[mythtv-users] GL problem in Mythfrontend after Firefox/ BBC iPlayer crash

[John Pilkington]

Erik Hovland wrote:
>>> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 7:04 AM, John Pilkington <J.Pilk at tesco.net
>>> <mailto:J.Pilk at tesco.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>>    Using another Mythbox as a guide I was able to step through the
>>>    menus to select Qt instead of Open GL. Reselecting OpenGL produced a
>>>    usable system again, but I'll probably use Qt until the other
>>>    problems are resolved.
>>>
>>>    Have other people had success with the BBC/Adobe systems on a 64-bit
>>>    system (mine is FC10 with Yeechang's modified 0.21 fixes), and, more
>>>    urgently, can anyone suggest a less cumbersome way of recovering
>>>    from the QGL 'invalid context'?  Changing the OpenGL Settings in the
>>>    nVidia utility didn't help.
>>>
>>>
>>> Regarding your qt/opengl issues: I had similar problems with menus
>>> following a system crash (caused by HVR-2250).
>>> Try launching frontend with "mythfrontend -O ThemePainter=qt ..." to force
>>> qt if your menus disappear.  See this thread for more details:
>>> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/387405
>> Of course!! - I've used the -O switch before - and I should have searched
>> before posting.  Thanks anyway :-)
> 
> Strangely, the ThemePainter issue came up in my thread about gentoo
> and disappearing menus.  I had tried ThemePainter but stupid me, I
> only tried ThemePainter=qt by itself. It didn't work. And my problem
> went away later. Yesterday my disappearing menus disappeared again. So
> I tried the ThemePainter trick again. But with the twist suggested
> here and in the linked to thread. First I fired up mythfrontend w/ -O
> ThemePainter=OpenGL. Then I killed it and fired up mythfrontend w/ -O
> ThemePainter=qt. The menus reappeared! Note that my frontend has
> always repored that qt is the theme painter. Every time it was launch
> except when OpenGL was forced. But still this trick worked. There is
> something subtle going on back there.
> 
> E
> 
I had always assumed that the ThemePainter defined the mechanism used to 
paint the TV/DVD etc moving pictures onto the screen - like an earlier 
version of VDPAU; I now get the feeling that it's a Myth-specific thing 
that may actually affect only the painting of the Myth themes, menus 
etc.  If so, that would explain why I haven't seen much difference in 
picture quality when changing the ThemePainter - and I perhaps won't 
worry so much about making the choice!

Perhaps someone would explain its role - or quote a URL?

TIA

John P