[mythtv-users] Intermittent MythTV failure

[Damian]

David Watkins wrote:
> On 22/08/07, Damian <damian at gingermagic.co.uk> wrote:
>> Damian wrote:
>>> My Myth setup has been behaving ok recently ...
>>>
>>> *still lots to do, Remote is half set up but not working properly,
>>> almose forgotten about setting up XvMC and not got Radio Times channel
>>> data sorted yet so only using EIT*
>>>
>>> ... but occasionally it doesn't load. I'll get the scaling images scroll
>>> bar, then it'll crash out to the desktop. Usually, logging out and
>>> restarting X will let it work again. Failing that, rebooting completely
>>> pretty much always works. But now, even that's not working.
>>>
>>> I got it to work once this morning, after being turned off all night,
>>> but now it wont again.
>>>
>>> Here are links to the mythbackend log and the mythfrontend output the
>>> time that it worked:
>>> http://www.gingermagic.co.uk/tmp/mythbackend.log-ok
>>> http://www.gingermagic.co.uk/tmp/mythfrontend-ok
>>>
>>> And here are the mythbackend log and the mythfrontend output when it didn't.
>>> http://www.gingermagic.co.uk/tmp/mythbackend.log-broken
>>> http://www.gingermagic.co.uk/tmp/mythfrontend-broken
>>>
>>> There seem to be a lot of errors in there to me, but I'm not sure what's
>>> important and what's not. Maybe I've got too many plugins installed that
>>> I don't use and getting rid of things like MythMucic would help?
>>>
>>> I'd appreciate any help you can offer.
>>>
>>> Best wishes
>>> Damian
>>>
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>>>
>> I've uninstalled most myth plugins and it seems to be working most of
>> the times I run it again now, but not every time. Is there anything else
>> wrong from the files I posted?
> 
> 
> Well all those dvb errors don't look very healthy.   You could check
> your antenna connection to see if it's still secure.  Do you have more
> than one dvb card?  Maybe you could take them out one at a time, to
> see if that makes a difference.  In my experience, intermittent
> problems have genereally been hardware related.

Thanks for that David.

Excuse my ignorance, but I don't know what I'm looking at with logs at 
the moment. Which bits in particular make you question the dvb card? If 
I get a feel for what to look for, then I can try the cards one at a 
time and see if the problems persist.

It's strange that you mention a problem with a dvb card as I've always 
had a suspicion about one of them. It just didn't feel right when I put 
it in, but I can use it to watch TV, so assumed it must be fine.

The other possibility you mentioned is the antenna. I've not got this 
configured very well at the moment. It's just a standard antenna with a 
couple of signal boosters. Not great, but it works most of the time so I 
don't see why that should be causing these intermittent problems.

Thanks again
Damian