[mythtv-users] LCD Does Not Display Backend Status

[Jay Foster]

On 11/19/2014 6:51 AM, Dan Wilga wrote:
> On 11/18/14 8:14 PM, Jay Foster wrote:
>> On 11/17/2014 12:22 PM, Dan Wilga wrote:
>>> On 11/17/14 2:54 PM, Jay Foster wrote:
>>>> I have upgraded to a new MythTV machine (combined FE/BE), with a 
>>>> fresh install of mythbuntu 14.04.1 (0.27.4-fixes).   The LCD does 
>>>> display frontend activity (clock, menu navigation, recording 
>>>> playback, etc.), but does not display any BE status (recording). I 
>>>> checked and the show backend info checkbox is checked in the 
>>>> setup.    Any ideas on how to fix this?  I have rebooted, restarted 
>>>> the FE and BE in different orders, and still no joy.
>>> I haven't read this whole thread, so I apologize if you've already 
>>> tried this:  Did you check your LCDproc settings to make sure they 
>>> match what your display is actually capable of? There's a chance 
>>> that the display isn't showing recording status because it's being 
>>> "drawn" on a row your display doesn't possess.
>>>
>>> You might also try setting it to use the "curses" driver with 
>>> something large-ish like "Size=20x4", so that you can see the output 
>>> in your terminal. This is in LCDd.conf.
>> I'm using the lis LCDd driver.  It did have the Size unspecified, but 
>> the comment states it is 20x2.  I uncommented it to 20x2.  I 
>> restarted LCDd, mythfronted, and mythbackend. Still no difference.
> You actually need to restart mythlcdserver (or, more accurately, stop 
> it and the frontend will restart it automatically.) Stopping the 
> frontend should also stop mythlcdserver, though I've seen cases where 
> it doesn't.
>
> Restarting the backend shouldn't be necessary after changing the 
> config, though restarting the frontend might be, I'm not sure.
>> If I were to try the curses driver, where would the LCD output go? 
>> Which shell window?  Is there any reason to even suspect that 
>> mythbackend would use rows 3 and 4? I would be surprised if it did, 
>> since most LCD displays I have seen only have two rows.
> It's been a long time since I've looked at it, but I think you use 
> "lcdvc" to display the curses-based text in a console.
>
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I checked (with ps aux | grep myth) and stopping mythfrontend did not 
stop mythlcdserver.  mythlcdserver was still running after mythfrontend 
had exited.

Last night, on a whim, while the BE was recording (and the LCD was only 
showing the clock), I restarted LCDd again.  When LCDd restarted, the 
LCD display showed the standard LCD proc startup message, then the 
clock, and then started showing the BE recording status.  It started 
working.  I again checked and mythlcdserver had not been restarted (same 
PID).  I do not know why it just started working.  I suspect that there 
is some kind of race condition in the startup of LCDd, mythlcdserver, 
mythfrontend, mythbackend, and if I reboot, it might not work again.  It 
is only the BE status messages that do not seem to work reliably.