[mythtv-users] can't record a full movie...

[Ray Olszewski]

The responses below seem to eliminate filesystem issues as the source of 
your problem. (At least that's so if I assume your Myth captures save to 
someplace on /dev/hda3, mounted at /var . If they are on hda1 (/), then the 
fact that df shows it as having only 1.9 GB free very likely has something 
to do with your problem.) The other possibilities are (a) a problem with 
the kernel driver and (b) a problem specific to Myth.

I won't review the answers other people got when they posted similar 
problems, since you can search the archives for those replies as easily as 
I can. Since your earlier messages are a bit hard to find (they are jumbled 
in a thread with two other topice interspersed), I will quote here your 
(brief) description of your setup:

"I'm using epia m10k, pvr250-rev1, rh9, 2.4.20-8 with via drivers."

(If you said what version of Myth you are using, I missed it; that's one of 
the problems with starting a "new" topic with a reply - it jumbles your 
messages with those on other topics in the archive, making it hard to find 
background info.)

I did have a problem similar to yours, not involving Myth, but involving 
recording with an AverTV card. I found it to be a problem between the 
kernel driver (bttv) and the card ... it encountered a situation in which a 
test timed out before getting a response from the card. Switching to a 
newer-rev AverTV card ended the problem; perhaps modifying the module so 
the test would have qwaited longer before timing out woulad have worked 
too, but I didn't try it.

You use a PVR-250, so presumably the ivtv module. You might investigate the 
possibility that it has a problem similar to the one I ran into with bttv. 
Were I investigating this, I'd do two things:

1. Check my logs to see of the ivtv driver posts any errors.

2. Try a non-Myth-based capture using the card, to see if it exhibits 
similar problems.

If both these tests come up negative, then I'd consider Myth-specific 
problems. In that case, you'll want to post a follow-up (actually, you'll 
probably want to start a new thread) that reports the results of the tests 
I suggested, reminds us that you've already considered filesystems issues 
(otherwise you'll just get those suggestions again), and reports on the 
details of the Myth part of your setup.

At 10:29 AM 9/29/2003 -0700, and wrote:
>>1. What is the EXACT size of the truncated file?
>I had another look at the files. and realize the 1:20 wasn't the most 
>scientific number, but I was just the latest recoding that failed. I've 
>been traveling for a couple of weeks and the machine have been running 
>quite well unattended, but I haven't had a look at most of the files it 
>recorded, and the ones that where, I had already deleted in my fustration ....
>
>The truncation point varies, one is 1.5gb, another 754 mb and yet another 
>1.4gb (so nowhere near the usual fat limit of 2gb...they should all have 
>been 2.2gb for 2 hour shows. I'm running another 2 hour recording as I 
>write this to see it also truncates...
>
>>2. What is the output of "df -T"?
>Filesystem    Type   1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
>/dev/hda1     ext3     5036284   2827760   1952692  60% /
>none         tmpfs      240504         0    240504   0% /dev/shm
>/dev/hda3     ext3   112627592  89037260  17869184  84% /var
>
>>3. What version of Linux are you using?
>>         A. What distro? rh
>>         B. What version of the distro? 9
>>         C. What version of the kernel ("uname -a")?
>Linux epia.home 2.4.20-8 #1 Thu Mar 13 17:54:28 EST 2003 i686 i686 i386 
>GNU/Linux
>>
>>4. Are you able to read and write a non-Myth file that is larger than the 
>>size at which recording fails?
>I have plenty of other mythtv recordings that are larger than 2.2gb and 
>they work... Haven't tried non myth files....
>>
>>This really sounds more like a system-level problem than a Myth problem, 
>>but at this point, I don't have a specific guess as to its location ... 
>>mostly because you have not ever said (as I and others asked before) if 
>>the size limit really is 2 GB exactly, a more significant number than 
>>"around 1 hour and 20 minutes".
>In my ignorance I was thinking that it could be something someone else had 
>experienced and could recognize, and I just seemed to remember the number 
>from some of the shows that I had deleted...