MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

1311219 · 2009-10-29 21:02:08

Latest versions of linux (2.6.31.6), mysql (5.1.41) and mythtv (0.22) seems not to have this problem any more.

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After what I think is a result of a package upgrade for about 2 weeks ago, mythtv has not been able to record analog video. I recently reinstalled the system (after the upgrade that caused the problem), so I can't really downgrade arbitrary packages to find the cause...

The frontend crashes (stdout: waits for file, lots of audio overflow warnings, waits...), and the backend starts producing a (corrupted...) recording file, and wont stop (not even by a "kill -9"). When trying to play the file again in frontend it just crashes again.

An interesting thing to point out is that dvb works fine, and I can get analog input in tvtime just fine, so it doens't seem to be a kernel/hardware problem, but rather an upgraded mythtv dependency. The tuner hardware is nothing odd, an "asus my cinema-p7131", with a "saa7133" chip detected by v4l (dvb is tda10046h if it matters).

I have tried the latest mythtv-svn from aur, and at first it seems to work. But then (after restoring my old database, and upgrading it), analog input only works as long as no dvb input is defined (sometimes the picture might actually flicker the first second, but then it all goes black). In contrary to the stable version, the frontend and backend doesn't crash, and the frontend can "play" the recording (but just produces a black picture).

This is really starting to drive me insane, so I decided to ask on the forum... So, has anyone else had similar problems?

(I'll post the frontend+backend logs ASAP, but they haven't been of any help so far)

Last edited by 1311219 (2009-11-23 17:23:36)

eldragon · 2009-10-30 03:24:15

ive had the same problem, havent found how to 'fix it' but managed to get something out of it..

downgrade your kernel to 2.6.30 and you will have mythtv back.
i THINK its related to audio recording, since tvtime works fine. it cant be either playback or the capture card.

during the weekend i'll compile a brand new kernel with no arch patches and see if that works. you could just downgrade from 2.6.31.5 to .4 and .3 and ...whichever package you got there in your pkg cache, and report back with the latest version that works for you... i know for certain 2.6.30 fixes it.

Last edited by eldragon (2009-10-30 03:25:14)

PirateJonno · 2009-10-30 10:21:20

I had this exact problem a few weeks ago. I also have an Asus P7131 and downgrading the kernel to 2.6.30 fixed it. None of the 2.6.31 revisions have worked for me. Video recording definitely worked using gstreamer so it seems either audio or tuning made it go weird. Look forward to hearing if anyone has fixed this on 2.6.31 as the new mythtv & nvidia drivers should be out soon. @1311219: I'll upload the relevant packages if you can't find them on any mirrors.

1311219 · 2009-10-30 17:55:16

Smashing!

Decided to give kernel26-lts a try (2.6.27), but it seems to cause more problems: no 3d acceleration on the intel chip, and frontend crashes when trying to play anything. BUT: it's possible to schedule recordings, and they are recorded (frontend can preview them) - success!

I'll try to download an older version (2.6.30) from some mirror, and see how it goes... I have no experience of syncing old packages, something tells me it'll be necessary to download the wanted packages manually, and then use "-U" to install them..?

(completely unrelated: using a beta bios which has a tendency of corrupting the cmos settings now and then... Booting the lts kernel triggered the bios to do something again... Need to do a manual cmos reset to get network back, but then I'll try downgrading kernel)

Update: Ok, so I just downloaded "kernel26-2.6.30.6-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz" upgraded to it, and everything seems to work! Would it be a good idea to downgrade "headers" "firmware" and "glib" as well (for compatibility with older kernel)?

Last edited by 1311219 (2009-10-30 18:35:08)

PirateJonno · 2009-10-31 02:39:44

I put the following in my pacman.conf:

IgnorePkg   = kernel26 kernel26-firmware kernel-headers module-init-tools nvidia

I think glibc should be ok (glib is definitely fine) but maybe check /var/log/pacman.log to see what packages got updated when you upgraded to 2.6.31 - those are the ones that may rely on the 2.6.31 ABI. The versions I have are:

kernel26-firmware: 2.6.30-1
kernel-headers: 2.6.30.5-1
module-init-tools: 3.10-1
nvidia: 185.18.36-1

Obviously you'll need to replace nvidia with the relevant intel driver (or is it included in the kernel? I don't know). The kernel ones should be pretty obvious but I think module-init-tools revision 2 is for 2.6.31 so I stuck with revision 1. Hopefully with ubuntu 9.10 out we will find out if this is an arch-specific problem or a regression in the kernel itself.

blob · 2009-11-02 16:51:31

I had the same problem. One site I googled suggested shutting down the backend, remove and re-add all capture devices using mythtv-setup and restart the backend.
It worked for me, and since you can leave the video sources intact and add them to the capture devices when you're done, this is not nearly as painfull and time consuming as it sounds

PirateJonno · 2009-11-03 00:01:32

thanks for the info. did you have a p7131? on my system the mythbackend process zombied out when i tried to kill it, although i think that was only after i'd tried recording so it must have hung or something

1311219 · 2009-11-03 10:34:47

I even removed the old database and made a new mythtv setup to see if it changed anything, but it didn't. But it's a good idea nonetheless. So far, downgrading kernel is the only solution (for me).

