[mythtv-users] Re: nuv file not found; slow recordings list

[Ben Bucksch]

Ben Bucksch wrote at 2003-05-18:

> I can't play an increasing number of recordings. When I select them 
> under Watch Recordings and hit Space, nothing happens. No output on 
> the console and no change in the UI and no console output on the 
> server, not even in verbose mode. After a long time (about 10 
> minutes), the frontend says e.g.
> Error: myth://192.168.1.2/9_20030516221500_20030517012500.nuv file not 
> found
> However, the file *is* there on the server in the usual recording dir. 
> I can play about half of the recordings, so it's not a general problem 
> either (misconfigured dir etc.). [...] I haven't seen a pattern which 
> recordings play and which don't.

And:

> I forgot that the backend consumes 99% CPU.
>
> I just tried with 0.8 (backend and frontend) and it's the same 
> problem. I tried (temporarily) purging the recordedmarkup column, in 
> case that's related, but that had no effect either.
>
> Some of the files which now don't play anymore did play before (but I 
> didn't watch them to the end).



Meanwhile, the "file not found" problem got worse to the point where no 
recording was found anymore, and I fixed that. IIRC by completely 
rebuilding from scratch, purging all old installed program files, 
reinstalling, all that on both client and server. I am now pretty sure 
that I am running the exact same version on both server and client.

However, the problem of playback not reacting for some files is still 
there. If I select a recording for playback on the remote frontend, the 
frontend freezes (no output on the console), the backend uses 95-99% 
CPU, for 5-15 minutes. After that, most files suddenly start to play 
(with the usual output on the frontend's console), and all seems fine. 
If I exit out of the playback via ESC, the frontend freezes, but I'm not 
sure, if that is true for all problematic files.

A seemingly random number of recordings will show the problem, 
reproducably, i.e. once a recording exhibits the problem, it always 
does, even if it previously started to play after the delay. I see the 
problem for old files (although I ran mythcommflag (without options) in 
the meantime) as well as completely new files which I never played 
before (e.g. Andromeda from yesterday). *All* episodes of Andromeda as 
well as some movies show the problem, but I don't remember seeing it 
with Star Trek (any series) or Stargate. A movie which previously didn't 
have the problem just started having it. I can't see any pattern in the 
recordings - it's not the channel or length. I thought the umlauts in 
the description might be the problem, but it doesn't seem to be the 
reason either, esp. given that the one movie suddenly starts to exhibit 
the bug.

When I wrote the first post about this, I could work around the problem 
by creating a simple, fake recording entry in the recorded table and 
manually symlinking the file to-be-played to the filename matching the 
fake entry, so it seems that it's not a corrected file either. Back 
then, I also tried to remove all relevant entries in recordedmarkup, but 
that didn't help either. It's over a month ago, though, so I'll retry 
these again next chance.

Any ideas what could be the cause and how I could frame the problem?

Ben