[mythtv] frontend hangs, X is locked, cpu usage skyrockets - any ideas?

[Jason]

How much room do you have left on your root partition?

Ramzy Darwish wrote:

> Hello, I tried asking this question on mythtv-users, but got no 
> response.  I hope  I am providing enough information for someone on 
> this list to help me with this problem.
>
> I have scoured the archives looking for an answer to my problem. 
> Somehow, I have totally screwed up my installation of mythfrontend. 
> The backend seems to be working just fine, but somehow, I mucked 
> things up and my frontend won't start correctly.
> My recordings are coming in (as checked through mythweb) and I can set 
> things up using mythfrontend through a VNC connection.
>
> I just upgraded my video card drivers and they seem to be happy with X 
> all alone. But if I start mythfrontend, the "Prescaling images" 
> dialogs appear, progress and disappear, but then the frontend just 
> hangs there.
>
> And if I check top, my cpu usage is at like 97/98% with X gobbling all 
> of it. I can't kill mythfrontend and the only thing that seems to work 
> is to kill X manually and forcefully. I can't use the mouse or 
> keyboard within X and I can't get to a command-line. If I have an ssh 
> session open to the machine though, I can do stuff no problem. So the 
> machine is not dying, just something about the interaction of X and 
> mythfrontend. I did just upgrade to .18.1 and everything was going fine.
>
> THe only change I have made is my video card drivers. I did try to 
> reinstall the old ones and uninstall the new ones etc., but this made 
> both the NVIDIA installer and emerge (gentoo) angry and the only thing 
> I am now able to do successfully is install the newest driver from the 
> Nvidia installer.
>
> I don't really know what to look for. No errors show up in any logs 
> (i.e. system or mythbackend).
>
> If I run mythfrontend -v all | tee output, I get:
> 2005-05-26 23:26:10.595 New DB connection, total: 1
> Total desktop width=640, height=480, numscreens=1
> 2005-05-26 23:26:10.610 Using screen 0, 640x480 at 0,0
> 2005-05-26 23:26:10.620 mythfrontend version: 0.18.1.20050510-1 
> www.mythtv.org
> 2005-05-26 23:26:10.622 Enabled verbose msgs :all
> 2005-05-26 23:26:10.974 max_width: 640 max_height: 480
> 2005-05-26 23:26:11.136 Switching to square mode (Titivillus)
> 2005-05-26 23:26:11.477 /root/.mythtv/joystickmenurc not found.
> 2005-05-26 23:26:11.479 Joystick disabled.
> 2005-05-26 23:26:11.500 New DB connection, total: 2
> 2005-05-26 23:26:11.625 Registering Internal as a media playback plugin.
> 2005-05-26 23:26:11.661 Registering MythDVD DVD Media Handler as a 
> media handler
> 2005-05-26 23:26:11.665 Registering MythDVD VCD Media Handler as a 
> media handler
> 2005-05-26 23:26:12.286 Registering MythMusic Media Handler as a media 
> handler
> 2005-05-26 23:26:12.667 generating cache image for: 
> /usr/local/share/mythtv/them
> es/default/blank.png
> 2005-05-26 23:26:13.221 Starting media monitor.
>
>
> Now, I don't know if it necessarily means anything that the media 
> monitor message is the last because I can start and use mythfrontend 
> (somewhat) over a VNC connection. I can start mythfrontend and the 
> menu comes up just fine and I can move around and even watch 
> recordings (not actually watch, but they show up and I can play them).
>
> I did look into the media monitor problems some people had and tried 
> disabling "Monitor CD/DVD", but that did nothing.
>
> I don't know how I screwed it up this bad. I did try reinstalling myth 
> and mythplugins, but that didn't work.
>
> I really have been loving my system for over a year now and this has 
> been the first big problem since getting it set up initially.
>
> Please let me know what other info you need me to let you know. I did 
> compile mythtv with debug support, so I can send a stack trace if need 
> be, but since there is not a crash or anything, I wonder if that's 
> what is needed.
>
> Sorry if I'm not giving you much to go on, I really want to be helpful 
> to all you wonderful people who have helped me in the past. Be gentle ;)
>
> Some info on my system:
> OS: Gentoo
> CPU: Dual P3 1000Mhz
> RAM: 1GB DDR
> Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 4 440 MX
> Previous version of driver: 1.0-6111
> Current version of driver: 1.0-7174 (and they seem to be working)
> uname -a: Linux frontend1 2.6.10-gentoo-r6 #6 Sat Mar 26 17:18:25 CST 
> 2005 i686 Pentium III (Coppermine) GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
>
> I hope this is the type of info you need. I didn't change any config 
> files or anything when I upgraded drivers.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> ramzy
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