[mythtv-users] Huge log files in mythbuntu

[James Crow]

On Wed, 2008-12-10 at 09:03 +1300, Nick Rout wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 8:55 AM, Damian <damian at gingermagic.co.uk> wrote:
> > Thanks for all the help. Here's the output from the three commands that
> > James and Mike suggested.
> >
> > damian at MythBox:~$ grep "ARGS=" /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend
> > /etc/default/mythtv-backend
> > /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend:ARGS="--daemon --logfile
> > /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log --pidfile $RUNDIR/$NAME.pid"
> > /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend:EXTRA_ARGS=""
> > /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend:ARGS="$ARGS $EXTRA_ARGS"
> > /etc/default/mythtv-backend:#ARGS=""
> > /etc/default/mythtv-backend:#EXTRA_ARGS="--verbose"
> > damian at MythBox:~$
> >
> > damian at MythBox:~$ grep "Enabled verbose msgs"
> > /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log
> > 2008-12-09 13:48:48.652 Enabled verbose msgs:  important general
> > 2008-12-09 14:26:56.295 Enabled verbose msgs:  important general
> > damian at MythBox:~$
> >
> > damian at MythBox:~$ ps -ef|grep mythbackend
> > mythtv    5618     1  2 14:26 ?        00:06:44 /usr/bin/mythbackend
> > --daemon --logfile /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log --pidfile
> > /var/run/mythtv/mythbackend.pid
> > damian    8235  8186  0 19:48 pts/1    00:00:00 grep mythbackend
> > damian at MythBox:~$
> >
> >
> > Can anyone help me decipher if there's anything wrong in there? Is it the:
> > /etc/default/mythtv-backend:#EXTRA_ARGS="--verbose"
> > line? And if so where to I change that setting?
> 
> At an educated guess I would say that -verbose is OFF because it is
> commented out with the # at the start of the line. Also the ps -ef
> output indicates that mythbackend is running without -v options.
> 
> So if your log files are being rotated, and you are running the log
> files non-verbose, then something is troubling your system and you
> should LOOK at the log files and see what it might be!

Nick got it exactly right. The "Enabled verbose msgs: important general"
line in the log is the same as mine. To see if logrotate is working run:

ls -l /var/log/mythtv/

It should list several files such as mythbackend.log, mythbackend.log.1
etc. The timestamps on them should be a day apart. If all that checks
out look through the log file (I prefer the less command) for any errors
or lines that repeat several times. 

Cheers,
James