[mythtv-users] Frontend crash-restart loop on no backend

[Stephen Worthington]

On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 18:07:06 -0700, you wrote:

>I just had a very frustrating experience that I wanted to report because
>I'm sure this couldn't be the intended design.
>
>I changed my router, which uses a different default gateway, so it hosed
>the hard IP address I had coded into the backend.  I mistakenly started the
>frontend and it put up a dialog called startup status or something, and of
>course it couldn't connect to the backend.
>
>One of the buttons on that screen is exit. I clicked and confirmed and it
>exited. But I got a notification saying the frontend crashed unexpectedly
>and would restart, which led me back into the process over and over.
>
>The restart is not the expected outcome of exiting, and it comes so fast
>it's hard to open a terminal window, etc., before it does. I finally
>managed, but it was not fun.
>
>This problem could be eliminated if a normal exit (rather than a crash)
>were registered when one hits that exit button.

I surmise you are running MythTV on an Ubuntu system.  In Ubuntu, the
frontend is a program named "mythfrontend.real", which is run by a
script named "mythfrontend".  It is the job of the script to restart
mythfrontend.real if it crashes, and as mythfrontend.real does
sometimes crash, I find it very useful.  But the script does have a
bug which does what you have seen - it does not understand when
mythfrontend.real has been shut down, as opposed to crashing.

Even when it mythfrontend.real is being restarted all the time, it is
usually not a problem to open a terminal if you know how.  But it
depends on the system.  If you are running Xubuntu, then you should be
able to do Ctrl-Esc to bring up the desktop menu and start a terminal
from there.  Due to a recent bug, if it is the first time you are
using Ctrl-Esc since booting, you may need to do it twice before you
get the menu.  From the menu, go to Applications > Terminal Emulator
or Applications > System > Xfce Terminal.  But it does depend on your
XFCE version as to where you will find a terminal.

And on almost any Linux these days, you can get a text mode terminal
by using Ctrl-Alt-F1.  To get back to the GUI screen from there, it is
usually Ctrl-Alt-F7 on Ubuntu, but on other systems you may need to
try all the Ctrl-Alt-Fx keys.

On some systems, Ctrl-Alt-T opens a terminal window, but that may only
work when mythfrontend.real is not running.

It is also possible to log in from another PC via SSH if you have that
enabled.