[mythtv-users] Firewire fleeting on SA3250HD

[Greg Woods]

On Tue, 2006-07-25 at 15:06 -0600, John P Poet wrote:

> The backend has the firewire configured as a capture device.  Each
> time we start the backend, the firewire communications seem to get
> confused, however.  Using various tools, it is possible to get the
> communications re-synchronized

There is the rub. The exact sequence of things needed to be done seem to
be different for just about everyone who has ever participated in a
firewire thread. I still cannot get anything but empty files off of the
firewire, no matter what I do. I have tried the proverbial "power
everything off, disconnect, and reboot" in various orders multiple times
as well, with no luck. I got it to work very briefly one time so that I
have some recorded snippets that look very good, and if I configure it
as a capture card, the channel changer works fine, but I can't get it to
record anything but empty files. I've got a Motorola box rather than an
SA box, but some people have reported success with the same box I have.
I think the Linux firewire driver is really not ready for prime time
yet. I think I will be basically screwed until a driver with significant
improvements or fixes comes out. Depending on what kind of motherboard
you have, it works or it won't work and I don't think there is a heck of
a lot I can do more than I've already tried.

Firewire-but-not-Myth related, I have a backup firewire hard drive that
I use on another system, and it works the first time I plug it in, but
if I ever unplug it, I can't get it to work again without a reboot. I
get errors about "rejecting I/O to offline device", like it doesn't
really see that it's been reconnected (or that it was ever
disconnected). More evidence that the firewire driver still needs some
work.

--Greg