[mythtv-users] Have to start shows twice -- database problem???
Allen Edwards
allen.p.edwards at gmail.com
Wed Feb 27 17:18:21 UTC 2013
On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 7:12 AM, Allen Edwards <allen.p.edwards at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 1:43 AM, Michael Watson <
> michael at thewatsonfamily.id.au> wrote:
>
>> On 26/02/2013 12:42 PM, Allen Edwards wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Joseph Fry <joe at thefrys.com <mailto:
>>> joe at thefrys.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I see no reason to replace your hardware, unless there is a must
>>> have feature your lacking. If you have older hardware that works
>>> great, most likely it would only work better with a new os on it.
>>>
>>> If your performance concerns are all you want to address, and you
>>> want to see if faster hardware will make a difference here are the
>>> things I would look at first:
>>>
>>> 1: Add more RAM and increase the memory usage of mysql to make DB
>>> queries faster (may be able to do this without adding more ram?)
>>> Why? Because it's possible that your playback problems are the
>>> result of slow queries against the seek table.
>>> 2. Add an SSD as your system/DB drive
>>> Why? Again, faster DB queries could make playback start more
>>> quickly?
>>> 3. Add additional recording drives.
>>> Why? If you have more drives, you will decrease fragmentation
>>> because they system will not be writing as many streams to the
>>> same drive at the same time. Also, it may reduce seek times and
>>> general drive thrashing in situations where recording and playback
>>> are occurring simultaneously.
>>>
>>> One other thing that you might do, I know I intend to once I have
>>> a few bucks to spend, is use an SDD as your primary recording
>>> drive, and set a cron job to move recordings to a different drive
>>> (storage group) after a few days. The advantage here are:
>>> 1. SSD isn't as effected by fragmentation (no seek time)
>>> 2. Moving completed recordings to magnetic media prevents
>>> fragmentation compared to recording directly to it (filesystem can
>>> locate contiguous blocks before writing)
>>> 3. Magnetic drives can spin down because they will only be used
>>> when watching shows that weren't recorded recently
>>>
>>> You might try something like the above before resorting to major
>>> software or hardware upgrades.
>>>
>>> Good luck.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 3:16 PM, Allen Edwards
>>> <allen.p.edwards at gmail.com <mailto:allen.p.edwards at gmail.**com<allen.p.edwards at gmail.com>>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 10:18 AM, Mike Perkins
>>> <mikep at randomtraveller.org.uk
>>> <mailto:mikep at randomtraveller.**org.uk<mikep at randomtraveller.org.uk>>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 25/02/13 17:18, Allen Edwards wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> I was going to do the new drive update method. I even
>>> have the new 2T
>>> drive sitting right here next to me. Then I got
>>> thinking about all the
>>> upgrading I would need to do.
>>>
>>> 1) The Squeezebox server.
>>> 2) The VM Windows server running Windows XP under Linux
>>> 3) Fan speed control
>>> 4) CPU Power control
>>> 5) Custom myth menus to run Chrome and the fire off VM
>>> 6) Setting it up so the projector and the TV and the
>>> computer monitor all
>>> work
>>> 7) Getting sound to both the TV (stereo) and the
>>> Surround system (4.1)
>>> 8) Setting up the IR remote, which controls the TV,
>>> Projector, HiFi, room
>>> lights, and Myth
>>> 9) The things I forgot that I did
>>>
>>> Even getting Linux to boot on my MB was a huge pain.
>>> I think that took me
>>> about week. At one point I called ASUS and the advice
>>> I got was to buy an
>>> Intel MB (I have AMD). The solution was to mess with
>>> the order that things
>>> are done in the boot process. I wish I could remember
>>> what I did.
>>>
>>> To that I could add the things that are now easy,
>>> setting up Myth...
>>>
>>> The bottom line is that the system worked perfectly
>>> for several years so
>>> something changed and if I can just fix that, we will
>>> be happy.
>>>
>>> Things have moved on, as they say. I suspect that if you
>>> decide to upgrade your OS then you'll likely find that
>>> things you had to wrestle with back in the day just work
>>> 'right out of the box' now.
>>>
>>> My advice: don't upgrade. Take this as an opportunity to
>>> rethink your whole setup. After all, the last time you did
>>> this was 0.21, right? Look at new motherboards. You'll
>>> probably find a new one that will be cheaper and take half
>>> the power (or less) while giving you the same (or more)
>>> grunt.
