I've been fighting trying to get a new slave frontend/backend set up for the last few days, and I just can't get it working ... I'm hoping maybe somebody here can help me out or tell me if what I'm trying to do won't work.

Here's what I want. I have two systems. One ("mythbox") is a frontend and the master backend (MBE). The other ("mythtwo") is going to be a frontend and a slave backend (SBE). They both have Hauppauge PVR-150 tuners. They both have ~200GB hard drives. They are both running R5F1. They are connected via 802.11g, which is working fine.

Here's what I have so far. I've enabled networking in both SQL servers (bind address = actual IP address), and granted external users access to the mythconverg.* databases on both machines. The MBE has its own IP address in both address fields in mythtv-setup (backend and master). The SBE has its own IP in the top field in mythtv-setup, and the MBE's address in the bottom (master server) one.

First problem happens when I try to configure the video inputs. When I configure the video input on the SBE, it only shows its OWN video input...it doesn't show the video input from the MBE. (My understanding is that I should be able to see the inputs from both backends.) It seems to configure fine, but I don't think this is right.

If I start up mythbackend manually on the SBE as root, everything seems to go okay; it displays a message that it's running as a slave backend, it connects to the MBE ... but then it says "Found 1 recorders". So it's definitely not seeing the video input on the SBE.

Another problem occurs when I fire up the frontend on the SBE: if I set it so that it's pointed to the SBE as a backend, it shows all the shows stored on the MBE, and even previews them, but if I try to play one, it just flashes to a black screen and then goes back to the menu. (As a test, I changed it to point to the MBE as the backend, so that the SBE was just being used as a slave frontend, and video plays fine. So the problem seems to be in the SBE somewhere.) Also, if I try to watch live television on the SBE, it gives a 'no available tuners' message (because the tuner on the MBE is in use), and never uses the tuner in the SBE.

I've been beating my head against this can can't seem to get it to do anything different. Can anyone suggest anything? I've tried to follow the SBE HOWTOs (just ignoring all the stuff they have about NFS and shared storage, that I don't want), and haven't had any luck.

Thanks in advance!

I'll try to help with some of this.
There are a couple of people out here that use disk space on more than one "BE" as storage, I don't so I cna't help you there.

You mentioned In the setup instructions for LinHES it has you disable mysql on the Slave units and only run it on the masterBE. I use that and it works fine, MySQL should be able to handle multiple locations for file storage with one Mythconverg running.

As far as Tuners visible in the MythTV-Setup you will only see the tuners on that box.
What I found helped in setting them up is having all tuners cleared, then setting the MBE tuner first, then each additional SBE tuner as I went to them.

Then the only location I can actually see I have more than one tuner is in the Backend Status on the Web interface or the System Status under information.

Regarding startup, once this is all configured, I have to start the MBE first (mine runs all the time) then each Slave backend once the MBE is up.

Your other indications you mention may be from having more than one SQL running and it trying to decide who is master????

You will need to have some form of Mount or shared storage on each machine so the other machines can see those files.

Good Luck.

_________________
KnoppMyth R5.5
MBE: AMD64 3400+, K8N Neo4 Plat., 1Gig, Asus Extreme N6200, 320G pata, 2x320Gsata, 750Gsata, PVR-150 Retail w/Blaster
SBE: AMD XP2000, GA 7ZMMH, 1 Gig, XFX 256M 6200, 20 Gig, PVR-150 Retail w/Blaster
SBE: AMD Dur1800, 512M, PVR500

I think that may have worked!

(What I did was kill the mysqld on the SBE and then go into myth-setup and make sure that it was pointed towards the MBE as the SQL server ... which I thought I had done before but this way I made sure I couldn't accidentally be connecting to the localhost.)

I was certain for a minute that it didn't, because the mythbackend process on the SBE kept throwing errors, but then I just rebooted everything and double-checked that ~mythtv/.mythtv/mysql.txt contained the right settings, and now it seems to be working...

I'm keeping my fingers crossed but at the moment, the System Status page shows two tuners, and programs stored on the MBE stream over the network to the SBE and play (albeit jerkily ... some sort of issue with the wireless, apparently).

Thanks!

Glad that worked for you.

You didn't mention the core of your hardware, although Knoppmyth works with most anything you throw at it.

On the wireless, if it is truly "G" it should be fast enough. Although, not sure of the age of the equipment.

My son used to watch video via a samba share off the MBE. He is wireless to me and recently he noticed a degradation in performance. Glitchy and bumpy. I am thinking I have a failing wireless router because all other methods work fine until i get to that side of that router.

Some things for you to check look around here for HDPARM settings and ensure you have turned on the DMA to that storage drive.

Otherwise see if you can Hardwire temporarily.