[mythtv-users] recordings have empty or nearly empty files

[Robert M. Riches Jr.]

Since switching to Mageia 2 and MythTV 0.25-20120418.3.mga2, about
every week or two, recordings end up with empty or nearly empty
.mpg files, so there's nothing of substance to play back.  This is
impacting programs identified by the program guide and manual
(well, manual time entry) programs.  Clobbered files are either
zero bytes or 376 bytes in size.  On other days, the same programs
and time slots record and play back without problem.

Is there a known problem with 0.25 that causes recording files to
be empty or nearly empty?

Checking the mythbackend log, there are a huge number of messages
of this form, all through the log:

2012-12-28 20:50:10.827977 E [5746/27712] SignalMonitor dvbchannel.cpp:1022 (Get
SignalStrength) - DVBChan(1:/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0): Getting Frontend signa
l strength failed.
                        eno: Invalid argument (22)

There are messages indicating that each of the trashed recordings
started to record.  Then, partway through the recording, there are
messages that appear to show an earlier episode is being auto-expired,
though that earlier recording was manually deleted days ago.

Does auto-expire have too loose a filter and sometimes clobber more
recent files it shouldn't be touching?

Any other suggestions to find and fix this problem?  (I believe I
Googled for missing recordings but didn't find anything that looked
relevant.)

With Mageia 1's MythTV 0.24.1-20111019.0.1.mga1, I don't think I
ever had recordings turn up missing due to empty or nearly empty
files.

Thanks,

Robert Riches