[mythtv-users] [au] mythbackend record fails occasionaly

[Nick Morrott]

On 19/07/07, mythtv-users at exo.net.au <mythtv-users at exo.net.au> wrote:
>
> Over the last month or  2, have noticed that perhaps 1 or 2 progs
> out of 5 or 10 dont get recorded. Seems to be the same 2 on the same
> channel (sbs).
>
> I generally use mythweb to schedule & monitor whats happening. tonight,
> the status said its recording this prog. later after finish time, i check
> again and its not in the job queue, thou an ealier prog on a diff channel is.
> Looking at the progs recorded screen shows that it has an entry but the file
> size is listed as "B". I searched but not found what this means. I look in
> the recordings dir & there is no mpg file for that date/time. I look in
> the /var/log/mythtv/backend.log & nothing. the log file has last update
> time of the previous prog. I do an mysqlcheck & the db is OK.
>
> I open mythfrontend & change to the sbs channel & sometimes it works & other
> it doesnt lock onto the signal.  I change to the other card & same thing,
> thou the newer card has more success. both have  about the same signal strength
> (78%) & s/n of 4.8 as abc (next channel) which works fine all the time.
>
> 1. what (debug) setting will tell me about signal problems when recording
> in a log file ?

I would have thought the default of 'important,general' would have
some output for the failed recording. You should try 'record,channel'
in addition to these for more verbose logging of recordings.

> 2. Rather than simply give up, can mythbackend keep re-trying / re-starting
> the recording process ?

Not at the moment.

> 3. what does size B mean ?

It simply means there is no recording file present. Perhaps there
should be a more useful message when the recording is missing?

> 4. can i force 1 channel to be preferred on a particular tuner ?

Bump up the channel's recording priority on the particular tuner. On
the most up to date code, you can also specify a tuner to use when
setting up a recording, but I am not sure this will guarantee using a
specific tuner/channel combination as consistently as setting a
specific priority for a channel.

> I use gentoo stable with a nova-t & a dtv1000 cards.

Do you have problems getting a lock with the Nova-T? These are known
for slowish tuning. You can update the card's settings in mythtv-setup
to wait longer for a channel lock before tuning fails.

-- 
Nick

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