[mythtv-users] Problems starting backend

[Frank Feuerbacher]

I have been regularly applying updates to my Ubunto 12.10 system, 
including the latest development builds available via apt-get for Myth 
0.26. Almost a week ago things starting getting wonky.

The backend doesn't start when I reboot the system. It doesn't start 
when I run mythtv-setup nor when I start it from the command line using 
gksu (or whatever mythtv-setup uses). I can get it to run if I start it 
explicitly in the shell with /usr/bin/mythbackend. I think the problem 
is with the logging system, but I have not investigated too much yet.

Are there any suggestions on how to go about tracking this down? The 
backend logs aren't too exciting. I haven't yet looked much at the 
mythlog log. I did run strace while starting up mythbackend with gksu 
(?) and did not see anything exciting, but there is a lot of stuff to 
read. I think I'll next go after looking at the logger process to see if 
something pops up. I think what is slowing me down is that I don't yet 
understand how the normal startup process works. At first I thought it 
was an init.d  kind of thing that used the "start" command, but that is 
not quite it.

I should also mention that starting two days ago my Ubuntu box decided 
to start crashing after running a few hours. I strongly suspect a recent 
Ubuntu fix. The syslog doesn't indicate anything definite yet. It just 
shows a null pointer dereference in the kernel malloc code and some 
stuck threads. If I don't see a patch fix soon I'll have to start 
backing out recent changes. (That should be fun, I've never done it on 
Ubuntu before).

Probably the best lesson is for me to be more careful about applying all 
of these updates.

Thanks for any hints. You guys have been great!!!

Frank