[mythtv-users] Please help! My mythbackend started to crash sporadically

lists_mythtv_users lists_mythtv_users at bigpizza.co.uk
Thu Jul 3 17:09:54 UTC 2008


Michael T. Dean wrote:
> Is it feasible to compile the myth source and replace the
>> mythbackend binary that was installed from RPM with a mythbackend binary 
>> compiled with debugging support enabled?  Or would I have to go the 
>> whole hog and do "./configure --compile-type-debug && make && make install"?
>>     
>
> Many distros make debug symbols available as a package.  See your 
> friendly #ubuntu-mythtv or ATrpms forum or ... users for help.
>   

OK, I found a mythtv-debug package for OpenSUSE 10.3 that I have just 
installed.  I've looked at the contents of the rpm, there are several 
files such as /usr/lib/debug/usr/bin/mythbackend.debug, 
.../bin/mythcommflag.debug, .../bin/mythfilldatabase.debug, etc.   Are 
these builds of the binaries with debugging support enabled or symbols 
files?  /usr/bin/mythbackend is 1.4M in size and 
/usr/lib/debug/usr/bin/mythbackend.debug is 9.0M in size, I looked at 
both in vi and both seem to be ELF files since the characters ELF are 
very near the top of the file.  However, 
/usr/lib/debug/usr/bin/mythbackend.debug doesn't have any of the execute 
flags set and following the instructions at 
http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-22.html#ss22.2 I issued the 
following command:

  gdb /usr/lib/debug/usr/bin/mythbackend.debug -x gdbcommands

and got the following output:

GNU gdb 6.6.50.20070726-cvs
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain 
conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "x86_64-suse-linux"...
Using host libthread_db library "/lib64/libthread_db.so.1".
/bin/bash: /usr/lib/debug/usr/bin/mythbackend.debug: Permission denied
/bin/bash: line 0: exec: /usr/lib/debug/usr/bin/mythbackend.debug: 
cannot execute: Success

Program exited with code 0176.
warning: Unable to find dynamic linker breakpoint function.
GDB will be unable to debug shared library initializers
and track explicitly loaded dynamic code.
/home/higgers/gdbcommands:6: Error in sourced command file:
You can't do that without a process to debug.


If /usr/lib/debug/usr/bin/mythbackend.debug is a symbols file then I 
guess I need to find out of /usr/bin/mythbackend was compiled with debug 
support enabled and if so then I need to adjust /etc/init.d/mythbackend 
to start mythbackend via gdb.  Would that be the correct thing to do?



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