[mythtv-users] New setup - can't watch Live TV or record from TV

[Jeff Rizzo]

Hi-

I'm setting up mythtv for the first time, and I've already come across
a few problems, and addressed them with the help of various FAQs
and searching mailing lists - but this one, while it looks like
others may have seen the problem, I have yet to find a solution for.

Basically, when I run mythfrontend, and go to "Watch TV", I get a black
screen for about 20s, and then it comes back to the main screen.
In the mythfrontend error messages, I see this:

2006-06-22 16:07:45.753 TV: Attempting to change from None to WatchingLiveTV
2006-06-22 16:07:45.763 Using protocol version 26
2006-06-22 16:07:45.967 RingBuf(/myth/1007_20060622160745.nuv): Invalid file (fd 14) when opening '/myth/1007_20060622160745.nuv'. 12 retries remaining.
2006-06-22 16:08:06.502 TV Error: StartRecorder() -- timed out waiting for recorder to start
2006-06-22 16:08:06.502 TV Error: LiveTV not successfully started

and in mythbackend, this:

VIDIOCGMBUF:: Invalid argument

Now, when I look in /myth (where I've set the recordings to go), I do
see a 1120-byte file called 1007_20060622160745.nuv, but it's unusable.

My system has backend and frontend on the same box, running Gentoo 2006.0,
and mythbacked --version reports:

Library API version: 0.19.20060121-2
Source code version: Unknown
Options compiled in:
 linux release using_v4l using_oss using_alsa using_ivtv using_lirc using_dvb using_dvb_eit using_x11 using_xv using_dvdnav using_xrandr using_xvmc using_opengl_vsync using_frontend using_backend

I have a Hauppauge PVR-250 configured with ivtv-0.4.5, and I am able to
successfully watch TV by running 'mplayer /dev/video0', so I know that
much should be working... I can also watch other .mpg files using the
frontend.  What I _don't_ seem to be able to do is get anything that has
to do with TV working.

Anyone have any suggestions what to try next as far as troubleshooting?
I've considered wiping the mysql database and re-configuring in case I've
gotten something wrong, but that seems like a lot of work.  :)  I was
hoping someone could point me at something more useful to try, as I've
been spinning my wheels on this for a couple days now.

Thanks,
+j