[mythtv-users] Samba share of mythfs.py filesystem not working

[Michael T. Dean]

  On 01/29/2011 09:14 AM, John Reid wrote:
> On 29/01/11 03:58, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>>  On 01/28/2011 10:24 PM, Raymond Wagner wrote:
>>> On 1/28/2011 20:54, E. Westbrook wrote:
>>>> On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 08:32, Raymond Wagner  wrote:
>>>>>     Yes there is, but the event only provides the channel ID and 
>>>>> start
>>>>>     time.  There is not enough information to reconstruct the 
>>>>> filename
>>>>>     to know which link to delete.
>>>> Wouldn't it be sufficient to determine the filename to pass the 
>>>> format string to mythlink.pl as a command-line argument for the 
>>>> event definition?  Or derive it from the mytlink.pl config?
>>> To be honest, I don't know how that would work.  When the system 
>>> event is sent to the connected machines, only the chanid and 
>>> starttime is defined.  Normally, the machine can then look up the 
>>> recording to pass on to the registered command, but if the recording 
>>> has been deleted, there will be nothing to look up.  The easiest 
>>> option would probably be to just have a 'cleanup' mode, where it 
>>> scans the directory, and removes any dead symlinks.
>>
>> Which is basically what running without --chanid/--starttime is...  
>> It cleans up everything, then re-creates.
> It just seems cleaner and easier to remove only the dead symlinks.

Cleaner, perhaps.  Easier, not by a long shot.

And, IMHO, having some links be missing for up to 6/86400 of the day is 
not really a problem (and I have a /lot/ of recordings, so for most 
people a run is likely shorter).  Before MythTV System Events, I used to 
run full mythlink.pl jobs 5 times every half hour (creating different 
views) and in the 4+ years I did that, I only twice had links disappear 
out from under me while browsing the directory.  A daily run would be 48 
times less likely to have that problem.  And note that as soon as you 
start a command using a link, the link is no longer relevant--you can 
delete the link while the show is playing back or copying or whatever, 
and it won't cause problems (since this isn't Windows).

> This is superior to removing all links and recreating as someone might 
> be using the links at the time. If there was an option that makes 
> mythlink do this whilst creating the one new link this could work 
> quite well.

When run using MythTV System Events or User Jobs, it's very likely that 
multiple mythlink.pl processes will be running concurrently, since many 
recordings start or end at the same time.  Therefore, do you really want 
every single mythlink.pl that's triggered automatically to stumble 
around a list of links--which are being changed underneath it--trying to 
update it, as another mythlink.pl process is updating it.

IMHO, cleanup needs to occur as a separate step--I don't want 4 
mythlink.pl jobs trying to do cleanup every single hour (or half hour) 
during primetime.

> BTW cronjobs don't work too well for me as my machine is off most of 
> the time.

Then have it run at startup or shutdown or whenever seems appropriate, 
or use a cron helper or cron that can handle scheduling jobs even when 
the system is often shut down (like anacron or fcron).

Besides, we have a working solution.  IMHO, we should concentrate 
efforts on all the things that don't work or don't have solutions.

Mike