[mythtv-users] Best Practices: mythtv-setup after updates?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 04/28/2011 10:09 AM, Brian Long wrote:
> If I use pre-built mythtv packages for 0.24-fixes and the repository
> updates from 0.24-231-gc2baf1b to 0.24-238-g2a9d9f5, am I required to
> run mythtv-setup before running the new backend?  I seem to remember
> back in the 0.20 or 0.21 days it was recommended to always run
> mythtv-setup any time an upgrade was performed, but that was before
> the -fixes branches were created.  What's the best practice nowadays?

If you're going from a 0.24-fixes to 0.24-fixes version, there's 
generally no need to run mythtv-setup--in this case, there's none, since 
we only have a 0.24 release.

It's possible one day we may have a 0.24.1 release--in which case it's a 
good idea to run mythtv-setup after an upgrade on 0.24-fixes from a 0.24 
version to a 0.24.1 version, just in case.  And, as before, when going 
from a 0.24-fixes to 0.25-fixes version, you should run mythtv-setup.

If you don't run mythtv-setup, and if all goes well, you won't have any 
problems.  When you start mythbackend (technically, for 0.25+, when you 
start the master mythbackend), it will upgrade the database for you.  
However, if there's a DB schema upgrade failure, Bad Things could 
happen.  For example, if mythbackend is started in a non-interactive 
environment--i.e. such as when mythbackend is started by system start 
script (and, package scripts, if they start mythbackend?)--mythbackend 
will automatically attempt the DB upgrade.  If the DB upgrade fails, 
mythbackend will exit.  Many "persistent" system start scripts will 
often restart mythbackend when it stops--after which it will attempt to 
upgrade the database and fail, so it will shut down.  This may or may 
not be a problem--but until you stop the auto-restart of mythbackend, 
you won't really be able to get things fixed/working properly.

And, more importantly, by starting mythtv-setup and looking through it, 
you can see what new stuff you need to configure for the new version of 
MythTV (i.e. new Storage Groups to add, etc.).

Of course, "soon" (possibly before 0.25) mythtv-setup itself will go 
away, but until then...

Mike