I tried downgrading kernel-headers, and it required me to downgrade glibc (forgot the "c" in last post ). It seems like a good idea to downgrade kernel-headers, but so far, everything seems to work (and if it works, don't fix it ). Hopefully next kernel version might solve things.

Kenni · 2009-11-09 08:28:29

My MythTV analog TV signal also stopped working ~3-4 weeks ago when I upgraded my backend. After scratching my head for a while, I noticed that the new kernel changed the names of the capture devices from, if I remember correctly, /dev/v4l/videoX to /dev/videoX

After editing the devices in the backend, everything is running fine. I'm on kernel 2.6.31.5-1 btw.

Perhaps some of you are having the same issue.

PirateJonno · 2009-11-09 08:42:09

Thanks for the idea Kenni, but I think that changed over before 2.6.30. My device is already set to /dev/video0 in MythTV, and my /dev/v4l/ just contains a by-path directory. I think this is only an issue for Asus P7131 cards, unless eldragon has a different one.

eldragon · 2009-11-09 11:54:59

PirateJonno wrote:

Thanks for the idea Kenni, but I think that changed over before 2.6.30. My device is already set to /dev/video0 in MythTV, and my /dev/v4l/ just contains a by-path directory. I think this is only an issue for Asus P7131 cards, unless eldragon has a different one.

mine is a pinnacle tv dc10+ or something like that, its a saa7134 chipset.

btw, under kernel 2.6.30 the path to the card is /dev/video0 already. anyway, mythtv 0.22 is about to be packaged, well see how this works out.

PirateJonno · 2009-11-11 12:10:48

looks like others are having similar issues:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … bug/458832
http://osdir.com/ml/linux-media/2009-10/msg00734.html

this also seems like it may be a tuning rather than audio issue. i might have some more time to look into this soon, and ill try 2.6.31.6 while im at it

Last edited by PirateJonno (2009-11-11 12:13:27)

eldragon · 2009-11-11 12:14:57

PirateJonno wrote:

looks like others are having similar issues:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … bug/458832
http://osdir.com/ml/linux-media/2009-10/msg00734.html
this also seems like it may be a tuning rather than audio issue. i might have some more time to look into this soon, and ill try 2.6.31.6 while im at it

the one related to tvtime is not the same as ours...i tested tvtime and it worked under 2.6.31

PirateJonno · 2009-11-11 12:21:07

really? so maybe mythtv isn't playing nicely with the new kernel then. I was thinking there was a regression in the kernel drivers... I guess the best fix then is to wait until 0.22 is packaged

eldragon · 2009-11-20 13:10:31

mythtv 0.22 is out, tested with newest kernel, and now it works ok

PirateJonno · 2009-11-20 13:12:25

oh ok, awesome! thanks I will possibly try tomorrow

Edit: uh oh they seem to have disabled VDPAU. Looks like I will have to build this myself :S. good to know it works though

Edit: just confirming that it does work on my setup as well. I must say that was one of the smoothest updates I've ever done despite updating kernel26, X.org and mythtv at the same time .

Last edited by PirateJonno (2009-11-21 02:16:36)

1311219 · 2009-11-22 17:45:36

Sounds really promising. Too bad I'm not able to upgrade the database when upgrading - I guess I'll try to solve the database and try it before adding a "[SOLVED]" to the title?

eldragon · 2009-11-22 20:29:53

you could edit the title to reflect mythtv version

to upgrade the database, stop mythbackend, and start mythtv-setup. that did it for me

1311219 · 2009-11-23 11:37:47

I already started a new thread about the problem, but seem to have found a solution. II haven't tried analog recording yet (just reconfigured dvb and acpi alarm wakeup), but I'll try it as soon as possible.

update: I'm having many problems with myth 0.22, like lirc not working (it works in mythwelcome but not in mythfrontend), mythfrontend crashing when exiting (no stdout message or anything), and sometimes dvb stops working. I also can't scan for analog channels (the scan button isn't active). I tried adding a channel manually, but mythfrontend seems to segfault when trying to go to analog livetv.

update2: Decided to manually add all analog channels. Now it seems possible to record both dvb and analog. Although analog livetv seems to often crash mythfrontend (at least that opens a way of closing mythfrontend without having to find a keyboard and type "killall mythfrontend" ), and I'm not completely sure how reliable the scheduled recordings are (sometimes recording doesn't work). But I think the original problem is solved...:)

Last edited by 1311219 (2009-11-23 17:20:48)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-29 21:02:08

MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#2 2009-10-30 03:24:15

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#3 2009-10-30 10:21:20

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#4 2009-10-30 17:55:16

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#5 2009-10-31 02:39:44

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#6 2009-11-02 16:51:31

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#7 2009-11-03 00:01:32

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#8 2009-11-03 10:34:47

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#9 2009-11-09 08:28:29

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#10 2009-11-09 08:42:09

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#11 2009-11-09 11:54:59

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#12 2009-11-11 12:10:48

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#13 2009-11-11 12:14:57

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#14 2009-11-11 12:21:07

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#15 2009-11-20 13:10:31

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#16 2009-11-20 13:12:25

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#17 2009-11-22 17:45:36

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#18 2009-11-22 20:29:53

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

#19 2009-11-23 11:37:47

Re: MythTV analog recording doesn't work anymore. [SOLVED]

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