vv and lspci -mn output for that device. Please DO NOT just post the complete output of lspci. Human has started a thread for this here: Tweaker Tuner Feedback Thread

    2) Kernel and driver issues:

      2.1) IVTV Driver issues:

        2.1.1) There is still a known IVTV driver issue with PVR-150 and PVR-500 cards glitching (tearing, pixellation) when using the old MythTV default 480x480 recording profiles and VBI encoding. The IVTV developers have stated that they will not be fixing this and that you should be using a native resolution profile, either 720x480 for NTSC or 720x576 for PAL. If you have either of these cards in your system changing your recording profiles to use a native capture resolution and/or turning off VBI is strongly recommended.

        When you change the capture resolution, don't forget to adjust your recording bit rates to match or image quality may suffer. I generally adjust the average/max bit rates to 6000/8000. For more details, see the postings by ethernut in this thread - http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13097.

        You can find these settings under Main menu -> Utilities/Setup -> Setup -> TV Settings -> Recording Profiles -> MPEG-2 Encoders. Don't forget to change all of the profiles, including Default and Live TV.

        2.1.2) If you are using the PVR-350 ivtvfb driver as your primary display, the framebuffer it uses may shift on your next reboot. Run cat /proc/fb to find our which it ends up on and modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf accordingly. We hope to resolve this in a future release or patch.

        2.1.3) If you are using the PVR-350 ivtvfb driver and the X server does not starting up on the first boot off the hard disk and you get INIT: Id "c7" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes errors, PLEASE check your logfiles before posting. (??? We still need simple step by step instructions here, anyone want to take a shot at it?)

        2.1.4) If you are using the PVR-350 TV Out for playback, You may also need to manually enable the PVR350OutputEnable value in the settings table. This can be done from the MythTV settings menus at Main menu -> Utilities/Setup -> Setup -> TV Settings -> Playback -> Screen 9/9 or directly in the DB.
        Code:
        mysql mythconverg -e "update settings set data = '1' where value = 'PVR350OutputEnable'"

      2.2) DVB Driver issues:

      PCI and PCI Express ATSC HD capture cards don't scan channels 79-83. This is a bug in the DVB drivers. According to the MythTV developers this is a non-issue for the US because no stations are allocated at those frequencies.

      2.3) Nvidia driver issues:

        2.3.1) If the X server does not starting up on the first boot off the hard disk and you get INIT: Id "c7" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes errors, PLEASE check your logfiles before posting. (This should now be very rare.)

        The most likely cause is a configuration problem from a restored /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. The /var/log/Xorg.0.log log file should provide the clues you need to fix it (or get help fixing it).

        Another possible cause is an Nvidia video card or IGP chipset which is either very new or misidentified for some reason, and thus can't be matched with the correct driver version. This should now be very rare. If you do have a problem you can use the install-nvidia-debian.sh script to force the installation of the appropriate Nvidia driver for your card, either one of the three provided on the CD (173.14.09, 96.43.05, 71.86.04), or a version it can download from Nvidia's Unix drivers website. E.g. for newer cards try the current version:
        Code:
        install-nvidia-debian.sh 173.14.09 -force

        We've had at least one reported problem with a 6200TC card and 173.14.09 where downgrading to 169.12 helped:
        Code:
        install-nvidia-debian.sh 169.12 -force

        For older cards especially MX4 or MX2 family which aren't correctly identified:
        Code:
        install-nvidia-debian.sh 96.43.05 -force

        or:
        Code:
        install-nvidia-debian.sh 71.86.04 -force

        Please note, the scripts should auto detect and install the correct driver version for most cards, even old ones. You only need to do this if your card is not correctly recognized for some reason (manufacturers do some pretty silly/shady stuff). Search the forums or the wiki for more detailed instructions.

        The c7 errors can also occur if your BIOS is mis-configured. For example, your card is AGP 4x and BIOS is configured for 8x, or you have not allocated enough RAM in the BIOS for an IGP or TC chipset.

        2.3.2) The Nvidia drivers have a memory leak associated with the way it calls usleep and gettimeofday when SyncToVBlank is used. Here's a report with details from their forums: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=112228

        Since SyncToVBlank is necessary for artifact free TV playback on my system I've been restarting the X server every few days to keep this in check...

