[mythtv-users] Machine lock up and disk thrashing

Fredrik Hallgarde mythtv at tedde.nu
Mon Jun 11 21:15:59 UTC 2007


Fred Clausen skrev:
> Hi,
>
> Philip Stubbs wrote:
>   
>> The problem I have is with the front-end running on the same machine.
>> After it has been used for a little while, I will try and do
>> something, like watch a different channel or recording, and the
>> machine grinds to an almost halt, with the hard disk thrashing away.
>>
>> The machine becomes so slow that I can't even run a virtual terminal
>> so that I con see what process may be causing the problem.
>>
>>
>>     
>
> When your machine is up and before it crashes, you can start top like so:
>
> $ top -b > /var/tmp/top_log.txt
>
> This will make each top iteration go to the file /var/tmp/top_log.txt. 
> Then, when the machine dies, you can reboot and look at that file to see 
> what proc was using the most CPU just before it died. Probably 
> mythfrontend :)
>
> Also, make sure you redirect the mythfrontend output to a file, you can 
> then see if there are any messages that may explain the problem. If 
> indeed it is mythfrontend.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Fred.
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>
>
>
>   
Based on recent experience with an intended dedicated backend where I 
only start Mythfrontend (Mythdora 4 / mythtv  0.20-fixes) for 
verification, memory is the main issue which causes severe swapping (~ 
disk thrashing) on 256MB memory.

In other words, as you perform the suggestions by Fred I would like to 
add that you keep an eye on the memory usage and specifically the 
swapping...

Fredrik



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