Setting A Button On Your Remote To Restart mythfrontend

If you are using a remote control for your mythtv setup via lirc, you may find this helpful. From the main screen of mythfrontend, it is possible to exit the application, leaving you at the main window in X11/xorg. So, how do you restart it? I had found that basically I had to restart X (gdm, kdm, et al.) since I do not have a keyboard or mouse attached to the machine. By running irexec, you can use one of the remote buttons to restart mythfrontend.

First, create the following script, which could be in your home directory, e.g. /home/mythtv/runmyth:

#!/bin/sh
RUNNING=0;

for x in `ps -C mythfrontend | grep -v PID` end; do
    test $x != 'mythfrontend' && continue
    RUNNING=1;
done

if [ $RUNNING = 1 ]; then
    `mythtvosd --bcastaddr="127.0.0.1" \
        --template='alert' \
        --alert_text="MythFrontend is already running" > /dev/null 2>&1 &`
else
    `mythfrontend &`
fi

Make the script executable, e.g. chmod 700 ~/runmyth. Next, add the following to your ~/.mythtv/lircrc:

begin
prog = irexec
button = GO
config = ~/runmyth &
end

In my case, I used the GO button on my Hauppauge remote. Note that the script is setup to not allow multiple starts of mythfrontend. It should send a message to the OSD in the event that you hit the GO button while mythfrontend is still running.

For good measure, this is how I run mythfrontend in my X startup. For me, the file is ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/autostart:

irexec &
~/runmyth &