        2.3.3) There is a CPU hogging potential issue with the Nvidia drivers during video playback. If you suddenly find the X server using all the free CPU time the tuning information on the following page may be relevant even if you are not using XvMC. http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/XvMC The following threads may also be helpful - "Xorg going to 100% with myth programs" and "*Solved* XVMC Issue".

        Tweaker and the restore fixups try to make appropriate settings to prevent this, but it may reoccur based on user customizations.

        If you experience tearing or glitching on HD displays you may need to experiment with re-enabling the various SyncToVBlank options. You can find these in the MythTV setup screens at: Main menu -> Utilities/Setup -> Setup -> TV Settings -> Playback -> Screen 1/9 and in the nvidia-settings utility at (this may vary based on your card and driver version): X Screen 0 -> X Server XVideo Settings -> Video Texture Adaptor and also X Screen 0 -> OpenGL Settings

        2.3.4) Trying to use OpenGL rendering with certain older Nvidia video chips (NV34 or earlier?) can cause the Front End to display blank menus and bomb out, or even hang your system. Again, Tweaker tries to make the correct settings, but user overrides and incomplete information may thwart it's best efforts. If you see this, please report the lspci -v | grep VGA output for the card. The Tweaker section under Known Changes has directions for turning it off.

      2.4 ) Alsa driver issues:

        2.4.1) The MythTV front end had some volume control issues with the snd_hda_intel module. There was also a tendency to loud pops and clicks. This should be fixed now.

        2.4.2) Users of the Chaintech AV-710 sound card may experience dropouts or stuttering of music played with MythMusic. Neither mplayer nor MythTV's internal video player seem to be affected. As a result Human recommends, "People with Dragon 2.0 systems (or motherboards with the same audio chipset) are encouraged to remove the AV-710 and switch to onboard digital audio, which now works flawlessly."

      2.5) Udev related issues:

      Due to the way udev dynamically makes device assignments, certain hardware can have their device names or numbers shift versus older releases or, in extreme cases, even from boot to boot. Steps have been taken to stabilize the assignments for most common hardware, but if you're having strange problems with your capture cards double check the dmesg logs and mythtv-setup to make sure that the detected and expected card types match.

    3) MythTV issues:

    There are a number of upstream bugs with the MythTV application which are beyond our control.

      3.1) On rare occasions doing a channel scan with certain HDTV capture devices (HDHomeRun, pcHD-2000 and pcHD-3000, ...) can cause mythtv-setup to lockup or crash.

      3.2) Various theme glitches where they haven't caught up with UI changes between 0.20 and 0.21.

      3.3) Using the 'Y' key command to change tuners while watching live TV generally does not work. You can use the OSD menu option to "Switch Input" as a work around.

      3.4) There is some instability with the HDTV signal strength meter, which may cause the front end to hang when it's used.

      3.5) There is a race condition with LCDd. When starting mythfrontend about 50% of the time the LCD works as expected, the other 50% it shows a "LCDproc Server Clients: 1 Servers: 7" screen, and doesn't switch back. Killing mythlcdserver and waiting ~10 seconds for it to be restarted usually clears the problem. See this thread from the MythTV Users mailing list for more details: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/330232

    4) Other application issues:

      4.1) RRD monitoring - With certain motherboards using mbmon to capture CPU/Mobo temperatures and fan speeds can cause recording/playback glitches. If you see recorded or live tv playback stuttering every five minutes check this. The rrd configuration dialog takes a conservative course and turns these off by default to prevent this, but it may reoccur based on user overrides. See this post for more things to try: http://knoppmyth.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=113895#113895

      There are also a couple places in the RRD scripts which you may need to edit to match your hardware. See the notes under Post Install Setup below for details.

      4.2) ACPI daemon not running, causing hangs on shutdown/halt. See the post by Cecil further down this thread.

      4.3) Log rotate not happening. See the post by alien further down this thread.

Hints for Upgrading or Installing

This information is intended to apply equally whether you're doing an "Auto Upgrade" or a manual upgrade. Much of it also applies you're doing a fresh install.

