[mythtv-users] Is there an approved may to remove frontend settings?

[Mark Perkins]

Firstly, I don't disagree with anything that has been said so far. But I'm going to throw in my 2cents because this is a topic a bit 'near-and-dear' to me, and I'm hoping to redirect the discussion slightly.

I don't think the OP was necessarily advocating direct database
 manipulation. It has been inferred that way (probably because
 maybe there is no other way at this point in time?). But I think the OP was more about 'how can this be handled given the problems it can cause?'.

I've stuffed the hostname 3 times leading to significant problems in my less than 12 month history with MythTV. The first was in the first month and (I think) I ended up with a few variations of host and host at localhost etc. I have no idea what I did to cause it but I guarantee it was not because of MythTV or because of direct database manipulation. As MythTV was still an experiment at that time I was still using my old commercial PVR's in parallel so a wipe and start from scratch fixed that with only a little bit of heartache.

The second was when I moved from packages to compiling from source. Again I don't really know what I did wrong but I ended up with the FE's being happy but MythWeb wouldn't connect for all the money in the world. I fixed that with direct database manipulation. Just to add - that change was not a frivolous change, compiling from source has significantly improved my system stability.

The third was when I deliberately changed hostname (I'm on completely cobbled together hardware and in particular was having driver trouble with the graphics card. I swapped hardware between a few other cobbled together machines for something that is 'slightly' more supported (ie it works well enough to be good enough for now) and rebuilt). That time I did not follow instructions properly and stuffed it. So far when that has caused problems (that I have managed to identify) I have fixed the problem through direct database manipulation. Again just to add - that change was not a frivolous change, swapping cards finally got my video playback working properly.

I'm still on cobbled hardware so I am currently planning my new system - MythTV has been a wonderful success for me so that means it gets all new hardware sometime before Christmas, a faster processor, a properly supported graphics card, something that can run cooler without industrial sounding fans and probably Mythbuntu LTS. The FE's will all probably get rebuilt Mythbuntu LTS as well at the same time. But I know when that time comes the 'hostname' will cause me great, great, great heartache again - I'm depressed already just thinking about it.

Here is the rub - none of these problems have been caused by MythTV or direct database manipulation. They have been caused outside of MythTV because (in my opinion) it is far to easy for the hostname to get changed by people (like me) who don't understand the impacts or are running other programs that cause it to change or who rejig the network IP addresses or upgrade hardware or change distro or ... the list goes on. But when it happens the problems it causes MythTV are potentially severe.

I don't think this is MythTV's problem, and I don't expect MythTV to solve it. But I do think that a) this problem is 'easy enough' to create inadvertently by well meaning people and b) can cause MythTV some pretty severe headaches - so I expect to see the occasional posting about it on this list.

If the answer to those posts is "don't cause the problem in the first place" then that is fine too. But none-the-less having some 'partially supported' 'partial recovery' options would probably be greatly appreciated by those that have (caused) this problem. One-on-one case-by-case support with direct database manipulation may very well be the answer. But maybe there are better answers as well?

//end my 2cents//
 		 	   		  
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