[mythtv-users] Complete and total crash problems :/

[Piers Kittel]

Hello all,

Am having big probs with MythTV - when I start mythfrontend, and then 
try to play back a recording, or watch live TV, it utterly crashes my 
computer, and it only started last night.  Before last night, it was 
working just fine.  Only major thing I've done is to upgrade Debian 
Sarge to Etch but I have not upgraded the kernel (2.4.27, compiled 20th 
Aug last year, always worked fine with all MythTV versions I've used), 
not upgraded the video drivers, not changed window manager, not touched 
the backend/frontend or anything.  When it crashes, the computer just 
locks up, I can't use the mouse pointer, and on my 2nd monitor, the CPU 
and network display just freezes and the Caps Lock and Scroll Lock LED 
comes on my keyboard (on, but doesn't flash) and I'm unable to do 
anything - ctrl_alt_del doesn't work.  As I'm using MythTV from SVN, I 
redownloaded the code, compiled it, found the latest SVN is now using 
protocol version 18, so have upgraded the backend as well.  Still the 
same problem.  The crash occurs with any recordings I've made.

I'm totally unable to get any error codes, as when it crashes, the 
computer is unresponsive and so I'm unable to look at error codes.  I've 
tried using "mythfrontend > error" but it doesn't work.  I've tried 
starting playback and then immediately pressing ctrl_alt+F1 and it 
changes into the console fine, and I wait a long while and it doesn't 
crash, but when I press ctrl_alt+F7, I get a screen of gibberish text 
and it's a total lock up.

I've found that if I start MythTV, start playing back a recording then 
immediately go to console number 1, then type in "/etc/init.d/gdm 
restart" it works fine.

What can be causing this, and how do I get MythTV to output the errors 
properly?  Nothing else has been affected in any way.

Thanks very much for your help in advance

Regards - Piers