Please note, Auto Upgrade only works if you originally did an Auto Install. If you did a manual install you need to do a manual upgrade. The important distinction between auto and manual install here has to do almost entirely with your disk layout, and in particular if your root partition and swap are in the "expected" locations. Whether you've manually added new software or patches on top of that original install generally doesn't matter. On the other hand, if you had started with an auto install, done all the device name fixups required, and moved the disk to a different location on the IDE bus, auto upgrade wouldn't work. See this thread for more details about the expected disk layout - "Forgot whether I did Auto or Manual install". See the Pamphlet for details on doing a manual upgrade.

Also, upgrading from versions older than R5F27 is utterly untested. In theory it should work, but there may be any number of strange issues.

Phase 0 - Before you upgrade:

A lot of the information below depends on which version you're upgrading from. If you've forgotten which release you're currently running, you can find out using the following command:
Code:
cat /etc/KnoppMyth-version

For more on this topic see this post on "KnoppMyth version naming".

    1) Make a backup and verify that it worked following the directions below. The less time between when you make the backup and when you do the upgrade, the better. If the delay is more than a couple hours, you should redo the verification step to make sure that the backup is still current. You can't do a successful upgrade without a valid and up to date backup!

    For very old versions (R5B7 and before) please follow the directions at the bottom of the updated "Taking advantage of the enhanced backup and restore scripts" posting to manually convert your old style backup into a new style backup.

      1.1) As root, run the backup command. I strongly recommend doing this from the command line rather than through the menus. This will help you ensure that there aren't any undetected failures which will cause you grief later.
      Code:
      mythbackup


      1.2) Make sure that the backup worked! The scripts automatically check and report their results but you have to pay attention. If you miss it, need to repeat the check for other reasons, or there is an error in the backup, run the following command as root and report the messages it produces:
      Code:
      checkbackup


      1.3) Check that you don't have multiple compression formats for a given backup filename which will cause confusion later using the following commands:
      Code:
      ls -l /myth/backup/savedfiles.tar* /myth/backup/mythconverg.sql* |
       sed '/\.[0-9]*$/d'

      It's OK if the savedfiles.tar and mythconverg.sql compression (or lack thereof) are different, however, the files should both show the same current date. On my system it produces these healthy results:
      Code:
      root@black2:~# ls -l /myth/backup/savedfiles.tar* /myth/backup/mythconverg.sql* | sed '/\.[0-9]*$/d'
      -rw------- 1 root root 23355203 Jun  4 23:45 /myth/backup/mythconverg.sql.gz
      -rw------- 1 root root 24731079 Jun  4 23:45 /myth/backup/savedfiles.tar.gz

    Please see the updated "Taking advantage of the enhanced backup and restore scripts" posting for more information on using backup and restore. Also see the "Known Changes" section above for more things to beware of.

    2) Make a list of any add ons you've installed or extra configuration you've done while you've still got the old install to refer to.

    3) Make a note of your current hostname. This is very important, since changing the hostname can make various DB entries keyed by hostname useless. The following command will print your hostname:
    Code:
    hostname

Phase 1 - When you boot from the CD:

Remember not to boot with a USB stick/key/thumb drive in place, as it can cause a great deal of confusion.

    1) Pick the appropriate boot options. Remember case matters!

      1.1) Always use the "testcd" option in your boot command or use the "Check Media" option on the main menu, especially if this is first time you've used a given CD with a particular machine. If the validation fails do not continue the upgrade!

      1.2) If you are (or plan on) using a SDTV for output using the "tv" option for your boot command is strongly recommended. Otherwise the install defaults to a potentially unreadable 1280x1024 resolution. This is one of those "more is not always better" cases. ;-)

      1.3) If your motherboard has the Intel ICH8 chipset, add the "intelfix" option to enable support for this new chipset. The installer takes care of the rest. (??? Is this still true?)

    2) If you have multiple hard drives in your system the installer will display a menu so that you can pick the one to install/upgrade to. Move the cursor to the appropriate drive and hit the space bar to select it. Unless you see the check mark you haven't actually selected any drive and will get errors later.

    3) When prompted to create a user account do not use the name "mythtv". The mythtv user is already created automatically. Don't forget to make a note of that user name and the passwords you pick for that user and the administrator (root) accounts.

    4) Make sure you use the same hostname (machine name) when doing an upgrade! Look at the notes you made before the upgrade and enter that name when prompted. Using a different hostname will cause a number of nasty problems with various tables in the DB, particularly the settings table, which uses the hostname as one of its keys. Changing the hostname is a project beyond the scope of these hints.

