[mythtv-users] So close I can taste it. Final issue before I get to leave you alone?

[Ray Olszewski]

At 12:32 AM 5/27/2003 -0700, tekchip wrote:
>Well being a pc technician A+ certified and all I have all the
>answers to your questions.

How nice for you. However, you did not actually answer questions 3, 5 (the 
part about kernel compiles), 6, and 8, and your answer to 10 makes me 
wonder if it is actually the problem.

But your response indicates a more fundamental misunderstanding of how 
MythTV works. Specifically, you write:

> > 8. For that matter, within MythTV, can you (a) record a show, then
> > (b)
> > watch it? Does the problem *only* occur when simultaneously
> > encoding and
> > decoding?
>
>I'm just trying to watch a show when the reboot takes place. I'm not
>even attempting to record.

Yes you are. Myth buffers "live TV" in order to provide TiVo-like 
pause-and-restart capability. If you missed this, then either you didn't 
read the docs as well as you're trying to imply you did, or they are a lot 
less clear than I remember them being.

  Watching "live TV" is about the most demanding thing a one-host (combined 
backend and frontend) MythTV system can be asked to do, and it is the most 
likely to unearth any hardware deficiencies. This is the exact activity 
that uses the buffer I ask about in question 10 (and that, from your 
response, *might* be your problem).

So please try what question 8 suggests and answer it.

Also try reducing the buffer size so it is not equal to, or possibly 
greater than (I didn't take the time to work through the arithmetic), the 
free space on your hard disk.

BTW, I skipped this last time as probably irrelevent to your problem, but 
this bit of your first message is something of a puzzle:

> > >Uppon running XAWTV I noticed that in order to get picture I had
> > to
> > >switch the input from Television(the coax connector I'm guessing?)
> > to
> > >Composit 1(standard yellow video connector). This did give me
> > proper
> > >video. I then went back and attempted to re-run myth's backend
> > setup
> > >and re-ran mythfilldb. This still had no effect on the issue. Is
> > >there something I may have missed


How is this system getting a TV signal? From this description, it reads 
like you have an external tuner (a satellite or digital-cable box) 
connected to the Composite1 input of the vidcap card. If this is so, how 
are you controlling channel (not input) selection? How do you change 
channels when testing with xawtv, for example? Is that method consistent 
with whatever you told Myth to do?

Everything below here is just a long repeat of prior messages, left intact 
so my opening comment means something.

