[mythtv-users] Debugging mythfrontend video freeze

brian turbo at talstar.com
Wed Nov 28 23:30:04 UTC 2007


Scott D. Davilla wrote:
> I've asked this on mythtv-dev and got silence. So I figure I'll try here.

   I wish I had noticed it over there... I'd have commented earlier.  :)

   Anyway... I've been seeing this same (or eerily similar) problem on my mythtv system for some time, now.

   I have a combined BE/FE on Fedora core (5, if you're counting, but I doubt it makes a difference) on a 3.2GHz Celeron processor. 
  I've got a PVR-150, a PVR-500, and an HDHomeRun.  I rarely watch LiveTV, but I do experience "the freeze" most often while 
watching previously recorded television (and, largely, while also recording, commflagging, etc other shows).  I've also had it occur 
when there were no other tasks other than the playing video.  The last time it occurred, the BE was recording two shows, and the FE 
wasn't even running! (mythwelcome was...).  In all cases, something is so consuming the processes on the machine that you cannot get 
keyboard or mouse events into it, any existing ssh sessions are terminated/timed-out... and the only option is to hit the big red 
switch (and I thought I was done with that sort of thing when I put my MS OS on the shelf!).  The last two times it happened, my 
video card was toasted on the subsequent boot-up.  Well, at least the TV-Out portion of it was.  First victim was a Gigabyte FX5200, 
where I lost all video through the TV-Out.  The second victim, a scant 2 weeks later, was the replacement Asus FX6200, which will 
display video through the TV-Out until it gets into graphics mode, then the video-out ceases.  :/   And, as yet, I've not gotten a 
replacement card, so I'm watching (some of) my recordings via mythweb streaming -- it's alright, but it's not a 35" television.  :)

   Anyway -- this whole diatribe is just to let you know "You Are Not Alone".  I cannot offer any further direction or insight, as 
(so you've also noted) the logs (both BE and FE) don't really indicate much, if any, of a 'problem'.  I will offer that this very 
same hardware has been in its current configuration since November 2006, and I've only been having this problem since about 
June/July or so (and only toasting video cards for the past two weeks).  I'm currently running SVN 14884, but I've been running SVN 
and staying fairly current since mid-2005.  I will (obviously) be buying yet another video card, and would be happy to conduct any 
tests, etc that might help you correlate your "crashes" with my "crashes" and/or narrow down what's going on.  Feel free to write me 
directly, in those cases, as your return message in this group may well become lost...

  - Brian


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