    5) If the CD doesn't automatically eject at the end you'll need to manually hit the button on the drive.

Phase 2 - After the install from the CD and reboot

If you get a blank grey/black/blue/green screen or an INIT: Id "c7" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes error message at the end of the boot process please see Known Issues section 2.3 above and the BlackScreenAfterInstall wiki page for directions on troubleshooting and repairing your X configuration before continuing.

Phase 2a. Before entering the root password to start the setup dialogs:

To do any of these tasks you'll need to switch to an alternate virtual console using Ctrl-Alt-F1 and login there as root.

    1) If you're using LVM with the standard volume group name of "vg" use the recreate_lvm.sh script to restore it. Otherwise you'll need to edit the script to use the "right" volume group name for you system. This is a nondestructive operation and only gets the system to recognize what is already there. You can also create an lvm volume group during an install by using the create_lvm.sh script. Search the wiki for "LVM" for more details.

    2) If you have some other nonstandard disk arrangement you may need to correct your /etc/fstab and mount the updated partitions. Especially /myth! The restore will fail if it can't find the /myth/backup directory.

    3) Do any other fixups that you need to complete before the Phase 2b Setup Dialogs run.
When you have completed any tweaks, use Alt-F7 to switch back to the GUI desktop virtual console screen.

2b. Setup dialogs:

    1) For new installs make sure you get the timezone right. This is easy to screw up and will lead to really annoying problems with your program guide at the very least. If you botch this see the ProgramGuideIsOff page on the wiki. For upgrades this should be restored automatically..

    2) If there is an error in the restore, please check the logfile /var/log/restore.log and report the messages after the line that says "Sanity checking your restore..."

    3) Make a note of the passwords you pick.

    4) If the system hangs for more than 5-10 minutes at "Waiting for schema upgrade to complete............" hit Ctrl-C. This just means that it didn't see the expected messages in the log file for some reason. Also see: http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=18478

Phase 3 - Post install setup:

    1) IVTV driver (Hauppauge PVR and compatibles cards) configuration:

      1.1) If (and only if) you are upgrading from a version of KnoppMyth before R5E50, and you have a PVR card, you must drop all of your card definitions and recreate them. This is necessary because the version of the ivtv driver included in this release uses different input names and numbering to conform to the standard V4L2 interface, and the DB configuration contains stale references to the obsolete names. If you do not do this, you will see all sorts of bizarre and mysterious errors.

        1.1.1) Stop the backend using the Alt-2 hot key from the GUI.
        1.1.2) Run mythtv-setup using Alt-S from the GUI.
        1.1.3) Select "2. Capture cards" and clear all of your capture card settings by choosing the option to "(Delete all capture cards)" there.
        1.1.4) Still under "2. Capture cards" recreate the entries for all your cards using the "(New capture card)" option there.
        1.1.5) Back on the main mythtv-setup menu select "4. Input connections" and reestablish the correct mappings from capture card input to video source there.
        1.1.6) Exit mythtv-setup.
        1.1.7) Restart the backend using Alt-3 from the GUI

      The directions for GettingBackIntoMytTVsetup and the configuration walk through on the BlackScreenWatchingTV troubleshooting page on the wiki may also be helpful when redoing this configuration.

      1.2) If you are getting errors/warnings when you try to exit mythtv-setup along the lines of "Card 0 (type) is set to start on channel 2, which does not exist.", you may need to manually delete the offending rows in the cardinput table. These are generally rows with the cardid = 0. If the following commands show a cardid (especially 0) in the cardinput table which is not listed in the capturecard table you should remove all references to it:
      Code:
      root@black2:~# mysql mythconverg -e "select cardid, videodevice, defaultinput from capturecard"
      +--------+-------------+--------------+
      | cardid | videodevice | defaultinput |
      +--------+-------------+--------------+
      |      1 | /dev/video0 | Tuner 1      |
      |      2 | /dev/video1 | Tuner 1      |
      +--------+-------------+--------------+
      root@black2:~# mysql mythconverg -e "select cardid, sourceid, inputname from cardinput"
      +--------+----------+-----------+
      | cardid | sourceid | inputname |
      +--------+----------+-----------+
      |      1 |        1 | Tuner 1   |
      |      2 |        1 | Tuner 1   |
      +--------+----------+-----------+

      As far as I can tell, valid cardid and sourceid values now start from 1 rather than 0. To remove the offending records:
      Code:
      mysql mythconverg -e "delete from cardinput where cardid=0"


      1.3) Just to be on the safe side, shutdown and power off your machine (unplug it if necessary to make sure it's really off) for 1-2 minutes to make sure that the old firmware is cleared and the new firmware will be uploaded to the card.