>--- Ray Olszewski <ray at comarre.com> wrote:
> > 1. Why is the monitor switching resolutions? Switching to watch TV
> > should
> > not (normally) cause *that* to happen.
>
>The monitor resolution switch isn't due to switching to TV. It's due
>to the machine rebooting. I was simply attempting to give a full
>description of the event.
>
> >
> > 2. Can I assume you have checked obvious hardware issues like
> > making sure
> > DMA is enabled on your hard drive? And, for that matter, that the
> > drive
> > supports DMA (an 8 GB drive is an old drive, after all, almost
> > surely ...
> > the smallest 3"-drice size I see advertised currently is 40 GB).
>
>Yup it's all checked. It is a little bit older hard drive but it was
>'top of the line' when it was purchased a couple of years ago. Here's
>all the specs
>http://www.maxtor.com/en/documentation/manuals/dm2160_ultra_ata_manual.pdf.
>Not gonna be setting any speed records but then again it should need
>to. I dont have any sort of recording set at the same time. I'm
>simply trying to watch 'tv'.
>
> > 3. I don't know your motherboard so wouldn't know how to flame you
> > for
> > using it. I will ask if your kernel is compiled with support for
> > the mobo's
> > IDE chipset.
>
>The motherboard is a super small VIA Mini-ITX motherboard, low power
>consumption. Not the perfect platform for this but as stated in a
>previous response(that you may have recieved after you sent your
>response) I'm mainly using it for a test platform and possibly for
>just a regular tuner on a non cable ready tv. Not planning to really
>use the 'tivo' functionality with this particular machine.
>
> > 4. All that said, it sure sounds like a problem associated with the
> >
> > increased load of simultaneously encoding and decoding. So ...
> >          A. How large is the "larger known good power supply"? How
> > large is
> > the one you normally use?
> >          B. Might the CPU be overheating? Do you have a good
> > heatsink/fan
> > combo on it?
> >          C. Do you know how much power the ATI vidcap card draws?
> > (I can't
> > find this anywhere.) Might the combination of its activity and
> > heavy CPU
> > load and heavy disk load overtax even a "known good" power supply?
>
>I had given thought to the power supply issue thus mentioning the
>swap out earlier. I initially had a 90w power supply in the machine
>but soon found reboots were happening during compiles due to the
>increased power usage of a desktop style hdd and cdrom drive. I then
>went up to a 150W power supply. This stabalized the system during
>compiles and the system has run perfectly solid ever since. The
>'known good' power supply I just swapped out the 150W for is a 350W
>power supply. Consider the cases made to fit this type of motherboard
>are designed for laptop cd/dvd drive's and 2.5" hard drives and come
>with 55W power supplies. A 350W should be far more than enough to
>power the current board and configuration.
>
>CPU over heat shouldn't be an issue. The chips/coolers on Mini-ITX
>boards are meant to be used in cramped conditions so they are very
>low power/low heat. This particular systemboard/processor happens to
>have active cooling on it's processor unlike most of the other EPIA
>processors on other boards. I'm also running it in a case that has
>the cover removed.
>
>Throw in the fact that all this is taking place at night in Iowa. I
>have a fan in my window blowing inwards and weather.com is telling me
>the current external temp is 56F. I'm fairly sure it's not a heat
>issue(I gotta go put on some socks it's cold in here).
>
> > 5. You say: "However the machine runs rock solid in absolutely
> > everything
> > else." What does your definition of "everything" cover? Does the
> > system
> > have no problems when doing kernel compiles and large ftp
> > transfers, for
> > example (these are the best ways, aside from video processing, I
> > know of to
> > tax hardware)?
>
>I've run every compile necessary to setup Myth thus far with out an
>issue including XMLTV and Myth it's self. It's not an athlon to be
>sure so compiles run the processor near 100% constantly. I did run an
>ftp download of the RH9 disc 1 iso image from the wisc.edu mirror.
>This downloaded fine. I also played dreamcast on it via xawtv for
>about an hour this evening. I've also played a couple avi movies off
>my win box. All went with out issue. Throw in using it for a second
>internet browsing machine over the past month inbetween battles with
>Myth....
>
> > 6. Can you capture video successfully using any non-Myth vidcap
> > applications? (Examples are vcr/avifile, avicap, mencoder, ffmpeg.
> > Even
> > xawtv has a primitive vidcap capability.)
> >
>
>
> > 7. Can you play back recorded or downloaded video using some other
> > app
> > (xine is a good choice for this test) that uses the xVideo
> > extensions
> > (xawtv does not use them)? Are you *certain* that your X driver has
> > xVideo
> > enabled? (I'm still puzzling about that monitor resolution switch
> > you refer
> > to.)
>
>As mentioned before the monitor res switch isn't because of software
>it was just the computer rebooting. As for play back, yes I've played
>back multiple movies from my windows box on my linux box. Using
>gmplayer which had to be installed for myth any way.
>
> > 8. For that matter, within MythTV, can you (a) record a show, then
> > (b)
> > watch it? Does the problem *only* occur when simultaneously
> > encoding and
> > decoding?
>
>I'm just trying to watch a show when the reboot takes place. I'm not
>even attempting to record.
>
> > 9. Is there any chance that you are running out of RAM? This is a
> > long shot
> > with any typical configuration ... 256 MB is usually plenty ... but
> > there
