[mythtv-users] Could realtime commercial flagging cause hard lockup/freeze/hang?

Brian Foddy bfoddy at visi.com
Thu Jun 5 02:30:26 UTC 2008


On Wednesday 04 June 2008, Brian Foddy wrote:
> On Wednesday 04 June 2008, Greg Grotsky wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 10:10 PM, Brian Foddy <bfoddy at visi.com> wrote:
> > >  I'd guess its some kernel deadlock with a device driver.  What tuner
> > > card is (are) running during the process.  If the machine is really
> > > busy, and you have some of the kernel preempt settings on, and there is
> > > a bug in the driver, it could cause a hard crash.
> >
> > I am using a pchdtv HD-3000 tuner using DVB.  If that was the case should
> > it spit something out in the syslog?  Maybe there's a setting somewhere I
> > can flip to increase verbosity when logging...?
> >
> > > What type of computer?  Multi-core, dual CPU?  Using SMP kernel?
> > > These can cause driver bugs more readily.  If its an SMP instance,
> > > try your test with SMP disabled (there is a kernel param that will do
> > > this).
> >
> > It's an AMD X2 4200+ cpu, with SMP enabled in the kernel.  I'm using a
> > custom built kernel so I'd have to recompile it without SMP enabled but
> > that's something to try, it has been working fine for at least a year
> > with this processor.  I previously had a AMD 3200+ single core and it
> > worked for like three years with this processor.
>
> Add "maxcpus=0" or "nosmp" to the kernel argument in grub.
> Much easier than recompiling the kernel.
>
> Brian
>
Let me add...
I've looked for something like this for a while...
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt

And had to Google around for it to answer your question to get the syntax.

Brian


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