    2) Redo any add ons or extra configuration that you noted earlier. (Check first to make sure that it hasn't already been added as a new standard feature.) For example:

      2.1) Restoring your NFS setup (If you have a .bz2 for your backup file rather than .gz use jxvf instead of zxvf in the tar command below.):
      Code:
      mv /etc/exports /etc/exports.orig
      cd /
      tar zxvf /myth/backup/savedfiles.tar.gz ./etc/exports
      /etc/init.d/nfs-common restart
      /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart
      update-rc.d nfs-common defaults
      update-rc.d nfs-kernel-server defaults


      2.2) Restoring your webmin setup. This assumes that your LAN is using the 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 private network IP range. If you are using a different range (e.g. 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0) correct the "allow" line below accordingly.
      Code:
      echo "allow=127.0.0.1 192.168.1.0" >>/etc/webmin/miniserv.conf
      /usr/share/webmin/changepass.pl /etc/webmin root YOURPASSWORDHERE
      /etc/init.d/webmin stop
      /etc/init.d/webmin start
      update-rc.d webmin defaults

      Note that webmin has one of those silly init scripts where restart doesn't work if it's not already running. :? You may also have to edit /etc/webmin/miniserv.conf to change the hostname.

      2.3) Restoring your lirc setup is now done automatically, however these directions may still be useful to recover any customizations you've made if an experiment goes wrong, so I'll leave them for now.

        2.3.1) Run the lirc-reconfig.sh script and choose the appropriate settings.

        2.3.2) Due to the udev and other changes, if you restore your old /etc/lirc/hardware.conf file you must remember to make sure that the DEVICE and MODULES settings are still correct.

        2.3.3) Restore your old files from the backup, make any device name corrections needed, and reboot. (If you have a .bz2 for your backup file rather than .gz use jxvf instead of zxvf in the tar command below.):
        Code:
        mv /etc/lirc/lircd.conf /etc/lirc/lircd.conf.orig
        mv /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc.orig
        cd /
        tar zxvf /myth/backup/savedfiles.tar.gz ./etc/lirc/lircd.conf ./home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc
        reboot


        2.3.4) This post contains details about tweaking your lirc configuration: Understanding LIRC configuration

        2.3.5) This post contains details about switching versions of the ATI Remote Wonder driver along with pros and cons of both: Using ATI Remote Wonder in R5.5

    3) Be very careful about doing apt-get install to add extra packages, as the /etc/apt/sources.list is pointing to the unstable repository. Do not attempt to do an apt-get upgrade or an apt-get dist-upgrade, this is virtually guaranteed to roach your system.

    When using apt-get:

      3.1) Don't ever use the -y option.

      3.2) Always review the list of packages it wants to add or remove.

      3.3) If in doubt say "no".

    4) Optimizing your DB. See this post for information about running the optimize_db.sh script which can help reduce your DB latency: A DB performance utility - optimize_db.sh The script is now part of the standard backup/restore utility suite.

    5) Setup APC UPS monitoring. If you have an APC UPS connected to your system with a USB monitoring cable, you can run the following command to enable the monitoring and safe shutdown daemon. This is necessary if you want to monitor it with the rrd tool. You should probably say "no" when it asks about upgrading the packages with apt-get:
    Code:
    /usr/local/bin/setup_apcupsd.sh

    See the following wiki page for more details: http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=SetupApcUpsD

    6) Tune the RRD scripts. Most of the configuration for the RRD scripts can be done in the /etc/rrd.config file. However there are some places where you may have to touch the scripts themselves.

      6.1) The /usr/local/bin/rrd_MBfan.pl script assumes a certain order on lines 36-38, but many mother boards use a different order. You may need to adjust the numbers accordingly.