>>>
>>> The newest versions of operating system will likely make
>>> your life easier as well. Case in point: Xorg, which now
>>> does much of the configuration by itself, meaning you
>>> don't need to (for most of us.. there's always one or two!).
>>>
>>> You shouldn't even need to set up your remote again,
>>> unless it *all* runs through your myth system. The new
>>> myth instance is all that should need to re-learn your IR
>>> commands, after all. Did I mention that Infra-Red handling
>>> is now different in the newer kernels?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Mike Perkins
>>>
>>>
>>> OK, Mike (and anyone else who wants to offer up an opinion)
>>>
>>> Say I follow your advice and replace rather than update. What
>>> HW should I buy? What CPU (Intel this time), what MB, what
>>> Graphics card (or built in?)
>>>
>>> Significant requirements:
>>>
>>> 1) As I have two audio sinks, I now have two spdif (analog
>>> connector) outputs. One goes to my Surround decoder which is
>>> 4.1. The other goes to a decoder and outputs stereo to the
>>> TV. Ideal would be a digital output to the surround box and
>>> analog outputs to the TV so I could get rid of the decoder.
>>> The second spdif output is wired to the second spidf port on
>>> the MB, the first one is standard MB output.
>>>
>>> 2) The Video goes to a TV which is 1080P capable but locked to
>>> 720p by XORG.conf so that I can easily switch the output to
>>> the projector which is native 720P (I have a DVI splitter that
>>> drives the TV and the projector). I can't do auto detect as
>>> the projector will report that it can take 1080p but then
>>> produces a vastly inferior picture. There is also a third
>>> display that is the main desktop. Ubuntu is on the secondary
>>> desktop so I can do administrative and system stuff from the
>>> second display. Myth is on either the TV or the Projector (or
>>> both) but it is duplicated by the splitter.
>>>
>>> I am always fearful that any new HW will break my video setup
>>> and refuse to play with the DVI splitter, or that I won't be
>>> able to lock it to 720p.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I really don't have performance complaints, just that the system no
>>> longer works correctly. Often when I start a show, myth will sit there for
>>> a minute or two with a blank screen, then come back to the menu where I can
>>> then select the show again and it plays instantly. Plus, a show I stopped
>>> in the middle will not resume. It will do the same thing, waiting a long
>>> time and come back with no longer showing the play from... option. It
>>> worked fine for many years but quit working correctly about a year ago.
>>>
>>> Allen
>>>
>>> You are complaining about performance.
>>
>> You are running a Windows XP under a VM, this can be very resource
>> intensive. This could be causing your problem.
>>
>> Many people have offered advice on how to rectify, (ignore the ones that
>> just say upgrade, upgrade). You need to work out what is causing the
>> problem. This can only be done by looking at the logs (mythtv and system
>> logs), looking at system load whilst the problem is happening,
>>
>> You have not stated the specs of your hardware, other than it is many
>> years old. How old is that??
>> Its very difficult for anybody to provide any real advice, without logs,
>> performance data, os version and specs. Everybody is merely guessing
>> whilst trying to offer advice.
>>
>> Regards
>> Michael
>>
>> The processor is an AMD Athlon 64 x2 5400 2.8GHz Dual Core 65/watt on an
> ASUS M3A MB. The video is a ASUS GeForce 6200 with 512M memory PCI Express
> X16. 2G memory and 1.2T HD split between two disks.
>
> I will post some log files next time it acts up.
>
> Allen
>
I have done some things and so far no problems with Myth having to double
start or losing its place. I thank everyone who offered suggestions as
this led to what I did. Hopefully this situation will hold but I wanted to
document what I did.
1) Removed years of recording rules for shows that are no longer on the air
as well as duplicate rules that were entered to change record daily
to record weekly and things like that. We have never done this. This
removed probably 75% of the rules. I did this from MythWeb
2) Removed all the movies we are never going to watch or have already
watched. We don't watch movies twice and periodically clean out the old
ones. This is an ongoing chore so we did it and probably removed 15% of
the movies.
3) Removed all the TV recordings we are never going to watch. This
probably removed 5% of the shows.
4) On MythWeb in the tools page under data base, did all the checks and
optimizations that are there.
I also checked the fragmentation level on the second disk drive. it was
37% fragmented but I did not defrag it. I did not check the main disk.
So, as I said so far so good. I hope this continues.
Allen
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