[mythtv-users] Lengthy delay watching recordings

[Scott & Nicole Harris]

>I noticed that going to 0.25 about a month back that the delay to start
>playing an HD video had increased substantially and was curious as to
>what might be the cause.

>As I looked further, I realized that it is with all video, but HD
>content appears to be the most obvious offender.  It can take up to 31
>seconds from the moment the user selects the video to play before it
>actually starts playing.

>My backend system is well used, but from the graphs I have, it's not
>hurting with CPU or memory.  Network to the frontends are all hardwired
>(backend is gig, frontends are 100 meg).  From a utilization
>perspective, the drives on the backend server are always hovering at
>around 85% utilization, which is good, and the general I/O on the drives
>is not such that it would cause a negative impact.

>I am using commercial detection, so I do suspect that there is some form
>of buffering going on, but for 31 seconds?  No network errors on the
>switch or the interface for the frontend or the backend.    CPU
>utilization on the frontend is low.. basically idle.

>I'm just wondering if there is a particular place within MythTV to look
>(for example, I recently found that it was recommended that "quick
>tuning" should be enabled for the hdhomerun)..

>Thanks!
>-Rich

FWIW, ext4 / barriers discussion aside, my systems have started exhibiting 
the same behavior.  The last time this happened, it turned out to be the 
NVidia 295 drivers (some major segfault issue) and rolling back to 280.13 
fixed it right up.  At some point, NVidia fixed the isssues in the 295 
driver line, but I'm wondering if it's back (this latest round of "startup 
delays" seems to have timed almost perfectly with the 295.53 driver release 
from x-swat).  I haven't yet, but I intend on rolling back again to see if 
it resolves the issue.

Also, I have noticed that usually I have to restart the frontend with my 
remote button / script and then the same video usually loads right up. 
That, along with random, mysterious frontend crashes (like simply navigating 
menus) are almost identical symptoms of the last time NVidia drivers were 
killing me.