      6.2) The /usr/local/bin/rrd_HDtemp.pl script currently only has provisions for 3 disks. You may want to edit the list of devices on line 8 to match your hard drives.


Final Words

As Cecil requested many moons ago:
cesman wrote:
Let's not turn this into my upgrade didn't work thread.

Please. The hints threads are supposed to be a central reference to solutions worked out elsewhere. This is so that people can actually find the information they need instead of wading through 12 pages of random and irrelevant postings. In pursuit of that goal, I will not answer questions in this thread which do not directly involved an update/correction/clarification/... for the hints posting, and ask that others do the same. On the other hand, if I've botched something above and you have a correction or clarification, don't be shy!

As always, before posting questions please search the forums and see the TroubleShooting pages on the wiki to make sure that it's not a greater or lesser FAQ.

Many thanks to the testers and all other the folks who've worked through the early installs and upgrades to provide the solutions listed here. ;-)

I still need feedback on:

1) Editing misses where something copied from the R5F27 Hints needs to be cleaned up.

2) Late breaking fixes or bugs.

3) Anything tagged with 3 question marks (???) needs details I don't have yet. If you do, please share!


Last edited by tjc on Mon May 25, 2009 12:14 pm, edited 15 times in total.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:14 am 
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I've found that phase 2a is a good place to do a few other things as well. Certainly they could be done in the alternate virtual console using Ctrl-Alt-F1. If you're there for other things, perform these operations while still there. Personally, I've done the things I've listed, by opening another Xterm Alt-X, typing su and the password to log in as root.

If you want to change the /myth partition to the xfs filesystem, this is a good time to do that. The backend isn't running yet, so we don't need to stop it. On a clean install there is almost nothing there, and therefore very quick. During an upgrade, you'll need to find someplace to to store a larger tar file, with all your previously recorded programs -- an external hard drive jumps to mind. (Change the /tmp below to the path for storing a larger backup)
Code:
tar cvvpPf /tmp/myth.tar /myth
umount /myth
mkfs.xfs -f /dev/hda3
mount /myth
cd /
tar xvf /tmp/myth.tar


My desktop LCD's resolution of 1680x1050 didn't get properly detected. The screen size got set, and theme screens got scaled to fit more common HDTV type resolutions. I ran
Code:
nvidia-settings
Set the screen size, applied it, and saved it to xorg.conf

** Ok - scratch that. That must have happened in one of the R5.5 release candidates. The proper size gets configured in the R5.5 final.

If you have a graphics card that is not supported out of the box (like something really old, or the latest cutting edge stuff), you probably got the INIT: Id "c7" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes error. Of course since X didn't start, you definitely need to go to the alternate virtual console using Ctrl-Alt-F1 and install the graphics driver. Depending on the driver setup software, you may also have to edit the xorg.conf file.


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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 3:28 pm 
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If you are getting the INIT: Id "c7 respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes error, either the graphics card isn't supported by the installed driver, as Chapmanl stated, or X may not be using the correct framebuffer for the 350 card.

The following worked for me.

Code:
cat /proc/fb | grep TV


The very first thing that will give you is the framebuffer for the TV-out on the 350 card. In my case, the first entry was a 0 (zero). Remember this number, we'll need it for later.

Edit the xorg.conf:
Code:
nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf


and look for the following section:

Code:
Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Hauppauge PVR 350 iTVC15 Framebuffer"
        Driver          "ivtv"

        ### change fb1 to whatever number you got in the previous section
        Option          "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
        Option          "VideoOverlay" "on"
        Option          "XVideo" "1"

        ### change the busid to whatever is reported by lspci. Note that
        ### output of lspci is hex, so add a preceding "0x" to the BusID
        BusID "PCI:2:7:0"

#       Screen          0
EndSection


Change the following line (contained in that section as follows:

Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb0"

I've highlighted in red what should be changed. That number should correspond to the number from the first step.

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/myth: 1.4 Tb using LVM


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PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 12:44 pm 
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Location: Salem, MA
tjc, once again thank you very much for putting this guide together. I'm sure it will be very useful when I get around to doing my upgrade.

One thing I thought I would like to do as part of the upgrade process was to move from using an LVM volume group to using storage groups.

Since this is the first version of KM to support storage groups (I think) would it be a bad idea to include instructions on how to setup and use storage groups as part of your guide?

