[mythtv-users] One step forward, two steps back - Frontends not woring properly

[Damian]

I LOVE MythTV when it's all set up and working properly.

Is there anything more frustrating when it's not??

OK, here's the latest problem. (all using Xubuntu 16.04, MythTV 0.28, 
via Mythbuntu, all updates to latest versions etc).

Things were going well. Server all set up. Backend working well. Local 
frontend (on the server) seeming to work fine.

One remote frontend set up and seeming fine.

Second (main) remote frontend setup, but just wouldn't connect to the 
backend! I couldn't work it out. Everything seemed fine, but it couldn't 
connect.

In desperation (never a good place to make decisions), I thought about 
how Mythbuntu seems to install a slave backend (which I had removed on 
the frontends) by default. So, I installed and set up slave backends on 
both of the remote frontend machines.

This seemed to work well. Now both remote frontends could connect and I 
thought that I was heading in the right direction. However, now the 
frontends were suddenly SO SLOW and couldn't connect to 'Videos' or 
watch TV.

After failing to fix this, I thought that the slave backends may have 
been the problem, so I uninstalled them from both of the remote frontends.

This didn't change anything. I could still connect (so I was further on 
than before I affed the slave backends), but everything was still unusable.

I tried changing the <LocalHostName> on one of the frontends to see if 
being effectively a 'new user' would clean things up. It didn't. I was 
just a new user with a system that was still broken.

I ran one of the remote frontends from the command line to see what 
error messages I was getting while things were freezing, and I got lots 
of copies of messages like this ...

2016-04-29 21:49:14.102196 I  MythCoreContext::ConnectCommandSocket(): 
Connecting to backend server: 192.168.0.2:6543 (try 1 of 1)
2016-04-29 21:49:21.121452 E  MythSocket(3b91410:68): ReadStringList: 
Error, timed out after 7000 ms.
2016-04-29 21:49:21.121843 C  Protocol version check failure.
             The response to MYTH_PROTO_VERSION was empty.
             This happens when the backend is too busy to respond,
             or has deadlocked due to bugs or hardware failure.
2016-04-29 21:49:21.122406 W  Backend : gingerserver currently 
Unreachable. Skipping this one.
2016-04-29 21:49:21.122558 I MythCoreContext::ConnectCommandSocket(): 
Connecting to backend server: 192.168.0.2:6543

I've just gone back to the server (backend system) and run the frontend 
on there. Now that's having the same trouble. Almost completely 
unresponsive. I haven't even touch this machine while I've been trying 
other stuff!

$ sudo service mythtv-backend status

returns ...

● mythtv-backend.service - MythTV Backend
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mythtv-backend.service; enabled; 
vendor preset: enabled)
    Active: active (running) since Fri 2016-04-29 20:34:26 BST; 1h 53min ago
      Docs: https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythbackend
  Main PID: 822 (mythbackend)
     Tasks: 34 (limit: 512)
    CGroup: /system.slice/mythtv-backend.service
            └─822 /usr/bin/mythbackend --quiet --syslog local7

Apr 29 21:45:05 gingerserver mythbackend[822]: mythbackend[822]: I 
TVRecEvent tv_rec.cpp:3685 (TuningFrequency) TVRec[3]: TuningFrequency
Apr 29 21:50:18 gingerserver mythbackend[822]: mythbackend[822]: I 
TVRecEvent tv_rec.cpp:3685 (TuningFrequency) TVRec[3]: TuningFrequency
Apr 29 21:55:31 gingerserver mythbackend[822]: mythbackend[822]: I 
TVRecEvent tv_rec.cpp:3685 (TuningFrequency) TVRec[3]: TuningFrequency
Apr 29 22:00:43 gingerserver mythbackend[822]: mythbackend[822]: I 
TVRecEvent tv_rec.cpp:3685 (TuningFrequency) TVRec[3]: TuningFrequency
Apr 29 22:05:55 gingerserver mythbackend[822]: mythbackend[822]: I 
TVRecEvent tv_rec.cpp:3685 (TuningFrequency) TVRec[3]: TuningFrequency
Apr 29 22:11:08 gingerserver mythbackend[822]: mythbackend[822]: I 
TVRecEvent tv_rec.cpp:3685 (TuningFrequency) TVRec[3]: TuningFrequency
Apr 29 22:11:11 gingerserver mythbackend[822]: mythbackend[822]: E 
TVRecEvent tv_rec.cpp:3964 (TuningSignalCheck) TVRec[3]: 
TuningSignalCheck: SignalMonitor timed out
Apr 29 22:14:14 gingerserver mythbackend[822]: mythbackend[822]: I 
TVRecEvent tv_rec.cpp:3685 (TuningFrequency) TVRec[3]: TuningFrequency
Apr 29 22:19:20 gingerserver mythbackend[822]: mythbackend[822]: I 
TVRecEvent tv_rec.cpp:3685 (TuningFrequency) TVRec[3]: TuningFrequency
Apr 29 22:24:25 gingerserver mythbackend[822]: mythbackend[822]: I 
TVRecEvent tv_rec.cpp:3685 (TuningFrequency) TVRec[3]: TuningFrequency

Any ideas?

I had some mysql problems earlier, which I posted about, but they seem 
to be resolved now. I can connect with both root and mythtv.

My daughter is supposed to be having a cinema party fro her 16th 
birthday on Wednesday. If I don't get this sorted, I'm 'bad dad', big 
time. :-)

Please let me know if you can see what's wrong or know what I should do 
next.

Thanks,
Damian