> > is a lot we don't know about your setup, so I feel obliged to ask.
> > If, for
> > example, you are using a large gbuffers setting -AND- this mobo
> > uses system
> > RAM for video -AND- you are running a bunch of other stuff, it is
> > just
> > barely conceivable that you have a problem with RAM size.
>
>Well with the thought in mind of eventually trying to get this thing
>to power in a shorter period of time I've tried to minimize
>processor/ram usage of everything. I've got gnome smoothed down a
>bit.  I've disabled a couple of services that arn't absolutely needed
>like iptables(running a firewall at my internet connection, no need
>for one on the individual box), RHNSD(all ready ran all the updates),
>sendmail(i use yahoo mail). None of these that I'm aware of should
>effect the functionality of myth. I suppose I could be wrong but I
>dont think i am....
>
> > 10. Do you have enough room on your hard drive for a capture
> > buffer? How
> > big a capture buffer do you have specified? (I wouldn't normally
> > worry
> > about this, but an 8 GB drive is unusually small for a Myth setup.)
>
>Not capturing any thing but the buffer is set to 5gb currently which
>seems to be either the default or scripted to pic the max available
>space on the drive in whole gb.
>
> > If you post again, tell us what Linux distro is involved, what
> > kernel (and
> > whether stock or locally compiled), what "free" reports just before
> > you try
> > and fail to watch TV, and what "df" reports at that same time.
>
>Linux distro is RH9. Kernel is 2.4.20-13.9. Kernel is stock(success
>reported with this configuration by Jeff C on 5/24). Free reports
>Mem:
>Total 247372
>Used 150208
>Free 97164
>Shared 0
>Buffers 9248
>
>-/+ buffers/cache:
>Used 63272
>Free 184100
>
>Swap:
>Total 522104
>Used 0
>Free 522104
>
>DF Reports:
>Filesystem /dev/hda2
>1K-blocks 7455556
>Used 2069152
>Available 5007672
>Use% 30%
>Mounted /
>
>Filesystem /dev/hda1
>1K-blocks 101089
>Used 13938
>Available 81932
>Use% 15%
>Mounted /boot
>
>Filesystem none
>1K-blocks 123684
>Used 0
>Available 123684
>Use% 0%
>Mounted /dev/shm
>
> > BTW, last time I looked, the myth-users list did have a search
> > interface.
> > Did you try it? It's at
> >
> > http://www.gossamer-threads.com/archive/MythTV_C2/Users_F11/
>
>Well thanks for the link. I apologize for being kind of peeved by it.
>I guess I've been on to many lists. If you click the users archive
>link on the sign-up/admin pages for the list it goes to a
>non-searchable page. I didn't catch the other little link towards the
>right side of the screen that also links to the page you just sent me
>to. My bad. :-)
>
> > Actually, the people who tell you to check the archives are not the
> > ones
> > with "way to[o] much time on [their] hands". It's the people who
> > don't have
> > time to answer the same questions over and over.
>
>Might I suggest the list admin change the link on the list
>sign-up/admin page to point to the searchable archive? There by
>eliminating possible confusion and providing a unified interface for
>all things list related?
>
>Thank you very much for your time in responding and attempting to
>help me out. I believe most bases are covered thus far with the
>exception of the search on the user list that I'm about to embark on.
>Thanks again. May be the additional information I have provided will
>help in resolving this. I'm also going to lose the OSS drivers and
>try throwing down Alsa which I havn't done yet. Just in case it's
>some how sound related. Take care all!
>
>
>
> > At 09:15 PM 5/26/2003 -0700, tekchip wrote:
> > >Ok, due in part to the kindness shown on this list in helping me
> > out
> > >and partially due to good documentation on the web site I have
> > >managed to get everything configured, and running up till I try to
> > >switch to watch TV. At that point the screen goes blank for a
> > second
> > >and then the monitor clicks due to switching resolutions and I
> > find
> > >that the computer has rebooted it's self.
> > >
> > >Now before you tell me to check the FAQ let me re-assure you I've
> > all
> > >ready done that(more than once for other issues). It tells me it's
> > >more than likely a hardware issue. To test I have swapped ram,
> > >swapped to a larger known good power supply. Attempted to unplug
> > the
> > >cd-rom drive. The only thing that hasn't acctually been swapped is
> > >the motherboard/proc and hdd. I do suppose the motherboard,
> > processor
> > >or hdd could be the problem. However the machine runs rock solid
> > in
> > >absolutely everything else. Just to ensure it wasn't an issue with
> > >the vid capture card I installed xawtv and I can get video just
> > fine.
> > >Played a little Dead or Alive 2(on dreamcast), for testing
> > purposes
> > >mind you.
> > >
> > >Uppon running XAWTV I noticed that in order to get picture I had
> > to
> > >switch the input from Television(the coax connector I'm guessing?)
> > to
> > >Composit 1(standard yellow video connector). This did give me
> > proper
> > >video. I then went back and attempted to re-run myth's backend
> > setup
> > >and re-ran mythfilldb. This still had no effect on the issue. Is
> > >there something I may have missed?
> > >
> > >Here's the system stats:
> > >VIA EPIA 800(flame away)
> > >Single stick PC133 256mb Micron ram
> > >Maxtor 8gb hdd
> > >Sony 24x CD-Rom
> > >ATI TV Wonder VE
> > >
> > >Please dont tell me to read the faq or the documentation I've been
> > >over those both 5 or 6 times now. And if you tell me to look at
> > the
> > >list archive for an answer you obviously have way to much time on
> > >your hands. Get with the internet program, impliment a search
> > engine.
> > >Any way sorry for being crusty about the list archive. Thanks for
> > any
> > >help you can provide!