Is there any reason to not move to storage groups? With the current LVM/volume group setup I am always afraid that one of my drives is going to fail and take my whole 1.1TB volume out of commission...

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 Post subject: Re: R5.5 Hints
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:06 pm 
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tjc wrote:
4) Other application changes:

[list]4.1) The screensaver - There is a new option during phase 2 install/upgrade setup to enable a screensaver. If you accept this you may find the screen going blank at inconvenient moments during normal operations, such as when listening to music (??? Does anybody know if this happens when watching TV?).


...is it xscreensaver or..?

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Last edited by graysky on Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:27 am, edited 2 times in total.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 6:31 pm 
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Location: Ann Arbor, MI
For simplicity, run /usr/local/bin/configure_xscreensaver.sh to turn it on or off, but yes, it's xscreensaver.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 6:55 pm 
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Posts: 9551
Location: Arlington, MA
kmkittre wrote:
Since this is the first version of KM to support storage groups (I think) would it be a bad idea to include instructions on how to setup and use storage groups as part of your guide?

Like changing your hostname that's way beyond the scope of what I want to try to cover in the guide. There are lots of things you can change if you want to and new features you could use, but this is supposed to be focused on how to get through an install or upgrade without tearing all of your hair out or having your (W/P/F/GF/RM/.*)AF crater like the congressional approval ratings.

On the hot list right now...
1) The backend going berserk due to DB connection problems after an upgrade.
2) The PVR-350 config funnies.
3) The HDTV and XvMC playback problems.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:53 pm 
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I'm with tjc on this one. A quick mention of the big changes or improvements to MythTV is appropriate (storage groups probably could have received a mention), but refer to the vast amount of documentation elsewhere (either in the Knoppmyth wiki, the MythTV wiki, or the proper MythTV documentation) for more information. The post is lengthy as it is; adding information that already is readily available elsewhere would be inappropriate and not the focus of the posting.

PS tjc - as always, great guide!


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 12:23 pm 
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once again, thank you for the great guide! i'm upgrading my mythtv today from R5F27. :)

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 2:30 pm 
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Slight boobery on my part...
Code:
update-rc.d acpid start 12 2 3 4 5 . stop 88 0 1 6 .
Do this as root and acpid will work. If your BIOS/motherboard supports it, when you press the power button, the system will work off appropriately.

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When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 4:38 pm 
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cesman wrote:
Slight boobery on my part...
Code:
update-rc.d acpid start 12 2 3 4 5 . stop 88 0 1 6 .
Do this as root and acpid will work. If your BIOS/motherboard supports it, when you press the power button, the system will work off appropriately.


Thank you! My machine now wakes up with Mythwelcome!

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:32 am 
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Posts: 700
Location: Germany
Logrotate seems to be partially broken. To fix it:
Code:
rm /etc/logrotate.d/hibernate-script
Maybe this is a candidate for the patches scripts?

More details: http://knoppmyth.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.p ... natescript

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:27 am 
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Posts: 1996
Location: /dev/null
tjc wrote:
4) Other application changes:

[list]4.1) The screensaver - There is a new option during phase 2 install/upgrade setup to enable a screensaver. If you accept this you may find the screen going blank at inconvenient moments during normal operations, such as when listening to music (??? Does anybody know if this happens when watching TV?).


Yeah, it was fine until I had to restore a backup I made after changing my painter from Qt to OpenGL. Upon exiting and reloading mythfrontend, my TV was blank. Anyway, I did the restore and found that mplayer wasn't talking to xscreensaver anymore!

See this thread for more details and the solution with reference.

For those who just wanna know the solution:
Add this line to your ~/.mplayer/config

Code:
heartbeat-cmd="xscreensaver-command -deactivate > /dev/null"

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Last edited by graysky on Sat Jul 26, 2008 1:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:38 am 
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Yeah, my bad. The correct original version of the command is:
Code:
heartbeat-cmd="/usr/bin/xscreensaver-command -deactivate > /dev/null"


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 1:21 pm 
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Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Thanks Cesman for the great release, and TJC for the great guide! (and of course everyone else who played a part). My upgrade from R5F27 using LVM was smooth. The one minor quirk I encountered was the never ending db schema update issue mentioned in the guide, and it was no problem at all.

Thanks guys!

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